Why has the quality of mainstream film and music taken a nosedive since the 70's?

Franz Von Peppercorn

BailMeOut wrote: »

There is no such thing nor will there ever be 'main stream' again due to the wast amount of entertainment available to to us all now. I will not ague with OP that the 70's was great for movies and one could argue that the 90's was another excellent decade however we are now in the era of unprecedented and excellent TV quality.

Yes there is a lot of garbage out there however if you look there is incredible amount of great music, movie and TV available.

PS: I cannot stand Pink Floyd.

I think its pretty reasonable to call Adele or Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift mainstream.

I don't like Pink Floyd either.

Gimme A Pound

Radiohead stopped getting mainstream attention in terms of the singles charts and daytime radio after OK Computer.

I like Pink Floyd but not sure what the relevance of opinions on Pink Floyd is.

grindle

Music and movies have become standardised to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I don't see where any confusion lies.
Why? Money. How to avoid? Listen to and watch things that don't necessarily seek to reach a Top 10 decided by people with low standards.

There's no point feeling sad or put out about it - there's more art being made nowadays that's just as good and there are many more avenues available to search them out.
Anybody depending on mainstream charts to serve up quality content deserves the sub-standard content they receive tbh.

CrankyHaus

Good music still gets made - there's just so much music being made and so much tripe pushed through the media that it's very hard to find the good stuff without a lot of work or an engaged peer group (which you probably won't have after about 30) to recommend it to you.

Good films still get made - But intelligent fare is crowded out by superhero junk as Hollywood takes less risks. The space for smart low and medium budget stories is increasingly online with the likes of Netflix.

One thing that is regrettable is the demise of good music, and to a lesser extent film, critics. Once upon a time you could rely on these to recommend good material and artists. Now it's more and more of an echo chamber, regurgitating a very shallow pool of endorsements with the odd exception. While newspaper features sections have always been happy to accept freebies their opinions seem to be more bought and paid for by label and studio marketing departments than ever before.

James Brown

Quick easier money. Remakes, turning popular things into movies. Get a few one hit wonders and move on to the next batch.

sk8erboii

batgoat wrote: »

Your arguments from authority actually shows how weak you are at making an argument. It's a style of debate that will get you nowhere.

Reading comprehension is very poor in afterhours. I spent about 20 posts discussing the poor direction, choreography, plot holes, awkward dialogue, bad writing in general.

Meanwhile you took your time to just latch on to that one post saying people who work in the industry think the dark knight trilogy is a joke.

Its bizarre. Though it really just shows the level of discourse the people defending a comic book movie is capable of

sk8erboii

xckjoo wrote: »

Its a parody account no? Reads like one anyway

Makes no sense. Ive given all the evidence based on the movies themselves.

This thread shows the typical mindset of old people: Young person says something that defies their perspective. Must be a troll.

If you do a quick google, you'll find many critics stating distaste for Nolans trilogy for the same reasons I listed. Its a series that is laughable with new eyes. Please stop being insular and backwards. The Dark Knight trilogy is a mess of plot holes and poor direction.

sk8erboii

Leandro Clever Sunbonnet wrote: »

As is the below:

Be. More. Subtle.

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

Woke Hogan

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

The anti-craic right here.

Imagine a grown man aged thirty to forty going to watch the Christopher Reeve films on his own back in the 70s and 80s. People would either have thought he was "special" or even something more sinister than that.

I'm not saying people who go to superhero movies are all perverts or anything, in fact I believe the opposite, it just shows a worrying slide into people showing a lack of intellectual curiosity.

xckjoo

sk8erboii wrote: »

Makes no sense. Ive given all the evidence based on the movies themselves.

This thread shows the typical mindset of old people: Young person says something that defies their perspective. Must be a troll.

If you do a quick google, you'll find many critics stating distaste for Nolans trilogy for the same reasons I listed. Its a series that is laughable with new eyes. Please stop being insular and backwards. The Dark Knight trilogy is a mess of plot holes and poor direction.

lol. If you insist you're not a parody then I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

My conclusion wasn't related to your opinion on movies though. It wasn't based on this thread at all TBH.

xckjoo

Woke Hogan wrote: »

Imagine a grown man aged thirty to forty going to watch the Christopher Reeve films on his own back in the 70s and 80s. People would either have thought he was "special" or even something more sinister than that.

I'm not saying people who go to superhero movies are all perverts or anything, in fact I believe the opposite, it just shows a worrying slide into people showing a lack of intellectual curiosity.

See sk8er? That's how you do a parody post. You "young people" can't do anything right :pac:

sk8erboii

xckjoo wrote: »

See sk8er? That's how you do a parody post. You "young people" can't do anything right :pac:

?? Thats clearly post-irony

ToddyDoody

I think it's because the barbarians have taken over and this is the type of stuff they like to produce / consume.

James Brown

sk8erboii wrote: »

?? Thats clearly post-irony

Beyond Irony?

I think the superhero genre is the only saving grace, aside from a few others, in a time were mobile phone games, Angry Birds and emojis, Emoji Movie, are created.
The oscars tend to promote drivel too IMO. 'The Artist'? The 'A star is born' remake? Muck.

Sciprio

I like the style and quality of 70's/80's horror movies like Phantasm and such. Most horror types today don't really do anything for me.

xckjoo

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Beyond Irony?

I think the superhero genre is the only saving grace, aside from a few others, in a time were mobile phone games, Angry Birds and emojis, Emoji Movie, are created.
The oscars tend to promote drivel too IMO. 'The Artist'? The 'A star is born' remake? Muck.

The Oscars got Weinstein-ed in the 90s.

Franz Von Peppercorn

sk8erboii wrote: »

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

I know you have a lower than average IQ but the ad hominems are even below someone of your limited intellect.

You haven’t really discussed why the dark knight was bad – not that anyone really cared to begin with – you just said it was, and that people you knew who worked in the industry all said it.

This barely is an argument to authority because it’s not even people we can verify as an authority. I mean it’s not likely you are hanging around with the greatest minds. Or that they live in Limerick.

Even if we did know who they were it would be a weak argument to authority to say “my friends sed dis and dey is smart”. So you fail even at logical fallacies.

Unfortunately I don’t believe you are a troll. It’s disquieting that you may be the future.

Fortunately however I don’t believe you represent the upcoming generation.

Gimme A Pound

sk8erboii wrote: »

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

I wasn't even talking about you on that post you quoted. I'm not even reading your posts and I don't think I responded to you once, so I don't know what your "you can't defend this" comment is about.

Attacking? You attack people literally for just disagreeing with you.

Arghus

sk8erboii wrote: »

Reading comprehension is very poor in afterhours. I spent about 20 posts discussing the poor direction, choreography, plot holes, awkward dialogue, bad writing in general.

Meanwhile you took your time to just latch on to that one post saying people who work in the industry think the dark knight trilogy is a joke.

Its bizarre. Though it really just shows the level of discourse the people defending a comic book movie is capable of

It's pretty bad alright.

You were convinced that I said The Dark Trilogy was a classic, even though I didn't say that anywhere.

And in one of your other posts you mentioned that Derek Cianfrance "is literally the staple in indie discourse because of Blue valentine.". Now, he might be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's a piece of office equipment!

Gimme A Pound

No doubt the inane "old man doesn't like new stuff" comments by people missing the point/not reading will continue (if that applied, how come old people love today's TV? Surely going by the logic here, they would be watching only 80s and 90s re-runs) but I think it's starting to be acknowledged that yes indeed, there is way more sh1t today than ever before.

grindle wrote: »

Music and movies have become standardised to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I don't see where any confusion lies.
Why? Money. How to avoid? Listen to and watch things that don't necessarily seek to reach a Top 10 decided by people with low standards.

There's no point feeling sad or put out about it - there's more art being made nowadays that's just as good and there are many more avenues available to search them out.
Anybody depending on mainstream charts to serve up quality content deserves the sub-standard content they receive tbh.

But David Bowie, The Smiths, The Jam, Elvis Costello, The Who, New Order, The Cure, Marvin Gaye, Primal Scream, Talking Heads, Blondie, Kate Bush and the Stone Roses used to be high in the charts/on Top of The Pops. It's a shame that's gone.

Even the equivalent of Westlife in the 80s was Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Wham. Not a fan of any of them but Westlife are a hundred times blander.

The absence of just pop music involving talent is a sad one imo. Great bands were inspired by what they saw on Top of the Pops.

Arghus

I'm loathe to completely dismiss mainstream music. Yes, sure enough, to my ears a lot of it does sound like fairly mediocre stuff. There's a certain familiarity to the way songs are produced and arranged now - a lot of the big songs by different artists of the last few years have been written by the same group of songwriters and producers and more and more people want to work with them all the time, so definitely that sense of homogeneity in popular music is at least partly quantifiable and not just wholly down to subjective taste.

But, at the same time, I do know that I'm not the target market for the stuff that's in the charts. Chart music is for people in their teens or just about crossing over into adulthood. It always has been. So sometimes I get off my high horse of hate for the music. I don't like a lot of it, but there's probably millions of fifteen years olds who do. Personally, I'd be really interested in knowing what it is that people like about it, rather than just dismissively crapping on it. I was just into my teens around the turn of the millennium and I think chart music back then was really bad, even worse than it is now. The blandness of most of the pop music from that era was utterly chronic - as bad and all as it is now, I think it was actually worse fifteen to twenty years ago.

I think what irritates a lot of people is that it seems like it's the same artists that get pushed in the media a lot. Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Arianna Grande etc,etc. And a lot of talent show bullsh!t clogging up the TV and radio. But that's just a reflection of how record companies - who are usually parts of bigger entertainment empires these days - can't afford to take risks like they may have in the past. People don't spend as much money on music now as they did in the past. It has to compete on fronts against other media all the time now, so that forces a conservative approach, mixed with relentless advertising in order to push a product. Risks can't be taken like they were in the past, smaller labels find it harder and harder to survive.

Of course the quality of mainstream music was higher in previous decades, but things were different. There was a lot of new ground waiting to be broken, unexplored territory. But now we're fifty plus years down the line, things are going to get a bit stale, it's only natural.

But, I dunno, in some ways I feel cautiously optimistic. People bemoan the quality of chart music and mainstream music, but stuff that doesn't fall into that category becomes easier to find all the time. I used to read about bands for ages before I could even hear them. Now everything is accessible, all the time. Now, that has its own unique downsides too, for sure. But there's still a lot of people out there making good music - fcking tons of people - and in most cases it's only a click away. It was never that easy to find new music even back in the supposed glory days.

Best music of 2019

sk8erboii

People here lambasting Marvel movies are also defending this

https://i.imgur.com/xv6UW6G.gif

Then backpedalling 'No! I didnt say it was a classic i swear!'

Come on. This is pathetic now

sk8erboii

Arghus wrote: »

It's pretty bad alright.

You were convinced that I said The Dark Trilogy was a classic, even though I didn't say that anywhere.

And in one of your other posts you mentioned that Derek Cianfrance "is literally the staple in indie discourse because of Blue valentine.". Now, he might be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's a piece of office equipment!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz


'a main or important part of something:'

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/staple

smurgen

All those superhero movies are evidence that the o.p is right.how many marvel crap films have been made.
Also rap is now unrecognizable from where it was.there's barely any artists I can listen to nowadays.there's no substance or meaning to it.

Wibbs

TBH I would largely agree with sk8erboii on the The Dark Knight trilogy, with the exception of the The Dark Knight flic in the middle. It was a good film with all the actors hitting the spot with a good script behind it too. The first and last, nope. Decidedly meh for me.

To be fair I have liked precious few superhero genre films. A rollercoaster of 90 mins distraction daftness at best, though you get the impression those behind the camera play it for laughs a lot of the time. People in shiny capes is a bit too daft to be played for real. Unless you're twelve. When filmmakers try to make it serious business and "worthy" it just comes across as awkward, empty and childish.

Greyfox

smurgen wrote: »

All those superhero movies are evidence that the o.p is right.how many marvel crap films have been made.

A small minority don't like the Marvel films, for most people the majority of marvel films are amazing. Endgame is a 10/10 film for people who enjoy great films, it might be the only 10/10 film this year. The 90's was the best decade for films but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films and Hollywood has accepted this.

Wibbs

Greyfox wrote: »

A small minority don't like the Marvel films, for most people the majority of marvel films are amazing. Endgame is a 10/10 film for people who enjoy great films, it might be the only 10/10 film this year.

Ten outa ten? Endgame? Jeebus were doomed. Doooooooooooooomed I tells ya.

The 90's was the best decade for films

Oh Lord have mercy... Actually I can't think of any "best decade" for film. Each decade brought the masterpieces and the howlers and mostly the rest were filler.

but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films

We'd agree there.

Hollywood doesn't compete with more complex fare, not so much because of the format of cinema, but because they realised they can get far more bums on seats when they keep it childishly simplistic with regular CGI explosions and whoosh noises, with an already primed audience and huge merch takings too. That costs money, but they get it back. Especially so with the comic book story arc stuff. Marvel, DC, Star Wars too(not so much Star Trek, as while they're solid performers they're not the blockbusters of Marvel, but can cost nearly as much to make).

The fans have also transformed compared to the past. Watch Star Wars conventions and sneak previews. They're almost like religious events crossed with Triumph of the Will, with adults waving placcy light sabres(Lucasfilm©™) around whooping like eight year olds that have been at the red smarties. That kinda audience will damn near consume anything they produce no matter how slipshod so long as it presses the right buttons in the right general order. QV the last two main story Star Wars flics. The first a shinier near scene for scene knock off of the original with extra whizz bangs, the second... well the less said about that the better. Marvel stuff engenders similar. A huge ready made audience that will lap it up. When such properties go out in less primed less nostalgia based cultures like China where they approach it like an old style audience and judge more on merit they often die a death. Star Wars a good example of that.

Basically they've become pop culture events rather than just films.

Sciprio

Sciprio wrote: »

I like the style and quality of 70's/80's horror movies like Phantasm and such. Most horror types today don't really do anything for me.

There is something about late 60's and 70's horror that makes it especially scary.

Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Amityville Horror, The Shining, The Exorcist

but to name a few

Gunmonkey

Greyfox wrote: »

The 90's was the best decade for films but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films and Hollywood has accepted this.

Was half way through writing something similar. As TV has advanced from the sitcom heavy 70's, it has pulled more and more people into it who might have moved into films and taken their skills and ideas with them.

As for there being far too many superhero films recently....my count is about 40 in the past decade (since Iron Man in 2008). Compare that to the amount of westerns released in the 70's...its well over twice that many, and can assume they all arent deep deconstructions of the human psyche or tortured examinations of the isolation of the Old West and more "pew pew we shoots the bad guys".

There will always be "popcorn flicks" for mainstream viewers....its not a new thing!

Wibbs

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Compare that to the amount of westerns released in the 70's...its well over twice that many, and can assume they all arent deep deconstructions of the human psyche or tortured examinations of the isolation of the Old West and more "pew pew we shoots the bad guys".

I'd agree with your general take G, save for the above part. The 70's were very much the decade where the western genre "grew up" to some degree and was much more about deconstructing the old myths about the genre. Arguably started by the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone in the 1960's. Once upon a time in the west is very stylised but nothing like the usual westerns. Eastwood who came from that background and the old style baddies/goodies cowboy flics expanded on it in his own films. Outlaw Josey Wales and the like. Now if you'd said the 40's and 50's yeah.

Actually the 70's was big on that new look at things in general across a few genres that came out of more gritty 60's(particularly non American flics), broken up by the rise of blockbusters like Star Wars.