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Is today's music inferior compared to older music?

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    #32
    Reberetta
    Registered Users Posts: 2,293 ✭✭✭Reberetta


    Fifties to 2000 was the golden era for me, but it's mostly subjective. Check these threads out if you're interested in music.

    Boardsies decide best song by a black artist.

    Boardsies decide best music albums ever.


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    #33
    S.M.B.
    Registered Users Posts: 9,350 ✭✭✭S.M.B.


    I usually find that the answer to any 'Is today's x inferior compared to older x?' question to be, no, no it's not.


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    #34
    Mic 1972
    Registered Users Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭Mic 1972


    Thrashssacre wrote: »
    Music now is technically and objectively better now then it's ever been.


    I would disagree with the technical part of your statement
    A lot of today's music is produced at home by self-taught producers who don't understand dynamic range resulting in distorted over-compressed sounding songs.

    These songs are then shared in low quality files over streaming websites like YouTube.


    The golden age of technically flawless was the CD era up until the moment over-compression became the rule.


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    #35
    Dravokivich
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,360 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    This is probably going to get very interesting...
    AMKC wrote: »
    I honestly would not have a clue who is in the charts or who is singing these days whereas in the 90s I knew all the artists including the crap ones like Blur and Oasis.
    To the OPs question yes I think the music of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s is way better than any of the music out today. Hell even if you follow or like someones music today you can not own it on a C.D or tape so what's the point. They don't release singles or Albums to buy anymore. So as a poster above said its dead and I agree. To me the modern music industry if there is one does not really exist.
    AMKC wrote: »
    I disagree. What has ruined it is that it's all about downloads now. Downloads and streaming is and has ruined most of the Movie, Music,T.V and even the games industry but it to a lesser extent.

    Music is not the format we have become accustomed to receiving it in. It has existed for thousands of years before the wax cylinder and will continue for thousands of years after all the formats have died out and everything is just some form of digital record.

    The main things that attract us musically are composition, arrangement, lyricism and performance. A record just makes a captured performance more accessible to us. Beforehand that was sold off and shared as sheet music, for other musicians and enthuasists to perform.

    When people start talking about these mediums for a record (single/album/Cassette/CD/MP3) they tend to get caught up in the industry being confused by what it's market is and the nature in which they attempt to protect their recorded assets. Even the music industry doesn't know what it should be doing and by pure luck, they got Publishing Rights, right. That's where the future of it should be focused.

    Zookey123 wrote: »
    I think what ruined majority of modern day music is MTV and how music videos made it more about image and less about the quality of music being produced. As stated early queens freddie mercury would find it hard in the modern world to be as ubiquitous as he was in the 70s. However I must say that their is still some great musicians out their but you probably wont find them at the top of the charts.

    To some degree, video killing the radio star wasn't far off. But in fairness, other than artsy things that come up every now and then in music videos, for the most part a lot of the off kilter imagery people went for was in the 60s/70s. 80s only really had to contend with the new romantics and goths. 90's/00's were easy to filter out grunge/NuMetal if that wasn't you thing as they weren't generally mixed with pop.
    Mic 1972 wrote: »
    I would disagree with the technical part of your statement
    A lot of today's music is produced at home by self-taught producers who don't understand dynamic range resulting in distorted over-compressed sounding songs.

    These songs are then shared in low quality files over streaming websites like YouTube.


    The golden age of technically flawless was the CD era up until the moment over-compression became the rule.

    Yes and or No, kinda. I agree with your overall sentiment, but that's mainly because a lot of these self thought producers think they should be writing chorus lines and selling them off as "beats." When people do their own self production in a minimalist fashion, it isn't too bad.

    Over compression is definately a big problem. And I doubt that'll go regardless of what Spotify and the others do with forcing a reduction in their volume. Dynamics are sorely missed and a great example of that is listening to Disturbed's albums throughout their back catalogue. You can hear it getting worse and worse, with only a few songs being spared from it.


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    #36
    Rothko
    Registered Users Posts: 12,839 ✭✭✭✭Rothko


    AMKC wrote: »
    Hell even if you follow or like someones music today you can not own it on a C.D or tape so what's the point. They don't release singles or Albums to buy anymore.

    :confused: I don't understand that at all. There's nothing at all stopping you from buying new CDs, vinyl etc.


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    #37
    FintanMcluskey
    Registered Users Posts: 8,260 ✭✭✭FintanMcluskey


    Talent doesnt sell nowaday's, image does.

    https://youtu.be/PBaaQ9tNdrc

    There is a guitar solo in that link from 5:45 on that would put the hairs standing on your neck, I dont think one direction will have a similar effect in 30 years time


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    #38
    Rothko
    Registered Users Posts: 12,839 ✭✭✭✭Rothko


    FintanMcluskey wrote: »
    Talent doesnt sell nowaday's, image does.

    https://youtu.be/PBaaQ9tNdrc

    There is a guitar solo in that link from 5:45 on that would put the hairs standing on your neck, I dont think one direction will have a similar effect in 30 years time

    Acts like One Direction are nothing new and have been around for decades. Comparing them to something like what you've posted is kinda silly.


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    #39
    FintanMcluskey
    Registered Users Posts: 8,260 ✭✭✭FintanMcluskey


    Rothko wrote: »
    Acts like One Direction are nothing new and have been around for decades. Comparing them to something like what you've posted is kinda silly.

    One direction have sold 70 million records, dont see how its silly to compare them to an act with similar enough sales


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    #40
    Rothko
    Registered Users Posts: 12,839 ✭✭✭✭Rothko


    FintanMcluskey wrote: »
    One direction have sold 70 million records, dont see how its silly to compare them to an act with similar enough sales

    It's silly because they're completely different. A better comparison would be someone like The Osmonds.


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    #41
    Fuascailteoir
    Registered Users Posts: 584 ✭✭✭Fuascailteoir


    There are still bands out there capable of striking a unique cord. Idles doing the tiny desk concert being a good example.


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    #42
    Rothko
    Registered Users Posts: 12,839 ✭✭✭✭Rothko


    Yep, loads of great stuff out there. Not hard to find either.


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    #43
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    I don't think it can be denied that the 20th Century was an unusually, probably uniquely, rich period of musical innovation which could never be maintained indefinitely.

    You had the rise of so many new genres like Jazz, Soul, Blues, R&B, Rock n Roll, Punk, Hip-Hop and Electronic Music in all its forms.

    Then they all started the interact with each other to create interesting hybrids and we're kind of at the late stage of that process now. I don't think it's as good or as exciting as when those genres were fresh and subversive. Music nowadays feels like a very well made fusion of familiar ingredients and eclectic influences, with just a little too much artifice to it.

    An excellent book on the topic is "Retromania; Pop Culture's Obsession With Its Own Past".

    Also, for an insight into how the Music Industry's 20th Century model came crashing down check out "How Music Got Free".


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    #44
    El Tarangu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,615 ✭✭✭El Tarangu


    Another factor is getting older and nostalgia: people might think that music from the 80s or 90s is great because was when they were young and carefree.

    Another thing with age is that, for most people once they are out of their 20s, they don't have time to follow music as much as they did in their youth, so may not hear about some of the great music being released currently, and so of course think that the music of their youth is the best.


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    #45
    Arghus
    Registered Users Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    There's still loads of good music being made today.


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    #46
    greasepalm
    Registered Users Posts: 5,252 ✭✭✭greasepalm


    Clicked on Brothers in arms and yes even playing it in cars sent a shiver down my spine and looking at on you tube with bad picture but the sounds OMG.


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    #47
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,708 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    FintanMcluskey wrote: »
    One direction have sold 70 million records, dont see how its silly to compare them to an act with similar enough sales

    McDonalds may have sold 70 billion burgers but that doesn't make them haute cuisine ;)

    I'm finding plenty of new acts and albums that I truly love in recent years that can stand up with any of the old favorites but it is all a matter of personal preference. I also really enjoy the new delivery methods like spotify and youtube, which give me recommendations based on stuff I've already marked as liked or played heavily. I like vinyl purely out of sentimentality, and will buy the odd new album on vinyl for that reason alone, but digital allows me to have a huge array of much loved and new music at my finger tips and beats the crap out of tapes, CDs (and 8 tracks for those of us that bit older :P )

    Personally, I hate getting stuck in a rut listening to the same old stuff and really enjoy listening to music I haven't heard before whether it was released yesterday or fifty years ago. Another bonus to listening to new acts is you can get to see them live in small venues at cheap prices (or could pre-Covid and hopefully will again real soon). Have a few tickets bought for 2021 already.

    There's great music now and there's great older music too. There's also crap music now and crap older music. It's like panning for gold, you just have to keep listening to more tunes to find the great stuff.


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    #48
    completedit
    Registered Users Posts: 2,639 ✭✭✭completedit


    I find this topic fascinating. I am not close to a music expert; I just listen to what I like but what I think it is is that music has ceased to be culturally defining. It's just a thing in the world, as opposed to representative of a way of life, a movement, a hope etc. There's been 70 years of music in its current form and by now it's just so pervasive that it has ceased to really mean anything beyond a form of entertainment. Everything has probably been done that could be revolutionary. Although this might be a form of arrogance. Maybe another revolution will happen one day. But it's definitely much harder to reinvent the wheel when it's already the peak technology. Music snobbery is a very annoying thing because the sole purpose of music is to move you, to open up something in yourself and if that's Dire Straits and Eric Clapton, a primitive form of music, Taylor Swift or One Direction then that's all that matters. Music shouldn't be connected with ego and snobbery, what makes good music is that you feel it, you don't intellectualize it.


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