Why do people complain about "how bad music is today"?

[Sir Hugsalot 8,621]

Yes, there are lots of lesser known bands. 90% of them are crap too.

To judge on that You'd have to know them all. And I doubt anyone here managed to get to know them all. 

[Moonlight 7,279]

Because the "90z were so muc bettr! i know all about musik" type of mentality basically. Each decade has both good and bad music, some people are way too narrow-minded to acknowledge that fact.

 

Yes, there are lots of lesser known bands. 90% of them are crap too.

List off 90% of lesser known bands that are considered "crap". Go ahead, 90% of them, you obviously know all lesser known bands, so name them. 

 

(By the way just because you think a band is "crap" doesn't mean it is. ) 

[Sir Hugsalot 8,621]

Because the "90z were so muc bettr! i know all about musik" type of mentality basically. Each decade has both good and bad music, some people are way too narrow-minded to acknowledge that fact.

 

List off 90% of lesser known bands that are considered "crap". Go ahead, 90% of them, you obviously know all lesser known bands, so name them. 

 

(By the way just because you think a band is "crap" doesn't mean it is. ) 

Also I'd like to add that in 90s people were saying that 80s music was better, so...

 

inb4 future generations saying that Justin Bieber was such amazing artist, because he is from glorious 10s :comeatus:

[Moonlight 7,279]

Also I'd like to add that in 90s people were saying that 80s music was better, so...

 

inb4 future generations saying that Justin Bieber was such amazing artist, because he is from glorious 10s :comeatus:

Excuse you but I'd like to add that in 2020, Justin Bieber's "Beauty and the Beat" shall be the most intellectually stimulating piece of music ever produced. 

 

Don't hate the music from the decade before, its obv better than whatever future generations have to offer    

[VitalSpark 1,830]

 

 

List off 90% of lesser known bands that are considered "crap". Go ahead, 90% of them, you obviously know all lesser known bands, so name them.

 

Of course I can't name them. Half of them probably don't even have names. They're just kids in garages across the world trying to play guitar. The good bands, you hear about through word of mouth. The bad bands, you never hear about. The good bands are the tip of the iceberg. The bad bands are that other 90% that's under the water which you never see.

 

Seriously, go to an open mic night at a local pub and listen to what is on offer. Very few of them will be actively painful to listen to, but you're not going to be queuing up to buy their music either. And that's just the bands that have judged themselves "ready" to play such a gig. For every one of them, there are another four or five bands still practising in their garages, most of whom will give up before they reach that stage.

 

 

 

(By the way just because you think a band is "crap" doesn't mean it is.)

 

Of course one man's trash is another man's treasure. Tastes are subjective. Because I like a band, doesn't mean you will.

 

But unless you're extremely unfussy about the music you listen to, I'd guess that the proportion of music you judge to be good, is roughly the same as the proportion of music I would. The sets may or may not overlap very much, but the sets are roughly the same size.

[SilverStarApple 849]

The music industry today is a machine where you pour in money to make a crapton more money, and you only see the tiniest percentage of it... Thought of course, that's enough for you, because those are the numbers we are talking about here.

 

You can pay radio stations to play your song. Flood the airwaves with enough crap, maybe have them call it "A chart show" so the radio loser don't have to say anything clever and they only need to click the play button on songs, and of course, if you play a stupid song enough times and tell people it's good and "Popyoolar", sheeple will fall over themselves trying to buy it. Say you buy a lame radio station with 1,000 listeners daily. Pay them to play your song 10 times. Even if 80% or even 60% of the sheeple are dumb enough to buy your crappy music, that's a big paycheck slamming straight into your bank. And then, when those people share on facebook and blah blah blah, viral infection like the bubonic plague blah, more and more people will buy your crappy simple autotuned took-10-mminute-to-make recycled-lyrics artificial-boyband all-singing no-dancing no-instrument-playing crappile of a song... And if you make another song, they'll buy it, and your new fans will also buy it.

You can pay radio stations to NOT play your rivals's songs.

You can hire Clickfarms in developing countries, big offices or sweatshops or whatever where people with computers spend all day liking facebook pages, upvoting apps on Google Apps, subscribing to youtube channels, and watching cetain minutes's worth of youtube vids. For every 1000 or so clicks, they make barely-minimum wage.

You can hire morons to slander the crap out of competitors and cause fake arranged scandals.

You can do the same to your own star, if they're the type to be smart and not do stupid crap to remain in the public eye.

Pay off a loser to make a scene, then pay them off to shut up about it once the moment's passed and make sure they won't take you to court. You want crap to get into the crappy "Goss" (Because even the word Goss-ip is too hard for some cowlike/sheeplike subhumans to pronounce) and tabloid magazines, ou don't want to deal with actual crap.

And of course, the always-classic, get your crappy song into a good movie so people will associate your song with that movie's scene. Mediocre rock just gained awesome points thanks to the scene of that Micheal Bay Wannabe's mediocre film.

[Dattebayo 2,850]

Not only is that narrow minded, but classic rock isn't even an actual genre. It's a radio format, the term was made up in the 80's.

One of most narrow minded opinions I've ever read, no offence.

I don't care lol

 

You guys go ahead listen to whatever booty-poppin and emo whining you guys want. Your Bruno Mars, your Lady Gagas, your Nikki Minajs, your Avenged Sevefolds, your Black Veil Brides, I won't stop you. I'll stick to what I know and love and CONTINUE to be a musical hermit.

Not only is that narrow minded, but classic rock isn't even an actual genre. It's a radio format, the term was made up in the 80's.

Also, doesn't matter, does it? It exists, right? I listen to it?

All your doing with your semantics is making me lol

Edited December 17, 2014 by Dattebayo

[DND 2,354]

Personally, I think popular music today is lyrically awful.

 

This is why I have some personal issues with the modern genres.. Not only is lacking quality lyrically, the melody itself just seems half-assed. I focus on instrumental parts or chords before I start paying attention to lyrics. I only find that hard to do with songs such as this:

 

 

(The lyrics aren't half bad but the melody is really hard to listen too- I really can't stand this song) 

[Sir Hugsalot 8,621]

 

You guys go ahead listen to whatever booty-poppin and emo whining you guys want. Your Bruno Mars, your Lady Gagas, your Nikki Minajs, your Avenged Sevefolds, your Black Veil Brides, I won't stop you. I'll stick to what I know and love and CONTINUE to be a musical hermit.

 

What if I tell You that I don't listen to any of bands You've mentioned?

 

Quit making assumptions.

 

 

And before I hear "those are examples" - those are not even similiar to what I am listening to. 

 

And since You obviously would rather act superior over others than discuss no more replies from me. And I don't care neither.

[Kankuro 233]

People complain because they most likely grew up with classical, soft music.

But nowadays it's all electronic, dubstep, techno. It's a complete turn in the other direction for a lot of people, especially the elderly. The elderly are used to soft, classic music, but when they hear dubstep, they hate it because it's not what they're used to hearing I guess.

[AppleGearRising 525]

I don't like the vast majority of today's mainstream music 'cause it's simply the same crap played over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

 

I swear I'm going freaking insane from listening to radio stations pump out the same rubbish every single day .-.

[Dattebayo 2,850]

What if I tell You that I don't listen to any of bands You've mentioned?

 

Quit making assumptions.

 

 

And before I hear "those are examples" - those are not even similiar to what I am listening to.

 

And since You obviously would rather act superior over others than discuss no more replies from me. And I don't care neither.

You "in general", guy. Stop looking to be offended.

They definitely ARE examples. The broadest of the broad, since as I said, you IN GENERAL, not you YOU.

 

Hey, anyone can listen to whatever they want. I said as much.

You're the dude who's coming at ME with the "herka derka close minded" stuff. How am i supposed to react to that? Thank you sir, may I have another?

Edited December 17, 2014 by Dattebayo

[Miles 2,512]

Good question.

Let me start by saying: Music is music.  One can only give their personal opinion about what they like and dislike.  Therefore it is but a mere personal opinion when someone says that new music is bad.  It is erroneous for a person to declare that such an era of music sucks in general because if it exists and other people like it, it cannot logically be bad in general.  It can only be one's own opinion to say that they do not like it.

Now, for my own view on music:

Personally, I listen to mostly rock music from the late 80s, all throughout the 90s, and into the early 00s.  I love Nu Metal and Alternative Rock.  My personal favorite bands are, in no specific order: Adema, Korn, Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, and many others.

Now, just because I like those bands from that era, doesn't mean I don't like other music.  I have older parents who introduced me to many other kinds of music from many eras.  I like music from many older bands and artists such as: Johnny Cash, The Beatles, The Who, The Beach Boys, Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and many other bands from years before I was born.

I also like a few oddball other bands/artists from genres that don't quite match my usual tastes: Eiffel 65, Alanis Morissette, Jamey Johnson, Pentatonix, Ellie Goulding, Skrillex, and many others.

Of course I can also mention some artists from our very own fandom such as DJ Pon3, Rabies Bun, and a few others.

I have a wide array of music that I like.  Of course there are a few that I don't like, but that's to be expected.

So, is new music bad?  No.  Do I like it?  Some of it.  

And lastly, to the original question: Why do people complain about "how bad music is today?"

Because they don't like it.  Lol, it's that simple.  Deal with it.

If you don't like hearing it, quit listening to them.

 

 

 

 

~ Miles

[Plato's Pony 455]

There's still good and bad music these days and there was good and bad music in the past, as there always will be.  However, I do agree that most of that mainstream stuff on the radio is pretty bland, they all have similar themes, most of them are either about drugs, sex, girlfriends, butts, or all four of those things.  Most mainstream songs are what I call blocks of concrete, they don't have that "punch", that big wave of emotions you get when listening to them.  But that's just me.

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

 

 

Now, what I don't understand is people my age who say things like, "I was born in the wrong generation, 80's music is better" or something like "I'm 14 and I'm sorry for what my generation did to music". What exactly did my generation do that was "SO BAD"? Please explain to me. 

Because we live in an age of musical stagnation & decline. The business is failing to adapt to modern tech and is dying. It is now relegated to bars and clubs, with artists desperate to appeal to the broad demographic, rather than letting creativity draw the fans in. That and this age of political correctness and abundant lawsuits has made for a very careful industry. To put it simply, the magic is gone.

 

Why is the 80's a good example? It was the music boom. Every genre was firing on all cylinders. MTV & VH1 brought music to the masses. Portable Radios & devices were cheaper and CDs + cassettes upped the convenience & quality. The gold standard was the platinum record. Then Napster & the list of new millenium disasters changed the world. Fun fact: Not a single artist or band in any genre has sold a platinum record in 2014 America. 

 

 

 

I've seen people say "Back then artist wrote their own music". What the heck? They still do, and they always will. It's always been that way and always will.

Check the credits. A large portion of pop artists and glam bands have lyrics written for them. 

 

 

 

Another one I've seen thrown around is "I'm X years old and I listen to Y". Your age is irrelevant, now shut it.

Very relevant. I was 4 years old & I listened to the Offspring and The Lion King OST.  I was 10 and I listened to Limp Bizkit & Godsmack. When I was 16 I listened to Three Days Grace & Bullet for my Valentine. These days I now focus more on sub genres than bands. Right now I'm listening to Anthrax. The point is that music tastes evolve with age. 

 

 

 

Then, there's the "Music was so much better back then". Look, there's always been both good and bad music, there will always be both good and bad music, and it will always be like that, forever.

But then there's better and worse music.  Stuff will always be compared. I think 80s speed metal will trump most of what's being done today. Even in pop music, the themes today are rather repetitive, and I don't like the route rap music has gone. Music can progress and degenerate over time. 

 

 

 

"But I hate what's on the radio, it's all Lady Gaga and Katy Perry mainstream pop crap". How about you stop listening to the radio and look for music somewhere else? 

Not everyone has spotify in there car. Not everyone has an MP3 on them. Not all businesses and waiting rooms play intelligent music, my workplace being a prime example. When all you have is the radio, you're either stuck with what's on, or uncomfortable silence. 

 

 

 

"Good music is just so hard to find these days." No it's not, if I can find some, you can find some too. 

You're definition of "good" music and the efforts gone through to find them may differ from mine and everybody elses.

 

 

 

So now tell me, what is it exactly that you don't like about todays music? Please, just tell me. What's so "bad" about it?

Repetitive simplistic themes that don't engage me. I want engaging lyrics, skillful playing and I want the music to either excite or sooth me. Anything in between or lacking the former is a waste of time. 

 

 

There is good music out there. Lots of it. It just isn't the popular, mainstream thing on the airwaves. And it's frustrating. 

[Plageius 263]

Lol I was so edgy back in the day haha

Edited September 18, 2016 by Arctic Monkeys FTW

[Trot Shuffle 3,593]

I think really people just don't vibe with it because their ears are used to a specific style and genre that it's super difficult to encourage different stuff to join in. Nostalgic and other personal tastes as well, mostly. Some do have personal attachment, others wanted to be rebellious and listen to whatever is new and different than their parents. Every generation had experienced this and every generation prior to it kept calling the new stuff bad. It'll never change.

Really, a good selection of sounds (yes, that means acoustic and live instruments too) and great arrangement will always carry a song most of the way to someone's ears. It doesn't matter what style or genre it is, they all need this.

 

The only industry I can complain about is modern mainstream K-Pop, because of how toxic the (crazy) fans and execs are to the artists. It's those "boy bands" and Disney singers but somehow a worse scenario? I couldn't take it when I heard about artists moving around groups like they're sports teams. Uhh, what??? Also the many game shows they hold to put people together when they haven't even had time to meet and see if they even like to work together until they "win" and can be in a group and start pumping music videos out (at least from what I've seen). I can't get myself to support any of that! Every other style and genre of music doesn't experience this issue to the same level! Why people support that sort of toxicity and overworking-ness is beyond me.

I get it, love the music (they are very catchy!) but you don't need to tolerate this bad behavior at all! You'd have more consistently good music if your favorite bands/groups or artists weren't squeezed for every little bit of money they could get.

Or, at the very least think about it like this: those big label execs wouldn't have anything if they never had the bands/groups or artists signed under them, so they better treat them properly. They're not the ones writing the songs or choreography or whatever else. They're sitting in a board room trying to figure out the next sucker to squeeze money from either with a bad contract or sudden popularity. (yes it goes beyond K-Pop too, but that's a completely separate topic.)

 

I saw a lot of mentions of the loudness war pop up here and while it does play a part I think many just easily use that as an easy excuse as to why they don't like it. Because, less dynamics = bad music! ...right?

Using the loudness war is a bit of a poor argument from some folk, no offense of course. Well, even back when this thread was made, the loudness war was literally dying due to streaming services beginning to place certain limits on how loud songs should play mainly so listeners don't get fatigued and also the convenience of not having to manually adjust their volume if it goes from a quiet song to a loud one or vice versa. The problem is they have different targets so it's a bit of a guessing game what to do for each.

How many of these albums and bands do you enjoy? Especially, at least from what I could tell, Metallica is the pinnacle of the loudness war with that Death Magnetic album. Sure, it's Wikipedia. But, Wikipedia is very strict on their information these days. And, all the sources check out.

 

I've listened to some of these and they're loud though not completely unbearable. And a lot of these are outside of my preference zone, but I still like them! And, if you don't like them after listening to them then that's fine. At least you gave them a proper shot rather than talk smack about them.

 

There does need to be some industry standard normalization to keep up with the times though. I'll drop this video because it does prove this point in many directions. Short and simple:

 

And, of course it all depends on the mastering engineer(s) and even the artists themselves since if they want to chime in, it's the engineer's duty to listen and follow what they want so they can get paid lol

 

edit: also look up this article from Sound on Sound for more technical depth into the loudness war: 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Trot Shuffle

[Cash In 21,516]

It's one of those things where I feel like it largely is a matter of taste. My musical tastes are more narrow than most people. I'm very picky with music that I like and there's not many songs on my Spotify playlist that's under 10 years old. I like the older stuff, not a fan of a lot of newer stuff, but occasionally I'll find something new that I actually like. If it's not to your taste, there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't like it when people say it all objectively sucks, without even going out of their way to try stuff out.

[Pentium100 2,057]

Regarding sound quality: there are two types of compression - dynamic range compression ("loudness war") and data compression (mp3, aac and so on, the codec throwing away data to create a much smaller, supposedly "sounding the same" file). Data compression just sounds bad, especially if they overdo it (there is a local TV channel that primarily broadcasts music ... in mp2 128kbps).

Dynamic range compression is interesting. It makes the recording sound better on low quality equipment (cell phone), but makes it sound worse on good quality equipment. However, with modern technology, the cell phone could take a good quality recording and compress it itself. This is actually used in movies. Movies have very high dynamic range, but you can set the player to "night mode" and then it compresses the sound.

Listening to low dynamic range music (for me) is OK at low volume, as background. But if I really enjoy the song and want to turn the volume up, it sounds bad and kind-of tiring. 

However, I would be lying if I said that I demand the highest sound quality. There are songs that I really like, but only have low quality recordings (though, for me, a worn out/damaged tape is not as bad as 112kbps mp3 or 128kbps mp2). I have a CD with music I like, but it was mastered so loud, that it clips, so it just sound bad. Great songs, but I can't turn the volume up. 

There's also autotune and time-aligning everything. I may not be able to notice it immediately, but it's probably one of the reasons I do not like new music. It's like when food tastes bad (to me) - I am not a chef, I usually cannot explain why it tastes bad, but just that I don't like it.

Still, I don't really like a lot of the new music, at least what is being played on the radio and prefer listening to the station that plays older music. There are some genres that I just do not like, for example rap or dubstep. There is some new music that I like, but it usually either a remake of an old song, a new song by an old artist or made in a style of the older music. 

For example - out of the songs performed in Eurovision 2022 I liked the song performed by Moldova, but did not really like the others. I also like the songs by Michelle Creber, but even though I like them (and have bought CDs and a record), it's not the same as listening to my favorites.

I am sure there are some little-known artists who make music I would like, but the problem is that if they are little-know, it is very unlikely that I would find their CDs or tapes in a flea market or a record shop. I would have to specifically look for them, but to do that, I should know what I am looking for. Even when buying used tapes, I am unlikely to find new music there, but I sometimes find new-to-me old music.

[Lightwing 12,955]

Because this discussion happens every generation, for every single form of art  

Complaining about modern music and praising the old one has been a topic of discussion since music itself was created. The classics we look at today were most likely seen the same as we see our current music, and future music will be seen as "bad" while our current music will become the new classics. And even if there was a truth about modern music being "worse", there are still lots of genres and songs made to this day that are well worth a listen.

[EpicEnergy 22,082]

I think that it varies depending on each individual's personal tastes. I haven't heard anyone complain about modern music in general. I've heard them complain about certain genres like pop and rap, but not about modern music as a whole.

As for me personally, I love some music from the 80's and 90's, but I also love some modern-day music. It all depends on what genre, and even then, I hate certain songs from genres I love and love certain songs from genres I hate. So basically, for me, it mainly depends on the song.

[Sonic Shimmer 4,116]

Because a lot of it is.