The TRUTH Why Modern Music Is Awful

[Mike Scott]

I knew it was awful, but now I have scientific proof! Some shocking (though not surprising) facts!

https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII

This guy's videos are always informative and entertaining.

[Mord]

Excellent,  Mike. This guy echoes all of my complaints about modern "music". I can't believe how wimpy music has gotten. Our youth simply don't like anything in the least bit challenging. Grannies love all this Justin Beaverlake crap.

[ChristineBCW]

Pretty good piece, there.  I think that, currently, there is a Shotgun Effect of Talent, where kajillions of pellet-like artists go blasting out and hope to hit multiple playlists.  I suspect that, eventually, this will be honed down back to a Tin Pan Alley Effect, where a select few have been settled on and thus fill up single playlists that are massively shared.

That used to be Radio.  Tune into the city's favorite AM station in the '60s, and you and your friends were assured of hearing the same songs, able to like or dislike them, share your favorites in malt-shops and burger drive-in's, and go to school the next day and ask about hearing That New One.  And someone would surely respond.

Today's Playlist Mentality is basically "Every Listener Is An Island" with their playlist isolated from everyone else.  Until someone shares one.  Then probably shares about 100 too many and finally I cut them off and only pretend to accept downloads or invites.  And I'm back to my own playlist.  On that island.

I think the simplistic argument presented in this YouTube video misses other issues: just about every popular album has unfavorite songs, too.  The songs handed to Ringo during the first half of Beatles recordings were simply terrible choices - until he did the most excellent ACT NATURALLY with George's fantastic guitar work - which was merely modeled after the Bakersfield Buck Owens style.  But there are plenty of clunkers on sooo many albums. 

It's just that the Hits were played ad nauseum over a town's Top 40 radio and 'everyone' agreed this was A Hit.  There is no consensus like that now because there is no dependency on any single Top 40 Radio.  Or Radio, at all. 

This is not the musicians' fault.  This is entirely the labels' and distributors' fault.  THEY created this monster.

I think the music world would be far better off using the KAZAA model of music distribution: where Counts are public and available, not Apple/AndroidPlay where all accounting ripoffs mimic record-sales ripoffs against the artists.  Except now, the A-PLAY facilities require almost no capital expense on the distributor's part - they don't hafta pay for vinyl or CD-petrochemical blanks, or liner notes, or freight and shipping.  Maybe pay a photog for an "album cover".  Or maybe they'll create a half-million-dollar video when all I ever wanna do is just seem them play the song.  Live.  With great audio fidelity.

The demise of the record industry is THEIR creation, this is what THEY asked for.  I'm just glad that so many musicians are still out there, entertaining anyone who wants to sit and listen. 

[marsattacks666]

This decades music satisfies the masses. Popular music= Sheep.
Formulaic.....no imagination. Like Hollywood's cookie-cutter crap.

[Wicked Lester]

One of the Fathers of thrash and kick ass metal. It has been a 20 year argument on Metallica selling out.
This just proves the point. Sucking up to the corporate god.

https://networthpost.org/james-hetfield-net-worth/

[long live kong]

I've seen this video before. He explains it very well. Unfortunately for me I am un-brainwashable when it comes to being force fed braindead pop music. The shrill screeching of Katie Perry and her ilk becomes more infuriating every time I hear it!

One of the Fathers of thrash and kick ass metal. It has been a 20 year argument on Metallica selling out.
This just proves the point. Sucking up to the corporate god.

https://networthpost.org/james-hetfield-net-worth/

At least Metallica made their bones through hard work and talent. I don't care for their last few albums but I can forgive them for their awesome back catalogue! I hated the so-called 'Nu-metal' scene of the late 90s/2000 with its endless stream of same sounding bands.

[Mord]

This decades music satisfies the masses. Popular music= Sheep.
Formulaic.....no imagination. Like Hollywood's cookie-cutter crap.

I know that top 40 music is generally sh*t. That said, things have gotten worse. At least you would get an occasional "You Really Got Me", "Honky Tonk Women", "Like a Rolling Stone", etc. When's the last time anyone here listened to a current hit song from start to finish?  You really have to dumb yourself down to get through Katy Perry, the two (or three) Justins, Drake, Chris Brown, etc.  I don't care how old it makes me, I'm so glad I lived through MY era.

[Wicked Lester]

Back around 20 years ago we in the Chi-Town area had a radio station called the Blaze.
Nothing BUT hard rock and heavy metal. AC/DC Metallica Alice Cooper  Motley Crue and even the occasional Slayer . Only lasted a few years and I believe for lack of ad sponsers bit the dust.
What is it about metal,especially the the various styles like Doom,Death,Speed etc that people just don't get.
Take a band like Therion. Metal to the core but also have full orchestra and opera  singers. Smokes ANTHING that comes out of sugar coated pop drivel.

Yeah,you are going to need a lyric sheet to get thru this . AAND a knowledge of archaic occult. Still kills almost anything out there in sheepsville.

! No longer available

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNh5JyZdMn4&index=2&list=PLsNMeflYTj4318zztE05QNBG7wzmDoS9S

Nothing short of brilliant .

[ChristineBCW]

I want to continue the argument about radio's demise being linked to the perception of 'no good modern music'. 

There's the opening lyrics to FUN FUN FUN...

Well she got her daddy's car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now

Please correct my before-my-times lack-of-memory... this scenario seems to suggest that kids went to a hang-out spot, had windows open, tops down and radios were probably tuned into the same station, everyone listening to the same songs.  OR if there were competing stations, cars were probably organized one Station 1 in this parking area, Station 2 in that, etc.

This is the Shared Experience I think of, and without Shared Experiences involving the same music being played at the same time, same place with the same people, there is no communal 'bonding' with that music.  It's "everyone's an island", isolated into their room, their car, their world with that one song.  No sharing at all. 

No "Remember Friday night's a Al's, listening to music, eating burgers, drinking cokes?"

Is this a correct scenario?  Was it common?  (I never had any of this until I settled down and Hubby knew these places to frequent.  I would have loved these, as a teenager.  They are still cool places, too.)

[Wicked Lester]

WOW! Good deep thinking on this but ,at least in my experience you may be over reaching.
I was born in 1960. I had a couple friends that had the "hot Rods". A typical Friday but usually Saturday night consisted of dropping acid or snorting some sort of Angel Dust doing a couple bongs  and cranking our cassette decks to Black Sabbath,Pink Floyd, Aerosmith etc. Even back then it was very rare to turn on the radio. Why bother listening to commercial crap when you have a case of your faves.?

[Mord]

WOW! Good deep thinking on this but ,at least in my experience you may be over reaching.
I was born in 1960. I had a couple friends that had the "hot Rods". A typical Friday but usually Saturday night consisted of dropping acid or snorting some sort of Angel Dust doing a couple bongs  and cranking our cassette decks to Black Sabbath,Pink Floyd, Aerosmith etc. Even back then it was very rare to turn on the radio. Why bother listening to commercial crap when you have a case of your faves.?

Exactly. Radio was mostly a vast wasteland. I got my music by going to the local record store and checking out what real music fans were listening to. That, and hang out at clubs like the Whisky or The Roxy checking out new bands.

[Wicked Lester]

I'm pretty sure that the whole "modern Music" thing is about " commercial rock and pop"
Probably only a fraction of listeners even listen to REAL music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5NQ3Eo9aGs&list=PLU0ENUEGdZWRYiVGwFKqK6pTWx84FIfcA&index=4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBpDom4QWHE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvIW2dVv8GU

Almost all commercial music,pop,rock,rap etc sucks corporate ass.

Open your eyes,ears and intelligence. You will be most amazed at what you have been missing.

[marsattacks666]

The Automatons who do listen to the f*****g, s*** music that is being produced today. Young kids are being brainwash in to listening to this pop-garbage. Even Mothers and Father subject their children to listen such trash. Just like today's Hollywood trash.....errrrrr, films.

[Wolfman]

It took a long time, but the beginning of the end of great music can be traced directly to MTV. That's when people decided making videos was more important, and beneficial than learning how to play a musical instrument. Sad but true.

JP

[ChristineBCW]

I think the filming of singers and performers went on long before MTV so I don't agree with your "beginning of end" value.   Maybe "end of the end" because just about every hit song since the late '80s had to include some kind of tres expensive music video.

Elvis has articles from his '50s performances that decry his 'videos'... but so does Frank Sinatra's 1930s filmed shows, too.  But for the most part, filmed performances were heralded as highlights of films and shorts in theaters.  Radio's continued success for three more decades (into 1970) and a couple of decades of homogenized decay seem to be blamed on TV - not just about any one show. 

Also consider that popular shows like Ed Sullivan felt a need to stock their shows with top musical acts, although Ed faced the doubled-edged sword of Beatles in-person issues vs. mere Beatles videos.

While movies were the beginning of 'musical performances', those performances certainly couldn't happen as quick as putting out new songs on the radio, several a year.  TV The Industry was responsible for putting out more, more, more. And more quickly.  What year did THE MONKEES start weekly shows?  "1966" according to IMDB.  OK.  But there were other shows (something called "Shindig" 1964 and "Hulabuloo" 1965) and probably several others.  The Dick Clark American Bandstand - did he only start with Top 10 songs and dancing?  When did his show sponsor those lip-sync'd performances?  Anyone have an idea? 

On the BBC, there were TOP OF THE POPS and others of that era as well. 

MTV seemed to draw that noose tight around Radio's neck, though.  VH1 and the Euro offerings all seemed to jump on and even carry on when MTV caved and went into 'special programming'.  Gag. 

How do you feel the Performer Idol/Got Talent shows fit into this?  While not technically videos, these all make powerful visual demands on performers.   However, all of these performers still make their big-bucks doing live-shows (er, so called "live" shows).   (No mention of the horrible fate of Christine Grimmie, by the way.)