How to Talk to Your Children About Their Shitty Taste... - Music

sp4cetiger

swedenman wrote:

I have a number of problems with this article, most notably its claims that artists should only write lyrics that are 100% grammatically correct or that there is a direct correlation between complexity of instrumentation and quality of music (not to mention the call to dadrockers everywhere to beat pre-21st century music into our children's heads even if they don't like it), but I'm curious to see what you all think. Thoughts?

I mostly agree with you, but for the sake of discussion, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. Note that I'll only be talking about music that was popular in the US, since I don't know enough about other country's charts to comment on them.

Personally, I don't think that pop music has been all that good for most of the history of recorded music, though I think it has gotten progressively worse since the mid-60s. That's not to say that all popular musicians are bad or that being popular makes music worse, just that the mainstream has not been a great source of music for music lovers in a long time. I know what some of you are thinking. Yes, the 60s were the golden age of rock and I'm biased toward rock music. You're probably right, to some extent, but hear me out.

Prior to the 1960s, I think the poor quality of mainstream music in the US was due to a combination of racism and limited means of proliferating music. If you listen to the top of the R&B charts (which back then was code for "black" music) from the '40s and early '50s, I think you'll find it far more listenable than the mainstream. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong... frankly, I don't think Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, or Glenn Miller can hold a candle to that group.

By the mid-50s and 60s, there were many new musical genres that were starting to hit their stride, like rock, r&b, and country. However, these genres were young enough that there was still a lot of experimentation going on. Record companies were willing to take more chances because they hadn't yet figured out what made music popular. Established acts, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, etc., were directing the course of pop music more than record execs. Many new genres and subgenres have emerged since then, like hip-hop, techno, etc., but they didn't immediately take over the charts. They all seemed to be gradually phased in to the mainstream sound.

If you don't believe me, go back and listen to the number 1 songs from 1954 and compare them to 1964. The difference is astounding. Try the same experiment with any other pair of decades and I doubt you'll hear the same contrast. In fact, I'm not convinced that mainstream music has changed as much in the last 50 years as it did in those 10. I think the music industry was taken completely off guard by the rock/r&b revolution. Whether this was due to the baby boomers, the fight for civil rights, the proliferation of mass media, or something else, I don't know, but it really was a seismic upheaval.

In recent years, I think the growth of indie music has played a role in the diminishing quality of pop music as well. The Velvet Underground were an extreme outlier in the 1960s (thanks to Andy Warhol) -- nowadays, it's a lot more affordable to produce DIY, as they say. As such, the best artists are less likely to be signing with major labels, for fear of losing their artistic freedom. It used to be that they didn't have a choice if they wanted anyone to hear their music. However, it's still true that being on a major label gets you a lot more exposure and is therefore more likely to get you to the top of the charts.

Again, I do think there's a lot of good pop music out there. I respect artists like Lady Gaga and Adele and enjoy some of the hits. I also completely disagree with the article's sentiments about complexity of instrumentation, grammar, etc. However, "dad rockers" (excuse the slur) who complain about the quality of modern pop music may still have a point.

bongritsu

电子人 ( ｃｙｂｏｒｇ)

Location: bog

IF MY KID LISTENS TO ANYTHING OTHER THEN HARSH NOISE AND ANIME MUSIC HES GETTING THE FUCKING STRAP
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Guest

sp4cetiger wrote:

I mostly agree with you, but for the sake of discussion, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. Note that I'll only be talking about music that was popular in the US, since I don't know enough about other country's charts to comment on them.

Personally, I don't think that pop music has been all that good for most of the history of recorded music, though I think it has gotten progressively worse since the mid-60s. That's not to say that all popular musicians are bad or that being popular makes music worse, just that the mainstream has not been a great source of music for music lovers in a long time. I know what some of you are thinking. Yes, the 60s were the golden age of rock and I'm biased toward rock music. You're probably right, to some extent, but hear me out.

Prior to the 1960s, I think the poor quality of mainstream music in the US was due to a combination of racism and limited means of proliferating music. If you listen to the top of the R&B charts (which back then was code for "black" music) from the '40s and early '50s, I think you'll find it far more listenable than the mainstream. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong... frankly, I don't think Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, or Glenn Miller can hold a candle to that group.

By the mid-50s and 60s, there were many new musical genres that were starting to hit their stride, like rock, r&b, and country. However, these genres were young enough that there was still a lot of experimentation going on. Record companies were willing to take more chances because they hadn't yet figured out what made music popular. Established acts, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, etc., were directing the course of pop music more than record execs. Many new genres and subgenres have emerged since then, like hip-hop, techno, etc., but they didn't immediately take over the charts. They all seemed to be gradually phased in to the mainstream sound.

If you don't believe me, go back and listen to the number 1 songs from 1954 and compare them to 1964. The difference is astounding. Try the same experiment with any other pair of decades and I doubt you'll hear the same contrast. In fact, I'm not convinced that mainstream music has changed as much in the last 50 years as it did in those 10. I think the music industry was taken completely off guard by the rock/r&b revolution. Whether this was due to the baby boomers, the fight for civil rights, the proliferation of mass media, or something else, I don't know, but it really was a seismic upheaval.

In recent years, I think the growth of indie music has played a role in the diminishing quality of pop music as well. The Velvet Underground were an extreme outlier in the 1960s (thanks to Andy Warhol) -- nowadays, it's a lot more affordable to produce DIY, as they say. As such, the best artists are less likely to be signing with major labels, for fear of losing their artistic freedom. It used to be that they didn't have a choice if they wanted anyone to hear their music. However, it's still true that being on a major label gets you a lot more exposure and is therefore more likely to get you to the top of the charts.

Again, I do think there's a lot of good pop music out there. I respect artists like Lady Gaga and Adele and enjoy some of the hits. I also completely disagree with the article's sentiments about complexity of instrumentation, grammar, etc. However, "dad rockers" (excuse the slur) who complain about the quality of modern pop music may still have a point.

I agree with this, for the most part. I have somewhere to be shortly, so I'll have to be brief in my response. It may very well be that modern pop music has gone downhill since past decades. I wouldn't exactly disagree with that, though I think there's some room for debate there, but either way it's an opinion that anyone is free to hold and which many will hold. After all, it's not that much different from saying you prefer one decade to another. However, what frustrates me is how so many people are so utterly resistant to change and stubbornly refuse to listen to anything outside of what they consider the "prime" era of music. I think almost all music critics will agree that there was a huge volume of quality music produced in the '90s, yet so many people will tout Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke as the embodiment of modern music as though Lit and The Presidents of the United States of America were the embodiment of '90s music. Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke are flavor-of-the-month artists who won't be remembered 20 years from now except in the nostalgic way that the Backstreet Boys' "Larger than Life" is remembered now (okay, I actually love that song, so that's a bad example; but you get what I'm saying). Instead of complaining about the state of modern pop music, I think everyone would be better off if they took some time to find the good stuff coming out and focus more on that, because ultimately no era is remembered for its shit.

Anyway, that was probably pretty rambly, but what I'm getting at is that statements like "Music has gone downhill" don't really translate to me because, to me, it doesn't matter if music has gone downhill. So the music industry wants to make money. Big deal. That just means they're like every other major industry in the world. It's not like they owe us anything. If that annoys someone, then I would encourage that person not to bother themselves over it and instead find something they like and listen to it. If they can't find anything from recent years they like, then they're welcome to listen to older music, but it's such a waste of effort (and an annoying one, at that) to constantly be putting down the masses as unintellectual because they listen to homogenized pop music, and the claim that homogenized pop music is all that is out there is demonstrably untrue.

junodog4

Future Grumpy Old Man

Gender: Male

Location: Calgary

bongritsu wrote:

IF MY KID LISTENS TO ANYTHING OTHER THEN HARSH NOISE AND ANIME MUSIC HES GETTING THE FUCKING STRAP

I'm sending my kids to you for day-care.
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Finnegan was super bad-ass.

sp4cetiger

swedenman wrote:

I agree with this, for the most part. I have somewhere to be shortly, so I'll have to be brief in my response. It may very well be that modern pop music has gone downhill since past decades. I wouldn't exactly disagree with that, though I think there's some room for debate there, but either way it's an opinion that anyone is free to hold and which many will hold. After all, it's not that much different from saying you prefer one decade to another.

That's not quite what I'm saying, though I think I agree with most of what you said. I'm definitely only talking about the most popular music here (top 40 radio stuff), not music in general. So I'm not saying that I prefer music from the '60s, just that I consider the most *popular* music from the '60s better than the most popular music of today.

If I look at the entire musical landscape, I think it's better today. Independent record labels are more common, so artists have more freedom. Music is cheaper to make and record, so there's less of a barrier to entering the industry. Plus, the internet allows for widespread music distribution for nothing more than the cost of a laptop. All of this means that there's more to choose from and that great artists can still be heard even if they're not marketable. It's really a great time to be a music lover.

Guest

My generation's music is better than yooours.

Necharsian

Best Ever User

Gender: Male

swedenman wrote:

Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke are flavor-of-the-month artists who won't be remembered 20 years from now except in the nostalgic way that the Backstreet Boys' "Larger than Life" is remembered now

What's the difference between this and how, say, The xx or Beach House will be remembered in 20 years?

AgainstMeAgainstYou

Gender: Male

Age: 30

Location: Ajax, ON

Things I agreed with in this article:

- Miley Cyrus is pretty shitty
- Robin Thicke is a plagiarizing, unable to come up with his own song motherfucker, and is pretty shitty
- Top 40 is 99.9999999999999% pretty shitty

Things I disagreed with:

- EVERYFUCKINGTHING ELSE.

-<9000/10 worst article ever.

Guest

sp4cetiger wrote:

That's not quite what I'm saying, though I think I agree with most of what you said. I'm definitely only talking about the most popular music here (top 40 radio stuff), not music in general. So I'm not saying that I prefer music from the '60s, just that I consider the most *popular* music from the '60s better than the most popular music of today.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't trying to say that's what you were saying, that's just the vibe I got from the article.

Necharsian wrote:

What's the difference between this and how, say, The xx or Beach House will be remembered in 20 years?

I'm sure that's out of my expertise.

AlexZangari

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Location: gone

Talking to anyone about their shitty taste just makes you an elitist prick.
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