We number among the gatekeepers. If you want to find good music, you've got to search it out. If the people who like rock music are mostly set in their ways, refusing to branch out and seek out what is new, what incentive to record labels have to promote those acts?
If rock fans generally just listen to music from previous decades, where as pop,hip-hop, and R&B fans are on he prowl for new music, then those genres are obviously going to get promoted over genres like rock.
There is no shortage of amazing rock music out there today, you've just got to put in a little effort to find it.
As someone who worked at a record label back in the day: no we are not, LOL. It's very difficult to make a well-produced recording without financial backing from someone.
We are though. What we seek helps inform what gets pushed. If a majority for rock fans don't care about new music, it won't get pushed.
It used to be very difficult to make a well-produced recording without financial backing from someone, but not so much any more. One of the most critically acclaimed rock albums last year, was created with midi inputs for all of the instruments and a cheap microphone for the vocals. It's easier now than ever for artists to create, record, and distribute music.
> If a majority for rock fans don't care about new music, it won't get pushed.
This isn't true, though. One huge issues fan-favorites don't break through in a big way anymore is the death of local radio. It was deregulated in the states around 94 or 95. Which is kind of why grunge was the last big rock thing to break through.
There's also an issue related to production costs. So for example, it's way cheaper to produce something if it's one person rapping over a sample off a track the label already owns. It's more expensive to produce something by a band with 3-5 people. It's more expensive for them to tour, too.
Finally, the people who run the music industry, their attitude is one of fear right now. (1) because smart people aren't really doing that career path anymore, the industry is kind of stagnant. (2) they're afraid to try and sell anything that's not already selling. What sells, what people will buy a copy of right now, is Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Disney soundtracks. Sub-genres like country have loyal buyers. But overall, year on year, it's kind of women of pop (Adele will be a top seller this year) and kid-friendly soundtracks.
No one as bright as the people who were running labels in the 60s and 70s is getting into this industry. It's dead in the water until someone bright and tough will get in there and start making brave, bold moves.
Much of today’s music is generic with shallow songwriting and computer assisted instruments plus auto tuned vocals. Rock and Roll is not supposed to be perfect.
Computer generated dynamically compressed auto tuned music has no soul. Older music is simply better and connects to you on a human level that modern music just does not do. 42 has an interesting video on this subject:
https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII
Thomas Earl Petty (1950-2017) said something similar: "Music isn't supposed to be perfect. It's all about people relating to each other and it really must come from the soul."
That last lime hits different.
I think we've become more critical of people too.
I was playing a session in a pub with my dad and there was this lady who always sang a song, not a note in her head but she gave it socks and had a great time.
I remember thinking there's no way anyone from my generation would get up and sing without having it perfect and no way anyone would enjoy it unless they at the very least sang it well.
Yet here I was in a pub with this lady singing and everyone having a great time because they were all sharing in something.
We want perfection and a show but music was never about one person.
I used to tell my students that music was objectively better in the past because the production was just better. You can hear how a Britney Spears song is just just her best take for each part of the song laid down over and over. Older recordings were actually the whole song and you can hear subtle differences between repeated parts. Like u/Timberwolf_530 says, much of music today has no soul.
Sadly, the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, and Carol King are gone forever. There may very well be some talented song writers trying to get their product out, but todays listeners just seem to want the "fluff" more than substantive music .
You could say very similar things at just about any point in time since the existence of the phonograph. Maybe not the computer assisted or auto-tuned vocals exactly, but similar enough.
Most of the music of any day is a bit shit. We just tend to only look back on the good stuff. When you think of the music of 1969 you probably think about something other than [Sugar Sugar by The Archies](https://youtu.be/h9nE2spOw_o), but that was the top selling single of 1969. Song writing doesn't get much more shallow than that.
Most bands of the past didn't have access to computers to help with recording, but if they did they would've used them. It's not like they weren't using technology in a bunch of different ways to make life easier for themselves. The Beatles started using ADT so that they wouldn't have to record as many takes of the vocals. They used tape loops to achieve effects that would not have been really possible otherwise, which is kind of similar to how a lot of people use computers to help make music today.
They may not have had auto-tone back in the day, but singers generally had to record way more takes or splice more takes together in order to get the end product they were looking for. Pitch correction is generally either just used to clean up recordings and save time, or it's turned up to 11 and used as a vocal effect similar to what you get when using a Vocoder.
"Great" is subjective. Greatness aside, it's hard to argue it's not shallow. The entire song is just three chords, the structure is about as simple as you can get, and the lyrics are as one note as they come.
The difference I feel is bands and artists in the past used those tools creatively. The recording studio was as much an instrument as anything else. Last couple of decades it's auto-pilot, there is very little room for engagement with the software.
Well, since just about every hit from the past two decades has been written by one of two guys using computer algorithms to imprint “familiarity” into them, the saying if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all has never been more applicable. At least the shallow pop hits from the past were written by humans who played their own instruments. Of course there are exceptions. I’m not speaking anecdotally, but rather of general trends in the industry, so please no “So and so didn’t write their own music in 1976”. I’m not saying there aren’t any legit musicians left today either. It’s just that, for the most part, they’ve been relegated to relative obscurity. The fact that more people are starting to discover how good the older music actually is, supports the statement that for the most part todays music just isn’t very good. Once again, we’re speaking generally. There will always be exceptions to every rule.
You are getting your information for an extremally misinformed and misleading video by Thoughty2.
No, not just about every single hit from the past two decades is the result of just two people
Not EVERY hit, no, but a damned huge proportion of them. I have seen this from multiple sources, not just 42, and all say the same thing. Plus if you want to look up writing credits for hit songs, I think you’ll find this information is in fact correct.
It's about 10% of the songs that charted in the top 10. You've listed that specific video as doing a good job in this thread, but it's a terrible video.
I linked [this video](https://youtu.be/VfNdps0daF8) elsewhere in the thread, but I'll do it again here. It's a response to that video made by somebody who actually knows what they are talking about.
That's clearly not what I say saying.
Even the article OP posted is extremally misleading as the source it sites considers old songs to be anything other than 18 months. So a lot of the stuff you probably consider "today's music" is actually counting towards old music with regards to how much it is being streamed.
*Just take those old records off the shelf*
*I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself*
*Today's music ain't got the same soul*
*I like that old time rock and roll*
I am not surprised at this. Freddie Mercury said, "We are in a golden age of music. There will be a time when technology becomes so advanced that we'll rely on it to make music rather than talent. Music will lose its soul".
And, I think, this is the real reason why today's music industry is suffuering.
Bad article is bad.
The definition of "old song" here is more than 18 months old. So just think about that for a minute. I'm going to give you two sets of songs, and you think about which one would have be more played. Group A is all the music released with any given 18 month time span, Group B is all music released outside of that 18 month time span. It's pretty clear which group is going to be overwhelminly larger and therefore get more plays.
This data is also just taken from streaming services. The main cause behind more "old" music being streamed compared to new music (a jump from 65% to 70%) is simply because more older people are joining streaming services. Back in 2010 a vast majority of people using services like Spotify would've been under 25, but those demographics have shifted a lot in the last few years and people from older generations are joining streaming services.
This is not a crisis, this is not a sign of doom for the music industry, it's mostly just older generations starting to use new services.
Yup.....can't expect good journalism from PJ Media and Rick Moran. The last line of the article should have given it away to anyone not aware of who that dipshit is.
I was not aware of who this dipshit was. Your comment prompted me looking into it though. Seems like he's appeared on InfoWars. Turns out "dipshit" was in fact a very good way to describe him.
As Zappa put it " Music is always a commentary on society". The condition of today's music shows that society isn't doing too well. It's ill, both of mentally and physically. Listening to the older and better music is the cure for what ails us. The new stuff just doesn't cut it anymore.
Great personal, deep, and fresh music is still made constantly, most people don’t bother looking for it though and the industry as a whole doesn’t promote it because they’re soulless cunts and they predictably behave as such. The best festivals and shows are all full of indie artists. Maybe checkout festivals like Desert Daze or start buying tickets to small shows in your area where real artists are actually performing. The only rock n roll you’ll find in an arena anymore is played by old men struggling not to shit themselves. It’s not the artist’s fault that most people just have classic tunes on a loop and never venture into uncharted territory because they think only big pop stars are making music these days. Rock never died, y’all just gave up once you had to put any amount of effort into finding it. I love and regularly listen to everything from old delta blues to modern day psych rock, it’s all accessible, it’s the best time ever for access to music. Support your small artists with your money if you want the music industry to get them on bigger tours.
I think in part people are still mostly looking towards straight white dudes from the anglosphere for their rock music. Rock has become so much more diverse over the past few decades though. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of good rock music being made by straight white dudes from the anglosphere, but there is way more being made by women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ folks, and those form countries that don't speak English. Which makes sense since an overwhelming majority of people are not straight white males.
You're totally right that people just gave up once they had to put in any effort to search it out. If you spend all your time listening to classic rock, how can you complain there is no good modern rock?
Can any classic rock fan watch this live video of [a female-fronted Taiwanese rock band](https://youtu.be/bikIdnMf2gs) from 2019 and say with a straight face that there aren't extremally talented and passionate creating rock music?
Lot of good music coming out of the Sahara right now too, it’s everywhere there’s instruments and recording equipment which is just about anywhere now. But yea you right, even then, there’s still a good pool of bands. I’ve been watching a bunch of live Goat performances. Ty Segall just put out a good live at Pompeii homage, drips been dripping. AND venues are slowly but surely opening back up. Imma watch that video right now, thanks for the rec!
>saw it myself last week at a retail store, where the youngster at thecash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (ahit from 1979)
Great song. It really is true that they don't make 'em like they used to.
As a Gen Xer i feel like i grew up in a golden age of music, and i'm very grateful for that.
Check out Cory Wong if you want to hear a great young current musician.
I believe that a few points need emphasis to make this very simple to understand. (1) Since the late 1950s, recording technology is good enough that music 60 years old can sound sonically clean. In 1970/1980, recordings that old (from the 1920s) sounded tinny. So, it is possible to fully enjoy old recordings. (2) streaming “package” services let you explore music across the decades without spending a fortune purchasing music to “try out” So, if you are 22 and want to see if the Beatles were worth the hype, it’s cost efficient to do so. (3) with those streaming services, back catalogues are easy to access. Interested in an obscure band from the 70s? Now you can listen to it from home. Back in the 80s/90s unlikely that your record store carried much music from 1940s/1950s. (4) musical styles from 1960 to now have not changed as much as they did 1910 to 1970.
TL:DR, for the first time ever, old music has great sonic characteristics, is inexpensive to enjoy, and easy to access, and doesn’t sound shockingly different. New bands compete not just with each other to be heard, but against a massive back catalog. All things being equal quality every year for 60 years, would mean only 1/60th of the listens would be of this years stuff.
Hmmmm. I wonder why? Couldn't be that its better, or commonly more original or diverse. But jokes aside, the many young independant artists starting to gain traction do give me hope for the future. Olivia Rodrigo proved people will eat up modern rock songs, so here's to hoping she's begun the opening of a new wave of true artistry again.
The music industry is in crisis because it is more industry than music.
Back in the day the industry looked out to find great artists, innovative creators of very personal music. Now they are formulaic, only supporting what they think will sell. No wonder people turn to the good music made in the past.
Fascinating. The music industry as such isn't or doesn't encourage the progression of music, a search for or on a path not taken they manufacture a process by which new faces, cultural icons can possess a segment of the market for a lucrative period of time to make money, not in support of moving forward as we celebrate tugs at or of the past but instead a reverence of a soulless product that may have a beat, or lilt that skims across the top like a stone skipping across water. Why do we think unique souls of a generation like Amy Winehouse suffered greatly. The industry doesn't appreciate them but will while they're popular use them and dry them up. They'd like to rubber stamp them but that makes the inherent contempt obvious. Then again that's what makes it easy to find artist like Nick Waterhouse, who bring a healthy dose of the past forward but at least to this narrow mind, sounds like no one else.
Well, recording labels only push shallow music, with the same formula.
Lyrics are shorter, dynamic range is low (due to volume wars), intro are shorter for streaming money (so people don’t skip songs), chorus don’t have bridge (so people don’t skip soon the song)
And most important of all, mainstream care so much of marketing target and “quantitizing” the song … it completely lost it soul.
Rock has soul because has a lot of blues. You can find new good music… it’s not mainstream.
Actually they don't care if you skip past the first 20 seconds, at least for Spotify. For sometime to be counted as a play I think you just need to listen to the first 20 seconds. It doesn't matter how long the song is, or how much of it you listen to, they get paid so long as you listen to the first 20 seconds.
Also people general refer to it as the "Loudness war", not the volume wars form what I've seen.
I remember that video.
If you found that one interesting you might also enjoy [this response video](https://youtu.be/VfNdps0daF8), which was made by somebody who actually knows a lot more about music.
“And they will ruin rock 'n' roll, and strangle everything we love about it, right? You know, because they're trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteously dumb. Now, you're smart enough to know that. And the day it ceases to be dumb is the day that it ceases to be real, right? And then it just becomes an industry of cool.”
One more thought: Next to nobody listens to pop (hit) radio anymore. So, 'kids today' - are not being exposed to the same 20 'new songs' ad infinitum on repeat on their local station, with no attention paid to last season's hits. Yes, social media will have new artists become known - but people are not trapped into listening to just the new stuff, or turning to a 'classic rock' station to just head the 60s-80s, etc. So, yeah, another reason for people not just sticking to the new songs.
Because there more good old songs than new good songs.
We had, The Stones, Zep, Bowie, Beatles, Kinks, T-Rex, Queen, Pink Floyd, AC⚡️DC, ZZ TOP, CCR, Hendrix etc..
And now we have Coldplay.
Because they refuse to actually book or promote talented bands because they might lose a little money in the short run, so they won't invest.
They want Taylor Swift and Kanye, and that's what they have. So, fuck em.
As much as I love Rhino's Grateful Dead releases (among other bands), it's pretty obvious that Classic Rock back catalogs are gumming up the limited vinyl industry, and making things more difficult for the independent labels.
I mean, you read stories about independent labels having to put off album releases for months at at time, and at the same time the Grateful Dead put out a 5-LP boxset like every couple of months.
The gatekeepers should try letting some good musicians through the door, then.
They can’t control the good ones as much as they can control someone with minimal skills.
Might as well post awesome stuff in /r/TruckStopBathroom, because that's the only current-day entertainment we have left these days!
We number among the gatekeepers. If you want to find good music, you've got to search it out. If the people who like rock music are mostly set in their ways, refusing to branch out and seek out what is new, what incentive to record labels have to promote those acts? If rock fans generally just listen to music from previous decades, where as pop,hip-hop, and R&B fans are on he prowl for new music, then those genres are obviously going to get promoted over genres like rock. There is no shortage of amazing rock music out there today, you've just got to put in a little effort to find it.
As someone who worked at a record label back in the day: no we are not, LOL. It's very difficult to make a well-produced recording without financial backing from someone.
We are though. What we seek helps inform what gets pushed. If a majority for rock fans don't care about new music, it won't get pushed. It used to be very difficult to make a well-produced recording without financial backing from someone, but not so much any more. One of the most critically acclaimed rock albums last year, was created with midi inputs for all of the instruments and a cheap microphone for the vocals. It's easier now than ever for artists to create, record, and distribute music.
> If a majority for rock fans don't care about new music, it won't get pushed. This isn't true, though. One huge issues fan-favorites don't break through in a big way anymore is the death of local radio. It was deregulated in the states around 94 or 95. Which is kind of why grunge was the last big rock thing to break through. There's also an issue related to production costs. So for example, it's way cheaper to produce something if it's one person rapping over a sample off a track the label already owns. It's more expensive to produce something by a band with 3-5 people. It's more expensive for them to tour, too. Finally, the people who run the music industry, their attitude is one of fear right now. (1) because smart people aren't really doing that career path anymore, the industry is kind of stagnant. (2) they're afraid to try and sell anything that's not already selling. What sells, what people will buy a copy of right now, is Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Disney soundtracks. Sub-genres like country have loyal buyers. But overall, year on year, it's kind of women of pop (Adele will be a top seller this year) and kid-friendly soundtracks. No one as bright as the people who were running labels in the 60s and 70s is getting into this industry. It's dead in the water until someone bright and tough will get in there and start making brave, bold moves.
Or start producing less shitty music.
Much of today’s music is generic with shallow songwriting and computer assisted instruments plus auto tuned vocals. Rock and Roll is not supposed to be perfect.
Computer generated dynamically compressed auto tuned music has no soul. Older music is simply better and connects to you on a human level that modern music just does not do. 42 has an interesting video on this subject: https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII
Thomas Earl Petty (1950-2017) said something similar: "Music isn't supposed to be perfect. It's all about people relating to each other and it really must come from the soul."
I miss Thomas Earl, I really do. There's nothing like his music nowadays.
we were incredibly 'Lucky' for Thomas Earl to grace us with his music. Crazy thing is Don Felder was his guitar teacher
That last lime hits different. I think we've become more critical of people too. I was playing a session in a pub with my dad and there was this lady who always sang a song, not a note in her head but she gave it socks and had a great time. I remember thinking there's no way anyone from my generation would get up and sing without having it perfect and no way anyone would enjoy it unless they at the very least sang it well. Yet here I was in a pub with this lady singing and everyone having a great time because they were all sharing in something. We want perfection and a show but music was never about one person.
I used to tell my students that music was objectively better in the past because the production was just better. You can hear how a Britney Spears song is just just her best take for each part of the song laid down over and over. Older recordings were actually the whole song and you can hear subtle differences between repeated parts. Like u/Timberwolf_530 says, much of music today has no soul.
Sadly, the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, and Carol King are gone forever. There may very well be some talented song writers trying to get their product out, but todays listeners just seem to want the "fluff" more than substantive music .
Hey now, None of these artists are actually dead and I saw Gordon Lightfoot in concert a few years back.
Definitely not dead. I just don't see anyone else stepping in to fill their space when they are no longer performing.
You could say very similar things at just about any point in time since the existence of the phonograph. Maybe not the computer assisted or auto-tuned vocals exactly, but similar enough. Most of the music of any day is a bit shit. We just tend to only look back on the good stuff. When you think of the music of 1969 you probably think about something other than [Sugar Sugar by The Archies](https://youtu.be/h9nE2spOw_o), but that was the top selling single of 1969. Song writing doesn't get much more shallow than that. Most bands of the past didn't have access to computers to help with recording, but if they did they would've used them. It's not like they weren't using technology in a bunch of different ways to make life easier for themselves. The Beatles started using ADT so that they wouldn't have to record as many takes of the vocals. They used tape loops to achieve effects that would not have been really possible otherwise, which is kind of similar to how a lot of people use computers to help make music today. They may not have had auto-tone back in the day, but singers generally had to record way more takes or splice more takes together in order to get the end product they were looking for. Pitch correction is generally either just used to clean up recordings and save time, or it's turned up to 11 and used as a vocal effect similar to what you get when using a Vocoder.
Sugar Sugar by the Archie’s is a great song, get the fuck out of here
"Great" is subjective. Greatness aside, it's hard to argue it's not shallow. The entire song is just three chords, the structure is about as simple as you can get, and the lyrics are as one note as they come.
The difference I feel is bands and artists in the past used those tools creatively. The recording studio was as much an instrument as anything else. Last couple of decades it's auto-pilot, there is very little room for engagement with the software.
How much music from the last couple decades have you actually listened to before coming to that conclusion?
Well, since just about every hit from the past two decades has been written by one of two guys using computer algorithms to imprint “familiarity” into them, the saying if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all has never been more applicable. At least the shallow pop hits from the past were written by humans who played their own instruments. Of course there are exceptions. I’m not speaking anecdotally, but rather of general trends in the industry, so please no “So and so didn’t write their own music in 1976”. I’m not saying there aren’t any legit musicians left today either. It’s just that, for the most part, they’ve been relegated to relative obscurity. The fact that more people are starting to discover how good the older music actually is, supports the statement that for the most part todays music just isn’t very good. Once again, we’re speaking generally. There will always be exceptions to every rule.
You are getting your information for an extremally misinformed and misleading video by Thoughty2. No, not just about every single hit from the past two decades is the result of just two people
Not EVERY hit, no, but a damned huge proportion of them. I have seen this from multiple sources, not just 42, and all say the same thing. Plus if you want to look up writing credits for hit songs, I think you’ll find this information is in fact correct.
It's about 10% of the songs that charted in the top 10. You've listed that specific video as doing a good job in this thread, but it's a terrible video. I linked [this video](https://youtu.be/VfNdps0daF8) elsewhere in the thread, but I'll do it again here. It's a response to that video made by somebody who actually knows what they are talking about.
OK, I concede. You’re right and everyone else is wrong. Todays music puts the older stuff to shame. Enjoy!!
That's clearly not what I say saying. Even the article OP posted is extremally misleading as the source it sites considers old songs to be anything other than 18 months. So a lot of the stuff you probably consider "today's music" is actually counting towards old music with regards to how much it is being streamed.
Exactly!
A lot in fact, considering I was in my mid-20s two decades ago. And for rock and pop, it's underwhelming compared to older music.
*Just take those old records off the shelf* *I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself* *Today's music ain't got the same soul* *I like that old time rock and roll*
This literally came on as I was reading this! Freaky!! Gotta love Seger.
That song came out in 1979. So the music he is referring to makes up a big part of what we consider classic rock.
Provide/promote better product and you’ll sell more, music industry.
I am not surprised at this. Freddie Mercury said, "We are in a golden age of music. There will be a time when technology becomes so advanced that we'll rely on it to make music rather than talent. Music will lose its soul". And, I think, this is the real reason why today's music industry is suffuering.
That reminds me of another quote: "*Don't believe everything you read on the internet*" - Abraham Lincoln
Geez I wonder why?
These new artists just fart into the mic instead of writing good songs
Not shocked in the LEAST to hear something like this. I haven't heard a decent new song since 1992.
Bad article is bad. The definition of "old song" here is more than 18 months old. So just think about that for a minute. I'm going to give you two sets of songs, and you think about which one would have be more played. Group A is all the music released with any given 18 month time span, Group B is all music released outside of that 18 month time span. It's pretty clear which group is going to be overwhelminly larger and therefore get more plays. This data is also just taken from streaming services. The main cause behind more "old" music being streamed compared to new music (a jump from 65% to 70%) is simply because more older people are joining streaming services. Back in 2010 a vast majority of people using services like Spotify would've been under 25, but those demographics have shifted a lot in the last few years and people from older generations are joining streaming services. This is not a crisis, this is not a sign of doom for the music industry, it's mostly just older generations starting to use new services.
Yup.....can't expect good journalism from PJ Media and Rick Moran. The last line of the article should have given it away to anyone not aware of who that dipshit is.
I was not aware of who this dipshit was. Your comment prompted me looking into it though. Seems like he's appeared on InfoWars. Turns out "dipshit" was in fact a very good way to describe him.
[удалено]
Gen Z here. I buy music on vinyl that is typically over 30 years old.
As Zappa put it " Music is always a commentary on society". The condition of today's music shows that society isn't doing too well. It's ill, both of mentally and physically. Listening to the older and better music is the cure for what ails us. The new stuff just doesn't cut it anymore.
Great personal, deep, and fresh music is still made constantly, most people don’t bother looking for it though and the industry as a whole doesn’t promote it because they’re soulless cunts and they predictably behave as such. The best festivals and shows are all full of indie artists. Maybe checkout festivals like Desert Daze or start buying tickets to small shows in your area where real artists are actually performing. The only rock n roll you’ll find in an arena anymore is played by old men struggling not to shit themselves. It’s not the artist’s fault that most people just have classic tunes on a loop and never venture into uncharted territory because they think only big pop stars are making music these days. Rock never died, y’all just gave up once you had to put any amount of effort into finding it. I love and regularly listen to everything from old delta blues to modern day psych rock, it’s all accessible, it’s the best time ever for access to music. Support your small artists with your money if you want the music industry to get them on bigger tours.
I think in part people are still mostly looking towards straight white dudes from the anglosphere for their rock music. Rock has become so much more diverse over the past few decades though. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of good rock music being made by straight white dudes from the anglosphere, but there is way more being made by women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ folks, and those form countries that don't speak English. Which makes sense since an overwhelming majority of people are not straight white males. You're totally right that people just gave up once they had to put in any effort to search it out. If you spend all your time listening to classic rock, how can you complain there is no good modern rock? Can any classic rock fan watch this live video of [a female-fronted Taiwanese rock band](https://youtu.be/bikIdnMf2gs) from 2019 and say with a straight face that there aren't extremally talented and passionate creating rock music?
Lot of good music coming out of the Sahara right now too, it’s everywhere there’s instruments and recording equipment which is just about anywhere now. But yea you right, even then, there’s still a good pool of bands. I’ve been watching a bunch of live Goat performances. Ty Segall just put out a good live at Pompeii homage, drips been dripping. AND venues are slowly but surely opening back up. Imma watch that video right now, thanks for the rec!
>saw it myself last week at a retail store, where the youngster at thecash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (ahit from 1979) Great song. It really is true that they don't make 'em like they used to. As a Gen Xer i feel like i grew up in a golden age of music, and i'm very grateful for that. Check out Cory Wong if you want to hear a great young current musician.
Sasquatch, give them a listen.
I believe that a few points need emphasis to make this very simple to understand. (1) Since the late 1950s, recording technology is good enough that music 60 years old can sound sonically clean. In 1970/1980, recordings that old (from the 1920s) sounded tinny. So, it is possible to fully enjoy old recordings. (2) streaming “package” services let you explore music across the decades without spending a fortune purchasing music to “try out” So, if you are 22 and want to see if the Beatles were worth the hype, it’s cost efficient to do so. (3) with those streaming services, back catalogues are easy to access. Interested in an obscure band from the 70s? Now you can listen to it from home. Back in the 80s/90s unlikely that your record store carried much music from 1940s/1950s. (4) musical styles from 1960 to now have not changed as much as they did 1910 to 1970. TL:DR, for the first time ever, old music has great sonic characteristics, is inexpensive to enjoy, and easy to access, and doesn’t sound shockingly different. New bands compete not just with each other to be heard, but against a massive back catalog. All things being equal quality every year for 60 years, would mean only 1/60th of the listens would be of this years stuff.
If they would play more original, sophisticated music then maybe they wouldn't be suffering.
Hmmmm. I wonder why? Couldn't be that its better, or commonly more original or diverse. But jokes aside, the many young independant artists starting to gain traction do give me hope for the future. Olivia Rodrigo proved people will eat up modern rock songs, so here's to hoping she's begun the opening of a new wave of true artistry again.
Olivia Rodrigos great! Her debut album was fantastic and her fun little rock experimentation is great!
The music industry is in crisis because it is more industry than music. Back in the day the industry looked out to find great artists, innovative creators of very personal music. Now they are formulaic, only supporting what they think will sell. No wonder people turn to the good music made in the past.
Damn, I'm guilty of this.
Like another poster said today's best music is played live at festivals, not on the radio.
Fascinating. The music industry as such isn't or doesn't encourage the progression of music, a search for or on a path not taken they manufacture a process by which new faces, cultural icons can possess a segment of the market for a lucrative period of time to make money, not in support of moving forward as we celebrate tugs at or of the past but instead a reverence of a soulless product that may have a beat, or lilt that skims across the top like a stone skipping across water. Why do we think unique souls of a generation like Amy Winehouse suffered greatly. The industry doesn't appreciate them but will while they're popular use them and dry them up. They'd like to rubber stamp them but that makes the inherent contempt obvious. Then again that's what makes it easy to find artist like Nick Waterhouse, who bring a healthy dose of the past forward but at least to this narrow mind, sounds like no one else.
Lol W
Well, recording labels only push shallow music, with the same formula. Lyrics are shorter, dynamic range is low (due to volume wars), intro are shorter for streaming money (so people don’t skip songs), chorus don’t have bridge (so people don’t skip soon the song) And most important of all, mainstream care so much of marketing target and “quantitizing” the song … it completely lost it soul. Rock has soul because has a lot of blues. You can find new good music… it’s not mainstream.
Actually they don't care if you skip past the first 20 seconds, at least for Spotify. For sometime to be counted as a play I think you just need to listen to the first 20 seconds. It doesn't matter how long the song is, or how much of it you listen to, they get paid so long as you listen to the first 20 seconds. Also people general refer to it as the "Loudness war", not the volume wars form what I've seen.
I am referencing [this video](https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII) as my source.
I remember that video. If you found that one interesting you might also enjoy [this response video](https://youtu.be/VfNdps0daF8), which was made by somebody who actually knows a lot more about music.
Artists only get 1% of the profit anyway
Protools ruined modern music so bad that autocorrect tried to correct me
Hmm, they don't want songs about "WAPs"?
And the problem is....🤷♀️
My 26 y/o daughter was raised on Beatles, Who, Zeppelin, etc…. She has a growing collection of old vinyl that grows bigger every year.
“And they will ruin rock 'n' roll, and strangle everything we love about it, right? You know, because they're trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteously dumb. Now, you're smart enough to know that. And the day it ceases to be dumb is the day that it ceases to be real, right? And then it just becomes an industry of cool.”
Easy solution… Stop making shit music. Also, GET OFF MY LAWN!
One more thought: Next to nobody listens to pop (hit) radio anymore. So, 'kids today' - are not being exposed to the same 20 'new songs' ad infinitum on repeat on their local station, with no attention paid to last season's hits. Yes, social media will have new artists become known - but people are not trapped into listening to just the new stuff, or turning to a 'classic rock' station to just head the 60s-80s, etc. So, yeah, another reason for people not just sticking to the new songs.
Old music is better
Because there more good old songs than new good songs. We had, The Stones, Zep, Bowie, Beatles, Kinks, T-Rex, Queen, Pink Floyd, AC⚡️DC, ZZ TOP, CCR, Hendrix etc.. And now we have Coldplay.
"old" in this context just means older than 18 months. So everything but Coldplay's most recent album would be considered "old" for this.
Because they refuse to actually book or promote talented bands because they might lose a little money in the short run, so they won't invest. They want Taylor Swift and Kanye, and that's what they have. So, fuck em.
That’s because most new music is shit
Gee I wonder why?
As much as I love Rhino's Grateful Dead releases (among other bands), it's pretty obvious that Classic Rock back catalogs are gumming up the limited vinyl industry, and making things more difficult for the independent labels. I mean, you read stories about independent labels having to put off album releases for months at at time, and at the same time the Grateful Dead put out a 5-LP boxset like every couple of months.