Yeah, there are some rock groups that are very radio-friendly yet are never heard on BBC radio stations.
Alter Bridge and Shinedown spring immediately to mind.
You could also add bands like Black Stone Cherry, Halestorm, Von Hertzen Brothers, etc.
All of these bansd, including Alter Bridge and Shinedown, have a large, mostly young, audience well within Radio 1's target demographic and yet Radio 1 ignore them.
Every year since the dawn of music has had great music, good music, bad music and awful music. 'These days' are no different, people just need to open their minds more.
Every year since the dawn of music has had great music, good music, bad music and awful music. 'These days' are no different, people just need to open their minds more.
That's just too simplistic a view.
If you really wanted to open your mind to the music you would seek to understand what makes some music more interesting, more listenable, more relevant and more influential than other music. That there is a history to popular music, that a cultural form like music will have its stages of development, its canon of important, influential works, the times when it reflects greater shifts in the society/culture around it. That's actually giving some respect to the music instead of simply saying there's always been good, bad etc. That's just a trite response to what is a fascinating story.
Also, do you not rather open your heart to music as much as your mind?
To me music requires some sort of emotional response.
Every year since the dawn of music has had great music, good music, bad music and awful music. 'These days' are no different, people just need to open their minds more.
no. it was different in the past, its not the same now.
90% of the media in the western world now comes from only a handful of corporations, but in the 80's there were a hundred.Through the radio and TV the major music giants work pay to play to promote and make popular whatever song or artist they want and omit whatever they want. Instead of the stations playing what people want to hear, they're playing the music thats backed by the deepest pockets.
You will never in your life hear an artist on mainstream radio who owns his or her music. The radio stations don't care if they are making hits or helping new bands, It isn't a medium for music anymore, Its a medium for advertising.
A major part of the problem (for those of us who see it as such) is that the music industry has been all but swallowed up by a handful (or less than a handful) of mega-conglomerate record companies - principally Sony, Universal and Warners.
I did a bit of homework and found this to be the case with this week's top 40 singles chart:
Universal: 17 records (including subsidiary labels Interscope, Capitol, Republic, Polydor, Virgin/EMI and Ensign)
Sony: 7 records (including Columbia, RCA and Epic)
Warners: 8 records (including Atlantic and Parlophone)
That's 32 of the top 40 (the other 8 being 2 Disney songs and 6 others, mostly Dutch dance / techno labels).
The dominance of the Big 3 is staggering. And the point is that not only are Sony, Universal and Warners huge record labels they are also massive media conglomerates who also own film studios, TV channels, mobile communications and computer gaming software and hardware.
It's not surprising therefore that what appears in the music charts is dictated not only by what is on the radio but also what is played on the TV, in public places, in the cinema and just about anywhere you can find mass communication.
The result is a conservative, homogeneous, risk-averse money-making enterprise whose intentions have less to do with freedom, creativity and art and much more to do with maximising profits and short term gains.
And if you don't believe the charts are homogeneous then take a look a the top 40 and tell me how many bands are in there, that is artistic groups who write their own songs and play instruments. Where are artists who play rock, indie, soul, reggae, country, blues, folk, metal etc?
Yes there's still good music out there but it isn't in the charts.
A major part of the problem (for those of us who see it as such) is that the music industry has been all but swallowed up by a handful (or less than a handful) of mega-conglomerate record companies - principally Sony, Universal and Warners.
I did a bit of homework and found this to be the case with this week's top 40 singles chart:
Universal: 17 records (including subsidiary labels Interscope, Capitol, Republic, Polydor, Virgin/EMI and Ensign)
Sony: 7 records (including Columbia, RCA and Epic)
Warners: 8 records (including Atlantic and Parlophone)
That's 32 of the top 40 (the other 8 being 2 Disney songs and 6 others, mostly Dutch dance / techno labels).
The dominance of the Big 3 is staggering. And the point is that not only are Sony, Universal and Warners huge record labels they are also massive media conglomerates who also own film studios, TV channels, mobile communications and computer gaming software and hardware.
It's not surprising therefore that what appears in the music charts is dictated not only by what is on the radio but also what is played on the TV, in public places, in the cinema and just about anywhere you can find mass communication.
The result is a conservative, homogeneous, risk-averse money-making enterprise whose intentions have less to do with freedom, creativity and art and much more to do with maximising profits and short term gains.
And if you don't believe the charts are homogeneous then take a look a the top 40 and tell me how many bands are in there, that is artistic groups who write their own songs and play instruments. Where are artists who play rock, indie, soul, reggae, country, blues, folk, metal etc?
Yes there's still good music out there but it isn't in the charts.
Bandcamp
Noisetrade
CDBaby
Local pubs
These are the places I buy the majority of my music from and I tend to ignore the charts as, like you say, it is dominated by profit seeking artists and labels rather than creativity and art. I think this is why I get so intense when people start going on about 'today's music'. I am exposed to great new music every day and I wouldn't have it any other way as I refuse to judge an artist by their chart position.
A major part of the problem (for those of us who see it as such) is that the music industry has been all but swallowed up by a handful (or less than a handful) of mega-conglomerate record companies - principally Sony, Universal and Warners.
I did a bit of homework and found this to be the case with this week's top 40 singles chart:
Universal: 17 records (including subsidiary labels Interscope, Capitol, Republic, Polydor, Virgin/EMI and Ensign)
Sony: 7 records (including Columbia, RCA and Epic)
Warners: 8 records (including Atlantic and Parlophone)
That's 32 of the top 40 (the other 8 being 2 Disney songs and 6 others, mostly Dutch dance / techno labels).
The dominance of the Big 3 is staggering. And the point is that not only are Sony, Universal and Warners huge record labels they are also massive media conglomerates who also own film studios, TV channels, mobile communications and computer gaming software and hardware.
It's not surprising therefore that what appears in the music charts is dictated not only by what is on the radio but also what is played on the TV, in public places, in the cinema and just about anywhere you can find mass communication.
The result is a conservative, homogeneous, risk-averse money-making enterprise whose intentions have less to do with freedom, creativity and art and much more to do with maximising profits and short term gains.
And if you don't believe the charts are homogeneous then take a look a the top 40 and tell me how many bands are in there, that is artistic groups who write their own songs and play instruments. Where are artists who play rock, indie, soul, reggae, country, blues, folk, metal etc?
Yes there's still good music out there but it isn't in the charts.
There are a number of issues to consider here. Go back to the early 1950s and there were only 4/5 major record labels then. But that was not an impediment to the huge social changes that pop music both heralded and assisted in the 50s and 60s. And that was reflected in many Rock n Roll/R nB/Soul records making the charts. The charts only being one index of underlying change. That is, there was a degree of homogeneity in early 50s charts which was disrupted by Elvis and co in the mid 50s.
At different times Independent labels have flourished and sometimes they have had a huge influence on the wider music scene. I'm thinking Motown and Factory, for example.
There was a huge disruption in music distribution with the introduction of stream and downloading services. That has lead to the concept of the long tail which actually benefited established artists rather than new artists. That is, in a world of infinite choice the public tend towards the same artists.
And this is where I do agree with the less gracious comments here about looking for new musics. Yes, it should be easier, with many more options than the existing radio stations and homogeneous playlists. But how do new music scenes emerge in such a fragmented distribution and audience network? So far, it would seem that fashion trends come and go much faster and the same may apply to music genres, that is music is just like social media trends and new genres will find it harder and harder to gain any critical mass and come and go superfast. Bieber and Gangnam Style seem to be the kind of pop music that prospers in this current age.
And this is where I do agree with the less gracious comments here about looking for new musics. Yes, it should be easier, with many more options than the existing radio stations and homogeneous playlists. But how do new music scenes emerge in such a fragmented distribution and audience network? So far, it would seem that fashion trends come and go much faster and the same may apply to music genres, that is music is just like social media trends and new genres will find it harder and harder to gain any critical mass and come and go superfast. Bieber and Gangnam Style seem to be the kind of pop music that prospers in this current age.
There are a couple of issues to explore here. Firstly, is it even possible to create anything new in pop music any more? Has everything that can be done within the confines of pop already been achieved? When pop music first emerged musical purists who favoured classical and jazz opined that pop music was severely limited by simple rhythms, basic time signatures like 4/4 and the use of few instruments. While the evolution of pop music has expanded all those limitations the basic argument still stands that a recording which is popular enough to appeal to a mass audience has to be reasonably simple - easy melodies and repetitive rhythms and catchy choruses etc. This may prove pop's undoing. We may have reached the limit of what can be done and now we're simply repeating ourselves ad nauseum.
Secondly I think you're right in saying that the proliferation of methods of listening to music has made it more difficult to gain enough momentum to push new styles or approaches forward. Everything now seems so fragmented and compartmentalised. Popular radio stations won't play rock but you can find rock music on specialist internet radio stations or web sites. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that fans of a particular type of music will gravitate towards the specialist web sites and will miss out on a wider variety of music just as much as someone who only listens to Radio 1 and thinks that pop music is just what exists in the charts.
Also I'm not sure if music can cross cultural boundaries any more. Punk, for example, was influenced as much by fashion as by the music, but unless anyone can tell me otherwise I don't see modern music influencing or being influenced much by other artistic or creative media. Lady Gaga's attempts at combining music with fashion have been a source of derision rather than of celebration (largely because it feels so contrived). I think part of that problem is that music used to be a central focus of young people's lives, when social networking meant going down the local disco and when friends and family really did gather around the radio on Sunday evening to hear the latest top 40 or sat down on a Thursday evening to watch Top of the Pops. Music now just seems to be one small part of a massive entertainment network, of multi-channel TV, mobile communications, social networking, internet ubiquity, computer gaming etc. My son, for example, who is 19 years old, never sits down to listen to a whole album, not even by his favourite artists. More often than not he'll stick on a couple of YouTube videos while simultaneously chatting to his friends on Skype and playing computer games. Music relegated to being one piece of a larger multimedia experience.
Just listening to the radio, never heard such rubbish.where are all the different genres of music. Seems if any star bangs any old rubbish out people buy it. Groups, singers used to last around 5 years if they were lucky. Will I am, beyonce, pharell, its all rubbish.
It is shite, but the idea that it was anything other than that is silly. That "I want to be a hippy" or the "boing" song were hardly moments of artistic glory. 80s had some of the worst one hit wonders we have ever seen. 70s just had guys with beards hitting one note for 3 hours and calling it art and was full of pedos. 60s it was still mostly illegal to dance and plenty of novelty songs were about. In fact, any time period you will find mostly garbage. The previous eras look good only because we tend to remember the good ones, ignoring all the junk that was also out.
When talking about the digital explosion in the 2000s, do you think crazy frog will be mentioned? or that stupid nokia song that made everyone thin their phones were ringing.
People have always looked back and said something along the lines of 'what is this rubbish, not as good as back in my day etc...'
If you don't like today's music, you're just getting old...
I was born in the mid 1970s and would say that pop music was at its best in the mid 1960s and has by and large decreased in quality year on year ever since. This downward trend accelerated in the late 1980s.
'My day' would have been the late '80s to early '90s and whilst I have fond memories of music from that period I would consider it inferior to earlier pop music.
If what you say is true then why do so many people of different ages share my view that pop music generally peaked in the '60s and has got worse ever since?
It usually goes in cycles, we used to have genres like Brit Pop , Nu Metal, Girl Groups etc we seem to have been stuck in this electronic dance one for a while.
Singing about being in a club to a dance track stick on a rapper rinse and repeat.
I do agree the radio stations are more risk adverse. But I'm not convinced the guitar bands are pumping out much good stuff? Radio 1 and the NME promote some really pretentious, tuneless rubbish.
That said we can see the effects of commercialism with the music video tv stations, they have no individuality now and are just copies of each other. It's all about the $$
My dad loved Brit-Pop when it came around and he was 40 at the time so I don't think it's necessarily a "i'm getting old" thing.
1) YouTube - YouTube hits now count towards chart position. Pop music videos are getting more views soley for the video and not the quality of the actual music. Robin thicke, Rihanna and miley Cyrus' videos come to mind here, the only reason blurred lines became so popular was because of everyone watching the video just to see Emily Ratajkowski naked.
2) There is so much music being made constantly, I don't really listen to radio and chart music and although me and my friends like some of the same genres as eachother, we search for our music independently and end up having completley different playlists to eachother, but still the same genre. Whereas when it comes to the people that listen to the charts and radio they aren't going out of their way to download podcasts, or to suscribe to lesser known channels on YouTube, they don't have soundcloud accounts which they go on frequently, they don't email suscribe to music sites, they don't go out of their way to search for music. Instead they are all just listening to bbc radio 1, putting the TV music channels on, or shazaming what their friend is playing and the problem here is that the radio and tv music channels push the likes of Rihanna on to the public for the money they gain out of it. It's like these people are blissfully unaware there is so much more music out there.
I've kind of lost myself here...
What I was actually going to/trying to say was: how can all this underground/less known/non mainstream stuff become popular when not enough people are listening to it? When it comes to people that don't rely on the radio for their music, like I said we are all going to come out with entirely different playlists to eachother out of the huge selection there is, it's not not getting popular because good music doesn't exist, it's just there is literally to much music to choose from within every genre. But the same chart songs are being played out to a big number of people via the radio.
3) And then there's the fact that iTunes downloads always plays a role in the charts, well you can only purchase a tiny handful of the things I listen to on iTunes, the rest of it isn't on there. People that are making music for the love of making music and not just for the money are giving out free downloads of their music.
I don't know if anyone can make sense out of what I've wrote, I know what I mean but for some reason I can't seem to express it rght tonight.
What I was actually going to/trying to say was: how can all this underground/less known/non mainstream stuff become popular when not enough people are listening to it? When it comes to people that don't rely on the radio for their music, like I said we are all going to come out with entirely different playlists to eachother out of the huge selection there is, it's not not getting popular because good music doesn't exist, it's just there is literally to much music to choose from within every genre. But the same chart songs are being played out to a big number of people via the radio.
My dad loved Brit-Pop when it came around and he was 40 at the time so I don't think it's necessarily a "i'm getting old" thing.
... so did i, and other old buggers. it was another reincarnation of british guitar pop that started in the 60's and many of us older guys were open to these new sounds.
thing is.... back in the 60's and 70's it was very rare to get 'dads' liking modern music, now we do if its any 'good', (ie to our taste).
this highlights though the lack of opportunity to rebel, or forge your own fashions/identity in music which imho is whats lacking. when 'we' created a new style, it was ours... it belonged to the youth of the day, not to be shared with our 'boring square old dads'.
i dont like being old, but im glad i was born when i was from the music pov, at least i witnessed it and was part of it.
2) There is so much music being made constantly, I don't really listen to radio and chart music and although me and my friends like some of the same genres as eachother, we search for our music independently and end up having completley different playlists to eachother, but still the same genre. Whereas when it comes to the people that listen to the charts and radio they aren't going out of their way to download podcasts, or to suscribe to lesser known channels on YouTube, they don't have soundcloud accounts which they go on frequently, they don't email suscribe to music sites, they don't go out of their way to search for music. Instead they are all just listening to bbc radio 1, putting the TV music channels on, or shazaming what their friend is playing and the problem here is that the radio and tv music channels push the likes of Rihanna on to the public for the money they gain out of it. It's like these people are blissfully unaware there is so much more music out there.
I've kind of lost myself here...
What I was actually going to/trying to say was: how can all this underground/less known/non mainstream stuff become popular when not enough people are listening to it? When it comes to people that don't rely on the radio for their music, like I said we are all going to come out with entirely different playlists to eachother out of the huge selection there is, it's not not getting popular because good music doesn't exist, it's just there is literally to much music to choose from within every genre. But the same chart songs are being played out to a big number of people via the radio.
.
A decent article if a little longer than it need it. I think Lexii-Mae captures the point just as well.
Music is important, it is especially important to the individual as it provides a unique emotional (and I would say intellectual) response. At its best it makes you think, cry, laugh and move your feet!
The elephant in the room seems to be this vast amount of new music being produced which according to normal understanding may amount to 90% rubbish (it may not of course) but how do you deal with finding the good stuff ( which may simply be stuff you like) in this overloaded environment?
Radio stations, records companies, streaming services all have vested interests in their distribution models and how they filter music for the listening public. They all have to make money to maintain profit levels or survival and they are succeeding to some degree after a series of false starts,
I think the writer is looking to adopt the open source model of software development in the context of music distribution. He is proposing some sort of a human/community-based rather than algorithm-based 'Discovery' system that helps both legacy artists and new artists get discovered, recommended and shared. There is a feeling of the 'if we build it they will come' about this.
However, I actually thought Bandcamp was already built on this sort of model, is it not having the desired impact?
I recently found myself in a discussion about the relative merits of Jamie Cullum and Ed Sheeran. I couldn't hear a difference.
I've hated most mainstream music since I was about 9. These days there is at least BBC6 Music, though I don't like that all the time. The trouble is, most stuff is made from a commercial rather than artistic imperative and most people can't be bothered, or aren't sufficiently interested, to search out stuff they really like. But there is good stuff being made if you can be bothered to find it. And it's never been easier to hear it.
Every year since the dawn of music has had great music, good music, bad music and awful music. 'These days' are no different, people just need to open their minds more.
I have tried, it is not happening for me, and I am VERY open minded......help please!
I have tried, it is not happening for me, and I am VERY open minded......help please!
I used to be in the "today's music is all rubbish" camp. What worked for me was getting out and about. Going to the various music clubs and pubs that are all over the place and discovering new and local talent. Here in NI we have places like the Diamond outside Ballymena, and the likes of Voodoo and the Limelight in Belfast that always have new bands/artists playing.
I used to be in the "today's music is all rubbish" camp. What worked for me was getting out and about. Going to the various music clubs and pubs that are all over the place and discovering new and local talent. Here in NI we have places like the Diamond outside Ballymena, and the likes of Voodoo and the Limelight in Belfast that always have new bands/artists playing.
Tried that in Glasgow, nothing grabbed me, well apart from Edinburgh School for the Deaf, and most of them are in Naked now, I know them now, and result was I have been asked by a couple of different bands to do brass, meh I have only one weekend a month free as thats when the kids visit the ex hubby dads...I have been told off by my own parents, go for it do rock jazz etc. I am very cautious I suppose. And OUT OF PRACTICE!
Tried that in Glasgow, nothing grabbed me, well apart from Edinburgh School for the Deaf, and most of them are in Naked now, I know them now, and result was I have been asked by a couple of different bands to do brass, meh I have only one weekend a month free as thats when the kids visit the ex hubby dads...I have been told off by my own parents, go for it do rock jazz etc. I am very cautious I suppose. And OUT OF PRACTICE!
hehe.
I'm gonna say go for it as well You will soon get back in practice and it will aid in discovering new music as part of the creative process of any band is discussing influences.
I was uploading track information of the latest now album on to the library computer at hospital radio yesterday, the number of people it takes make a song these days shocked me. There's several tracks on the latest now album that Include: "Main Artist feat. So and So feat. So and So, Verses So and So"
Even the station manager of the evening made a remark when i showed him one track with five or more artists on it!
Comments
You could also add bands like Black Stone Cherry, Halestorm, Von Hertzen Brothers, etc.
All of these bansd, including Alter Bridge and Shinedown, have a large, mostly young, audience well within Radio 1's target demographic and yet Radio 1 ignore them.
That's just too simplistic a view.
If you really wanted to open your mind to the music you would seek to understand what makes some music more interesting, more listenable, more relevant and more influential than other music. That there is a history to popular music, that a cultural form like music will have its stages of development, its canon of important, influential works, the times when it reflects greater shifts in the society/culture around it. That's actually giving some respect to the music instead of simply saying there's always been good, bad etc. That's just a trite response to what is a fascinating story.
Also, do you not rather open your heart to music as much as your mind?
To me music requires some sort of emotional response.
That's just a bollocks idealised view of a past that never existed.
The following applies to so, so much and it applies here
Conservatives look back to an idealised world that never existed; liberals look forward to an idealised world that will never exist.
You will never in your life hear an artist on mainstream radio who owns his or her music. The radio stations don't care if they are making hits or helping new bands, It isn't a medium for music anymore, Its a medium for advertising.
The past is not what it was....
I'm a deconstructionist, I'm not sure where my world view fits in.
I did a bit of homework and found this to be the case with this week's top 40 singles chart:
Universal: 17 records (including subsidiary labels Interscope, Capitol, Republic, Polydor, Virgin/EMI and Ensign)
Sony: 7 records (including Columbia, RCA and Epic)
Warners: 8 records (including Atlantic and Parlophone)
That's 32 of the top 40 (the other 8 being 2 Disney songs and 6 others, mostly Dutch dance / techno labels).
The dominance of the Big 3 is staggering. And the point is that not only are Sony, Universal and Warners huge record labels they are also massive media conglomerates who also own film studios, TV channels, mobile communications and computer gaming software and hardware.
It's not surprising therefore that what appears in the music charts is dictated not only by what is on the radio but also what is played on the TV, in public places, in the cinema and just about anywhere you can find mass communication.
The result is a conservative, homogeneous, risk-averse money-making enterprise whose intentions have less to do with freedom, creativity and art and much more to do with maximising profits and short term gains.
And if you don't believe the charts are homogeneous then take a look a the top 40 and tell me how many bands are in there, that is artistic groups who write their own songs and play instruments. Where are artists who play rock, indie, soul, reggae, country, blues, folk, metal etc?
Yes there's still good music out there but it isn't in the charts.
Bandcamp
Noisetrade
CDBaby
Local pubs
These are the places I buy the majority of my music from and I tend to ignore the charts as, like you say, it is dominated by profit seeking artists and labels rather than creativity and art. I think this is why I get so intense when people start going on about 'today's music'. I am exposed to great new music every day and I wouldn't have it any other way as I refuse to judge an artist by their chart position.
There are a number of issues to consider here. Go back to the early 1950s and there were only 4/5 major record labels then. But that was not an impediment to the huge social changes that pop music both heralded and assisted in the 50s and 60s. And that was reflected in many Rock n Roll/R nB/Soul records making the charts. The charts only being one index of underlying change. That is, there was a degree of homogeneity in early 50s charts which was disrupted by Elvis and co in the mid 50s.
At different times Independent labels have flourished and sometimes they have had a huge influence on the wider music scene. I'm thinking Motown and Factory, for example.
There was a huge disruption in music distribution with the introduction of stream and downloading services. That has lead to the concept of the long tail which actually benefited established artists rather than new artists. That is, in a world of infinite choice the public tend towards the same artists.
And this is where I do agree with the less gracious comments here about looking for new musics. Yes, it should be easier, with many more options than the existing radio stations and homogeneous playlists. But how do new music scenes emerge in such a fragmented distribution and audience network? So far, it would seem that fashion trends come and go much faster and the same may apply to music genres, that is music is just like social media trends and new genres will find it harder and harder to gain any critical mass and come and go superfast. Bieber and Gangnam Style seem to be the kind of pop music that prospers in this current age.
There are a couple of issues to explore here. Firstly, is it even possible to create anything new in pop music any more? Has everything that can be done within the confines of pop already been achieved? When pop music first emerged musical purists who favoured classical and jazz opined that pop music was severely limited by simple rhythms, basic time signatures like 4/4 and the use of few instruments. While the evolution of pop music has expanded all those limitations the basic argument still stands that a recording which is popular enough to appeal to a mass audience has to be reasonably simple - easy melodies and repetitive rhythms and catchy choruses etc. This may prove pop's undoing. We may have reached the limit of what can be done and now we're simply repeating ourselves ad nauseum.
Secondly I think you're right in saying that the proliferation of methods of listening to music has made it more difficult to gain enough momentum to push new styles or approaches forward. Everything now seems so fragmented and compartmentalised. Popular radio stations won't play rock but you can find rock music on specialist internet radio stations or web sites. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that fans of a particular type of music will gravitate towards the specialist web sites and will miss out on a wider variety of music just as much as someone who only listens to Radio 1 and thinks that pop music is just what exists in the charts.
Also I'm not sure if music can cross cultural boundaries any more. Punk, for example, was influenced as much by fashion as by the music, but unless anyone can tell me otherwise I don't see modern music influencing or being influenced much by other artistic or creative media. Lady Gaga's attempts at combining music with fashion have been a source of derision rather than of celebration (largely because it feels so contrived). I think part of that problem is that music used to be a central focus of young people's lives, when social networking meant going down the local disco and when friends and family really did gather around the radio on Sunday evening to hear the latest top 40 or sat down on a Thursday evening to watch Top of the Pops. Music now just seems to be one small part of a massive entertainment network, of multi-channel TV, mobile communications, social networking, internet ubiquity, computer gaming etc. My son, for example, who is 19 years old, never sits down to listen to a whole album, not even by his favourite artists. More often than not he'll stick on a couple of YouTube videos while simultaneously chatting to his friends on Skype and playing computer games. Music relegated to being one piece of a larger multimedia experience.
It is shite, but the idea that it was anything other than that is silly. That "I want to be a hippy" or the "boing" song were hardly moments of artistic glory. 80s had some of the worst one hit wonders we have ever seen. 70s just had guys with beards hitting one note for 3 hours and calling it art and was full of pedos. 60s it was still mostly illegal to dance and plenty of novelty songs were about. In fact, any time period you will find mostly garbage. The previous eras look good only because we tend to remember the good ones, ignoring all the junk that was also out.
When talking about the digital explosion in the 2000s, do you think crazy frog will be mentioned? or that stupid nokia song that made everyone thin their phones were ringing.
I was born in the mid 1970s and would say that pop music was at its best in the mid 1960s and has by and large decreased in quality year on year ever since. This downward trend accelerated in the late 1980s.
'My day' would have been the late '80s to early '90s and whilst I have fond memories of music from that period I would consider it inferior to earlier pop music.
If what you say is true then why do so many people of different ages share my view that pop music generally peaked in the '60s and has got worse ever since?
Singing about being in a club to a dance track stick on a rapper rinse and repeat.
I do agree the radio stations are more risk adverse. But I'm not convinced the guitar bands are pumping out much good stuff? Radio 1 and the NME promote some really pretentious, tuneless rubbish.
That said we can see the effects of commercialism with the music video tv stations, they have no individuality now and are just copies of each other. It's all about the $$
My dad loved Brit-Pop when it came around and he was 40 at the time so I don't think it's necessarily a "i'm getting old" thing.
1) YouTube - YouTube hits now count towards chart position. Pop music videos are getting more views soley for the video and not the quality of the actual music. Robin thicke, Rihanna and miley Cyrus' videos come to mind here, the only reason blurred lines became so popular was because of everyone watching the video just to see Emily Ratajkowski naked.
2) There is so much music being made constantly, I don't really listen to radio and chart music and although me and my friends like some of the same genres as eachother, we search for our music independently and end up having completley different playlists to eachother, but still the same genre. Whereas when it comes to the people that listen to the charts and radio they aren't going out of their way to download podcasts, or to suscribe to lesser known channels on YouTube, they don't have soundcloud accounts which they go on frequently, they don't email suscribe to music sites, they don't go out of their way to search for music. Instead they are all just listening to bbc radio 1, putting the TV music channels on, or shazaming what their friend is playing and the problem here is that the radio and tv music channels push the likes of Rihanna on to the public for the money they gain out of it. It's like these people are blissfully unaware there is so much more music out there.
I've kind of lost myself here...
What I was actually going to/trying to say was: how can all this underground/less known/non mainstream stuff become popular when not enough people are listening to it? When it comes to people that don't rely on the radio for their music, like I said we are all going to come out with entirely different playlists to eachother out of the huge selection there is, it's not not getting popular because good music doesn't exist, it's just there is literally to much music to choose from within every genre. But the same chart songs are being played out to a big number of people via the radio.
3) And then there's the fact that iTunes downloads always plays a role in the charts, well you can only purchase a tiny handful of the things I listen to on iTunes, the rest of it isn't on there. People that are making music for the love of making music and not just for the money are giving out free downloads of their music.
I don't know if anyone can make sense out of what I've wrote, I know what I mean but for some reason I can't seem to express it rght tonight.
There's an interesting article on Consequence of Sound about this very problem. Warning: it's rather long: http://consequenceofsound.net/aux-out/the-elephant-in-the-music-room/full-post/
... so did i, and other old buggers. it was another reincarnation of british guitar pop that started in the 60's and many of us older guys were open to these new sounds.
thing is.... back in the 60's and 70's it was very rare to get 'dads' liking modern music, now we do if its any 'good', (ie to our taste).
this highlights though the lack of opportunity to rebel, or forge your own fashions/identity in music which imho is whats lacking. when 'we' created a new style, it was ours... it belonged to the youth of the day, not to be shared with our 'boring square old dads'.
i dont like being old, but im glad i was born when i was from the music pov, at least i witnessed it and was part of it.
A decent article if a little longer than it need it. I think Lexii-Mae captures the point just as well.
Music is important, it is especially important to the individual as it provides a unique emotional (and I would say intellectual) response. At its best it makes you think, cry, laugh and move your feet!
The elephant in the room seems to be this vast amount of new music being produced which according to normal understanding may amount to 90% rubbish (it may not of course) but how do you deal with finding the good stuff ( which may simply be stuff you like) in this overloaded environment?
Radio stations, records companies, streaming services all have vested interests in their distribution models and how they filter music for the listening public. They all have to make money to maintain profit levels or survival and they are succeeding to some degree after a series of false starts,
I think the writer is looking to adopt the open source model of software development in the context of music distribution. He is proposing some sort of a human/community-based rather than algorithm-based 'Discovery' system that helps both legacy artists and new artists get discovered, recommended and shared. There is a feeling of the 'if we build it they will come' about this.
However, I actually thought Bandcamp was already built on this sort of model, is it not having the desired impact?
I've hated most mainstream music since I was about 9. These days there is at least BBC6 Music, though I don't like that all the time. The trouble is, most stuff is made from a commercial rather than artistic imperative and most people can't be bothered, or aren't sufficiently interested, to search out stuff they really like. But there is good stuff being made if you can be bothered to find it. And it's never been easier to hear it.
And how would you know eh?!
I think they're awesome
P.s: I like 'serious' metal too :kitty:
I have tried, it is not happening for me, and I am VERY open minded......help please!
I used to be in the "today's music is all rubbish" camp. What worked for me was getting out and about. Going to the various music clubs and pubs that are all over the place and discovering new and local talent. Here in NI we have places like the Diamond outside Ballymena, and the likes of Voodoo and the Limelight in Belfast that always have new bands/artists playing.
Tried that in Glasgow, nothing grabbed me, well apart from Edinburgh School for the Deaf, and most of them are in Naked now, I know them now, and result was I have been asked by a couple of different bands to do brass, meh I have only one weekend a month free as thats when the kids visit the ex hubby dads...I have been told off by my own parents, go for it do rock jazz etc. I am very cautious I suppose. And OUT OF PRACTICE!
I'm gonna say go for it as well
Even the station manager of the evening made a remark when i showed him one track with five or more artists on it!
Is there need for all that today?