Why is today's pop music so terrible?

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
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Hello NorthStar

If you like the NPR TDC checkout KEXP. Org Seatle and Rekavic Iceland their YouTube channels as well as Audiotree Live and their You Tube channels. I use all of them looking for new artists and the Bandcamp site which is loaded with all kinds of music. I also look for small independent record labels and grab the samplers. Milk Records Melbourne Australia is a good example. Found lots of good music doing this. Once you get on the mailing lists you get updated with new releases and also new music you can often sample to see if you like it.

Rob:)

Thx Rob! I sure will look into them new music artists places. :cool:

It's too loud and not complex enough.... not like when I was a kid, so it's "inferior."

see how that works? ;)

Lol, I posted it for her unique electrifying magnetism of happy energy style (her hypnotic smile, way she moves).
The music is one thing, the live energy you cannot capture on tape, on vinyl, on CD, on hi-res audio download.
The next best thing to live is on video...DVD (PCM audio), Blu-ray (hi-res audio) or youtube (lo-res audio)...on film.
Our ears we love with a passion, everything that sounds good going through them and touching our soul with sweet emotions.
Our eyes are the doors to our dreams, to our imagination, to reality.
For me both senses work real nice in tandem.
And I still love music without moving pictures (The Beatles) and I still love silent black and white films from the Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mary Louise Brooks and gang era.

Declan has an interesting singing style and plays pretty well.

I too found him interesting; I see genuine artistic/musical potential.
 

morricab

Well-Known Member
Apr 25, 2014
9,391
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Switzerland
I think studios are only thinking about the bottom line now and that means turning a profit on the "product". This means finding the lowest common denominator and ploughing that trough for as long as you can while it yields profits.

Do you think a Pink Floyd would make it today? In the late 60s through the 70s Prog Rock was POPULAR! Really! Love it or hate it you can't deny the level of experimentation and musicianship it required to play it. That is what it appeals intellectually all these years later. It is the classical music of the modern era.

What will people remember from the Beatles in 100 years?? Probably only Sgt. Peppers and the White album...their most experimental and complex stuff.

For today's music there are innovators as well, but they are fewer and farther between it seems. Maybe new ideas are hard to come by and seem derivative rather than novel?

Prog and heavy metal were innovative in the 70s, now they are old hat. What next? Pure noise? That has been done too and most understandably hate it.

There was a lot of cool electronica in the 90s and early 2000s ( The Orb, Orbital, Moby, William Orbit, NIN etc.). I loved grunge but it is basically a heavy metal retread of the Black Sabbath, Derp Purple sort. Soundgarden was my rock band of the 90s.

New forms will come down the road...to love and hate.
 

asiufy

Industry Expert/VIP Donor
Jul 8, 2011
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1969 is cherry picking. Check out just a few years later:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1974

I'm sure everyone on this thread cherishes their Redbone lp.


Hey! 1974 was a great year, man! What are you implying here? :)

hahaha

You might not like any of those (and I don't like either), but that top 100 was surely more diverse and musically richer overall the samey stuff we have today. Heck, they still employed a drummer those days!
 

the sound of Tao

Well-Known Member
Jul 18, 2014
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Sooooooooooooooooo many great ways to source new music today.

I love the "what are you listening to threads" and I have several streaming services where I am all over the new releases.

Just a great time to be a music lover.

Absolutely... the majority of pop has always been stylistically disposable but music that has the substance to survive the styles and become classics have always been rarer gems... there is as much great music coming out today as there always has.

Electronica, r n b, alternative, contemporary jazz fusion is a healthy supplement to a diet of the classics and traditional jazz. I love chamber music and minimalism and have been known to drive to work having a puccinifest but you've got to stay alive, just can't go locking yourself away forever in some dark, frozen past.

Music is a living, breathing culture that keeps you in touch with how people feel.

Roon and tidal is an injection of brilliant life, qobuz brings some greater latitudes. As my forever drug crazed art school mates used to succinctly point out... frak art, let's dance!
 

DexterMiller

Member
Jan 20, 2019
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Simple: kids have nothing left to "rebel" against...or: they're (now) so dependent on the prior generation feeding them a sense of entitlement, they don't want to risk losing it.

The only social-strata in the distant past where that mindset USED to predominate was with, either, the "trust fund babies" or the (proverbial) "born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-their-mouth" crowd. Today, though, the (false) security people equate to (mostly borrowed) money AND the egotrip from possessing material largesse (deemed "important"; by way of: a completely dumb advertising subculture selling an image back to them)...makes anyone they have influence upon reflect these very SOULLESS deficiencies.

Notice how the instant *fame* aspect is what the media concocts on these 21st century versions of "Amateur Hour" shows.
 

marty

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Why is today's pop music terrible?

In my opinion it isn't terrible.
Yes there is some banal music but there has always been banal music, I'm thinking the disco era here.
If you want to check out some new pop, I know that covers a lot of ground, then take a listen to some of my favourites below.
Just use YouTube or Tidal/Spotify for sound bites.
And when you look at how much music is available now via Soundcloud or Bandcamp, among others, we've never had it so good.

Sampha
Years and Years
Benjamin Clementine
Lo Moon
Daughter
London Grammar
Katy Perry
Justin Beiber
Daft Punk
Gallant
Sohn
Flume
Dancing Years
Nick Hakim
Lemon Twigs

The list could go on....
Just open your mind and feel the vibe.

That's funny. I would have used the same list to make the point about why today's music is indeed terrible! Here's a question for you. How many of these artists will be played with any frequency 30, 40 or 50 years from now?
 

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