Worst year ever for music?

Whatever about good music, I'd argue that there hasn't been any advancement in music in at least 20 years. The fact that Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album sounds as cutting edge as anything you'd hear nowadays is pretty damning... and that was released in 1996.

sryanbruen wrote: »

Can anybody show me any good music of 2016? I can't find any which is why I consider it the worst. I can't see why you say it is a good year for music :mad:

This is good imo.

Why are you giving all these boring pop artists four stars?

Music benefits greatly from, what I like to call, the temporal anti-Doppler effect. Meaning, the further away from a certain point in time you are, the more often good music seems to be released.

In thirty years time this will be hailed as the new 80's!

Does it really matter if this is a sh1tty year for music? We have access to all the music we could want, with the youtubing, and the ituning and the digitamal downloading - it's a great time to be a music lover

And don't get upset about what's in the charts, I've learnt since the days of Britney Spears et al that you can't control the machine, listen to whatever the hell you want and don't be fretting

Painkillers by Brian Fallon is out tomorrow, year 2016 saved.

fatknacker wrote: »

I haven't heard of most the bands in some of these posts. Am I so out of touch with modern music, or are people trying to deliberately post the most obscure bands they know of to be hip?
No, no. It's the children who are out of touch

None of the artists posted in this thread are obscure. People who actually follow music publications and websites would have stumbled across them at some stage.

Deleted User wrote: »

1828.

Beethoven dead, Mozart a distant memory...

With the greatest of respect, sir, in 1828, Paganini had commenced his European tour, which was to bring him to international attention, Schubert published his Winterreise song-cycle (although he also died, which was a downer, man), and Chopin, for one, was at the height of his powers. I must put it to you therefore, sir, that you are talking through your proverbial orifice.

I've never been a fan of absolute relativism when it comes to cultural matters. While obviously people's opinions are going to be different & subjective can we really say that all music is as good or bad as it's ever been & any objections to this argument are just based on people being "too old, man!"? Are there really no cultural highs & lows? Are those who look to the past & hold the eras of Hendrix, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin etc to be better than the fairly forgettable Indie/electronica scene these days just musical snobs? While I'd agree that bad, cheesy music is probably no worse than in previous eras (I actually quite like a lot of pop music, not knocking it as a whole genre) I'm really not convinced that at the other end of the spectrum there is music being produced today that will stand the test of time & still be recognised as great in a few decades.

While it's always going to be hard to find an exactly objective standard for what's good or bad & while I think you'll find skilled musicians in just about any era since our ancestors started banging rocks together in a systemic manner I simply don't see these past few years as being ones which people will look back on with nostalgia for the music, except on a purely personal level i.e. the songs that remind them of their youth.

We're probably in by no means the worst year ever for music but can we set any standards for greatness at all? Where is the 2016 equivalent of Dark Side Of The Moon - ground breaking album still revered 40 years later? Who excites & scandalises the music scene like The Rolling Stones in their heyday? Going further back who in 2016 is revolutionising the Western understanding of rhythmic structure in the same way that Dave Brubeck & Joe Morello did on Take Five? What female chanteuse of today will be listened to with the same awe in decades to come that today one listens to Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald?

In short I can readily agree that our musical lows are probably a constant across the ages but don't tell me our musical highs haven't been higher in the past. As difficult as judging cultural output in an objective way is just throwing up our hands & saying that it's all subjective & everything depends on one's age will lead to cultural stagnation.

I wonder as an aside if in say 30 years time the television industry (or whatever technology television + streaming morphs into) runs out of ideas, ambition & funding & is reduced to producing run of the mill fare along with the cheap trash that's here already will those who then look back nostagically towards the golden era of The Wire, Breaking Bad, Forbrydelsen etc be mocked in the same way that their musical equivalents are?

What year was that drippy pillock out of Coldplay born?

That was a dreadful, dreadful year.

All I know is that we as a country were responsible for B*witched.




Yes...Jesus Christ