«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

Beato is a knowledgeable but angry boomer shaking his fist at musical clouds in order to rack up views and likes. Again, he's a good musician and he knows quite well in deep but narrow idea of music. But in many ways he's out of his depth when it comes to anything not in that Corridor View

The Beatles era was 60 years ago. And it’s not like the Beatles were riding incredibly Deep lyrics and their first few albums, either. I challenge anyone to look at the top 40 charts from this week in 1964, 74, 84, 94, 2004, Etc, and see how many of those popular songs have really deep lyrics.

Edit: with the exception of 1984 which had some killer lyrics this week, but jyst about everything else in those decades was pretty Bubblegum and forgettable

Times change. The poetic zeitgeist of the 60s is gone. The social, racial, and political lyrics zeitgeist of the 80s and 90s is pretty much gone. To @mahgister s point of their not being a "collective positive movement" - well, he’s right. We have become a niche culture in music and just about everything else. And there are few artists that can speak to many different niches. And unfortunately, this thread also exposes the tendency of the older generation to dismiss and be wary of Music they didn’t grow up with.

@vitussl101 oddly enough, the main market for that street thug music that you so generally described are suburban white teenagers.

"Anyone with ears knows Joni, Paul, and Gordon have no equal."

True, just like anyone with ears knows that Kendrick, Kacey, and SZA have no equal. 

@devinplombier +1 on your post. The idea of culture morphing into entertainment and, truthfully, everything being an iteration of Gaming. It's like Taylor Swift timing her album releases to keep other artists off the charts. Everything seems to be a cult of personality race.