There is something very, very wrong with today’s music

[Jds81]

PSA: Just say no to music gatekeepers!

 

[dpturner]

college radio. all day, every day. never tire of hearing new music.

 

[Fahzz]

There's plenty of good music being made. You just have to look for it, listen for it, or read about it etc.. It's like top 40 radio vs. underground radio back in the day.
Moreover, streaming services give us access to most (eventually all) recorded music going back more than 100 years at the push of a button. There's a ton of great music that you've never heard. Keep exploring!

 

[goat76]

college radio. all day, every day. never tire of hearing new music.

KRUI Radio - Iowa City’s Sound Alternative

Listen To KRUI - KRUI Radio

89.7 FM Stream Request Line: (319) 335-8970

krui.fm

 

[Vacceo]

Streaming.

Use Pitchfork or www.albumoftheyear.com to look for albums YOU might enjoy. You have to put in the work. No music is spoon fed to you unless your 25 and under and using every prominent app they use to communicate. Songs become hits on TikTok. That's how Kate Bush got back up. Had someone pushed that song without Stranger Things being associated it would of never been a hit.

They chose the worst Thrash Metal band from the time all great Thrash Metal was bubbling. I can understand, though, that Stranger Things producers did not go for Possessed, Dark Angel or Slayer; the first two for lack of popularity, the third due to a long history of nasty associations.

Still, my rule of thumb is keeping a look on discographics that have released stuff I like to try stuff I don't know. I guess people did that too with Motown, Blue Note, Decca or any other publisher of music you enjoy.

Musicians also talk about other music they like, so interviews are great ways to discover music. Fun story: I listened to Manilla Road after reading an interview with Darkthrone; it was terrible.

In the era of Internet, you're just one click away from listening.

 

[Daverz]

I'll listen to anything at least once. I think that was enough Walton for me.

Off-topic, but I hope you'll give Walton another chance. One of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. His Symphony No. 1 is one of the greatest symphonies ever written.

 

[SKBubba]

I agree almost 100% with @digitalfrost. There's so much to unpack, though. And many of the replies are veering predictably off topic. I could reply with a 50 page treatise, but I'm retiring for the evening. So maybe tomorrow.

 

[Timcognito]

I agree almost 100% with @digitalfrost. There's so much to unpack, though. And many of the replies are veering predictably off topic. I could reply with a 50 page treatise, but I'm retiring for the evening. So maybe tomorrow.

Okay sleep on it, maybe you can get it down to 30 pages and we will all read then.

 

[Robin L]

Off-topic, but I hope you'll give Walton another chance. One of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. His Symphony No. 1 is one of the greatest symphonies ever written.

Maybe. But I often like deliberately stressful 20th and 21st century music. I have no problem with modern pop seeing that everything but the gold of the past is ignored in popsville. If I don't like what I'm streaming I can always change the channel.

In the realm of "Popular Music" the only dependable metrics are chart positions and sales.

 

[Koeitje]

Tash Sultana: Tiny Desk Concert
Damn, how many pedals does that dude have? LOL

She

 

[sonitus mirus]

There is still a lot of new, good music out there; though, there has been a lull in albums being created, and Covid didn't help.

I'm a data guy, so I will always look for something to analyze.

Wikipedia has a nice list of albums created by year, going as far back as 1903. I doubt it is thorough, but it is fun to peruse.

Category:Albums by year - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, to assist in finding similar artists in a different method than using a streaming service, @pozz had posted this link a couple years ago, and it is another fun and interesting way to help find new music.

Music-Map - Find Similar Music

Music-Map is the similar music finder that helps you find similar bands and artists to the ones you love.

www.music-map.com

 

[Sal1950]

She

Opps, sorry.

 

[odarg64]

college radio. all day, every day. never tire of hearing new music.

The only reason I own an FM tuner. New music today is as great as it ever was - and I'm a verifiably crabby old man.

 

[pablolie]

You're all a bit old fashioned. Older folk have always complained about younger people listening to crap.

There are still plenty of good musicians around these days whose new work I am guaranteed to buy every time, specially in jazz and classical.

Other music genres have always been wh*res to music merchandising models of the time and the power of record companies over individuals' creativity. The latter is over these days - respected artists own their own channel, record companies prefer the model of one- to 2-hit wonders they own on the cheap and whose non-existent talent entirely resides on recording tech (meaning autotune) and the social media promotion system that that music industry owns. They exploit profitable artist puppets that 10 year later reliably show up on those sad "Where are they now?" shows... *if* they are lucky and anyone still cares.

 

[Axo1989]

Found this interesting article: https://globalnews.ca/news/9001083/why-older-music-more-popular-than-new-music/

There is something very, very wrong with today’s music. It just may not be very good.

On warm summer nights, the park across the street from my house is filled with people playing dribbling soccer balls, playing volleyball, or engaging in aggressive games of Spikeball.

Nearly all of them will have music playing through Bluetooth speakers, usually from the Spotify Top 100. And if I’m honest, none of this music is any good. All I hear is mumbled lyrics tunelessly rendered (well, except for the overuse of Auto-Tune) and beats so quantized that they could be substituted for an atomic clock.

I just re-read that last sentence. Harsh stuff from someone who doesn’t understand the music of today’s youth? Or am I scratching the surface of a problem facing the recorded music industry?

Consider the following:

- Kate Bush’s 1985 song Running Up That Hill hit number one on the U.K. singles charts and has reached the top five in other countries around the world. Hounds of Love, the album which spawned the hit, peaked at #8 on the Canadian charts earlier this summer.

- Metallica’s 1986 track Master of Puppets has been given such a boost by its appearance in Stranger Things that it’s currently in the U.S. Top 40. This eight-minute metal song is competing for attention with the latest from Lizzo, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, and Cardi B.

- Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours is one of the top-selling albums of the year so far. It’s number nine in the U.S. Rumours is also one of the top-selling vinyl albums of the year so far.

- The Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen from 1977 is the top-selling vinyl single of 2022. Further down the list, you’ll find that the Clash’s Rock the Casbah (1982) is the eighth best-selling vinyl record.)

- This past week, Queen’s Greatest Hits (1981) just became the biggest-selling record of all time in the U.K. with seven million copies sold after more than 1,000 weeks on the British charts. Last week, it was number 24 in Canada, a couple of positions ahead of Yer Favourites, the Tragically Hip’s greatest hits collection.

Older music is certainly having a moment this summer and much of this interest is not being driven by nostalgic oldsters but by the same kids playing Spikeball across the street.

Luminate, the company that monitors music consumption for the record industry, noted in its mid-year report that “current” music (identified by the industry as material being less than 18 months old) isn’t just losing market share. It’s becoming statistically less popular among all demographic groups. Looking at the United States, the metric known as “Total Album Consumption” of “current music fell by 1.4 per cent in the first half of 2022 compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, “Catalogue” music — material more than 18 months old — is up by 14 per cent.

We can go even deeper. The market share of “Catalogue” music in America is 72 per cent so far this year with “Current” music sitting at 27.6 per cent. That’s a market share decline of three per cent.

To put it another way, “Current” music is becoming progressively less popular when measured by the number of streams and sales. Whatever is being released today just isn’t resonating with the public the way it did in the past. People are showing a growing interest in listening to older music instead.

This obviously requires some unpacking. Why isn’t “Current” music resonating? What’s with the uptick in interest for older material?

Some will point to the lack of so-called “high-impacting” new releases in 2022. If, for example, Taylor Swift or Adele had new records, these numbers might be different. But as it stands, only 102 albums have debuted in the Billboard Top 100 this year (the definition of “high-impacting”) compared with 126 last year. This might relate to calculations by Music Business Worldwide that show the 10 most popular tracks on streaming services have been listened to over one billion times less than they were over a similar period in 2019. Both point to disenchantment with what’s being offered up as new today.

But maybe, just maybe, the answer lies in artistry and creativity. In recent weeks, numerous posts have appeared featuring laments about the quality of today’s music. Here is an example.

Others have weighed in, complaining that too many of today’s wannabe stars are simply celebrities making music with laptops. Older music recorded in old-fashioned studios with real instruments sounds richer and more interesting. Far too many songs are fast fashion: get ’em out, squeeze everything you can out of the tune, and then forget them. (One critic, pointing to how The Beatles’ Yesterday has been covered more than 3,000 times, asks how many covers there will be of Cardi B’s WAP in the future. He has a point.)

More theories: A lack of genuine storytellers in the vein of Carole King or Jackson Browne. Musicians who buy ready-made beats online and then sing/rap over top and then release the result. A desire to be famous rather than pay their dues learning their craft. (Blame all the TV talent shows for that.) Record labels that don’t nurture and develop artists, resulting in ultra-short careers consisting of one or two songs. A lack of people willing to pursue true mastery of a musical instrument with years of practice. Too much perfection in the recording process, an obsession that strips all the humanity and soul out of a song. (Compare anything from today’s top 10 to a Motown hit and the difference becomes obvious.) Formulaic songwriting (I’m looking at you, Max Martin.) Algorithms which just push more of the same.

I’m not done. Thanks to technology, many of today’s artists are having hit songs without ever playing a single live gig. That means they’ve never had to sweat it out in front of strangers over long tours. That boot camp experience is essential to becoming a better all-around musician. You need that experience if you’re not just going to compete with your heroes’ music on the world stage, but also with your heroes’ heroes’ heroes.

And there’s still more to consider. Cast your mind back to 1962. Music that was thirty years old then sounded old. Not only was modern pop music still developing, but we’d barely begun to use things like electric guitars and proper amps. Effects pedals hadn’t been invented yet nor had synthesizers. Recording studios were primitive things compared to today, capable of only producing material in mono. But then starting sometime around 1969, the sonic quality of recordings reached new levels. A song recorded in 1972 sounds every bit as good as something recorded this year. (In fact, you can make an argument that because of over-production, digital technology, and too much compression, older records sound better than what we have today.)

Now let me twist things around. This is happening because today’s young people — and remember that youth is always the driver of what’s happening in music — recognize bad music when they hear it. They’re smarter than to fall for what passes as hit music today.

Thanks to streaming and smartphones, we have access to somewhere north of 80 million songs. Within seconds, we can call up virtually any song recorded in the history of the human race. Why wouldn’t you source out the best of the best of the best?

Unlike previous generations, today’s music fans are far more ecumenical in their musical tastes. If you have a teenager, ask them to show you the last 25 songs they streamed on their phone. I’ll bet you’ll find everything from Drake to AC/DC to Matthew Wilder (specifically a song from the 1980s that became a weird TikTok phenomenon). To their credit, all they care about are good songs, irrespective of genre or era. That’s healthy.

In other words, the kids are alright. It’s the people running the star-making machinery behind the popular song that aren’t.

Ok, I checked the artist I was listening to, Swan Meat.

Sure enough last month's release Blood Supernova EP has slipped to number two on her "top songs" streaming tally, replaced by Throat from her Singles 2017-2019 release.

That's like 1/20th of a century old. People are indeed reaching for the classics. Certainty in uncertain times, for sure.

Edit: more seriously, thanks for the OP though, it was a good read.

 

[Andretti60]

Right... because all the songs of the (put here your favorite decade) were just piece of art...

This is end of 60s, it was in the top ten hit in every country

 

[mhardy6647]

^^^^ Dude! Centered by hand; no spider! That's hardcore.

Music? I am a purist.

 

[sofrep811]

Music in general might have dumbed down, but there is some incredibly complex and layered music out there. Far beyond anything produced in the seventies and eighties. Only some jazz and classical pieces compare.


I think Sturgil Simpon's Sound & Fury project for Netflix is a good example of using modern media to produce something special. A country artist producing and album with that is accompanied by an original Netflix arnime? Pretty nuts and pretty special.

Absolutely. He’s such a great artist.

 

[sofrep811]

They chose the worst Thrash Metal band from the time all great Thrash Metal was bubbling. I can understand, though, that Stranger Things producers did not go for Possessed, Dark Angel or Slayer; the first two for lack of popularity, the third due to a long history of nasty associations.

Still, my rule of thumb is keeping a look on discographics that have released stuff I like to try stuff I don't know. I guess people did that too with Motown, Blue Note, Decca or any other publisher of music you enjoy.

Musicians also talk about other music they like, so interviews are great ways to discover music. Fun story: I listened to Manilla Road after reading an interview with Darkthrone; it was terrible.

In the era of Internet, you're just one click away from listening.

100# agree. Well stated.

 

[Andretti60]

^^^^ Dude! Centered by hand; no spider! That's hardcore.

Two pieces of double face adhesive tape between the record label and the turntable, remove the spider and ta-da… ready for YouTube