Thread 127071319

Do you think music is getting better or worse through time? I personally feel every genre now, except few exceptions (such as electronic and experimental music) is getting completely stagnant and formulaic without any authenticity or creative impulse, it's just consumerist slop in various forms. Everything sounds iterative and boring to me at this point, nothing stimulates me at any level.

>>127071319 (OP)
It seems like theres more bands around now than there's ever been but the vast majority of them are just a shitty copy of something done before. I really don't understand why someone would want to be so unoriginal. I suppose that people are just really dead inside nowadays.

>>127071319 (OP)
mainstream music (i.e. chart music) is definitely much worse.

mainstream culture is dead, its not just music. it got thrown into a blender and homogenised by the effect that growing up with social media had on the late millennial and zoomer mentality. the generations that should be creating and pushing forward new ideas and genres in all forms of art are brainrotted slop zombie corposlaves

>WAAA WAAA WAAA MUSIC AND CULTURE ARE DEAD WAAA WAAA *poops* *shits* *farts*
You people have been saying this for decades

>>127071507
>You people have been saying this for decades
and we've been correct

I think a society so deeply spiritually dead like ours can't hold on much longer, collapse is inevitable.

>>127071520
You've always been wrong because every single time you end up calling those decades some golden age of whatever autistic art scene was around at the time. Zoomers are unironically nostalgiafagging over the early 2010s now even though everyone at the time thought music was dead because of fucking Imagine Dragons and Max Martin

>>127071553
>You've always been wrong because every single time you end up calling those decades some golden age of whatever autistic art scene was around at the time.

>>127071587
>Redditors literally making shit up because they don't even know what a hasty generalization fallacy is
Damn maybe culture is dead

>>127071553
Name one (1) good late millenial / zoomer artist in any field or art, not just music.

>>127071597
high art or pop art? These are two different things held to different standards. If I told you Billie Eilish you'd laugh at me even though she's basically this generations Hope Sandoval

>>127071507
and they were right

>>127071319 (OP)
I'd say the golden age of music lasted from the 1960s to the 1990s, that's when 90% of innovation happened, the 1950s and 2000s were a silver age, we're in the rusty iron age.

>>127071319 (OP)
Do you think anyone has ever said "man, music is getting fucking good right now". Nope, never.
"Man, this elvis guy is making music great again"
"Man, these beatles are restoring the music game"

Nah all of them were disliked. Everything is only appreciated when its in the past.

>>127071697
>Do you think anyone has ever said "man, music is getting fucking good right now".
yes

>>127071716
Yes when youre a child maybe. No adult has ever said that. They're all boomers who dont get anything new. Was the case with elvis, beatles, nirvana, you name it

>>127071752
>because some people said "X", no one else said "Y"
dumb argument

>>127071779
The only people who said that were the people who were young and apart of that scene at that time, anyone who was older than the actual musicians and thus out of the scene hated it. It takes a very smart individual to like something you dont understand.

>>127071543
We are actively witnessing the collapse now, you won't just wake up one day and everything is rubble. Things are going to get much worse.

>>127071807
well you're wrong, but that's ok

>>127071879
>Nooooo dont expose my biased human psychology

>>127071894
it's fuck all to do with psychology. I've literally seen and heard people (adults) express excitement about new/current music in the period they're living through

>>127071543
>>127071841
>The year is 2025
>Futuristic and distant year in most apocalypto fiction novels
>You walk outside expecting robots like the terminator destroying everything, world wide destruction of some sort, ANY SORT.
>Literally nothing
>The sun is shining, just like it shined for thousands of years
>The brids are chirping like they always did
>Stores filled with food
>A stranger smiles at you while walking a dog
>Nothing ever fucking happens.

>>127071931
>The sun is shining, just like it shined for thousands of years
>The brids are chirping like they always did
>Stores filled with food
>A stranger smiles at you while walking a dog
someone in the western part of Ukraine is having that very experience right now. But it would be illogical to point to that as evidence that nothing in Ukraine has changed for the worse in the last 5 years.

>>127071507
Culture has been on a downward spiral since the French Revolution, noobi

The philosophers were right, democratisation led to complete enshittification of values. It has been a race to the bottom until the Kardashians became the archetypes of the greatest humans on earth, emulated by every hoe through botox implants

>>127071913
Never happened

>>127071913
>I've literally seen and heard people (adults) express excitement about new/current music in the period they're living through

>people (adults)

>>127072061
>people (adults)
yes

>>127072046
>The philosophers were right, democratisation led to complete enshittification of values. It has been a race to the bottom until Charli Chaplin became the archetype of the greatest human on earth, emulated by every retard through bizzare clown like behaviour

>>127072078
Well, yeah? Chaplin was in it for the money and fame and that's what it sold back then. Doesn't make it much of a valuable cultural act and I don't think he intended it to be either

it's the same. tech is better, always, but composing is the same. It's survivor bias over time and nothing else.

>wah wah wah we had a few bad years of music because of DEI policies which are now kill
Damn we get it man, we've had this discussion many times before.

>>127072102
>it's the same
Wet Ass Pussy sounds nothing like Motown

>>127072089
The romans definently didnt have sexo with twink men, nooooo way

>>127071697
Wrong. When I was a kid in the 90s I fucking loved the music of that era

I was losing sleep waiting for those Alternative nation shows at night, for the Chillout Zone and it was fascinating.

I used to wait with my casette recorder ready to tape any of my favourite songs that I couldn't find anywhere else. And I was making mixtapes with my recordings. Damn, what a cool era for music that was.
When I discovered Neubauten on MTV! A popular music station that played some obscure avantgard/industrial band at night

>>127072118
And that definitely didn't lead them to cultural ruin...
To the point an emperor had to adopt a law to curtail women delaying marriage or avoiding it because the empire's demographics were tanking

>>127072119
he'll say your experience doesn't count because you were a kid. My grandmother loves ABBA, despite being older then them by a few decades.

>>127072116
you only remember the best songs from back when. forty years from now, people will only remember the best from this era.

>>127072134
everyone loves ABBA tho. There are some groups that everyone loves. B-52s, for example. ABBA is one of those groups.

Taylor Swift at least last year was the supposed biggest star on the planet despite having no audience except 11 year old girls whose parents took them to her concerts.

>>127072130
We're too big to fail

also the rot set in earlier it was already pronounced in the 2000s. nobody actually liked Nickelback, Nelly, Britney etc nobody plays their stuff anymore and they were always regarded as Weimar degenerate level of trash music.

>>127072138
No, I'm aware there is shit in every era. But by comparing the cream of the crop in different eras, one can see clear differences in quality over time.

>>127072144
>everyone loves ABBA tho
Which contradicts anon's theory

isn't the usual theory that everyone said shitty tracks with Autotuned 808 beats ruined music?

>>127072282
well they certainly didn't improve it

>>127072282
Kanye was definitely part of the rot, he was a superspreader of that musical pozz called autotune

>>127072282
I wouldn't go that far but there were definitely some big name producers especially Jack Antonoff who were addicted to that shit because they had absolutely horrendous tastes.

>>127072300
To be honest the only Kanye song I know is "Stronger" so can't comment.

>>127072308
I feel if Jack Antonoff had been around in the 50s he would have been Dick Jacobs or one of those other infamous schlock arrangers.

I remember during Billie Eilish's 5 seconds of fame in 2019 she was being dickslurped by boomers hard but I never heard anyone under 40 doing that.

>>127072300
i mean when Nickelback were at their peak everyone was complaining instead about brickwalling so it's not like every era of pop doesn't have bad production fads that drive people insane

>>127072300
>>127072308
these guys all decided emulating "One More Time" was a good idea for some reason even though that song is the music equivalent of Vogon poetry in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

>>127072494
The circles of hell are concentric

>>127071606
Any. You already started in the worst way possible indeed.

>>127072555
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2VpR8HahKc

if this set the blueprint of pop for the next 20 years then we were truly beyond all hope

>>127072606
i don't get it. it's just a shitty disco loop with some guy's Autotuned chorus it's such forgettable background noise i don't see what the point of hating it is.

>>127072282
808s rock, it's just that subhumans got their hands on them. The democratization of the medium does far worse than merely creating more mediocrity.

>>127072621
>it's just a shitty disco loop with some guy's Autotuned chorus
That's the exact problem. Anyone who thinks those vocals are listenable has no business producing any music anywhere or even having an opinion on music.

>>127072622
>808s rock, it's just that subhumans got their hands on them

And few more sub than Jack Antonoff.

>>127072649
Oy vey just looking at his photo is making my skin crawl

>>127072606
Why does this sound like bad Apple commercial music?

>>127072606
This just screams "Urbanite bugman who drinks craft beer and lives in a grossly overpriced apartment with exposed brick walls."

>>127071319 (OP)
She was iconic in Chronicles of Riddick and Angel.

https://youtu.be/DvACOCUCx74?si=exN_RAhSB4CuoOO5

for me personally, music started to suck when it got whittled down to pop and pop rap and all the music critics got infected with the poptimist mind virus.
Music used to have genre diversity, now its just pop sluts and mumbling nigs.
Music used to care about authenticity and talent, now its just critics praising corporate pop slop.

Now in the 2020s music has gotten even worse as even rap hit the wall and started to stagnate, so now all we have is pop sluts, and the worst form of country music, pop country

>>127071597
Aurora

>>127072606
Sounds repetitive and lazy.

>>127071979
Theres always been some people somewhere being exploded without your knowledge. People only care about Ukraine because it's not just some random place no one can find on a map inhabited by brown people this time.

>>127071319 (OP)
Worse, it's the consequence of relying on the same 6 producers and songwriters to ghostwrite all the hits that dominate the charts for the last 30 years. It's gotten worse because algorithmic streaming playlists have only tightened their control of the industry and gatekeep anyone from challenging their monopoly.
>inb4 le good music is still being you just have to le search for it
That's the problem, no one actually does that despite all the retards claiming they do and the tools to do that are completely neutered compared to how they were in the past.

>>127072970
>ChatGPT post

>>127073345
Or, really 15 to 20 years but we all know that Jack Antonoff and those guys need to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. They were bad 15 years ago and don't even have the benefit of novelty anymore.

>>127073418
how is my post chatgpt, all of it is true

>>127073418
it's unfair to shit on zoomers because they're not the problem it's these washed late Gen X and Millenial fucks who won't let it go and hand the reigns over to new kids

>>127071597
Me desu

>>127073504
Oh yeah dem washed GenX/GenYers won't let poor zoomies upload their masterpieces on Bandcamp and Soundcloud for free

Fact: there were Beatles fans who hated Sgt Pepper. There were famously Dylan fans who hated him picking up an electric guitar. Fucking gatekeepers who can't play a note themselves so they become critics instead.

>>127073605
>>127072949
I bet some of Joni James's fans back in the day also thought she sold out when she started doing teen pop instead of Connee Boswell rips.

>>127072649
>>127073561
Did you need proof that Jews always had great anti-taste?

>>127071319 (OP)
>Everything sounds iterative and boring to me at this point, nothing stimulates me at any level.

Same, 25 years listening to any kind of music and depression don't help.

It seems like the past 30 years have witnessed a staggering decline in musicality within popular music. That is, the average performer or songwriter either doesn't possess or doesn't attempt to convey a high level of musical ability. For instance, listening to mid-century popslop singers (Connie Francis spurred this thought) reveals a far greater degree of control and expressiveness than you'd hear now. A trend surely abetted by the DAW, most pop I hear today is 99% 'sound' and only 1% melody/performance/songwriting. Whereas even in the 'plastic' 1980s it feels more like an even split. I haven't heard a balance like that since.... idk fuckin Bad Romance.

>>127074273
thanks /r/music. although if i had to guess why people don't sing as well it's because church attendance is not as common as it once was and not as many people learn by singing hymns anymore.

>>127074273
>>127074290
Not entirely fair. Ariana Grande can sing quite well for instance but only actually tried it on album one.

>>127074273
>>127074290
Wrong. The 80s-90s had a big resurgence of cursive singing starting with Whitney Houston but everyone hated it so much that it created a backlash in the 2000s.

>>127072144
>everyone loves ABBA tho
i hate abba and i hate all new 21st century music

I'd like to see something fresh out of left field again, like Jungle, House, and Trance were. Plenty of slop in those genres but also tons of great stuff.

>>127074359
I wish she'd sing to the cops about what the Large Hymen Collider did.

>>127074359
Katy Perry could sometimes sing well too but the albums never really showcased it.

it's probably less the actual performers than a generation of producers with absolutely horrible tastes

>>127071473
the only people making music are trustfundees that can afford to spend all day and night hining their craft while the rest of us are wageslaving just to make ends meet. boomers and gen x are just as brain rotted from slop, the difference is they got to enter adulthood during a booming economy before corpo culture dominated entertainment

>>127074544
>boomers
>entered a booming economy
>the 1970s
Uh...

>>127074359
AG is an exception I guess. She has ability but is mired in an annoying style imo.

>>127074396
Melisma - like the stereotype of RnB over-singing the national anthem - is not the same as 'cursive singing'. Cursive is shit like Amy Winehouse and the 'avacadees' indie girl voice.

>>127071319 (OP)
>sounds iterative
i dont feel like this has to be a bad thing, it can often be a good thing

>>127071473
This, that's essentially why you have this problem now >>127071597

I literally cannot name one truly great generational artist that isn't just an industry plant washed up whore or retard.

>>127074544
nah the issue is that the incentive structure during the Obama years was deliberately changed so only rich Democrat voting people would get a career. fortunately that's done with now but it did ruin an entire decade of mass culture.

>>127074908
>I literally cannot name one truly great generational artist
uh...Kendrick?

>>127071931
>the brids

>>127074544
hey boomer, most of your 60s rawk heroes were that way too you think Morrison or the Stones grew up poor?

>>127075171
>38 years old

Not zoomer or late millenial neither.

>>127075171
So, a trust fund plant for rich Democrat voters?

>>127071319 (OP)
Lovely vampire teeth

>>127071319 (OP)
Music peaked in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. There are many reasons why it has declined since then, among them:
>the invention of sound recording and reproduction, destroying the 'aura' of music as a special, social ritual and relegating it to background noise for the majority of people
>democratization of the music-making process, music journalism, and lack of music education in general
>hyperspecialization, especially the splitting of music disciplines into separate fields, ruining music as a unified or integrated art (two examples: music theory nerds who can't write a tune to save their lives, and instrumentalists and journalists who can't read music or discuss it in any serious depth)
>extreme pluralism and consequential lack of any serious criteria (what constitutes good or bad music), because the current aesthetic principle is simply a variation of "everything is le subjective", even though the people who parrot this neither act accordingly nor genuinely believe it
>supremacy of popular music, which is mainly interested in trends, repetitive rhythms, and catchiness; complete disregard for motivic development and form (the latter only manifests itself in the album format and how tracks are arranged)

>>127076507
Didn't read, but I agree.

>>127076507
This. All of this.

If I need someone with a PhD to explain why your music is “good” it’s probably shit.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6QWI4H4_ik4

>>127072130
>And that definitely didn't lead them to cultural ruin...

Yes it was that, not the other stuff like overextending, pursuing military campaigns that led to nothing and internal power conflicts, you let the nerds believe that, you preach the real truth brother. These fools don't even know about esoteric hitlerism.

cool unique question, cant wait to answer it

>>127075521
Sombr
https://youtu.be/c8zq4kAn_O0
https://youtu.be/z0wT6CrEGYg

>>127078243
looks like a looksmaxer faggot

>>127076945
"War on Beauty" girl is a known Nazi sympathizer. She's also a billionaire heiress.

>>127071425
Fpbp. The age of the gods is over. This life we lead barely deserves to be called human.

>>127071319 (OP)
Everything is getting worse

>>127074674
>being unauthentic is a good thing for art

>>127081068
>>127071425
>ChatGPT post

>>127071319 (OP)
>>127072812
Don't care about the thread I want to be her sex slave.

>>127071319 (OP)
I tend to agree, I've noticed this trend especially in the last 2 or 3 years, that music has made a significant downturn into just being made to fit into a Spotify playlist neatly or to be played in a TikTok video. Especially in one of my favorite genres, techno, this has been a real issue for me but it's also noticeable in many other genres