I’ve been travelling in a car quite a bit these days. While playing music on the stereo, we typically choose one of two channels. The first one has all the modern songs – latest billboard hits and the like. The second channel is devoted to older songs. I’ve spend a fair amount of time listening to both and the conclusion I’ve reached is this: English music these days is utter crap. I thought I might be biased, so I visited the official billboard page and listened to the hit numbers with an open mind. Turns out I was right.
Modern Music Sucks
The first thing that strikes me is the beat. It seems every English song today is made for dancing in a disc. No slow music. No melody. Everything has a sort of heavy beat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – not at all. But there’s no variety. No blues, and no slow dance songs.
My second complaint is the subject of the songs. Without exception, they’re either about love, dancing, partying, or rap. Again, nothing wrong with those songs. Heck, love songs pretty much dominated my growing up years. But again, what pisses me off is that there’s nothing new. Not so long ago, there were songs which dealt with everything ranging from general angst and meaning in life (What if God was one of us), to how the radio is being replaced by TV (Radio Ga Ga.) Songs celebrating the life of artists (Vincent) and Enya’s awesome “Only time” are a few more examples of music dealing with a wide variety of issues.
And why do all the singers look like models? It seems to me that out of a sample of people who really have a talent for singing, only a very few will also have the gorgeous looks and pristine figures that almost every singer male or female seems to have these days. When I see every single artist looking like they stepped out of a magazine, I have to wonder at what criteria is being used to select them
What happened to all the songs for you know…adults? Those not meant for lovestruck teenagers or for those not in a partying mood? It seems they’ve gone the way of the dodo. One can’t even say that disco themed songs are inherently better – just look at the success of Metallica, Pink Floyd etc. There’s a space for all this type of music, but I just don’t seem to see any of it on the radio channels playing the latest songs. For that sort of thing I have to go to the “oldies” channel!
One possible reason I can think of for this state of affairs is that “dancy” songs make more money. They can be played and licensed out in discs and they have a certain native appeal that doesn’t require any effort to appreciate. Lazy music in other words. It doesn’t make you think. Like junk food. No nourishment, but sort of satisfies a need to fill the void with something. And of course, good looking singers sell well on album covers and in concerts. In the old days, if you could sing, that was it. Bands like Abba and Simon and Garfunkel weren’t reputed for their looks. Of course, some artists were icons like Madonna, Elvis and the Beatles. But they were rare. Most of the time there was no correlation between singing talent and good looks.
So is it just me? Is my observation flawed? Perhaps there really are different songs coming out these days which have melody instead of a dance beat and which address issues other than just love, partying and rap. But if so, I don’t hear them being played anywhere and that’s sad :(
Nice post. One of my favorite topics.
It’s not just you. Video did indeed kill the radio stars. Before MTV and the advent of multichannel cable TV and satellite it was far more important to be a good musician and artist than now. It’s a sad state of affairs. There are still a few good artists out there producing meaningful music, they just don’t fit the easily sell-able niche that big media promotes. Not to mention that some of them might lead to people thinking for themselves. Better to feed the masses an endless stream of light, fluffy, mindless drivel than to give us time to look around and see the sorry state of things in this world.
Want some thought provoking music not about love, sex, or endless parties, check out the last few releases from Rush. I’m sure there are others worth your time (you mentioned Metallica – very good), but I don’t “get out” as much as I used to so I’m not as familiar with newer artists.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy to keep the masses uninformed – the profit motive is enough explanation :) But you’re right in that media companies need to make sure music is well marketable…
No it’s not just you. This is one of the reasons why I listen to video game soundtracks and anime music. Lady Gaga is actually a talented singer, but I think the issue is with the whole music industry. It’s not about talent, it’s about promoting a brand. I mean, just look at Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga, well her music isn’t as endearing as it could be. Sometimes I think I should have become a pop singer, it doesn’t really require any talent. :)
That’s actually a very compelling argument for video game soundtracks – never thought of it that way! Now that you mention it, I have to agree with you.
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I’m with you on this – modern songs are ‘packaged’ by marketers, hence the model-like singers and slick videos…
I second your view. And a good analysis, must say. The comparison with fast-food seems apt.
The following comment might not be on topic at all, just an expression of whatever random thoughts crossed my mind. Hope, you don’t mind. :)
I remember you’d responded to someone in your comments that you were tad more comfortable with English than with Hindi, and since that day I’d been curious as to what kind of music do you like. :) When it comes to languages, it’s the reverse that holds true for me. :) So, I was waiting with baited breath to see if you mentioned any Hindi songs/singers/composers. :D
Then, somewhere you’d mentioned that you were trying to learn the piano, and because of your mentioning that I started paying greater attention to the piano part in songs of artists like Richard Clayderman. Then, I was awed by you, because I don’t have any knowledge/training in music, though I like to analyze it (in my own way) a lot, and I realized that piano must be a very, very difficult instrument to master. Another thing I realized about piano is that it can give provide both a tune and a rhythm (filling in for percussion instruments) to the song, and it is one of the of the very few or perhaps the only instrument that can give a feel of ‘completeness’, because of the various keys that can be hit at the same time (I hope, I’m making sense).
However, despite being so awed by the piano, somehow the instrument, the sound of which I like the best is the violin. :D
Anyway, more on to the topic, I actually hardly listen to English music. But since last two years, I had made it a point to listen to random English music, and a few favorites have emerged. One is Francis Lai – the song that I like most prominently is ‘theme from Love Story’ and its lyrical version – ‘Where do I begin’. I don’t know why I like that song very much. In fact, from a web site I’d downloaded around 55 cover versions of that song! Owing to that I came to know of the absolutely stunning skill that opera-kind of singing requires. Am referring to the renditions of Lesley Garrett and Tito Beltran that had totally mesmerized me. [I don't even know if any of the two is a very famous singer! :P ]
Apart from the above, one lady whose singing I always admired a lot has been Celine Dion – mainly of course for ‘My Heart will go on’.
But in addition to these kind of songs, which I like mainly for the associated melody and style of singing and the instrumentation (basically, the “auditory stimulation” part), you might consider crass the rest that I like. :D The Prodigy, Orbital, Darude, etc. *ahem* *ahem*. ;)
I don’t pay much attention to lyrics, actually. It is only when I would feel like humming a song, that my attention to lyrics might be drawn.
But as I said I hardly listen to English music. However surprisingly, your observations would also hold true for ‘Bollywood music’!
Bollywood songs hardly ever had anything deeply philosophical to offer in terms of lyrics; love (though not too teenagey, and perhaps, sort of more ‘mature’) has indeed been an eternal obsession with Bollywood. But then some of the old Hindi lyrics did have lot of profundity. Also, they were lot more melodious than the current lot of Hindi songs. I like some of the old Hindi songs for the romanticism inherent in the lyrics.
I’m a very young person to be commenting on such things, but I have a hypothesis for this trend in music – as to why it nowadays tends to stimulate with beats, appealing to mindlessness rather than stimulating us through melody and something profound to think about.
As technology has advanced, for most of the people, acquisition of basic resources for survival is no longer difficult. Whereas, in the past it was more difficult than now. So, most of the aspirations were related to fulfilling basic needs like food, clothing, housing, education, etc. And because most of the energy and time would be spent in acquiring those, tiredness would take over, and as nothing more could be envisioned as worthy of acquiring, any leftover time would be spent in leisurely pursuits – something that would soothe the nerves and calm down the people, and perhaps, also make them think and philosophize in that state of mind. However nowadays, as basic necessities are easily taken care of, most of the aspirations – directly or indirectly – relate to some kind of oneupmanship, showing others down, getting ahead of others. As you very well know, most of the time, energy and thoughts are rather expended in trying to escape the feeling of purposelessness of living. And that is most commonly done by getting into some or the other kind of ‘mindless’ contests – be it with real humans in the office, school exams, etc. or some virtual enemies in the computer games. Unlike in the past when the limit of when to stop exerting would be the point when basic necessities would be taken care of or one would get physically tired, nowadays, there is no limit! Why? Because there is no limit to the number of real or virtual ‘adversaries’ one could beat; there would always be someone ahead of you. This requires one to live in a state of trance, to continuously have high energy and enthusiasm. And that is what music full of beats facilitates. There is little physical fatigue, but it is the mental fatigue that needs to be warded off with this kind of music.
Hehe! Sorry, if my above hypothesis sounds too wacky, which did not make complete sense to even myself. :D
But I was forced to think of it, because of your post. I’d myself made your kind of observations with regard to Bollywood music, but then when from your post I realized that the trend had been similar in the West, then I was forced to think of the possible reasons. Of course, another reason why this could be so is because, the trendsetter for the movie & music industry in India is actually the West. So, whatever changes are taking place in the West, most Indians are sort of ‘blindly’ imbibing them thinking that to be ‘cool’ ‘cuz that would’ve originated in the West. If the last thing makes me sound like some Hindutvawaadi right-wing nutjob, well I can’t help it. It actually does seem to me that lot many in India actually ape whatever is Western out of peer pressure and wanting to appear ‘cool’.
PS: Could you please recommend me few more songs that you think are similar to ‘Where do I begin’? Thanks!
I never liked Hindi/Tamil songs. But these days when I happen to listen to them, I find them so much more melodious than the crappy English songs these days. I just hope that English music gets out of its rut soon.
You’re right in that a piano has much more flexibility than other instruments. But the musician pays a heavy price by having to play an instrument that is not portable and can’t fit neatly into a case like a flute or a violin. Even the guitar is easier to lug around!
Incidentally I used to play the opening notes of “Where do I begin” on the piano when I was in high school. Beautiful song :)
Talking about melodious music, have you seen the “Lord of the Rings?” I think some soundtracks there are beyond words. Take this short video on yotube showing Howard Shore conducting the piece on Concerning Hobbits. It always brings tears to my eyes…specially see how the conductor is enjoying the piece himself at 1:41! Also it shows a wide range of instruments and how each is contributing to the whole. Look at the old guy playing the flute – looks like a hobbit himself!
You have an interesting hypothesis and I’m sure there’s a nugget of truth somewhere in it. Ruminate on it a bit more and see what you come up with!
I’ll think about songs similar to “Where do I begin” and let you know! In the meantime, tell me if you like this type of song from Metallica (Youtube – “Nothing else Matters.)
I’m always wary of recommending music to anyone. One can never predict what another will like and I’m also careful not to demand anyone’s time.
I’m even more wary of recommending a book to someone – I’ll never say “You have to read xyz book!”
I’m not much into Western music (can hardly understand or follow what they are saying most of the time :-( …) but I think you’re basically right and its not just survivorship bias or any other kind of misleading memory.
If you want non-dance music maybe you should try to find sadder songs (or do they not make them anymore). To the extent that I followed music I think songs like “Another day in paradise” by Phil Collins, “Lemon Tree” by somebody, “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia and even “Frozen” by Madonna…they made it a bit dance-y but its still not that pulsating foot-stomper type… fit the bill from when I used to follow it and even then they were in the minority.
Even many of the sadder songs reflected on personal heartbreak nothing too deep. If youre talking Imagine or “Everybody wants to Rule the World” kind of territory I guess today’s music draws a blank.
To the extent that I know anything of it (ie .very little) , I guess rap music has some deeper themes all set to rap though. Rap, hip-hop and latino music are mostly dancey.
thanks,
Jai
Good selection of songs Jai :) Those are some of my favorites as well. I think sad songs these days are a rarity. Our culture places a lot of emphasis on being happy all the time and lots of people feel that being low sometimes means there’s something wrong with them, or that being low is for losers :)
To compare, I’m really really socked by some old Hindi film music. I just thought of Aandhi and cant get the songs out of my head…. will probably “hear” them all day now, which is kind of okay :-)
This may have something to do with cultural proximity or some affinity for the words/ cadences/ sounds of a language, even more than the meaning or what is being conveyed…. but no English song does this for me really.
And very few Hindi songs of today come close….. this is most probably survivorship bias though.
thanks,
Jai
Language might indeed have something to do with it…can’t say. But I guess sometimes the tune matters more than the words.
For example, this lullaby from the spanish movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” is sad/depressing/makes you wanna bawl irrespective of what words are put into it!
Dude, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are just getting old and out of touch with modern music. So am I. Back when we were young, the Bilboard charts were similarly full of pretty, forgettable people singing pretty, forgettable songs. We have now forgotten them. The real music of those times wasn’t generally in the top-10, wasn’t generally being played on the radio.
People complain that ‘modern’ songs are packaged by corporations. Well, so were the Spice Girls, the Beatles, Elvis, Bill Haley, ABBA, you name it. Don’t tell me ABBA weren’t reputed for their looks, I was there, (yes, I am that old) it was ALL about their looks. ABBA’s songs were all about love and dancing! How can you criticise the modern age for only producing “pretty people party music” and then cite ABBA?! They were the prototype!
What were ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Supertrooper’, ‘Waterloo’, ‘Does your mama know you’re around’, ‘Please, Please me’, ‘Twist and shout’, ‘I wanna hold your hand’, ‘Love me do’ etc, etc, etc, about if not about dancing and sex and love? Most of the beatles more ‘adult’ work came much later, and still most of their back catalog was lovesongs. They weren’t ‘The Jam’ or the ‘Boomtown Rats’ or even ‘Public Enemy’.
If you go and look up some old top-tens, you’ll see some terrible music riding high in the charts like ‘The Birdie Song’, remember that? No, you’re probably too young, and even if you aren’t you’ll have erased it from your mind!
Don’t you people remember disco? I do. Don’t go telling me music was better ‘back in the day’. Back in the day most of the music sucked, but we’ve forgotten most of the sucky stuff, just as most of the bad buildings that are ancestors built aren’t around any more. That’s why when you go to the ‘oldies’ channel, there’s generally a higher standard, because they aren’t playing all those endless, endless ranks of bad music from the past, much of that has probably even been lost by now. Certainly most radio stations aren’t keeping copies of Bros or Dana or Tiffany or MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice or even much of Lulu.
Bands like The Smiths who are now remembered as seminal were not often played on prime-time. But when we were young we were involved in social networks (mostly cassette-tape swapping in my case) that helped us to find the good stuff. Thus, looking back, we forget all the forgettable pap, and remember the more ‘underground’ quality work. We also tend to compress long periods of time into smaller units, thinking that all the good stuff we’ve ever heard bascially came out when we were 21.
If you want to find today’s good music, you’re going to have to dig beyond what’s played on prime-time radio. But it was ever thus, you’ve just forgotten that.
# So is it just me?
No. People have been saying this since the dawn of time. Your parents said it about the age you grew up in, and their grandparents said it about their age. You cite that things were different ‘not so long ago’. Well, while ‘Radio Ga Ga’ was doing the rounds, I was having the very same conversation with people who were saying there was nothing good around these days, and that stuff like ‘Radio Ga Ga’ was just nonsense set to bad music (and often claiming it was all about drugs). I’m sure you would agree they were wrong.
# Is my observation flawed?
Yes. You are out of the musical loop, and it now requires work to stay in it, I’m afraid.
#Perhaps there really are different songs coming out these days which have melody
There certainly are, although when people start asking for ‘melody’, I, who happen to like NOISE, kinda raise my eyebrows. But it’s out there, never fear.
#instead of a dance beat and which address issues other than just love, partying and rap.
Stuff that addresses issues tends not to be played on prime-time, and often gets banned (though less so these days) look for the late-night DJs, listen to stuff that sounds weird.
# But if so, I don’t hear them being played anywhere and that’s sad :(
If you rely on what’s pushed out for mass consuption, you’ll always be eating McDonalds. This isn’t a change, it’s always been this way. You have to go out there and dig around, just as you have to seek out decent restaurants. Once, when you were at school or college, social networks would have brought the music too you. Now they don’t so much, so you have to be more aggressive in looking for it.
Some suggestions I have, although there’s no guarentee you won’t hate them all, follow.
Every now and then one of the ‘pretty people’ does manage to produce a fairly good song that might even say something. I thought Christina Aguilaria pulled this off with ‘Beautiful’.
You might want to look at Muse’s “Black holes and revelations” album, which isn’t all love-songs (although what the songs are about is left as an exercise for the listener, which is just how it should be).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXit0vly2I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkIrvuU_zE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II-hPx8aOD0
I also think that the ‘Foo Fighters’ “Echos, Silence and Grace” album contained some good, varied work. You might like ‘Statues:’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwZ1j2q33Yg
which is a kinda love song, but with an unusual sentiment, I think. On the other hand compare and contrast with ‘The pretender’ from the same album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EU-Xwm7RY.
Kasabian is another band that have recently been blipping my radar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuPK6KgSjno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5up8kJoCsJM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd0Y1Sko7hA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOSuObRNBUA
These are all from the rock end of the spectrum, as that’s what I know best. In the realm of rap, there’s ms dynamite who, at least in this track, had something to say about the state of that genre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T87IFnanRPA
Lilly Allen was also saying something here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F-lqOrRcIY
These are all fairly ‘prime-time’ bands mind you. I suspect that for the real, real good stuff, you’re going to have to dig deeper. Thing was, when you were younger you had time to do that. Now, I suspect you’re having to hold down a job and stuff, and don’t have the time, and so you percieve there’s no good music out there.
If you only have time to eat fast food, it doesn’t mean that only fast food is available.
Colum
If I understand your point of view correctly, you seem to be saying two things:
1. “Good” music these days is buried under the more trashy songs. There may certainly be some truth to that. But it also implies that the bands we like today weren’t popular in their time. But from what I know, this wasn’t quite the case. The bands which we like today were hugely successful in their time as well.
2. Time makes us think some songs are good when people thought they were awful – you gave radio ga ga as an example. While I certainly am getting old, I’ve never had a problem with love songs. I’ve said as much in my post and I acknowledge that most of the songs even before were romantic. And a lot of them were very good indeed.
My point is that I like variety. And I don’t find variety these days. Some people like melody, and others (like you) prefer a different sort of music. The crux of my point is that music these days caters to one type and not the other.
Finally, I made a mistake talking about Abba. I was referring to Boney M.
# But it also implies that the bands we like
# today weren’t popular in their time. But from
# what I know, this wasn’t quite the case. The bands
# which we like today were hugely successful in their
# time as well.
It depends on what you mean by ‘bands which we like today’, as there’s every chance we don’t have so much common ground on that, and also by ‘hugely popular’.
ABBA where hugely popular, but I see them as being exactly the kind of band that you are chastising the modern world for producing, and to be honest I think the same of Boney M. Bands which had ‘something to say’ politically, like ‘Billy Bragg’ or ‘The Jam’ were nothing like as popular. A lot of people seem to cite ‘Rush’ these days as having been big. I got through the 80′s without even knowing they existed, and still don’t think I’ve ever heard their work. Similarly I was around when punk was happening, but you saw very, very, very few punks about, and never heard the music on the radio.
Your claim is as old as music itself. My parents said that bands like Queen, The Jam, Talking Heads, and even at one point Bob Dylan (who was from their own time!?) were tuneless garbage devoid of meaning. They did like Simon and Garfunkle though. My dad liked ‘Boney M’ which was very strange, given he hated most everything else around at the time. I’m not sure what was behind that.
After them I’ve met legions of people who all claim the same thing ‘back in my day (whenever that was) we had real music. This modern stuff is rubbish.’ They can’t all be right, because some of them said this about the very same music that others now cite as having been great.
Time works as a great editor, only putting the best works on the ‘keep’ pile and throwing away the rest. We know the past through ‘best of’ albums and ‘oldie’ radio, on which only a very select ‘best of the best’ playlist is offered.
If you want to find the good music today, you’ve got two choices I’m afraid:
1) Spend time and effort searching for it, you won’t find it on prime time radio, and you never would have.
2) Get a time machine. Go 20 years into the future. Find someone complaining about how ‘All the music today sucks’. They will be able to tell you about all the great music they grew up with in the early two-thousands, which there’s nothing like in 2035. Now you can go back and buy all that music!
I think you’re pulling my leg about Boney M, btw.
Colum
While it might be tempting to use inductive reasoning in this matter (it was said before therefore it’s also said today), this isn’t really valid logic. There’s indeed a possibility that this time is different – and that’s what my post is about.
Granted, there’s a chance that you’re right – but the case has to be determined on its own merits.
For instance throughout the ages, each generation has thought that their age might be the last. Usually from an imagined apocalypse and that the end is “just around the corner.” People say it today too. And while I don’t believe the end is around the corner, we have a much better understanding of the forces which play on the earth and things like Climate Change etc. pose a legitimate threat. So it’s different from those days where it was said out of ignorance.
Similarly, I’m saying that we have to look at things afresh and not dismiss a possibility merely because it was wrong in the past.
Finally, you don’t seem to understand my main point. I don’t mind today’s music! There are some really good songs. My point is about variety. Just take a second look at what I’ve written.
Dude, I did read what you’d written, it’s insulting for you to imply I didn’t. You wrote this:
“Music These Days Sucks Balls”
If you didn’t mean that, you shouldn’t have written it, it’s confusing to write one thing and then claim another.
You can tell I read it because I addressed issues that you raised about musicians who ‘just look pretty’. These very same complaints were being made 20 years ago, during the very times that use cite as being ages of ‘better music’. I know, ’cause I was there.
I also used quotes from what you wrote in discussion, so I’d clearly read it. If I misunderstood your position, well, if you’re going to slap a title like “Music these days sucks balls” on a post, people are naturally going to read it from the viewpoint that you are arguing modern music is bad, because that was your opening statement.
As for inductive reasoning not being valid logic, this is equivalent (at least in this case) to saying that an event has been seen to happen time and time and time again for well known reasons, but when it happens *this* time, the reasons are different, it must be ‘determined on its own merits’. For instance, a politician might say “all the previous candidates in my position lost because they ran an ineffective campaign. But I lost because there was a secret conspiracy against me”. It might be true, but it is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary proof.
Incidentally, though Hume pointed out that we’ve got no grounds for trusting inductive logic, our entire scientific world view is constructed upon it. The charge on an electron is observed to have always been constant in the past, and is expected to stay constant in the future, and is believed to be constant across the universe. We have no real grounds for believing it will stay constant, but we expect it will (don’t be telling me that quark or string theory allows us to deduce the charge on an electron, it’s the other way around, we build the theories to fit the observed facts. If tomorrow the measured charge on an electron is different, we will throw those theories out and start cooking new ones).
Indeed, you are using induction yourself. You’ve listened to a radio station, that you’ve heard while in the car, and checked out a website ‘top 100′ list, and drawn conclusions about today’s music. Maybe you’re just listening to a bad radio station, maybe it’s just a bad week in music, right now? You are making observations and drawing conclusions from them.
As for there being no variety, listen to ‘Radiohead’, or ‘Coldplay’, then listen to ‘Rammstein’ or ‘The Prodigy’. You may not like them, but you have to admit they sound nothing alike.
Also, in measuring variety you compare music spanning almost twenty years (‘Radio Ga Ga’, 1984, to Enya in 2001) with music that’s in the billboard chart right in this instant. I can use this same argument (as you do with scientists elsewhere) to prove that we are in the end times and society is collapsing, because there’s nothing around to measure up to the past. Consider athletes, does the modern age have a boxer to measure up to Muhammad Ali? Does it have iceskaters of the standard of Torvill and Dean? Does it have weight-lifters comparable to Samson? Do we have writers comparable to Austen and Shakespeare and Chaucer? By drawing on the best of an extended period of time (which is just what ‘Oldies’ channels do) you can always produce a grab-bag of works or persons that’s better than what’s around today (provided you define ‘today’ narrowly enough).
There was a fair bit of variety in the music I posted links to, if variety is your real problem. The ‘Foo Fighters’ tracks had one slow and one fast/rocky piece. The ‘Muse’ tracks include one symphonic prog-rock piece in the style of ‘queen’, ‘Miss Dynamite’ is rap. The topics are fairly varied too, Muse’s “Take a bow” is about the current attacks by our own governments on the democratic institutions of our societies. Lilly Allen’s piece is about the emptiness of consumer/celebrity culture, Miss Dynamite’s is a critique of the way rap music portrays itself and the people associated with it, Kasabian’s “Where did all the love go?” is asking what happened to the revolutionary ‘make love not war’ movements of the 60s. The others are more ‘open’ in their meaning, some of them could be about almost anything.
And I’m no expert on modern music, being old myself. I’m sure a young person could give you some pointers to where the modern ‘music for adults’ is. But it tends not to be on daytime radio, and it never was.
Here’s some more links on the ‘not about parties and love’ tip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmfFmxJhtxU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_2PfPtf3no
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePg1tbia9Bg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp1fQ51YZMM
I’m not trying to insult you at all. I appreciate the time you spend giving your opinion, and though discussions can sometimes get heated, there’s no ill will behind it all.
I said what I did, because I’ve mentioned in my post that I grew up on love songs. I also realize that love is probably the easiest subject to sing about and that because of this there will almost always be a preponderance of love songs in comparison with others.
It’s my contention that there are fewer famous songs these days which deal with other topics vis a vis some time back.
It’s valid to question inductive reasoning when circumstances change. So if I have reason to believe that the solar system has undergone a radical change, my questioning whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow is valid. If nothing has changed, then it’s silly to question inductive reasoning.
Indeed, your entire premise is that nothing has changed in the music industry/corporate world in the past few decades – or else you wouldn’t be equating the two time periods. I’m saying that things have changed. Corporations have become bigger than they used to be and it’s easier for them to not take risks with songs which people may not like. This is probably one reason why R-rated fantasy movies will probably never be seen again.
Finally, your assertion that music for adults was never popularized on radio is just plain wrong. There are many examples of such songs which were absolute hits when they came out.
Examples are The Sound of Silence, and Yesterday Once more (about old songs/memories). There are so many more examples of “adult” songs which took the world by storm and stayed at the top of the billboard charts that I’m having difficulty figuring out whether your assertion that there were none is actually serious or just a “feeling” which you have.
It’s not tough to figure out that slow songs which used to be on popular radio no longer feature. Songs these days are meant to be danced to. Try to play “Sound of Silence” in a disco and see the reaction!
About sports, I don’t know much about boxing, but in many sports, there currently are greats which we recognize when they’re very much in their prime. Examples in Tennis:Federer, Nadal, Sampras…In Golf we have Tiger Woods. In Basketball we had Jordan. In chess we had Kasparov, and even these days we have Anand and Magnus Carlson. I’m sure there are many more in sports I don’t know about. Come one, you’ve chosen a poor analogy to get your point across :)
#Its my contention that there are fewer famous songs these days
#which deal with other topics vis a vis some time back.
I thought it was that songs aren’t varied? It’s changed again?
Also, when do you mean by ‘some time back’? I don’t remember a time when the situation you’re describing existed. There have, throughout time, been a few famous songs about things other than the evergreen topic of love, but they’ve always been few. You manage to gather a lot of them by casting your net over a long period, if you are comparing like-for-like you should compare at most one year, against one modern year. Even then, you can be unfortunate in the choice of years.
#It’s valid to question inductive reasoning when circumstances change. So if I
#have reason to believe that the solar system has undergone a radical change
If you have a good reason, yes. But what is your reason? All your observations are things that have always been the case, the billboard 100 has always been full of pap, there’s never been a time when it wasn’t. The great songs were never all in the chart at the same time, one would appear, amidst all the meaningless pop. Abba is a case in point, Abba was meaningless pop, people love it, but it was meaningless pop. Michael Jackson was mostly meaningless pop. And it wasn’t varied, when disco was in, everything was disco.
# Indeed, your entire premise is that nothing has changed in the
# music industry/corporate world in the past few decades
No it isn’t, every thing always changes all the time. In my day cassettes were a big change, did cassettes make my dad right in saying that all the music of the 70′s and 80′s was garbage? No, it didn’t. But things had changed!
You can’t use the existence of change to justify any argument, you have to show there’s been relevant change. I’m not saying there hasn’t been change, but I am saying that there is a known cause for the phenomenon your are citing, and that this cause hasn’t changed. The fact that other thing may have changed doesn’t matter. You are claiming that we are seeing the same results as always, but that the causes are suddenly different
# or else you wouldnt be equating the two time periods.
well, you equate them too, otherwise you can’t do any comparisons.
#Im saying that things have changed.
I know.
# Corporations have become bigger than they used to be and it’s
# easier for them to not take risks with songs which people may not like.
Except they do, all the time, that’s why there’s so many CD’s in remainder bins. Bands that people thought would make it, but didn’t.
#This is probably one reason why R-rated fantasy movies will probably
# never be seen again.
Don’t know what these are, so i can’t say.
# There currently are greats which we recognize when they’re very
# much in their prime.
You say this, but at least two of the names you give are out of the past. Kasparov was from the 80′s, if you can include him in sports, then every single piece of music you named is from ‘these days’, not from the past. Similarly Michael Jordan is retired, he joined the Chicago Bulls the same year that ‘Radio Ga Ga’ came out. Sampras is retired too, he debuted in 1988!! These are all names from the past, you even use past tense for most of them!
#In Golf we have Tiger Woods.
This one I will give you, he is a modern great. That’s one.
#Anand and Magnus Carlson.
Who and who?
In tennis, you should have named the Williams sisters, I think they’re still active.
#Im sure there are many more in sports I dont know about.
No, if you don’t know about them, then they don’t exist. That’s what you’re doing with music, you’re saying that good music doesn’t exist because you don’t know about it.
#Come one, youve chosen a poor analogy to get your point across :)
No, I think it works rather well, as has just been shown.
But, at the end of the day I think I’m wasting my time. I had this argument with my Dad, he said exactly the same things you are now saying about the very music you now list as ‘greats’. He said radio Ga Ga was childish rubbish with baby noises for lyrics. He said Kate Bush was only a star because of her looks. He said all modern music was just for dancing to. I never convinced him, he didn’t want to be convinced. He liked Boney M, I never knew why, but everything else he thought was rubbish (including the Rolling Stones, even the Beatles, I think. He liked cowboy songs.)
Someone will have the same argument with those who come after us, they will point to all the great songs that there were in the early 2010′s, and say that the music of the 2030′s (if we still have music, and I assume we will) doesn’t measure up. They will say it’s because the market’s changed.
You wanted to know where the varied music was, I gave you some links, you can follow them up or not. You can carry on believing, as you seem to, that the modern age is lacking in great music, great scientists, and I’m sure later you’ll claim other great things are missing too. In doing this, you’ll be treading a groove laid down by every generation that went before, and they all though that ‘no, this time it’s for real, this time it’s different’.
The music is out there, the science is out there, its all out there and always has been. You can engage with it, or you can reject it and stay in the bubble of the past. It’s up to you.
I’ve given you several examples of slow famous songs which were absolute hits in their day. You haven’t addressed even one of them till now.
As a final example, take “Stairway to heaven” widely voted as the greatest rock song of all time. Slow melancholy…and to quote Wikipedia “It was the most requested song on FM radio stations in the United States in the 1970s.”
That would never happen today.
But according to you, that doesn’t fit into your theory of great songs only being recognized 30 years later. I’ve given you other examples as well. Don’t ignore the evidence and keep making a claim that is proven wrong.
totally agree with u…i m still stuck on oldies!! I havent listened to even one song by lady gaga or beiber or green day or coldplay yet!! maybe i m being the frog in the well but well…i m sure i wont like such music.
In general I have a problem with any music that’s based on the personality of the person rather than the music behind it. All the great songs I love are great songs. The person who sings them is a distant second. Only a few exceptions to this rule exist like Madonna and Michael Jackson…and even they bombed out later on when their music quality began to deteriorate.
Totally agree with you on this subject.. Indeed, today’s music sucks..
The kind of music put forth by Lady Gag-me and her like are so obnoxious that it takes ‘music’ to an altogether different level. But, mind it Music, and Hollywood are very BIG mind control tools in the hands of the Elites who run the world from behind the scene. So you will get to see more crap in the name of music like there. The symbolism is heavy and you need a post grad. degree to discern what they are portraying through the music and movies of today. Vigilant Citizen does a great job of exposing these, apart from others.
I have to add, not only is making music not about looks, but in the 90′s there were many scandals involving “visually appealing” models lip-syncing real musician’s music (e.g Milli Vanilli, Black box, C+C Music Factory)
What we have today is the same Milli Vanilli, except there is no good background music for them to lip-sync (i.e. Britney Spears – it’s just talking, not even singing).
I say I want real artists like the REAL Milli Vanilli (Brad Howell, John Davis, Jodie Rocco, Linda Rocco and Charles Shaw), and Martha Walsh (the real singer of C+C music factory)
Cheers,
I AGREE 100%!! But there IS good music out there you just have to LOOK. Some examples: Sade, John Legend, Dido and my latest discovery: Jazz Liberatorz (sooo fucking good man you dont even understand!). Youtube them. These are some good songs by Jazz Liberators: The process, U do, Speak the Language, I am Hip Hop, When the Clock Ticks, Vacation. The incorporate Jazz and Hip Hop…the sound is amazing!
Most of the music advertised anywhere completely sucks balls, end of story, its not even a debate i mean if you actually think about itm c’mon you’ve got to be retarded or have shitty taste to like any of it. really.
hey dont give me all this old people stuff im 13 years old and i think the music these days is CRAP. it might be surprising but i listen to a lot of music from the 60s-80s . all i listen to is classic rock and the oldies stations
:)
i hope rock music comes back. the best music now adays is indie rock as most studios arent hirinng rock bands so rock is like a under ground thing now
Stop listening to the radio and start listening to indie music.
E.g. Arcade Fire, Florence and the Machine, The Black Keys…I could go on and on. If you want any specific recommendations for songs let me know.
Good music still exists…it’s just not on the radio anymore.
Yeah! i was actually talking to one of my friends a while ago about this. Espicially, no “artists” don’t even have to sing. All they need is to look good, and all the company need is auto tune. It’s just disgusting…
This subject about no good modern music can be applied to almost everything these days. These days really are different. The list would fill 5000 pages of all that is different today. Our food that we eat is different. The weight of all sorts of packages is getting smaller and smaller. They don’t make 5 pound bags of sugar anymore, Most of them are now 4 pounds, and cost more! That’s just a small example of how things are different these days. I’m 55 years old and have always made a point to notice how the world is changing. In my opinion, things were better before. Before the Internet, NO ONE would have heard about the guy who burned the koran, Us humans are getting way way too much info these days. We are talking to each other WAY to much on cell phones, social networks etc. We know way too much about what others are doing in other countries. Because we have China make all our stuff, they will be the rulers of the world one day. When we only had 13 TV stations it caused us all to be on the same page as each other. And that was better! With 500 or more different channels these days, no one is on the same page. This commenting page is better than most, but have you ever noticed that most commenting pages always end up getting very rude by about the 5th comment? I used to really love the Internet, but its just so filled with mindless junk these days that i hardly want to go on it anymore. And there are so many intrusions on the Internet these days. I know I’m sounding all doom and gloom but the original commenter makes a very good point. Wherever i go, be it the supermarket or whatever, the new pop music all sounds like one long song. A Lot of the pop music today sounds just like so many other bands. Of Course there is still great music being made but as another commenter said, you have to make the time to find it. The radio will not give it to you. If your not a strong person, the trends today would leave you depressed constantly. The reason most young people don’t see this point of view is because they didn’t live through the years when life was better. They were born into this truly upside down world, to them all the crap is normal. When they read about the past its just not enough for them to realize the difference. You really have to be older like me to really see that life these days is much harder than the old days. It used to be that if you made what your rent is, in one weeks working, than you would always have enough money to live. That definitely no longer applies. We are all busting our asses off just to pay the stupid bills! Everything is all wrong these days. Only the super rich are living the old dream, the rest of us are struggling. We all try to do the best we can but greed from all angles is constantly pushing us down. Just take a good hard look at the state our country is in. Its a mess. I’m a renter, my rent is 1500 a month for a lousy 2 bedroom townhouse, in 1980 this same house was 180 a month. Thank God i make enough to cover my rent but its just ridiculous. Own a house? Ya right!! One or two missed mortgage payments and your credit is toast for years! I’m done with the credit world altogether! You probably cant tell by the words I’m writing, but for the most part i am a happy person. I just utterly hate the way the world has evolved over the last 10 years or more. The Internet in my opinion is the culprit. Its causing so many stores in the real world to close. Its destroying books, real music Cd’s. Were getting conned that mp3s are the way to go even though an mp3 cuts out half the sound quality of the music to keep the file size small. Man, I could go on and on about this subject. If we could cut the line to the Internet, throw our cell phones away, get rid of 487 TV channels and just have the original 13, we as humans would learn to love each other again. There might even be another Woodstock!! We dont need to know about all the bull crap going on in other countries, we need to focus on US, and America! Unfortunatly it doesnt appear as though thats going to happen anytime soon and i am now the odd one who doesnt fit in this changed world. If i didnt have my wife and son to come home to and who give me all that the current world cant anymore, well i would not be here to write this.