Rock was not music to our parents... it was noise. We could not understand how they could be so closed mined.
The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse!!
I'm not a big Beato fan but he makes some good points at time. This is one of those times IMO. I know some of the younger generation will disagree with the whole premise. Being born in 1951 the boomer gen was hit with the same indictment about the new Rock & Roll music. There was some truth in it. But we didn't care because we liked R&R. I expect the same from some today who like today's music. but I think if you listen you may find some morsels which can be enlightening. This is especially true for musicians who may find they agree wholeheartedly..
75 responses Add your response
Are you serious? do you use music like people doing gymnastic in a gym as a rythm to enhance performance ? When we use our body like a machine working we may listen to A.I. created music perhaps but i will not call this great music.
|
I used to say that older music had melody and newer music does not (for the most part). So we used to be able to hum a tune. That changed around 1984 or so, when music became more technology based. They used a drum machine, keyboard and guitar. Less "humming" ensued. Music nowadays is far less "happy" in its mood than say, 30 years ago. Perhaps its down to the use of machines instead of actual instruments such as percussion, violins, trumpets (which I rarely hear in music any more). And, to my ears, so much of it is not soulful. I will say that I’ve noticed that the ’singers’ of today don’t so much SING as they simply accompany the tune to the end of that measure. Clearly, this is not everyone, but the voices themselves are pretty mediocre. I LONG to hear another Whitney Houston, or Matt Munro, or Etta James. Even a Bob Dylan (!) What I hear, for the most part, are singers who have a one octave range, with little nuance (of course, that could be part of the mechanical production) in their voice. They don’t ’cut loose’ as singers used to do, even rock ’n roll singers such as Mick Jagger (he’s got no voice, but he has ’soul’) or any of the rockers of the ’60s or ’70s. Music used to be full of exulting, hoarse joyousness, misery (Aretha Franklin ’I Ain’t Never Loved A Man’), wistfulness ( Mary Hopkins ’Those Were The Days’) or just plain ecstasy (Sam and Dave ’Hold On I’m Comin’!’). i just don’t hear those kind of emotional ’swings’ in music now. It seems more contained, more depressed, or just more...flatline. It would have been rare to turn on the radio in 1966 and not heard 10 different moods in the course of an hour of listening even to Top 40. Maybe it’s the programming, but the music now doesn’t have those kinds of moods front and center. (If it’s rock, then clearly it will be slightly different.) Where did all the ’emotion’ go in music? I feel like so many singers sound for all the world like a young ’un singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with all the skill that that ensues. And I come from a family with singers in them. There’s just so little real singing demonstrated in a casual listen of even Top 40 music. It so often sounds like a 'production,' not like a singer showing off their chops. And having said that, who ARE the great singers of today in pop, rock, jazz or blues? |
In the morning I spend a couple hours painting. Typically I’ll put on my headphones and listen to a German internet station… 1FM Chillout and Chillout Lounge — I frequently end up stopping painting completely wrapped up in the music and and up bopping around paintbrushes in hand. Must be a really silly sight. I am often struck at how amazing and innovative the music is… it is so addictive and compelling… all of it sampled, autotuned and completely manufactured… what great innovative “non-musicians” we have producing music! |
Salutation my friend! We feel better here in winter and we are used to it... I hope all is good for you and send you my best wishes...
|
@asvjerry agreed. I do not think writers have the skill to pull it off. |
@cdc ...'cuz it'd likely cause ink in the tabloids they'd rather do without? ;) Actors are just believable posers.....*L* Music....*mmmm* Tough, esp. when it rubs taste the wrong way. What to one set of head flaps is sheer noise is a 'tone poem' to another.... Yet, both may agree that last composition is Genius. I've that in my life and what I've played into it to amuse or restore.... Hi, @mahgister ...How's the the Great White North and you in the thick of it.... ;) |
@celtic66 Good one. Except I do not think the quote was from Cheers, haha. Always thought it would be cool if the cast from Seinfeld dropped into the Friends sometime. They were both from NYC. It only makes sense. . . Reminds me of one audiophile who put a picture of some uber expensive speakers on top of his.and pretended that was what he was listening to. |
i concur.
there is some truth here ...
there is some truth here also...
All of you are you three old boomers who squale about new music out of your decade ? This argument from old age is preposterous. i learned to love music from all corners of earth except the music programmed by the north-American music industry proposed for POP Chart listening and radio listening ...Then nobody can accuse me of being nostagic of the Beatles whom i never bought anyway even if they are good band with good songs...( at 20 i listened mostly Bach and Monteverdi and indian raga +Bob Dylan and Léo Ferré poetry)
Good music is not always popular anyway... Good Turkisch music so good could it be will not be popular in America ...neither Japan Jazz... Guess why ? It is because the sleepwalking public is conditioned and programmed to hear bad music and the bad music itself is manufactured one "hit" after the other...
I already suggested new contemporary music which is good and many others did also here... The fact that some contemporary popular music is relatively not bad or even good dont change the reasons why most popular music is worse now...
|
Track Comparison#1 Boomer Favorites VS The Unknown Youngins
Beatles - Hold Your Hand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs
Some unknown kid from New Zealand... Unknown Mortal Orchestra - The Garden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlkszyIgoBU Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEtDVy55shI
Talent Score: Boomer = 0 Unknown Kid = 100
|
None of my LPs have bar codes on them because I only buy records that were recorded and reproduced using analog equipment. Look at pictures of Rudy Gelder’s recording studio. His approach was the pinnacle of the art of recording music. I do listen to streamed hi-res music, but not if the beat has been put on a grid. Real musicians don’t allow technicians change their performances. Why the hell would a musician ever allow a technician change their performance? I understand splicing in a corrected note to a well-performed piece. However, that should be the limit to what recording engineers are allowed to do. Music should be recorded in a few takes, with the best take being chosen. And, from recording to the pressing of LPs, only analog equipment should be used. Then, the precious and life-enriching experience of music would be revealed. Listening to the stuff cranked out by technicians using all their tools to “perfect” music is like having sex with an inflatable doll; it’s a very sad substitute for the real thing. |
I blame the proliferation of affordable electronic gear that made it possible for a bunch of "No Talent Bums" to be able to put their "product" into the mainstream ! People gravitate towards whatever is convenient but not necessarily valuable. A lot of garbage came from those home studios and now we are expected to call the preparators "artists" !
|
The reason I know the music today is crap is because of the 100s of music review channels of millenials and gen Z listening to music from the 60s-80s and being blown away by the actual music. The imperfections are what give music soul and they recognize it. No processing. Can you find soul today? Sometimes. But production kills it a lot of the time. |
@coltrane1 you're being sarcastic, right? |
@rkeeney "...I doubt there has ever been a time when old men [without self knowledge and wisdom] didn’t think music was getting worse."
+1 |
Let’s face it! Our generation from ‘55 forward had real hits, that many even young people recognize today on YouTube. Music today can’t hold a candle to the 60’s, 70’s, and much of the 80’s. Today’s music, and I include rap, is all trash. Even the musicians can’t play! No Chicago, no BST, no Tower of Power, nothing but trash. And back in the day everyone played an instrument! |
«Beato is an old dude crying... All is good at all times, to each his own.. music instrument are better with progress in technology ... Dulcimer is not progress nor the Veena, theramin is or electric guitar ... Or Piano over harpsichord... All is about My taste anyway ...
Period»
it is easy to resume thinking here ....
|
Hmm no doubt attention spans are not what they used to be in general but don’t take it out on the goldfish. I assure you that as you watch them they are quite focused solely on what to gobble up next, including you if they could. The boy goldfish are also quite focused on the girls on occasion...else no more goldfish! Focus!!!
Also explains why epic progressive rock compositions written in the last 50 years or so are not a big thing. Used to be more! "The TImes They Are a Changin..."
|
@mapman + 1 |
The real reason "music is getting worse" is that some people think so. Others do not. That’s it in a nutshell. Some people thinking so is not enough to make it reality for all. Not even just with music. There is a significant "cult mindset" out there that absolutely believes their judgements are universally correct and that others with different views are wrong. Not just wrong, but perhaps even obstacles to be removed as well in some cases of particular concern in order to get one’s way. IT happens! Let’s not think that way about music. There is plenty of diversity in music to go around. Enough that almost all like some. It doesn’t matter what others think, other than the masses will largely determine the market for music just like everything else. Personally, I am finding more music both good and bad to try out than ever and that is a good thing! Besides, most of the "good old stuff" is still available, including remasters and remixes that offer a new spin on something old, and same will hopefully be true 50 years from now if we make it that far. Ever marvel at how far 8 basic notes to work with has gotten us? I guess we have to run out of new twists eventually, though in lieu of doing the math, the possibilities do appear endless for all practical purposes. Well done!
|
@irjones +1 |
I was around when the Beatles happened, and remember being stunned when a new album arrived...especially the Rubber Soul/Revolver era. I recall well how utterly lame any other "pop" band was at that time, except for soul music and a few exceptions. No comparison to the Beatles...none. Now I'm 99% jazz, especially piano trios, and that keeps me happy...happy happy happy. |
In the past, A real talent may appear in a town, near you! He/She may cut a record and really make it big. Some may make a living. Today, a real talent may appear in a room near you! He/She may cut a record after school and not make big at all. Of the lucky to go on and publish and release music. 10,000 will fail even when they may have oozes of talent. It just aint fair. A and R men (remember how we hated them?) Just don't visit bedrooms! |
+1 @normb Well written and accurate. |
Ah, yes. The ages-old “Why in MY day…” Applicable to just about everything from music to literature to politics… well, maybe not politics. I think my grandmother had that right when she would look at some politician on TV and say “they’re ALL thieves.” Or, in the words of the immortal Jerry Doyle “Washington DC is Hollywood but for ugly people.” Ahem.
Yes, music changes. Hardly anyone uses a Hurdy-Gurdy anymore (well, Lludvig Swärt’s FORNDOM, or FAUN, out of Germany… but I said HARDLY anyone), and who uses bones of ancestors to tap out rhythms like Urg once did while sitting around the dying embers of the Allding Feuer (and his father before him) except maybe Heilung. Hammered dulcimer players certainly got torqued when some clever person reassembled all those strings (and more) into a box on a massive bronze frame with an amazingly simply row of “keys” one tapped with their fingers and the strings would be PLUCKED like a proper LUTE then eventually HAMMERED and they called the thing a piano. THAT really upset a lot of people, not least the friends of the piano player who had to come practice at HIS house ‘cause nobody wanted to move and retune the darned thing every time they wanted to rehearse. Nowadays a keyboard fits in a suitcase, weighs about as much as a couple of six packs and it’s the drummer’s house that gets filled with noise several nights a week while the parents moan “Oi-veh ist mir! Is it too much to ask he should be a DOCTUH!?” Music certainly changes. Who can forget that #1 in the hit parade of 1946 (IIRC) “I’m a Cranky old Yank in a Clanky old Tank on the Beach of Yokahama with my Honolulu Mama doing those Beat-o, Beato, flat on my Seato Hirohito Blues” by Hoagie Carmichael? Or the venerable tune sung by doughboys throughout the Maginot Line circa 1918 “Roll Me Over” (in the clover, roll me over lay me down and do it again) which had the Karens of the day protesting in front of sheet music stores where the pimple-popping gum-chewing teenagers were being corrupted by such evil lyrics. Fast forward to MY day and there was Todd Rundgren’s “S-L-U-T” or Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” to upset the musical purists. As Sonny Bono once wrote “The Beat Goes On.” Flat on my Seato. I mostly just listen to what I like. |
There is an ocean of new musical geniuses around the world , in different cultures, in jazz and in classical... But in North America and in the modernized countries in the controlled medias there is an ocean of well manufactured mediocre pieces and worst... Technology is not artistry... And those who think that art progress positively in a linear irreversible way as sciences are ignorant about art and about sciences...
|
Put on a Vinyl record like Miles Davis, even if jazz is not your thing. Hook up a good integrated hybrid amp with some good high end tower speakers or be cravy some KEF blades. Compare that to streamed music, any current pop on Bluetooth budget to moderate priced gear. You will hear the difference, let the music flow over and through you. You will feel and hear the difference. |
@dlevi67 I meant the present builds off the past, and thus advances it, whether it's knowledge, art, or music. Of course the past contains great thinkers, artists, and musicians. What makes the greats great is the ability to advance the status quo much further than the not-so-greats. What made Einstein so great was both his intellect, and his ability to advance science in major ways. The average physics professor today probably know more science than Einstein did, largely due to Einstein. The same holds for the arts, IMO. |
@baldric the phrase, okay boomer, applies to anyone, not just boomers. And again, music paradigms are changing. If you're going to judge music by contemporary pop then just about every generation is going to suck. They're a hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of really good artists out there who aren't widely disseminated or played. As @sns said above, pop music is ephemeral at best. I kind of lost track with contemporary pop music decades ago and I still try to keep up with some of it but I'm much rather dive into the other genres that matter to me. |
I get the criticisms for the pop music of today, many artists simply slapping out product using technology to cover up a lack of talent. But there are so many contemporary artists and music out there, real artistry produced with the tried and true technology of yesteryear. Pop music hasn't been important to me since sometime in the 90's so I couldn't care less about it's existence. |
We did not like our parents music and born 1951 and they did not like ours. But today I have a tube amp that produces so much detail from a songs that I never knew existed in all the years listening to them..So at 73 since all I do is stream and go back and listen to what my dad would listen to on a Reel to Reel he had . And you know I can listen to some of it now , not all but some . I look at reviews of equipment and they mention songs that bring out detail for you to hear and most newer songs they mention I can not stand to listen to.. I hear new artist and ask who is that and give them a try and 98% of time can not play their music.. So 73 yrs old I listen to Peter White LOL and oldies and some of Dads old music...But each has to decide to their own beat what you listen to. Not Worse but age has so much to do with it for sure...LOL |
In this video Beato said something obvious about technology use in music his "perfection" versus human gestures and "imperfections"... This point is made even clearer with A.I. coming...
And many here instead of seeing his point dismiss it as an old dude bias about new music... ( probably a case of seeing in the eyes of others the big biases in our own eyes as the ignorant claim above about music value always going upward in "progress")
Are you able to understand a book if you are not able to get the main point of a 12 minutes video without attacking the man who did it as biased ? Beato is a pro musician and only spell evidences in this video ... it is useless to go further in this matter, and we can dig in it way deeper , because it seems many here dont get a simple point , they need a straw man argument to feel better instead of thinking ..
|
In general, while I agree with much of Beato’s argument (’technical’ perfection and ease of use vs. skill, inspiration and ’selection’), I also think there is a lot of survivor bias whenever one is comparing ’the great music of the past’ to the ’poor music of the present’. A lot of past stuff has rightly been consigned to the bin of history.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean (i.e. ’things have always got better since the beginning of time’ or ’things have got better on average over time’), but either way I disagree with it. Bach is pretty old, and Hildegard von Bingen is even older, but they didn’t write bad music; neither is ’worse’ than anything - and I mean anything - written today. At best, it’s incomparable. Just like at best Damien Hirst and Mark Rothko are incomparable to Vermeer and Piero della Francesca. At best. Engineering to some extent has been progressing, but architecture hasn’t necessarily "progressed" - Hagia Sophia is an architectural masterpiece, as is the Pantheon, as are Palladio’s villas. Not much designed today is ’better’ - even if it is bigger and has more functionality (not least because we can provide more functionality). The Mahabharata; Greek myth written down by ’Homer’ (or many Homer); Aristophanes; Cicero, Livy, Caesar and Martial; the Edda; Dante; Shakespeare - all on an ascending arc to ’Butter’ by Asako Yuzuki (no offense meant; current bestseller at Waterstones UK). Or did I misunderstand your point? |
This has lost you all your credibility. I'm not a boomer. And the kids (or even adults) who start or finish their phrases with insult for the previous generations have no credibility to their arguments because at that point it degenerates to name calling. Auto-tune, pitch correction, quantization, Pro-Tools (and it's million plugins) and GarageBand, which makes every rank amateur musician a worse recording artist and even worse studio producer. Think about it, most charting songs today are assembled in the studio as fragments from hundreds of takes, often times taking single notes from a take to insert into other takes and those songs are more assemblages of blocks than they are performances. Every edit subtracts from the whole. This has been the case since some clever studio engineer figured out how to splice tape. |
Well... I went back and watched the whole video. Twelve minutes I will not get back. Let me paraphrase... "Wahhhh, things are changing and I don’t like it. Wahhhhh." The old days were so much better... I was so privileged to not be able to buy much music. Yes and a bowl of gruel will taste oh so much better if I am starving to death. Darn... I loved to old days when I was starving to death... I just don’t appreciate food like I used to. I, and I think most of the people here, are not just random listeners of music and actually don’t just follow whatever is released. We don’t just consume what is put in front of use and love it. Sure that is true for the general public...for thousands of years they have been told what to think and fed what they should like and have been taken advantage of... nothing new here.
Great art requires great artists, they find the tools to create it. Appreciators of art will find it and appreciate it. |
@celtic66 +1 Seekers are the few and far between, artists and consumers have to put in the work to discover one another.
I find plenty of new interesting artists, and I still listen to old favorites. I like to read the comments with youtube videos of the oldie acts, generally the comments betray youthful reminiscing and bashing of contemporary music. Seems to me, these people lament their loss of youth, when one can no longer find pleasure in new and exciting things they certainly have lost their youth. |
Thanks for your enlightening interpretation with which i concur... I will only add that like cooking, traveling, music also need always education of basic tastes... I dont listen music as i did when i was young even if i kept my taste it changed and amplified encompassing world music and jazz and classical After Bach.
|
