What has happened to music?

From the 1950s-1980s great music was being made everywhere and the talent pool was stacked. It was a great time in music.

I feel ever since the early 90s music really started to take a huge nosedive badly. Lack of originality, sampling, loudness war, most genres dying etc.

What do you all think?

The rise of the internet ruined music IMO and also the generational gap as each generation of kids grew up it got easier. I feel most of the time real great music comes from a place of pain and hardship. Every gen becomes softer and the music has no real passion to it we also live in nerd culture and political correctness era bands like Motley Crew and GNR would of been cancelled today.

@warmblur:

That's a good argument. The sampling, no instruments, Soundscan (which killed artistry and it was about week 1 sales), the song writing quality became worse. Most genres were dying. E.g. my favourite genre is rhythm and blues. The 60s - early 80s was the pinnacle of this (even Don Cornelius said this) and then the late 80s - 90s sampling took over, rap music killed it etc etc... But that's how I see it

It's better than ever before.

@ghost_of_phobos:

You and I both know that's not true lool

@mike1964: Why are you speaking in my name? I'm honestly of the opinion that music as a whole is better than ever.

What's gotten worse imo is the AAA stuff, but that's just a sign of the so called end state capitalism where everything is so geared towards profit and adverse to risk that becomes absurd and a caricature of itself.

It's not just music, cinema is on a similar state with the Marvel trash dominating the landscape with its direction, writing and acting that seem like a bad joke. It's the great algorithmic revolution. Stupid sells movies, music, presidencies even.

There's still a lot of quality, the biggest difference is that what is spoon fed to you now is of lower quality.

You can have music anywhere now. The days of sitting in a room and going over the album art or having friends come by and introducing you to new stuff is long gone for most people. It's lost that immediate intimacy and has instead become a background soundtrack to everyday life.

@ghost_of_phobos: I'm 100% with you here. The commercial stuff is focus tested into bland, but whatever your taste there is more to find than ever. You just have to do some digging. You want celtic folk metal? You can find it. You want acid jazz infused industrial? Someone out there is doing it.

I will give it to the haters that there is a lot of shitty music, and it can be hard to sift through it all. But if you put in some effort, you will find gems that could never have scored a record deal back in the "good old days".

Stay away from pop and you can find good music.

I personally loved the 80's as there was a lot of diversity in the sounds of each song that came out. I stopped listening around the late 90's as I found songs all tended to sound similar. Maybe music has changed again since then. When I put the radio on in the car the other day (I wasn't driving) we couldn't find anything we wanted to listen to at all, too much sampling so we ended up choosing a talk radio station..!! Maybe it's just my age..!!

@Peasly:

Lool you're not the only one. I stopped around the 90s too... Early 90s to be specific.

Music is as awesome as ever, we just lack the pioneers we had in decades past. That doesn't mean modern musicians can't perfect or innovate, though.

I don't like the Beatles so you won't find me talking about the "good ol' days". I like where music has gone.

Then again, the last time I turned on the radio was like five years ago lol. I'm sure if I was listening to the radio and hearing commercials and commercialized music I would feel differently. Thank god for Spotify.

Yup, pretty much.

For example, I just discovered modern Saharan music. It's awesome, even if I can't understand what they're singing about.

@mike1964: You got old. Accept it and your life will be better for it. I gave up on new music back in the mid to late 90's myself. Plenty of music from the 60's to the 90's to keep me entertained.

If you use youtube a lot you should check out Youtube Music it puts all your favorite liked music together in play lists an stuff and also check out itunes if you wanna buy full albums you like thats stuff im gonna do i like to get things from the past mainly but some new hits are great sometimes I just stay away from new stuff a lot tho

@heathen75:

Music from the 60s-80s was brilliant. Great stuff being released every week. After the 80s. I noticed a massive drop in quality.

I guess many legacy acts were right when they were talking about music changing for worse throughout the 90s

@Peasly:

The 80s not only had a lot of diversity but the talent pool as well. It was clearly the last great decade for music of all genres.

of course it is.

all that old stuff that people praise? guess what, it's STILL around.

so you have all that and a zillion new avenues for new music as well.

Great new music exists, you just have to put in the effort to find it.

Just do some digging. Beneath the surface, or mainstream, there is quality, no matter what genre of music you like. I like metal, but unfortunately, metal bands don't get a lot recognition on radio stations, award shows or commercials. It's hard to find someone who's into heavy stuff, but they do exist. You don't have to settle for stuff like Taylor Swift or Drake, there's plenty of good stuff already there. I recently came across a band called Archspire.

@ghost_of_phobos:

Why am I speaking on your name? Because it is called a thread you twat 🤦

@mike1964: OK so you admit you were wrong and Justin Bieber is you favourite artist? That's a shocking revelation.