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Is modern popular music on the decline?
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,674
in Other Music
The young man in this video argues that it is, and very much so. I really appreciated viewing this video and would say suggest that it's worth waiting to watch until you have time for the full 20 minutes. You can't really get the full argument here with just a few sound bites. I'd really be interested in hearing from anyone willing to watch the entire video. The narrator offers several very thought provoking observations about where modern pop music is going today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=oVME_l4IwII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=oVME_l4IwII
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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Did you like the video?
I think Rock music is definitely on the decline. To me most modern rock bands sound homogenous and safe. You don't have those amazing lead singers that push bands to the next level. Even if you did, by the time protools is done it's been washed over :( As a result Rock music tends to spend more time looking back than forward, and most (not all) of the young folks have moved on to other genres.
Pop music is pop, so I think it keeps on trucking.
Not sure about other genres.
My wife sometimes tells me my opinions about music are simply a matter of me getting old but I remind her that I'm more interested in a wider range of music than the average boomer (not meaning to sound egotistical here-- I just think that's true), and seeing this video confirms my belief that popular music is on the decline.
Which doesn't mean there aren't great groups out there making fantastic music. The narrator points this out as well but argues that they are not well promoted by the industry so a lot of it doesn't get heard by many listeners.
I guess it depends on what is defined as "modern popular music". Because, honestly, if it's defined as what is on the radio and/or what is pushed by big labels, then yeah, probably, but who cares? most of it is garbage anyway (to me, but if it makes someone happy, like my kids or my wife, more power to them). We have to remember that most pop music goes through peaks and valleys. There was bubblegum pop for every decade since Elvis and the Beatles; shit, the Beatles WERE bubbglegum for the first few albums.
Then the populace eventually get tired of it; you get Black Sabbath, you get the Sex Pistols, you get Nirvana, you get Queens of the Stone Age; you get bands that have been influenced by their predecessors in underground music, sometimes, especially in the case of Nirvana, even in pop music, smash it together, and you have kick ass rock n roll. And then people start to seek out other forms of music other than the Nickelbacks of the world, and it gets moving.
there definitely is issues with the production side of it, for sure.
Labels will only promote what they can sell to the masses, the lowest common denominator of casual music fan. They figured this out a long time ago. there simply isn't enough money in doing anything else. not with everyone stealing music and now streaming services giving artists a fraction of a penny per song. They didn't start promoting Nirvana until it blew up on its own. there is no way to predict an explosion like that one. But, that is a fairly isolated case.
I am definitely not a hard core indie guy. I like pretty standard stuff. if I like something and it appears on the radio, I'm not going to hate it simply because it's on the radio (I have friends like this, drives me nuts). I just don't dig most of what's on there now. But I think age might have a little to do with it. well, not age, but experience and the general passage of time. all big music lovers have a romanticized ideal of their "golden age of music", for me that's grunge. To others it's the 70's. To others its disco. And when popular music moves away from that, to those people "the new music" is not considered "quality". Emotion is huge when tied into it.
I think there was only a short period of time where radio and what the labels pushed lined up with what an odd segment of the population was listening to, and it just so happened to be good enough that many more people also happened to like it. I don't know if we'll see that again.
Cheers,
HFD
If he means all music, than I strongly disagree. For example, when Ryan Adams' Prisoner album leaked in December of last year, nothing stood out to me. They all sounded similar. Then it just clicked after many listens and it's my favorite album of 2017 so far. I'm kind of going through that with the new album by The National. I know I'm going to eventually really get it. Some of my favorite songs and albums (and arguably some of the best albums ever) are albums that take time and attention. Kid A, Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, Binaural, Nebraska. All of those albums (and the individual songs) aren't made to be loved on first listen. They're to challenge your preconceived views of those artists and what a song by them should sound like. And that's why they're great. They can evolve and know that eventually serious listeners will come around and see it as art.
But everything else, I'm with this fella.
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
Cheers,
HFD
I agree there's good music out there, but there's not many entities left to look for, develop and promote that music. I was watching the glamour and the squalor, and all the new music that guy (and subsequently other radio stations) were playing in the 90s. It was an amazing time for music. Albums would sell by the millions back then. What got me was later in the documentary, when the radio station got bought up, and stopped looking for/playing new music. That's pretty much what happened to almost all of the radio. They all became greatest hits radio stations, and the odd new song they did play was bland modern new music (or new music from old bands, which would only go in rotation for a short time).
Record Companies were crooked as hell, and made lots of money off artists, but they also put lots of money into the artists. Love 'em or hate 'em, I think the industry is worse off for their loss of influence.
is it the quality of music on the modern rock stations, or is it that kids are listening to streaming and digital platforms rather than radio? I would say it's a bit of both.
I remember when my first mp3 player had a radio component to it. I don't know if I've ever owned an ipod that had a radio in it. maybe there are radio apps you can get? I don't know. And I really don't care. With 7000+ songs on my ipod, I don't need radio.
Cheers,
HFD
Yeah, that part I disagreed with also. There have been many times where songs or bands I didn't like at first grew on me. I guess some people zero in more quickly though. I remember Neil Young saying somewhere that he can tell right off if he is going to like something or not. Not so for me. Like you, I was right with the guy though on the rest of the video.
Even the days of the informative radio anthology show are almost dead. I grew up on Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40, Mike Harvey's Super Gold, Lou Brutus' Hard Drive, Bill St. James' Flashback and those numerous Beatles weekend shows. Hell, even Jed The Fish wasn't that bad, even though he annoyed me. I loved hearing the personal back stories of the lesser known songs and albums. I still occasionally stream Hard Drive, but that's it.
I certainly don't listen to it, but I have noticed that all of my friends still listen to it almost exclusively in their cars (if I had a car myself, I would be using Spotify - my friends are like dinosaurs
To me the video comes across as a collection of things that he (and many people) had gripes with and then attributed them to the reason as why he doesn't like current pop music.
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
Yeah, music education is a big one. But, many pop stars today do play guitar or piano (maybe not when they perform - but when writing). Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star in the world. She writes most of her own songs. Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran all play instruments and write their own stuff. I think the labels are where alot of homogeneity comes in and , like he said in the video (The only salient point he made IMO), they want to reduce their risk and see see return on their investment. So you get things like dr. Luke and other co writers and producers crafting songs. You get less variety at the top of the charts. But I don't see that as a death, its just more focused to those who consume it. There certainly isn't a dearth of well crafted music out there.
Shifting tastes also has a lot tt do with it. Most current pop is indebted to hip hop, R&B and electronic dance music now. Which leans more on keyboards, arpeggiators and other synths and drum machines. Rock just isn't popular anymore. its relegated to jazz in the 60s. It won't go away, but its never going to be huge again.
To piggy back off that, I think people will always prefer their era over the modern era. 'Things were better back then'. Or prefer their likes over what they dislike (duh). And I think thats all this is. This is music made for young people. Us posting on a forum for a 25 year old band from the 90s isn't supposed to understand the appeal of a Rihanna.
That being said, I'm a huge fan of pop music today. I think its great. I think its much better than the pop music I grew up with in the late 80s and all the 90's and early aughts.
Sorry, but I still think most of this really is about just getting old and unconsciously developing that "things ain't what they used to be and get off my lawn" type of mindset, lol.
But I am in total agreement with Tim Simmons' take on the matter.
Cheers,
HFD
But yeah, the industry has simply changed, namely due to technology but also because of plain old $$$$$$ culture, and that is probably 95% of the reason why there is a difference to what's on the radio or pushed by big labels. And yet, so many people I know and so many others online always treat it like, you know, how old people treated the music we loved when we were young.
Cheers,
HFD
Cheers,
HFD
Country Music.
That's the new "pop" rock and has been for a while now. That scene is a juggernaut.
What I have been finding with newer younger bands, they are all listening to 90's rock, lol. They love the stuff.
Cheers,
HFD
I was actually under the impression that we've gone through that dark period and are slowly emerging back into the light. I feel like that horrible modern country craze is dwindling a bit now.... I'm just hoping it continues to fade, lol. Not that I begrudge people who enjoy it .... I just hate it enough to wish that it weren't popular enough to be categorized as pop music. It should just stay in soley in the country music genre where it belongs.
Could it happen that in the future artists will just put out singles with no albums?