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

I grew up listening to 50's rock and roll, then the whole 60's British Invasion. The 70's and 80's had a lot of great music also. The bands I grew up with each had their own unique voice. No one sounded like Jimi Hendrix when he appeared on the scene. No one sounded like The Beatles Sgt Pepper. No one sounded like Emerson, Lake and Palmer; The Moody Blues, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Kate Bush, The Police, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jeff Beck, etc. There were too many to try and name them all. All of them had their own unique voice. No one sounded like anyone else. Something magical was happening.

There seem to be a lot of really excellent musicians today who are technically great on their instruments, amazingly so in some cases, but almost all of them leave me cold. They lack something that the bands I mention all had.
 
But why should we be worried? This reminds me of the other thread where Axe-FX users are expressing concern because IK is announcing profiling (Machine Modeling) software for computers. Why the concern? They are not going to take from us what we already have. Let them enjoy it! Let's celebrate diversity of options and low-cost products available for all pockets! Why should that eclipse what we are currently enjoying? Everyone is free to put in their brains what fits them
 
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the fractal forum boomer echo chamber at its best!

Only messing :) There's some absolutely amazing music out there, even on the top radio. John Mayer's new album, (who thought guitars would be back on the top of the rock charts), Harry Styles new record is worth checking out for the guitar work alone. I mean hell, Vulfpeck, a band that is literally all about the grooves, dances, and funk jams, played MSG! I saw the guys in Greta Van Fleet play in front of 40,000 people a few weeks ago. I think music in good hands, it's just always hard to realize it in real time.
 
sprint said:
Though I agree this is part of it, I also very much agree with Rick Beato above that there has been a gradual reduction in popular music's complexity which is turning people away. Things like:
  • Beat set strictly to grid with reduced swing and lacking in the humanness that draws the brain's attention.
  • A reduction in the use of more interesting complex chords, scales,...
  • Less cross pollination of players due to less active live music scenes.
  • Less musicians with extensive chops due to a less active live music scenes.
  • Less use of innovative "devices" in music / songwriting to hook musical interest.
  • Less common for musicians to have an extensive background in harmony wrt songwriting - so less harmony in songwriting.
  • Less use of changing keys / time signatures within a song to grab the listners' ears.
  • More and more songs with no choruses, solos...
  • ...
These are all unrelated to generational differences, and despite the reasons for these changes, imo it's not a stretch to extrapolate the result of them (or see the result occurring irl as per the OP article): more boring popular music abounds (with exceptions of course), and a definite uptick in the numbers of listeners of all ages who go looking for something more interesting to listen to and find it in older music where these things still existed. Rick Beato's looked at this pretty extensively on his channel, delving deeply into what's currently poplular across pop, rock, metal ..., and how it's constructed, vs the construction of older music - worth a look if interested.
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The news article itself describes a lack of musicianship (or playing proficiency) which is substituted with culling music from someone else's song, adding an enhanced beat track, and selling it as your own take on an old classic. "Good" music, IMHO, involves a certain amount of proficiency at what a musician does...not just buying someone else's beat tracks, slapping together some bass and vocals via GarageBand, and calling it "good music."

Perhaps this is the old man speaking here, yet even adults who grew up in the days of when music studios were recording some of the best classic rock music of the late 60s and 70s was being written, even us adults could identify with the fathers of jazz and blues who made R&R possible.

Fast forward to 2022...music studios exist, but are being taken over by entrepreneurs using computer technology to create music in their own home studios. There is hope for modern music today...you can find it in jazz clubs in Europe and the States, but it's a counterculture to the party scenes which utilize dance beats as their main attraction for young ones.

Kids still enjoy dancing and drinking at bars and restaurants worldwide, but ask yourself if the more sophisticated ones are listening to jazz, blues and some forms of rock for the musical proficiency, not just the beat, bass and harmonized vocal...
 
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There used to be piano stores, you dont see them anymore.
They cut school music programs.
There are guitar shoos, but things have changed for them also and its difficult for them to stay afloat.

I think electronics and music gained in popularity.
And games being played offer you instant rewards. You can play easy mode, finish these games in a week. And you win. These things eroded away at what people expect out of practice and progress. The amount of practice it takes to play a instrument becomes a negative.
And the art of playing a instrument is not the same
 
On the other hand I can't really take seriously anyone who would use the word "oldsters" ina a sentence, put it into an article and publish it for all the world to see.
 
So basically we're doing this shouting at clouds thing again, been going on since rappers were sampling stuff in the 80's, or bitching up a storm at Kid Rock does and blah blah blah.

Cease and desist. Don't do it for the kids, do it for yourselves.
 
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