When did mainstream music start to go downhill?

connacht_man

osarusan wrote: »

Probably just as much good and bad music around now as ever.

We just forget a lot of the sh!te that we heard in the past and remember the good stuff.

Music on TV has made stars of people on looks and sellability rather than talent though.

ever watch a run down of eighties number ones on one of the music channels

compare them to a list of number ones from the past ten years , no comparison , mainstream music in the noughties is dire and by far the worst decade pop was born

BlaasForRafa

Matt_Trakker wrote: »

Pop music has always been dire

That's rubbish, there has been plenty of amazing pop music, the likes of Motown, Stax, early 70's glam rock, Abba, Blondie, Georgio Moroder produced stuff, Gary Numan, Human League, the new romantics, anything involving Nile Rodgers.

Pop music started going wrong with the introduction of the CD and the subsequent loudness wars. The overuse of samplers instead of using session musicians led to a lot of pop sounding samey and dull. Added to that the use of protools and similar programs to "fix" vocals and take away imperfections meant substandard singers could get away with dodgy performances in the studio and record companies could concentrate on getting the best looking person to front their projects rather than the best performers.

cml387

connacht_man wrote: »

around 2000 , when talent shows became such an integral part of the industry , basically , simon cowells arrival

There's nothing new under the sun, Just do a wiki search for Larry Parnes (shilling and pence) or Mikki Most.

The Simon Cowell's have always been present in pop music,churning out predictable hits with soundalike stars.

The industry will always try to create pop music appealing to what it thinks will sell. And there'll always be someone who makes it despite the machinations of "the (music) man".

Tony EH

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

That's rubbish, there has been plenty of amazing pop music, the likes of Motown, Stax, early 70's glam rock, Abba, Blondie, Georgio Moroder produced stuff, Gary Numan, Human League, the new romantics, anything involving Nile Rodgers.

That's just a miniscule selection though and certainly isn't indicative of the majority of the terrible music that filled people's radios.

That's like looking at the charts in the 90's and only picking out Nirvana, The Stone Roses and The Pixies.

BlaasForRafa

Tony EH wrote: »

That's just a miniscule selection though and certainly isn't indicative of the majority of the terrible music that filled people's radios.

That's like looking at the charts in the 90's and only picking out Nirvana, The Stone Roses and The Pixies.

What, you think I was posting a comprehensive list? That's just the stuff off the top of my head, there's been tons of great pop music from the 50's through to the early nineties. As for terrible music, that can be a matter of bias from the person making the judgement.

For example, in the seventies Abba and The Carpenters were routinely absolutely slated by critics whereas in the decades since there has been a reassessment. Something similar may happen to the nineties and post-millenium stuff....but I'd have doubts about it.

phater phagan

The Day The Music Died.

Mech1

It Died this day: Pass the dutchie by Musical Youth.

Game over.

Going Forward

There was an experiment which showed that modern music is being made using a smaller amount of notes, in other words, we're heading slowly towards music which is going to comprise of a couple of notes.

For me, melody would be what gets me, lower amount of notes equals less possibility of striking a decent catchy song.

The other point is that whilst the likes of Boyzone, Westlife and Robbie Williams are often berated for dumbing down music, their songwriters were pretty hot.

As were Elvis's.

I do believe the knack/art/toil of songwriting has been thrown out in favour of tools which generate throwaway songs.

For me 70s and 80s reign supreme, showing my age

Tony EH

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

What, you think I was posting a comprehensive list? That's just the stuff off the top of my head, there's been tons of great pop music from the 50's through to the early nineties. As for terrible music, that can be a matter of bias from the person making the judgement.

For example, in the seventies Abba and The Carpenters were routinely absolutely slated by critics whereas in the decades since there has been a reassessment. Something similar may happen to the nineties and post-millenium stuff....but I'd have doubts about it.

No, that's not what I am saying. You could pick hundreds more and it would still just be highlighting what you think is the good stuff out of a sea of dross.

For instance, here's the charts from 40 years ago, the height of Glam Rock (which you mentioned. I'm not a fan). Look how much shite is there.

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19750803/7501/

Panic E

cml387 wrote: »

What downloading and steaming has done is destroyed the concept of "the album" as a musical artform.
If you heard a song and liked it you might be inclined to by the whole lp it came from.
But no artist is going to sweat blood (as many did in the past) to create a selection of songs that blend together an artistic whole, To give one example "Sgt Pepper's lonely Hearts Club Band" could never be done today because the artist cannot control how the album will be played.

That may not matter any more, but in my opinion it's a pity that young folk will never again be able to "discover" an album like we used to do.

Agree with you, classic albums are few and far between now if virtually non existent seemingly.

Musical journey's tend to be more the domain of the (good) DJ these days, something I don't have any problem with at all.

Harry Palmr

The mainstream was killed by the atomisation of the market by this internet thing. That's why its taken until the end of July for the first album released in 2015 to sell over 1,000,000 copies in the USA. Yes 7 months to reach a million sales. That's pathetic. Back in the day the top acts would shift that in the first month. Taylor Swifts 1989 is still the biggest selling album of this calender year and that was released last year and yet its sales are only 5 million in the States. What that tells us is that the mainstream is dying on its arse - how can the centre hold when everyone is listening to their own little music universe hardly paying any attention to the one time shapers of taste - BBC Radio 1, 2FM, Luxembourg (RIP) .MTV doesn't even play music tracks as far as I know. The music comics are either dead or dying, TOTP is now a one a year retro treat for Chrimbo. No one would even suggest a new early evening show like The Tube now on a mainstream channel.

In a decade I doubt there will be any such thing as a definable music industry - it'll have been fully subsumed into "entertainment".

K4t

furiousox wrote: »

The 90's were the last great musical decade.

Not really though considering the early 00s gave us Arcade Fire, The White Stripes, Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, The National, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Royksopp who have all created music as good as, and some better, than bands from the decades preceding them.

BlaasForRafa

Tony EH wrote: »

For instance, here's the charts from 40 years ago, the height of Glam Rock (which you mentioned. I'm not a fan). Look how much shite is there.

But the definition of ****e is problematic because of the element of subjectivity. Like in the link you posted, which of the top 30 say would have no redeeming qualities whatsoever?

Fat Christy

I love most mainstream music tbh. Catchy as hell.

Tony EH

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

But the definition of ****e is problematic because of the element of subjectivity. Like in the link you posted, which of the top 30 say would have no redeeming qualities whatsoever?

Agreed. Art is what I say it is, as Duchamps said.

TBH, none of it is my taste, with only Bowie standing out.

Dimithy

Mainstream/chart music may not be what it was, but is that a problem?
Its never been easier to listen whatever kind of music you want to, and there's probably never been as much choice.

Anesthetize

Not sure if this post is parody or not but...

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The mainstream was killed by the atomisation of the market by this internet thing. That's why its taken until the end of July for the first album released in 2015 to sell over 1,000,000 copies in the USA. Yes 7 months to reach a million sales. That's pathetic. Back in the day the top acts would shift that in the first month. Taylor Swifts 1989 is still the biggest selling album of this calender year and that was released last year and yet its sales are only 5 million in the States.

Since when have album sales ever been an indication of good music?

What that tells us is that the mainstream is dying on its arse - how can the centre hold when everyone is listening to their own little music universe hardly paying any attention to the one time shapers of taste - BBC Radio 1, 2FM, Luxembourg (RIP)

Please explain to me how this is a bad thing? The mainstream deserves to die on its arse. The fact that people are listening to their own little music proves that people can think for themselves in the internet age and not have sources like MTV and 2FM shove crap down their throats.

MTV doesn't even play music tracks as far as I know. The music comics are either dead or dying, TOTP is now a one a year retro treat for Chrimbo. No one would even suggest a new early evening show like The Tube now on a mainstream channel.

MTV and TOTP are the worst things to ever happen to music. Good riddance to them.

Panic E

Cold War Kid wrote: »

"Chart music is the same standard as it always was, you're just getting old" - not correct.

That is all.

I gotta say the richness of diversity in this list compared to say 2014 for example is staggering.

Its been said already but I'd imagine studio practices have a lot to do with that. Generic and formulaic techniques and over production in general.

Don't know if my comments are making sense, I have the man-flu here. I'm surprised nobody has said it's been all downhill since Tchaikovsky tbh.

Rabo Karabekian

All the older generations will think that the mainstream has gone downhill. It's mainly fear of something you don't get or understand. The kids of today will look at the music in ten or twenty years time and will be saying the same thing.

There may have been more diversity in the charts from the 80s/70s/60s but firstly that doesn't necessarily make it better and secondly it's basically the regurgitation and repetition of the same few chords, so it's not like we're starting from a very high standard.

Panic E wrote: »

I'm surprised nobody has said it's been all downhill since Tchaikovsky tbh.

It's a fair point. You can look at it like this: if the 'generation' from Beethoven or Mozart's time looked at the charts from the 60s they would have seen a bunch of warbling, screaming kids playing noise based on a limited musical range repeated ad infinitum. We think the 60s was where we peaked in terms of innovation and complexity, but that peak was a couple of centuries previous.

Regardless of all this, the mainstream isn't where it's at. And it never was.

Custardpi

Speaking purely of mainstream, charting music modern sound production techniques have certainly allowed tracks to sound sh1ter than they would have in previous generations. Most of what's in the charts & a good deal of what isn't is dynamically compressed & auto-tuned to within an inch of its life. From that perspective we can be said to be objectively worse off than previous generations. However, previous eras had plenty of crap music too & I've no doubt that had the technology been available in the 60s the likes of the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc would have been made way louder & probably auto-tuned too. Ringo would probably be replaced by an artificial drum track.

purplepanda

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Added to that the use of protools and similar programs to "fix" vocals and take away imperfections meant substandard singers could get away with dodgy performances in the studio and record companies could concentrate on getting the best looking person to front their projects rather than the best performers.

Pro Tools can't "fix" vocals apart from removing unwanted sections of recorded takes or pasting parts to another location which also could have been carried out in the era of multitrack tape recording.

To "fix" vocals (realtime pitch correction to a given musical scale) you need external software plugins such as Autotune or Melodyne which would cost half as much again to purchase as PT on it's own would. :pac:

Cold War Kid

Rabo Karabekian wrote: »

All the older generations will think that the mainstream has gone downhill. It's mainly fear of something you don't get or understand.

But I started thinking pop/chart music was getting worse in the 90s when I was 13.
It just seems like obtuseness to say pop/chart music (overall - obviously there's always been some crap) has always been of the same standard.

sxt

Rabo Karabekian wrote: »

All the older generations will think that the mainstream has gone downhill. It's mainly fear of something you don't get or understand. The kids of today will look at the music in ten or twenty years time and will be saying the same thing.

Firstly mainstream is not indicative of music quality. But if the mainstream of the 60s and 70s is the Beatles, the beach boys, the who, the rolling Stones , king crimson, pink flyod, David Bowie, Bob Dylan etc and the mainstream of today is Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, one direction, Taylor Swift.. how is it a fear of something hard to understand ... I am definitely only referring to mainstream music..

Harry Palmr

Anesthetize wrote: »

Not sure if this post is parody or not but...

When did mainstream music start to go downhill?

I didn't say what I outlined was good or bad, its the mainstream The mainstream does matter - traditionally the big hitters paid for the other stuff. Talking Heads would never have become a success if Sire records not been bought by Warners for example.

Custardpi

Cold War Kid wrote: »

But I started thinking pop/chart music was getting worse in the 90s when I was 13.
It just seems like obtuseness to say pop/chart music (overall - obviously there's always been some of crap) has always been of the same standard.

True, while there probably is an element of "you damn kids get off my lawn" in some criticism of younger people's music by the previous generation the current fashion for temporal/qualitative relativism when it comes to culture tends to go too far in my opinion as it excludes any possibilty that human creativity has any standout moments or achievements.

According to this analysis the era of Beethoven was no better or worse than that of Tin Pan Alley or One Direction. The era of Van Gogh was no better or worse than that of Tracy Emin, etc, etc.

It also exaggerates the extent to which each generation rejects the music/culture of the next. Sure plenty do but I've seen plenty of people in their 40s/50s getting down to modern pop hits & clearly knowing all the words while you can go to lots of jazz gigs where the majority of the audience enjoying a style of music from the 1940s - 70s are in their 20s & 30s.

The Golden Miller

Mid-00's was the last era of proper band's writing their own music and featuring heavily/regularly in the charts, so this poll is way off. Fair enough, the quality of music featuring in the charts and the mainstream had been on a downward trajectory for a long time previous, but circa 07/08 was the last time real bands were making the charts/mainstream, with few exceptions

TheLastMohican

OP! Can you not open the poll to include the 70s?

Wacker The Attacker

After welcome to the pleasuredome.

TheLastMohican

Was that by Paddy Goes To Cricklewood?

DivingDuck

Music went downhill right around the time I got old.

Strangely, I've heard other people say exactly the same thing, even though they were much older or younger than me...