Do you find some music dates badly?

NIMAN

I am currently listening to Absolute Radio, Classic Rock online.

I just got to thinking that some of the music from my younger days just isn't appealing to me as much as it did back then.

Likely I have changed of course, but I'm hearing songs I haven't heard in years, and these would have been a staple diet for me in the past.

Last example, Pour Some Sugar on Me.....I used to love Def Leppard, but I found it a little cringe, terrible lyrics. But I suppose its not meant to be a deep meaningful song.

Do you find other music doesn't age well?

partyguinness

I find a lot of the synth used in the 80's has dated terribly. I get that the Roland machines and then computes were all rage and everyone jumped on board hell I remember it.

Even the 70's use of synth was better and more minimalist.

partyguinness

NIMAN wrote: »

Last example, Pour Some Sugar on Me.....I used to love Def Leppard, but I found it a little cringe, terrible lyrics. But I suppose its not meant to be a deep meaningful song.

Do you find other music doesn't age well?

It was dubbed 'Cock Rock' for a reason.

Ash.J.Williams

NIMAN wrote: »

I am currently listening to Absolute Radio, Classic Rock online.

I just got to thinking that some of the music from my younger days just isn't appealing to me as much as it did back then.

Likely I have changed of course, but I'm hearing songs I haven't heard in years, and these would have been a staple diet for me in the past.

Last example, Pour Some Sugar on Me.....I used to love Def Leppard, but I found it a little cringe, terrible lyrics. But I suppose its not meant to be a deep meaningful song.

Do you find other music doesn't age well?

pour some sugar on me is Def Leppards anti apartheid song

Oasis1974

"We're heading for Venus (Venus)
And still we stand tall
'Cause maybe they've seen us (seen us)
And welcome us all, yeah
With so many light years to go
And things to be found (to be found)
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so"

Wonder what the motivation was to write lyrics like that I mean being serious were they putting themselves in the position of going to Venus or just having a laugh.

smacl

Oasis1974 wrote: »

"We're heading for Venus (Venus)
And still we stand tall
'Cause maybe they've seen us (seen us)
And welcome us all, yeah
With so many light years to go
And things to be found (to be found)
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so"

Wonder what the motivation was to write lyrics like that I mean being serious were they putting themselves in the position of going to Venus or just having a laugh.

Venus is of used as a an oblique reference to female sexuality, e.g. Delta of Venus. So heading for Venus and standing tall has more connotations that just love and rockets

NIMAN

I was just listening to an 80s station when I heard this, and I think it holds up very well considering its 35 years old

Anesthetize

I think what causes some music to age badly is that it tries to immerse itself too much in current trends, current production techniques, or current political / cultural topics.

Take two contrasting metal albums released in 1986 - Turbo by Judas Priest, and Reign in Blood by Slayer:

It's painfully obvious what decade this song is from, and the promo video is one of the most hilariously 80's things I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhY9GOhFwN4

Reign in Blood on the other hand avoided much of the bad production techniques of the 80's such as excessive use of reverb and synths, and instead sounds lean, mean, and timeless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnRZhLRv6eM

Tammy!

I don't think good music can age badly. The act/image of the artist itself can age badly though especially if they can't grow or move beyond that.

First thing that would come to my mind would be someone like Vanilla Ice...he was huge at the time but can't imagine that many of the fans stuck with him or people would listen to it now for the first time and think wow/legend. MC Hammer too. There's no current audience to relate to it. Mostly bands or singers that were quite gimmicky and relied too heavily on image at the time dont last so neither does the music that goes with it.

tdf7187

NIMAN wrote: »

I was just listening to an 80s station when I heard this, and I think it holds up very well considering its 35 years old

Agreed, it's a favourite of mine.

tdf7187

I think most of Britpop has dated badly, with the exception of Suede who were never properly part of Britpop in the first place.

tdf7187

Anesthetize wrote: »

I think what causes some music to age badly is that it tries to immerse itself too much in current trends, current production techniques, or current political / cultural topics.

The Joshua Tree was very immersed in then current political / cultural topics but what saves it from dating badly is the music, which was organic, traditional, and therefore different to almost anything else that was topping the charts in 1987.

Arghus

Anesthetize wrote: »

I think what causes some music to age badly is that it tries to immerse itself too much in current trends, current production techniques, or current political / cultural topics.

Take two contrasting metal albums released in 1986 - Turbo by Judas Priest, and Reign in Blood by Slayer:

It's painfully obvious what decade this song is from, and the promo video is one of the most hilariously 80's things I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhY9GOhFwN4

Reign in Blood on the other hand avoided much of the bad production techniques of the 80's such as excessive use of reverb and synths, and instead sounds lean, mean, and timeless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnRZhLRv6eM

To be honest after that the only thing I know for sure is that Turbo Lover is a better song than I remembered - absolute cheese of course - but I think it's actually a pretty good tune and layers of eighties effects only add to it if you ask me! If you want shit that's really aged badly try Priest's nu-metal phase around the turn of the century - yikes!

It's not better than anything off Reign in Blood of course - though you could make the argument that RIB, for all it's ferociousness, is also dated in it's own particular way - a pure eighties thrash kind of way. I think RIB is one of the best albums of time, but it is also of its time.

But, yeah, by and large, I agree with your main point - following trends and sounds and trying to sound too "current" runs the risk of your music sounding incredibly dated in times to come. The aforementioned nu-metal is a genre that time has not particularly been kind to and the absolute worst garbage of that era was from pre-existing bands that tried to incorporate bits of that "sound" into their own music.

It's interesting that you picked something so quintessentially eighties, because I think some elements of those synth overloaded times are present and correct across a lot of popular music again these days. I notice more and more bands incorporating synths and keys into their sound, where they wouldn't have done so before, obviously to sound current. Sometimes it works and then other times you wonder how it's all going to sound in ten years.

LoughNeagh2017

The music that is played at 12th July parades is 400 years out of date

vriesmays

Trip hop - the worst genre of the 1990s. Some twat scratching a record while some bad female vocalist moans along.