Why modern music actually doesn't suck - Need your help!

[Sacul]

Hey guys, I've been thinking whether starting this topic or not, but what the hell, I hope this makes some interesting debate. Thing is, I have to make a personal essay for school, and I chose to explain why "Modern music sucks! Return the classics!" is actually inaccurate. Of course I have my own arguments (which I'll explain in a moment), but I was curious about your opinion. I know that DTFers have lots of different tastes and opinions, from he ones who stick to old-school rock and metal, to those who listen to weird, obscure stuff, to these which favorite album were released after the 90's, and on. So, I'd like to know if you agree or disagree with the quoted phrase - having opposite postures would be awesome. Of course, the essay will be published here when finished .

Personally, I think it might be due to me being raised on world full of computers, Internet, and always looking forward to innovation and the last creations, what has somehow shaped my view on music. I always compare music from different time periods, and each time I'm more convinced that, today, music in in a golden age of creativity. There have never been so many genres, and such endless combinations for them. Cheap instruments and sound cards make it easier for everyone with a minimal knowledge of musical theory to write a song on or with the help of their computer. Even recording in studio is not as expensive as it used to be. Thus, there's music for each taste. Literally. Of course, 40 years ago there still existed obscure artists who made weird stuff, but they weren't as appreciated as today.
Considering what the radio plays is what music is at now, it completely wrong. Radio-friendly music show just a minimal part of the whole spectrum. If the station just transmits pop and 80's cheesy rock, that doesn't represent a 1% of what musicians are achieving today. It's a paradigm that, if something became pure commercialism, art for the sake of art just disappeared. And it couldn't be more wrong. How big is the underground community? Should it still be called underground, despited having artists with little to zero media exposition?
My point is, I don't say Today's music > Old music but rather that what the media shows us is very limited and doesn't represent what is being made today. Sure, enjoy your Led Zeppelin albums, but don't qualify something as shit just because it was written today.

I'm really interested to see what other think about this.

[King Postwhore]

For this old fart it's popular music of today that sucks.  There's great music out there.  I'm 46 and constantly getting into new bands.

[Zantera]

I definitely think music is at its best state quality-wise today. We have so much more music now than what was available 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I think as a result of so much music being out there, it's easy to generalize "modern music" as being bad, just because the current popular genres you hear on the radio doesn't have much to offer. What's great today is that anyone can get their music out there. Being able to record and create music yourself at home, publish it on the internet and make it available to the whole world, this wasn't possible back in the day. As a result of more music being available, there's probably more bad music out there today than a few decades ago (even if they also had bad music), but there's also so much good music available.

While my favorite albums are spread out over the last 3-4 decades or so, I think overall it feels like every year is stronger than the previous one when it comes to new releases. So many new and exciting up & coming bands, as well as these old bands that are reinventing themselves and creating something exciting. I feel like this increasing competition with more and more bands and artists kinda pushes the bands and artists to rise above the bar that was set before, and improve. Many bands fail, and they can't live up to the pressure and as a result you get some lackluster albums, but you have plenty of bands who keep pushing the limits and it results in some of the most interesting albums of the last 20 years or so. This is a good time to be alive and a music fan.

[Evermind]

Uh, I think that really depends. I have a few albums from the 2000s onward in my top ten and a bloody lot of them in my Top 50 (which I intend to post kinda soon), so I wouldn't really say the modern music sucks, there are a lot of musicians and bands that really appeal to me. I agree that all that MTV and radio stuff sucks that basically uses the same beat and just alternating vocal melodies and lyrics a little using love - he/she left me - what will I do - gonna party cliches (I actually have no idea what the modern popular music sounds like so I'm making wild assumptions here, sorry), so eh, what was I going to say? Oh, so, well, while I definitely think modern music doesn't suck, I would say it's only a certain percent of it doesn't suck. Also, my Top 3 best albums ever are all from the 70s or 80s, so maybe that makes me an old fart or I dunno, something like that. So there.

[Anguyen92]

For me, I've been slowly getting into more and more music, albums, bands every year as I continue posting in these types of music boards.

I mean in 2011, I've only listened to like 3 albums released that year.  2012, only 7.  All of a sudden, 2013 happened, and I've listened to 20 new albums.  Now in 2014, I've listened to maybe 26 albums released that year and counting and most of them are, at least, pretty darn good albums to phenomenal albums.

It also helps that there are plenty of outlets out there that lets people listen to a lot of music that was not there, even five years ago.

So yeah, maybe today's popular music is lacking good amount of substance, but there are plenty of good new music out there.

[lonestar]

I think you're being too generous in saying that 1% of the music made today is "radio" or "popular", I would put it at .1%, and that's being kind. Anyone with a song to share and a computer can get his stuff out. So many one man projects, so much stuff. Sites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud give any yahoo a chance to share their art, and the best/saddest part is some of these people are truly gifted, yet will never see any semblance of popularity.

[rumborak]

Whoever says modern music sucks doesn't really care about music.

[Zyzzyva17]

While I agree that there is great music being made today, I think an argument could be made for

"The number one hits of the past > The number one hits of today"

[PuffyPat]

Every era of music has music that is good, and music that is not good. That's just how it goes.

[mikemangioy]

I think that the problem with mainstream (coming from a guy who listens to the radio indirectly everyday all day) is that most of the people really don't care about their music. They just listen to it passively, and as long as you put a catchy song on the air, you'll get their attention. Us musicians, and also some non-musicians of course, really LOVE music, and we do not take anything for granted. As devin would say we want MORE MORE MORE MORE, and yes I think that today music is extremely vast: you can discover anything you want thanks to spotify, bandcamp, soundcloud and hell, even youtube. So yeah TL;DR there's a lot of awesome modern music but mainstream people don't care enough to explore. In my opinion.
 

[bout to crash]

I agree that there's still amazing music being made, but I also think there's more crap being made... and that "popular" music is becoming more generic and shitty. People say "Anyone can make music and put it out there" like it's a good thing. Sometimes it is. And then you have Rebecca Black.

[ariich]

The only issue I would take with doing an essay on this subject, Sacul, is that it would give some academic credibility to the original notion that modern music is somehow worse than old music. Otherwise, I completely agree with you. Rumby got it spot on:

Whoever says modern music sucks doesn't really care about music.

I agree that there's still amazing music being made, but I also think there's more crap being made... and that "popular" music is becoming more generic and shitty. People say "Anyone can make music and put it out there" like it's a good thing. Sometimesit is. And then you have Rebecca Black.

You really believe that stuff as bad as Rebecca Black wasn't made in the past as well?

[Fluffy Lothario]

Mainstream or not, I have fairly little interest in modern music anymore. At the end of the day, it's about what you connect with. For all the vast amount of stuff out there, the genre possibilities and freedom and etc, I could hardly care less about the music being released by almost anyone on the planet today.

About ten years ago, I was chasing tons of albums every year. It's now a rarity that I get excited about any album being currently released, and when I do check them out, while I tend to enjoy most of them, it's even more rare that I'm blown away.

So while I wouldn't go so far as to say modern music sucks, I'm almost completely apathetic towards it at this point.

[Mosh]

I agree that there's still amazing music being made, but I also think there's more crap being made... and that "popular" music is becoming more generic and shitty. People say "Anyone can make music and put it out there" like it's a good thing. Sometimesit is. And then you have Rebecca Black.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UKf65NOzM
Anyway, Rebecca Black was what, 3 years ago? And it only got popular because it was so bad. There are plenty of good songs on the radio these days. Every generation has had some shitty songs, but obviously those aren't the ones that people remember fondly.

[sneakyblueberry]

I think weaving in the idea of technological advancement since the millennium might make a good point.  The idea that now that everyone has the ability to record and release music on a massive scale, and the good and bad aspects of that.  I think, as someone else has pointed out, its just that music good and bad is now more readily accessible than ever before, and popular culture has changed quite a bit to mean that train wrecks like Friday get a lot of exposure just for the lulz. 

[TheGreatPretender]

I actually met a guy who said, "I don't listen to anything that came out after the 1970s." I wanted to smack him.

But the way I see it is, back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc, good music was just more widely appreciated. It's not just about The Beatles and Led Zeppelin being the best (in a general objective opinion), it's that they were actually recognized for their talent, in spite of being real and given creative freedom (as far as we know, anyway). These days, the mainstream, popular stuff is much more manufactured and a lot of it down right awful. The problem is that that's all the general public sees. That's why statements like "today's music sucks" are so frequent. The simple fact is, you just have to look a little deeper to find all the good new stuff, and the best part about it is that thanks to the internet, it's actually easier to find than ever.

In terms of what's out there, it's a good time to be a Metal fan right now. A lot of the stuff that's coming out of Europe right now is amazing.

Same goes for Hip-Hop, mainstream Rap music sucks, but there are a lot of really fantastic and very talented artists who are dominating the underground to such an extent, that they still end up making more money than most mainstream rappers today.

I can't speak too much for other genres, but I'm sure that whatever you're into, there are some great artists out there, creating it.

[TAC]

There are tons of great new bands/music out there. Just because a lot of it cannot penetrate the inner shell formed during one's formative music years doesn't negate that fact. You have life experiences with music that can never be taken away. But you cannot confuse that with the fact that newer music isn't better that what you're accustmed to.

[TheGreatPretender]

There are tons of great new bands/music out there. Just because a lot of it cannot penetrate the inner shell formed during one's formative music years doesn't negate that fact. You have life experiences with music that can never be taken away. But you cannot confuse that with the fact that newer music isn't better that what you're accustmed to.

I agree, but that doesn't even just go for new bands, it goes for new albums by classic bands, too. I'm always discovering and introducing myself to more artists, but some of these artists have been around, and had their hay day in the 70s, 80s, etc. In spite of that, I'm always interested in what they've been doing lately. Artists like Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Duran Duran, etc. And honestly, not having grown up with those artists, I can just listen to their music now, and enjoy it for what it is, rather than what it may have meant to me in my teenage years. And with that mindset, I think their recent stuff is just as good as some of their most beloved classics. Alice Cooper's last album, from 2011, I thought was great, one of his best, and that's in spite of having Ke$ha and Autotune on a couple of the songs.

[bout to crash]

You really believe that stuff as bad as Rebecca Black wasn't made in the past as well?

I didn't say that. I just mean she's an example of why it's not necessarily a good thing that any asshole can get her/his music out there these days.

[ariich]

Interesting. I would say it is absolutely definitely a good thing, because you can very easily just ignore terrible music. Or in the case of a song like Friday, all have a good laugh about it.

But it means a far larger quantity and variety of good stuff. I don't care if there's more bad stuff, as I can ignore that, but more good stuff makes me happy. It doesn't make my wallet happy though.

[hefdaddy42]

Interesting. I would say it is absolutely definitely a good thing, because you can very easily just ignore terrible music.

It's easier to ignore it if it isn't being made in the first place.  Which is what I think she is talking about.

[ariich]

Easier, sure. But it's literally impossible to listen to and enjoy good stuff if it isn't being made in the first place.

[Zantera]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to ignore. I haven't listened to the radio in a good 10 years or so, with the exception of occasional accidents like if you go out and they play it at a public place (like in a store or McDonalds or something) and you're kinda forced to hear it. But it really isn't that hard to avoid. In fact I would have to go out of my way to being forced to hear the bad mainstream music.

[rumborak]

I think for a while, when the music industry had started mass-producing music with a weekly one-hit wonder, but at the same time the internet hadn't created parallel channels of exploring music, it sucked. But these days, there isn't even a need to listen to radio. Just switch to an obscure "backwards goth-folk metal" online station and you're done.

[King Postwhore]

I think for a while, when the music industry had started mass-producing music with a weekly one-hit wonder, but at the same time the internet hadn't created parallel channels of exploring music, it sucked. But these days, there isn't even a need to listen to radio. Just switch to an obscure "backwards goth-folk metal" online station and you're done.

Just like your porn habits Rumbo.

[bout to crash]

 ... yeah, good point Ralf.

[Sacul]

You guys have actually made excellent arguments. So much thanks for your insights . And don't worry ariich, the essay is just for learning how to to them - it's for my Spanish class . But I plan to translate it and post it on several websites, this included.

[rumborak]

I think for a while, when the music industry had started mass-producing music with a weekly one-hit wonder, but at the same time the internet hadn't created parallel channels of exploring music, it sucked. But these days, there isn't even a need to listen to radio. Just switch to an obscure "backwards goth-folk metal" online station and you're done.

Just like your porn habits Rumbo.

Backwards goth-folk porn is the absolute best. Right after Looners.

[Scorpion]

You guys have actually made excellent arguments. So much thanks for your insights . And don't worry ariich, the essay is just for learning how to to them - it's for my Spanish class . But I plan to translate it and post it on several websites, this included.

Can you PM it to me in the original as well? I'm curious to see how much I understand.

[Ben_Jamin]

I feel theirs no need to label music,  other than calling it music. The powers that be do use music to showcase, popular music or the hot top 10. If you love music, you'll find a lot to enjoy. At the same time, your mood can determine what you'll listen too.

Their's a reason why music is considered a wonder of the world.  The sad part is not many appreciate it, hence you get songs like Booty by Jlo, and most songs by "popular' artists, songs made by the record companies to brainwash kids, teens, and young adults.

For me Modern music is non existant. Music will always evolve, and each generation will have it's own style in which music choices they enjoy.