The modern music world

BuilderPlumber

The music world of today seems to have become very corrupt, lethargic, lazy and non-innovative. It would seem that the media, PR companies and the like have become more important than the singers and musicians. I think that while some good music is still being made, it is getting harder and harder for it to find its audiences.

There is simply too much time dedicated to boybands, reality TV talent shows, and novelty acts. Pop music, country music and other forms of music have gotten much worse and there seems to be a stuck in a rut sound since the late 1990s for a lot of genres. I blame all them reality TV things for why poorer forms of music are gaining ground in modern times and why are these given such prominence?

In Ireland, it seems that the media cannot do anything without ex boyband members. They are promoting them singing awful modern country music, they are putting them into the Eurovision, they are getting them to write for the Eurovision and they are overhyping them when they are in their bands. Surely, all this time focused on these could be given to other performers for a change?

bodhrandude

I agree, even the coverage of Electric Picnic this year, it was all blah bloody blah FFS they interviewed Gavin James for 15 minutes and the pop band 1975 got about four songs at the end, would have preferred LCD Soundsystem or the Chemical Brothers seeing it was filmed on Friday and Saturday of the festival. No classic legacy electronica like last years programme with Underworld. Only four tracks from Noel Gallagher but it seems he stipulated that anyway. I enjoyed some of it but I just wish they would film some of the music in the marquees too instead of the main stage all the time. RTE have had great programmes before, why do they stop them. Bring back Under Ether and No Disco.

BuilderPlumber

bodhrandude wrote: »

I agree, even the coverage of Electric Picnic this year, it was all blah bloody blah FFS they interviewed Gavin James for 15 minutes and the pop band 1975 got about four songs at the end, would have preferred LCD Soundsystem or the Chemical Brothers seeing it was filmed on Friday and Saturday of the festival. No classic legacy electronica like last years programme with Underworld. Only four tracks from Noel Gallagher but it seems he stipulated that anyway. I enjoyed some of it but I just wish they would film some of the music in the marquees too instead of the main stage all the time. RTE have had great programmes before, why do they stop them. Bring back Under Ether and No Disco.

The coverage of all music events has become very biased and the media only want to showcase whoever they currently want to push. RTE should do better and bring back good music programmes. Stuff like The Voice Of Ireland and all its previous incarnations like You're A Star and Ireland's Got Talent have done huge damage and this mentality of making everything into a competition is wrong. That is fine for sport but not for music.

There is awful music being pushed today that would not make it on the natural music scene. Instead, this stuff is forced on us by the media and the gullible who do not question the media go for it. Way too much of the same old drivel all the time and it all comes from these reality shows for the most part. Poor pop and modern country music are getting way too much attention and are holding other styles back. Modern music by and large sucks not because good modern music is not being made but because bad modern music is all that is promoted 99% of the time in Ireland at least.

leakyboots

Modern music doesn't suck at all, it's never been better in fact, some amazing stuff out there

You just need to look in non-traditional places - mainstream media in Ireland as a source is dead - they'll cater to whatever the marketeers tell them to.

There's never been a better time for accessing music - I listen to music on Spotify, BBC Radio 6, Bandcamp, YouTube, Mixcloud, Soundcloud, Podcasts.

If you can't find amazing music nowadays with that array of tools at your disposal you're, quite simply, doing it wrong

bodhrandude

I agree with Leakyboots too, maybe not so much on the telly front, although there is still Later with Jools on BBC2 and the repeats on TG4, Other Voices is OK. I've started to listen recently to Today FM, Kelly-Anne Byrne has two lovely shows on Saturday and Sunday with The Beat goes on, it would be nice if TV3 started a music programme, I'd nominate Kelly-Anne Byrne to be the presenter as she would be brilliant.

Tony H

I was of the same opinion as you a few years ago , however my son has set me right with suggestions and now I'm enjoying music as much as I ever have ,
Artists such as Elle King , Imagine Dragons , First Aid Kit ,Kongos, Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men to name a few ,
I also use Deezer (free 6 month sub) and play music , I prefer Deezer at the moment as it seems to tailor my tastes better with the songs and artists I like ,
Don't give up there is a hell of a lot of new great music out there .
ps John Creedon on RTE 1 plays a lot of great new music as well .

Atoms for Peace

There's lots of music out there, more than ever. Just with social media there can be a bit of a echo chamber effect going on as I rarely listen to radio or tv any more.

BuilderPlumber

Of course I mean when I talk about modern music the mainstream promoters of it. Like it or not, mainstream media is what makes or breaks most music and while great music is out there and is being showcased on the less traditional media formats and on programmes even on mainstream TV outside of the prime hours, this will not attract large audiences because people are not aware of it a lot of the time.

Loads of good music is being recorded by emerging singers/bands/musicians, classic songs and albums are reissued and there are many of the greats of the older generations still around and making great music in recent years. But none of this is being pushed on RTE's flagship programmes and the like. The problem is these are still watched by most people and poor performers of modern country music, boybands and other modern pop genres get all the breaks. Other good music being done does not get the same breaks and cannot possibly gain the success the poor stuff gets.

BBC seem to be a mainstream media that do it much better. But the main media in Ireland seem to only want to push the boring and mundane all the time and these become massive while others not given the same chance do not. Sure, there is great music on Spotify, Bandcamp, etc. but when one is not made aware of this, most people will not be aware of it.

alleystar

There definitely needs to be a cull on those country music singers. They’re multiplying like rabbits. I know the media pushes what sells, and clearly there's an audience for it - but Jesus, it has to implode at some point. There must be a factory somewhere pumping out these men in their late twenties/ early thirties, inoffensive, awkwardly dancing and singing the same auld shyte they always do. TV shows dedicated to it, morning/daytime/evening TV show slots, country music award shows placed in prime time positions, country music "festivals". It's completely taking over, it's ridiculous. It's like the showband era, except miles worse. At least some of the singers back then were somewhat likeable and more importantly, unique in personality. Now it's just the same fella, different name.

But there are cookie cutter moulds to be filled in the mainstream music scene in other areas too and that's always been there. Take The Script, Kodaline, Walking On Cars. There will always be a space for these bands, they produce the same cheesy, saccharine songs but they're always guaranteed radio play because people lap that sh!t up. That's just life. Just as boybands continue to go from strength to strength. Boyzone replaced Take That, Westlife replaced Boyzone, One Direction replaced Westlife. And so on and so forth. It will continue and there's nothing much anyone can do. Some decent acts will slip through, but the majority won't.

You just have to search out your own music and people will do that if they're not happy with the mainstream. Just as someone isn't going to sit down and watch a crap film on TV when they can go online and find something they do like.

bodhrandude

Agree with ya there Alleystar, this is my own way of documenting the Irish scene, I got a press pass for this event and it was for 800 people, but only about a quarter of that showed up, basically the weather wasn't great, the lads need to work out the advertising a bit better and that was even after their blow out of advertising through facebook, its a tough job to pull even a meagre crowd with an electronic music festival. But Scrobarnach Festival highlighted the Irish Underground, brilliant Irish rap, DnB, Gabber, hard techno and lovely ambient deep house and a really nice live stage that served as an open mic during the day and live bands at night. Hopefully my ramblings reach a few people that will increase attendance to this festival in the following year. I also review Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, Life, Townlands (This year) and various other events since 2009 now, since I was studying to be a journalist. I just love describing what I hear in my mad mental way, and hopefully if there is a few like myself out there and there is, Nialler etc... Then subscribe to interesting youtube channels documenting music festivals around the world in fact you don't really need television when it comes down to it, you just need a good online directory to the most interesting youtube channels. Have a read of this and tell me what you think and yes, go through all the videos you have to experience the event. https://niallmcquaid.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/scrobarnach-2016-festival-review/

BuilderPlumber

alleystar wrote: »

There definitely needs to be a cull on those country music singers. They’re multiplying like rabbits. I know the media pushes what sells, and clearly there's an audience for it - but Jesus, it has to implode at some point. There must be a factory somewhere pumping out these men in their late twenties/ early thirties, inoffensive, awkwardly dancing and singing the same auld shyte they always do. TV shows dedicated to it, morning/daytime/evening TV show slots, country music award shows placed in prime time positions, country music "festivals". It's completely taking over, it's ridiculous. It's like the showband era, except miles worse. At least some of the singers back then were somewhat likeable and more importantly, unique in personality. Now it's just the same fella, different name.

But there are cookie cutter moulds to be filled in the mainstream music scene in other areas too and that's always been there. Take The Script, Kodaline, Walking On Cars. There will always be a space for these bands, they produce the same cheesy, saccharine songs but they're always guaranteed radio play because people lap that sh!t up. That's just life. Just as boybands continue to go from strength to strength. Boyzone replaced Take That, Westlife replaced Boyzone, One Direction replaced Westlife. And so on and so forth. It will continue and there's nothing much anyone can do. Some decent acts will slip through, but the majority won't.

You just have to search out your own music and people will do that if they're not happy with the mainstream. Just as someone isn't going to sit down and watch a crap film on TV when they can go online and find something they do like.

The problem with all this mainstream's dictator-like focus on poor fare and exclusion of everything else is that anyone with a style different to what the powers that be in the mainstream media want does not get success.

This awful modern country music is killing off proper exponents of this genre. The fake accents of these modern Irish singers is terrible and there is no need for it. Songs with titles like 'The farmer wants a wife' and 'Do that diddly ding dang' says it all about this 'music'.

There is a market for this because the media have made that market. Fire this stuff at certain people who are gullible and they will follow. The same with the boubands (and notice that 'singers' like Lee Matthews in this 'country' music thing are ex boybands). Surely, they could create and expand markets for other forms of music in the same way?

Sure, one can search elsewhere but the mainstream media (like it or not) is what pushes singers to fame and they are not doing it for most genres. To give a film comparison: over the last week or two, I have seen all types of films (westerns, comedies, Mad Max, detective films, James Bond, Indiana Jones) on our channels. There is variety. The way the music on TV is being presented is like if ONLY silly romcoms were all the films that were ever shown.

BuilderPlumber

bodhrandude wrote: »

Agree with ya there Alleystar, this is my own way of documenting the Irish scene, I got a press pass for this event and it was for 800 people, but only about a quarter of that showed up, basically the weather wasn't great, the lads need to work out the advertising a bit better and that was even after their blow out of advertising through facebook, its a tough job to pull even a meagre crowd with an electronic music festival. But Scrobarnach Festival highlighted the Irish Underground, brilliant Irish rap, DnB, Gabber, hard techno and lovely ambient deep house and a really nice live stage that served as an open mic during the day and live bands at night. Hopefully my ramblings reach a few people that will increase attendance to this festival in the following year. I also review Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, Life, Townlands (This year) and various other events since 2009 now, since I was studying to be a journalist. I just love describing what I hear in my mad mental way, and hopefully if there is a few like myself out there and there is, Nialler etc... Then subscribe to interesting youtube channels documenting music festivals around the world in fact you don't really need television when it comes down to it, you just need a good online directory to the most interesting youtube channels. Have a read of this and tell me what you think and yes, go through all the videos you have to experience the event. https://niallmcquaid.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/scrobarnach-2016-festival-review/

Unfortunately, TV still has massive power and the amount of mediocre to outright poor performers gaining fame and fortune they don't deserve is a sin. This so-called 'country music' is the worst yet. Over the last year, RTE has been pushing this bigtime. There are plenty fans of country music (a genre of American music closely related to the blues that existed in the 1920s to 1970s era) in Ireland including myself but there are not as many fans of this so-called 'country music' that is being pushed at us by the media as the media let on. There are plenty Irish singers doing proper country music as described above today but the media don't want to know and will instead push some poor act in a hat singing in a fake twangy bluesless way and grinning out at their audiences.

Eoghan Quigg, Original Rude Boys and The Wonder Villains are more examples of mediocre to poor singers or bands RTE have pushed. They did not really take off and perhaps audiences are tiring of all this stuff being pushed at us. Those mentioned here along with these poor modern 'country' acts are all variations of boybands packaged differently. It is time that the mainstream media opens its doors to all talent rather than just boybands, talent show contestants and boyfolk country.

alleystar

I can understand your frustration, but it's like flogging a dead horse, pointless. I have witnessed countless decent bands fail to propel themselves into the mainstream for an array of reasons - too old/ out-dated management strategies/ little to no contacts/ sometimes plain laziness and it's such a pity. But what can you do? The niches are carved out for the bulk of chart space and in most cases it's cliquey and it's superficial. It’s easier for a band like The Academic to make gains than it is for a middle aged group with full time jobs to hold down. That has to be accepted. And yeah an injustice exists, but it’s not wholly terrible. Underground music/ alternative genre's may not make it into the charts as much as you like but there’s so many avenues for them to build momentum, they're spoiled for choice compared to twenty years ago. There's a hunger for that music too, people don't have to go digging, it's at their fingertips. Bodhrandude put up his blog, but that's one of many. Just as there’s a huge amount of festivals in Ireland to avail of now, way more than when Witness was the biggest.

You mention three specific sub-genre's - boybands/ alt boybands, modern country music and the dregs of reality TV - but they don't make up all the chart space. Someone mentioned The Lumineers and Imagine Dragons a few posts back. But both of those bands charted and got a huge amount of radio play back in 2012/2013. Everyone has to remember Ho Hey being played ad nauseam. These bands have a couple of pop songs and the rest follows. More importantly there's always room for them, just like in 04/05/06 when a whole host of NME type bands charted. There's levels of quality and the bands I mentioned fall somewhere in between, the more obscure an act gets the less likely they will chart/ be pushed by the media but that's common sense. The Irish media support similar styled Irish bands, it has to be said, I could name several. They may not be great but they're not Nathan Carter horrendous. (Although as a side note, I'm aware the likes of Niall Breslin and his ilk get an unfair amount of attention when you take into account their extreme lack of talent.)

It comes down to what sells. Saturate the market with deep house or whatever and you're going to get a backlash of people wondering where all the "good" music went and tuning out/ turning off. If there was a demand for it, they'd meet that demand, but there's not. Majority rules. A chart full of three minute pop songs is preferable, doesn't matter who's behind it - as long as it's catchy and memorable from the off. Although the quality of songwriting may have plummeted over the years, people liking pop music isn't a modern phenomena. That's why the likes of Ed Sheeran will keep haemorrhaging out the same bullsh1t and make millions and millions until the day he dies. Whether we like it or not, it's hardly going to change, because it's been like this since the process of charting music begun.

BuilderPlumber

alleystar wrote: »

I can understand your frustration, but it's like flogging a dead horse, pointless. I have witnessed countless decent bands fail to propel themselves into the mainstream for an array of reasons - too old/ out-dated management strategies/ little to no contacts/ sometimes plain laziness and it's such a pity. But what can you do? The niches are carved out for the bulk of chart space and in most cases it's cliquey and it's superficial. It’s easier for a band like The Academic to make gains than it is for a middle aged group with full time jobs to hold down. That has to be accepted. And yeah an injustice exists, but it’s not wholly terrible. Underground music/ alternative genre's may not make it into the charts as much as you like but there’s so many avenues for them to build momentum, they're spoiled for choice compared to twenty years ago. There's a hunger for that music too, people don't have to go digging, it's at their fingertips. Bodhrandude put up his blog, but that's one of many. Just as there’s a huge amount of festivals in Ireland to avail of now, way more than when Witness was the biggest.

You mention three specific sub-genre's - boybands/ alt boybands, modern country music and the dregs of reality TV - but they don't make up all the chart space. Someone mentioned The Lumineers and Imagine Dragons a few posts back. But both of those bands charted and got a huge amount of radio play back in 2012/2013. Everyone has to remember Ho Hey being played ad nauseam. These bands have a couple of pop songs and the rest follows. More importantly there's always room for them, just like in 04/05/06 when a whole host of NME type bands charted. There's levels of quality and the bands I mentioned fall somewhere in between, the more obscure an act gets the less likely they will chart/ be pushed by the media but that's common sense. The Irish media support similar styled Irish bands, it has to be said, I could name several. They may not be great but they're not Nathan Carter horrendous. (Although as a side note, I'm aware the likes of Niall Breslin and his ilk get an unfair amount of attention when you take into account their extreme lack of talent.)

It comes down to what sells. Saturate the market with deep house or whatever and you're going to get a backlash of people wondering where all the "good" music went and tuning out/ turning off. If there was a demand for it, they'd meet that demand, but there's not. Majority rules. A chart full of three minute pop songs is preferable, doesn't matter who's behind it - as long as it's catchy and memorable from the off. Although the quality of songwriting may have plummeted over the years, people liking pop music isn't a modern phenomena. That's why the likes of Ed Sheeran will keep haemorrhaging out the same bullsh1t and make millions and millions until the day he dies. Whether we like it or not, it's hardly going to change, because it's been like this since the process of charting music begun.

The Irish media have closed down the avenues for most talent to reach wider audiences. The market has been saturated with whatever the media supports and it all becomes a who you know game. It is then easy for the media to say what's majority interest and minority interest: it boils down to what they want to sell and what they don't want to sell.

Some genres are ignored by our media and therefore cannot take off here. But there's another genre in Ireland that is very popular with some but the media will not support: rebel songs/The Wolfe Tones. The media would like to pretend this style does not exist.

Singers like Niall Horan of One Direction have gotten way too much media exposure here. Mike Denver has been promoted countless times on TG4 since the mid 2000s. Nicky Byrne has gone from being in an over-promoted mediocre boyband to a radio career and a less successful TV and solo singing career and an infamous Eurovision flop with a poor song. All supported by his employer, RTE. Lee Matthews is the worst yet of former boyband singers turning to so-called country music and he gets articles written about him in the press. All this is wrong and just shows what a closed shop Irish media has become.

Clever marketing and the use of poor songs in ads and the like will sell this poor stuff to the type of audience that will follow the media without question. It all boils down to money as well. The main barrier to any singer, band or musician making it today is the fact that big money is needed to set up a band as things are geared almost 100% for live rather than recorded music. No help is given to performers who want to start off small and who are poor.

It is time that a fairer system is set up and to support the singer/musician NOT the promoter, venue or media outlet. The singer/musician should be put back in control and the rest should be tools to promote him/her and not the other way around.

bodhrandude

Donal Dineen is trying to get No Disco up and running again, not with RTE but is seeking to get an online music TV series on the go and renamed This Ain't No Disco, I wish him the very best in this quest because as BuilderPlumber has pointed out there is a big gap in the TV schedule as regards rock and pop music, so I hope it takes off online.

https://www.facebook.com/thisaintnodisco/?pnref=story