I always hear... the music today is so bad. It was so much better when I was growing up.

I think music today is much better than when I grew up. More choices and more talent. What do you think?

Anyway, not a big deal to me but shouldn't this be in the general music discussion forum?

TCat wrote: I think there is excellent music in both cases.

 

this is correct. even if things don't resonate with me as much as the "classics" do, I can't pretend it's all sh*t. 

That doesn't mean that there isn't some great music out there these days though. It just seems so scattered. There are no artists that everyone can relate to any longer. No generational bonds through music. On the other side of the coin, the internet has allowed us to explore the nooks and crannies of the past thus giving obscurities new life so in a sense the modern day artists are competing against all of music history and those are some serious odds against them.

I will say generally music today, pop and art, often seems more diverse and interesting than in the past.   But 'better', no I'm afraid not.   Just take a glance at this week's Top 40.   Ouch.   And it's not so much a matter of Pop music as it is style--  Jonas Bros., Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, Katy Perry.   I like pop music and I like hiphop but this is the stuff you hear coming out of a fourteen year-old's Bluetooth.  

As for progressive music, rock seems a quaint antique, jazz a novelty, the relevant singer/songwriter seriously endangered, and we keep circling the wagons with our avant-garde and retro symph.

There have been studies done on complexity of rhythms, melodies, harmonies and words across the decades and popular music (not just pop music) has been on a downward spiral towards retardation. I was born in the late 80s, so I was always late to the party - the music that was popular in my youth was already formulaic to the max and so I found treasure on previous decades (1995 and below). The future described in Idiocracy is not that far away, and music is as affected as everything else. I find it harder and harder to tolerate the absolute garbage that is frequently played at commercial establishments (that weird and disgusting mix of pop, rap, hip hop and electronica). It's just tasteless consumer products, in a musical format.

There's clearly still good music being produced, but in general I think most releases lack the inspiration, the spirit, of earlier times. And certainly our culture seems incapable of producing another truly original genre or scene. Everything is rehash of a rehash. One of the reasons I like vaporwave is because, unlike those retro bands who emulate the sound of the 80s, vaporwave is straightforward and tells you upfront the music is repackaged and manipulated and is about making you nostalgic for an era long gone.

So in short, yeah, music (as pretty much everything else) is worse today and will be worse tomorrow.

x 3.

Good music is also timeless anyway.

For me, what's in the charts is almost universally awful, but in terms of music I buy and listen to, be it prog, metal, prog metal, etc., there is some absolutely wonderful stuff coming through year after year.  Most of my favourite albums have come from this century I would say....

...and part of that is due to the fact that I didn't get into alot of the older stuff until later in my life, and I think an awful lot of people who still think that the best music (prog) comes from the early days, were there when it happened....

I see the temptation in voting for the past, not that much temptation to vote for the present. But then voting for the past would be unfair to all those who put out great stuff these days, and they do exist!

Also, not only music changes, also quality criteria change. Hard to compare really. Let's not forget most people are initiatied to music between the age of 10 and 20, together with first love and all that, and most will carry around a preference for the stuff they got into at that time for the rest of their live. "The past" vote in this poll will be strongly biased by this, although kudos to the 10-20 years old of today who get into Pink Floyd, King Crimson and all the rest!

patrickq wrote: Finnforest wrote: There is great music every decade as far back as I've listened, roughly 1940. Today's great, yesterday was great. It's a smorgasbord, not a competition. Well put. I’d vote for the “equally good” option. Now if we’re talking favorite vs. better, I’d go with the past,

Yeah, the favorite/better wording is a good point too. If it was favorite, I'd have to admit there is some truth to the embedded nature of songs from our youth being extra special. But it doesn't have to lock one there in stasis. I purposefully try to listen to things before my youth as well as today, and these songs can be great too. Right now, I'm on an old jazz kick which is so much fun.

I realize now this was a prog poll as someone pointed out. I was answering as if it were a general poll, so my response is off base anyway now. 

Manuel wrote: The music industry in not what it was when I was growing up. The days or the rich rock star, started by Elvis, is now gone, and the artists of today simply do it for the love of music, so it's very hard to compare. Before, they could make a living off it, so they would put all their time and energy into it. Now, most artists, specially music which doesn't fit the popular trend, have to have a 9 to 5 job and write and perform their music on their spare time. With sites like Spotify, where you can just pay a small yearly fee and listen to everything you want, hardly anybody buys music anymore, and the artist gets paid next to nothing for their music. Of course there's still some people who buy the music, but is a very small percentage of those who listen to it, making music sales very insignificant to what they used to be. That doesn't mean the artists of today are not as talented as the ones of previous decades, but the circumstances are so different, that indeed affect the quality and nature of their music.

 

And the fact that some of today's artists do it part time, and create music that rivals say Close to the Edge, is amazing.  

 

True, but sadly there were also artists around in the 60s and 70s who didn't make a living from their music due to unscrupulous agents and managers (Badfinger being one example).

Prog music: about the same level of quality, past and present (maybe the 1980s being an exception)

I find music today to be pretty good.  Of course, you have to look for the good stuff, but it is there.   

But there are periods I think were relative down periods for music in general or prog in particular.

I'd be interesting to know when you "grew up" (meaning when you first began taking a serious interest in, and absorbing music).  

Seriously, I think it's often difficult to contemplate this question and separate those contemplations from some fairly deep matters of psychology. Something happens to us when we're in our early teens through our early twenties and we encounter certain music. That music could be the latest stuff, or it could be something older, but developmentally that music, heard then, does something to us, imprints upon us, and makes us--to some extent--who we are. As we get older, it's harder for newer music to make as the same kind of impact. Post-adolescence, it's probably harder for new music to shape us and hit us in the same way. Obviously, some of us are more music obsessed than others. I keep reaching out for new music, and I keep finding amazing new stuff I love. But a good majority of my peers probably stopped really listening to anything new after their twenties.

That's a long-winded way of saying that I think that when a good many people say, "music today's not as good as it was when I was a kid," they may not really be talking about the music. 

I have certainly had my moments when I've been nostalgic about how great 1980s post-punk albums were, and think how pale the latest indie band sounds in comparison, but then I think of my brother (who was 15 years older than me) and how he thought all of that stuff in the 1980s sounded like sh*te and only paled to what he listened to when he was younger.

It's probably also much harder to be startled by something new the longer you've listened to music and the more music you've listened to. When I first heard the White Stripes, my first thought was, "Didn't the Flat Duo Jets already do this?" Jack White is a phenomenal musician, who I respect immensely, but I don't think I was ever going to be able to hear him the way my students did when he first came on the scene because that was all new to them.

That said, I like old stuff, I like new stuff. The pop charts blow today (dear god do they blow), but take a look at the pop charts from the 1960s (and you'll find a whole lotta dross).

Same!

TONS of great replies in this thread (perfect for morning coffee).

^ It has been a good'n.

iluvmarillion wrote: It's not as if there isn't some great music today as good as anything in the past. Radiohead is proof of that.

Radiohead now is older than Yes and PF were when I got into music around 1980, and they were seen as dinosaurs by many at that time already.

Counting the last weeks before 60 these days, I grew up in the heyday of prog, so those immortalized 70s classics had a great impact on me. Outside the prog niche, the music was, in general, better before disco and punk/new wave took over, even though crap has been of all times. I vote for the past, but with the remark that the 2010s have been a great decade for prog.

Fischman wrote: I'd be interesting to know when you "grew up" (meaning when you first began taking a serious interest in, and absorbing music).

 

That would be 1974. Thick as a Brick and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath were two of my first LP's ever purchased. 

When one adds up all the history that we "know", we're talking 600 years worth of music, it would seem that today's selections are too small and ... not quite as interesting and innovative as so much other music has been in history ... the worst part being that rock music has not yet taken a hold in music history, and for us to get a better sense of all this, it needs to happen, since in the past 60 years or so, both rock and jazz have surpassed "classical music" a lot and gone quite far ... even if many of us might not enjoy or listen to that stuff as much.

I don't think that today is any better than yesterday, or vice versa ... we, in history, and it goes back quite a bit, do not exactly appreciate the stuff of "today" as much or as well, as we might something that we have known for some time, and think it is representative of this or that. That kinda tends to distort the scales a bit, towards one side of things ... and sends me to go listen to new stuff again ... 

... with one problem ... I really am not interested in screaming and makeup suggesting demons anymore. I guess I have grown up some and don't even think that some of that stuff is really worth while, musically, other than some commercial aspect that makes kids think it is cool ... sort of like rap ... yet another voice, making it look like there is something here, and I'm not sure that new words about the same thing, are all that music is about.

Music, and the arts, NEVER WAS NOT at any time ... the only issue is that we never looked for it, and learned about it, YET ... and somehow, it always comes up for everyone to listen to and hear. My only concern is how some of the arts lag behind others ... and rock music, specially the stuff mentioned in popular boards is way too far behind a lot of the other arts in terms of creativity ... there is way too much copying in the "music" of today ... and I think it is on account, that it is much easier to "make it" and sell enough by yourself, to make it a viable option/selection. Conversely, film, painting and many of the other arts are suffering due to this mechanical/commercial process ... but I sure would like to see some of the off-off-off-Broadway to get a chance, instead of another version of that cat debacle!

So we seem to be of similar vintage.

Those are two great first pics, by the way!  It took me a little longer to get around to those.

And we seem to be sort of close geographically. If I'm ever in Colorado we should grab some gummies and a good beer and discuss our music snobbery.

It depends of what music we are speaking of. There is a lot of really original music that doesn't necessarily have a million hits on YouTube, but if we speak mainstream pop, there is certainly a lot of assembly line music with autotune, recycling of the same computer presets, melody lines and chord structures. Most of it has very little musical and artistic substance.

If you put the Beatles, Pink Floyd and David Bowie up against Rihanna, Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus, I'd choose the first group of artists of course. But I could also choose to compare the Monkees, Ohio Express and some of the 1960-62 teen idols to Pom Poko, Juana Molina or Idles, and in this case I'll definitely choose the latter.

But, is this because of the quality of music released today, or because of what becomes popular or a hit today? Pop songs are not necessarily the same as hit songs. The songs you listed could be looked at as just quality songs you liked that charted well and became hits. I think many of those songs, were they released today, would not be hits. On the flip side of this, if you look around in places like Bandcamp, you can find some good stuff that might have been a hit song in a past era.

A number of songs you listed I would categorize as rock songs that charted well. It seems to me there just isn't as much rock that make it as singles these days (though I am not entirely sure as I don't listen to much current pop music). From what I can tell, music today seems to be more R&B, hip hop, or country oriented.

Also, there was just as much bad pop in the past as there is now. We try not to remember that. 

handwrist wrote: There have been studies done on complexity of rhythms, melodies, harmonies and words across the decades and popular music (not just pop music) has been on a downward spiral towards retardation. I was born in the late 80s, so I was always late to the party - the music that was popular in my youth was already formulaic to the max and so I found treasure on previous decades (1995 and below). The future described in Idiocracy is not that far away, and music is as affected as everything else. I find it harder and harder to tolerate the absolute garbage that is frequently played at commercial establishments (that weird and disgusting mix of pop, rap, hip hop and electronica). It's just tasteless consumer products, in a musical format. There's clearly still good music being produced, but in general I think most releases lack the inspiration, the spirit, of earlier times. And certainly our culture seems incapable of producing another truly original genre or scene. Everything is rehash of a rehash. One of the reasons I like vaporwave is because, unlike those retro bands who emulate the sound of the 80s, vaporwave is straightforward and tells you upfront the music is repackaged and manipulated and is about making you nostalgic for an era long gone. So in short, yeah, music (as pretty much everything else) is worse today and will be worse tomorrow.

 

^ The post I most identify with in this thread so far (bolds ar mine).     

I was born in late 70's, so grew up in 80s/90s. Still my favorite music is 70's progressive rock. 80's songs I now find good and creative, compared to what went mainstream in 90's and 00's. I also dig 90's grunge (mostly Soundgarden), Björk, Queens of the Stone age, etc. but not much more (I'm still discovering.. even here, so not the last word).

So, my answer:

In the past... but not so long ago… 

Personally, I think 70's prog rock is THE best music ever (surprised I'm here? :D), counting classical as well, as Bill Bruford himself (roughly) puts it in his autobiography... "not so much rhythm there...!". I love jazzy/syncopated drumming in songs, and... rock! so...

For me, 70's Progressive Rock was the one that gathered many postwar geniuses, intellectuals (or at least very intelligent kind of guys), that took the state of the art to the next level; took advantage of technology as it rised and in its fair dose; borrowed on the breath of symphonies, jazz, and previous music, experimented with drugs, and combined it all with interesting themes and artwork in a stunning 180-degrees-from-commercial direction (take, for example, when the fellas from Rush were told after Caress of Steel to go more pop and they responded with... 2112! ...wow…) in a never seen before way to make rich and complex (rock) music.

This feeling of declination also happens to me with movies and computer games. I still remember my incredulous disappointing there sitting at the theater watching Episode One when Jar Jar Binx made its appearance (I no longer go to movies; last one: Sector 9... we left in the middle; don't know if it's good or bad, but couldn't stand the loads of black computarized alien blood being spilled into the screen). I think in that sense Star Wars was Hollywood's pinnacle of craftmanship and a masterpiece made with the perfect blend of art and what (analog) technology was available, IMO (I have a sci-fi bias, in case you don't notice). 

Same in games; nowadays it seems to me they make games only for children, that are less challenging, less interesting, more commercial and less true and artistic. The last ones I remember enjoying were Fallout 1 & 2. Recently, I played Ron Gilbert's (Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island's creator) revisited genre and beautiful early 90's style graphic quest "Thimbleweed Park"; it's been 20+ years I didn't buy a game! I owned a Commodore 64 back in the day, where, in each side of a diskette was room enough for many games that were so creative and unique... it makes me think today each one of those would be an entire genre. It was another time, another people creating them, themselves having values and experiences from yet another different time in the curve of technology; and I think, again, limited technology was the perfect dose that fostered creativeness: make a great game with art and all in 64k of memory!

The one thing, in 'mainstream arts', that I found have improved (it can be more, but that I remember now…) or at least equal in quality than before, are some TV series, like 'Breaking Bad' (oh my…) and the like (the rest of my top 3, unordered, being HBO's Rome and The Wire). They are for me of those "too good to be true" things.

Who knows maybe this things are cyclical, as someone pointed out… perhaps in a few decades… but I doubt something like the 70's could ever repeat itself.