Does Music Today Suck Now, Or Am I Finally 'Old'?

[Tanis]

So...yeah.

Been thinking about this for a while now, and it seems like the local radio stations that play today's greatest 'hits'...
Well, they kind of suck.

More than that, they're actually ANNOYING.

There's this song about 'beauty' that got a horrible singer and annoying chorus.
There's another song that gets played heavy about chan-DUH-leer-learz.
Never mind that song with the 'singer' claiming to be fancy, when s/he's about as 'fancy' as McDonald's catchup.

Etc/etc/etc.

Am I just getting old, or is so (pop) music actually getting worse?

 

[Hoplon]

your getting old, happens to all of us. Pop music by enlarge is never good no matter the era.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

No, pop music now is bad.

Its mathematically formulated to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I wish I was joking.

 

[F4TK]

Usually the best guide of whether music is good or not is if you listen to it years later after the initial buzz surrounding its release and endless repeating on syndicated radio has ended.

How many songs of today do you think we'll still be listening to a decade from now? Not many I wager.

Corporate mass media music has been going downhill steadily over the past couple of decades to the point everything is becoming bland, generic and sold on the bands or pop stars brand marketing power over the quality of the music.

I don't think shows like the X-Factor have been helping with the matter either.

 

[Tanis]

There was no time in history where most music wasn't crap.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Hasn't it been like that since the 90s or much earlier? Popular music has lacked, for want of a better word, balls. For a long time. Think back the 60s, The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin were wild and when you think how conservative mainstream society was, that was extremely bold. There's nothing bold about what I hear today, even the pop songs about graphic sex acts are just tasteless. There's no character either. It's like they sought the common mean designed to appeal to the greatest number via a computer program. Luckily I steer clear of that stuff, but sometimes that's not possible. I was camping last weekend in a remote area and a campervan pulled up and played that shit all night. Incredibly irritating.

 

[Hoplon]

Hasn't it been like that since the 90s or much earlier? Popular music has lacked, for want of a better word, balls. For a long time. Think back the 60s, The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin were wild and when you think how conservative mainstream society was, that was extremely bold. There's nothing bold about what I hear today, even the pop songs about graphic sex acts are just tasteless. There's no character either. It's like they sought the common mean designed to appeal to the greatest number via a computer program. Luckily I steer clear of that stuff, but sometimes that's not possible. I was camping last weekend in a remote area and a campervan pulled up and played that shit all night. Incredibly irritating.

Yeah except that the 60's had more than it's fair share of corporate pop churn out systems already in place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_Singles_Chart_number_ones_of_the_1960s

how many of them have you even ever heard?

it's not new, it's been going on since post WW2

 

[Starbird]

So...yeah.

Been thinking about this for a while now, and it seems like the local radio stations that play today's greatest 'hits'...
Well, they kind of suck.

More than that, they're actually ANNOYING.

There's this song about 'beauty' that got a horrible singer and annoying chorus.
There's another song that gets played heavy about chan-DUH-leer-learz.
Never mind that song with the 'singer' claiming to be fancy, when s/he's about as 'fancy' as McDonald's catchup.

Etc/etc/etc.

Am I just getting old, or is so (pop) music actually getting worse?

Mainstream music has always kind of sucked with exceptions (today's 'classics'). In fact I would say that the majority of music has always sucked .

There is still a ton of good stuff out there.

 

[Random Gamer]

There was no time in history where most music wasn't crap.

True. That said, there were times in history where you could listen to good music on the radio (let's say in the 60s and 70s), while the mainstream ones broadcast utterly appalling stuff, nowadays, and you have to dig or go to niche radios to get the good bits.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Pop music is, on the whole, quite dreadful, but it has always been. Just with previous decades, time has filtered out much of the bad stuff.

Perhaps pop music is currently somewhat worse, though, it's hard to judge.

(Oh, and yeah, Iggy Azalea is rather embarrassing. Can we all pretend she's a New Zealander?)

 

[Mithcha]

As someone said the 'hits' the radio keeps playing now...well whether they were really any good will be decided by if they're being played in ten-twenty years. Hell most of the 80's were shit as well, people just think the music back then was excellent because... well only the good ones are still played. Same with the 70s and 60s.

It's always been majority shit, will always be majority shit - even in the 'alternative' genres. So yeah. It's not got worse, it's the same.

A good example (pop example anyway) for me is poker face, 6/7 year old song. Still play it. Can barely name any other pop song from that year, or that half of the decade really.

 

[Batou667]

Music "today" doesn't suck. I can assure anybody who makes that claim, that music *is* being produced right now that you'd like, it's just that you aren't listening to it.

Probably more to the point, mainstream music = pop and RnB, and at a certain age that gets samey. But that's why niche radio stations exist. Diversify your entertainment sources.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

There's plenty of good music out there, it just doesn't get radio play.

The more pertinent question, I suppose, is who the fuck listens to the radio these days?

 

[happyninja42]

Well since you're talking about pop music, I would state that it's always been fairly terrible, and empty and meaningless. But musical styles change over the years. What is popular now, isn't the same as what we grew up listening to, and so it's not going to have the same feel to it.

And that's fine, different music for a different age. I'm kind of lucky in this respect, as the music I mostly listen to these days, ambient trance and techno, seems to be either as good as before, if not better IMO. But yeah, stuff they actually play on a radio, is usually just crap in general.

 

[renegade7]

Pop music has always and will always suck.

The reason the stuff on the radio usually blows is that radio stations are looking for the widest possible audiences, meaning they have to aim for the lowest common denominator: the American teenager. It also means they have to avoid genres and performers with small followings, which means the things people actually like tend to get left out.

So there is absolutely music today that is very good. You just haven't heard it yet.

 

[Remus]

Pop music is, on the whole, quite dreadful, but it has always been. Just with previous decades, time has filtered out much of the bad stuff.

Perhaps pop music is currently somewhat worse, though, it's hard to judge.

(Oh, and yeah, Iggy Azalea is rather embarrassing. Can we all pretend she's a New Zealander?)

And group her together with Lorde? FOR SHAME! What's sad is that it's not just the pop music that sucks, the rock music sucks too. Lyrics are anemic, no sense of rhythm, it just sounds....bad. Like the singer was trying to pad the song out until the chorus and the chorus wasn't even worth drudging through the rest of the song. If you can't write, don't write. If you can't sing, don't sing. And if you can't do either, save us all the trouble of making our ears bleed and just stop!

 

[Atmos Duality]

But that's why niche radio stations exist. Diversify your entertainment sources.

I agree on principle; though I can see why some might be frustrated in practice.

Virtually everything I hear in public or on the local FM stations is the same paid-for-hit garbage; to the point where I just opted to spend my morning and evening commutes in dead silence.

 

[hermes]

Yes, you are old.

Not because you realized that most (pop) music is garbage. But for nostalgically thinking that wasn't the case in the past...

 

[Korenith]

Basically the majority of popular music is always crap. The majority of any kind of music is crap. The difference is that you didn't know enough music to pick out the good from the bad. You're not getting old, your becoming more discerning (it sounds better that way!) All eras have had the same rubbish to contend with though, it's just now most of the junk is rightly forgotten whereas the stuff now is still on the radio

 

[mindfaQ]

There's plenty of music out there for all tastes, you just shouldn't depend on radio to get to know it. Actually there are also decent radio stations for most tastes, if we're talking about online radio.
Anyway, there's plenty of good music out there. Instant classics are still few (in comparison to the whole volume), but that's how it's ever been.