Can I be that out of touch... no, it's the children that are wrong...

darthed1981

ArchtopDave said:

You're making a lot of assumptions in the first place. I'd have thought it would be very difficult to judge anything with any accuracy from that distance from the phone - my guess is a substantial amount of the music content would have been lost, plus you are assuming that the person playing it, liked it, for which you present no evidence. 

If I'd have walked backwards to check if it was actually Eleanor Rigby, my Dog would have been very put out, he doesn't like strange teenagers.

Pjon

ArchtopDave said:

You're making a lot of assumptions in the first place. I'd have thought it would be very difficult to judge anything with any accuracy from that distance from the phone - my guess is a substantial amount of the music content would have been lost, plus you are assuming that the person playing it, liked it, for which you present no evidence. 

I read a jokey article years ago about how the style of music in any decade was directly related to the device that it was being broadcast on. So, when I was growing up most people listened on cheap turntables and the stereos in cars were often better than those at home. The writer suggested that rap came about because people were hearing snippets of different songs as cars drove past. (I don't actually believe that, let me make that clear. I just thought it was funny.)

If kids are listening to music on their tinny phones then does the quality of music being made reflect that?  

darthed1981

Pjon said:

If kids are listening to music on their tinny phones then does the quality of music being made reflect that?  

At risk of making a jokey thread serious, there is an old story than in the 60s the chap who ran Tamla Motown insisted on listening to any new release on a crappy AM radio style setup to see if it still sounded good before signing off on it, on the principle that was what most people heard it on... if it didn't sound good on that, it wouldn't sell.

No doubt the same discussions are had now.  To count as a stream a song needs to be played for 30 seconds, therefore most songs these days start almost immediately with hooks, then add on more and more.  While I think it's a great song, Dua Lipa's "Hallucinate" is a great example of this, it's just hook after hook after hook.  The "30 second" point is absolutely key.

The general switch to little bluetooth speakers, earbuds and tinny phone speakers will definitely effect how songs are produced, though honestly, its few records that are mixed for hi-fi enthusiasts, except albums called things like "Oooh my back's gone!" by people like Neil Young.

This of course calls back to the "grand old days" of the instantly recognisable intros of the classic 60s pop songs, you can guess most in a bar, its only if 60s Heardle goes "late 60s" you fall on your ass...!

merlin

I usually carry a megaphone on the bus. 

Few yoofs can stand up to a megaphone full of "shut your shitty music off, you dildo". 

Works in Brighton, anyhows. 

darthed1981

BillDL said:

(3) is definitely true.

I had a strange thought a few weeks back after watching a documentary about Australian Aboriginal people.  If they had been left alone on their island continent and not colonised by people from other continents, would successive generations of youngsters have eventually changed and modernised their traditional didgeridoo and "incantation" type music and dance such that elders would be heard bemoaning how awful young peoples' music had become?

Genuinely interesting as of course it would depend on changes in technology and perspective, which are rare in isolated and small communities.

If you were so inclined these days anyone could listen to any music from any technically advanced nation (so everyone but North Korea) in the world.. makes a huge difference.

mudslide73

You're not supposed to like it. It's strange that the older I get the wider my tastes are - but only travelling backwards in time. I find myself saying of new stuff: "I've heard this done much better before by X, so why do I need this?". It's hard to envisage how mumble, drill etc. could become any more minimal but I also remember thinking Slayer was as extreme as metal could go - how wrong I was.

Funkfingers

"No one in this world, so far as I know… has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plainer people."

Reverend

I was an 80s kids and so by the time I was late teens I was listening to Napalm Death, Carcass, Autopsy, Bolt Thrower and Winter, so when I hear the kids music my reaction is that's too polite. 

Also as hip hop fan, a lot of modern drill loses me because the rappers simply aren't in the same league as Rakim and Bid Daddy Kane etc.

Philly_Q

darthed1981 said:

Pjon said:

If kids are listening to music on their tinny phones then does the quality of music being made reflect that?  

At risk of making a jokey thread serious, there is an old story than in the 60s the chap who ran Tamla Motown insisted on listening to any new release on a crappy AM radio style setup to see if it still sounded good before signing off on it, on the principle that was what most people heard it on... if it didn't sound good on that, it wouldn't sell.

No doubt the same discussions are had now.  To count as a stream a song needs to be played for 30 seconds, therefore most songs these days start almost immediately with hooks, then add on more and more.  While I think it's a great song, Dua Lipa's "Hallucinate" is a great example of this, it's just hook after hook after hook.  The "30 second" point is absolutely key.

The general switch to little bluetooth speakers, earbuds and tinny phone speakers will definitely effect how songs are produced, though honestly, its few records that are mixed for hi-fi enthusiasts, except albums called things like "Oooh my back's gone!" by people like Neil Young.

This of course calls back to the "grand old days" of the instantly recognisable intros of the classic 60s pop songs, you can guess most in a bar, its only if 60s Heardle goes "late 60s" you fall on your ass...!

And there was certainly a philosophy in the '70s and '80s, especially in America, that records were mixed to sound good on FM radio.

Anyway. modern music is rubbish.  That's not an opinion, it's a fact...

sev112

Never liked that new tangled noise since they removed the 2 notes from the scale to make it easier to play - you can’t call yourself a musician if you make it easy

monquixote

merlin said:

monquixote said:

 little Jimmy Osmond singing "Puppy Love" 

Donny, please. Little Jimmy sang "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool". Which was truly appalling. As was Donny's rendition of aforementioned pile of shit. 

Sorry it's a bit before my time (only just)

monquixote

Pjon said:

I read a jokey article years ago about how the style of music in any decade was directly related to the device that it was being broadcast on. So, when I was growing up most people listened on cheap turntables and the stereos in cars were often better than those at home. The writer suggested that rap came about because people were hearing snippets of different songs as cars drove past. (I don't actually believe that, let me make that clear. I just thought it was funny.)

If kids are listening to music on their tinny phones then does the quality of music being made reflect that?  

This isn't a joke it's literally how the music industry is run.

In the 90's at the height of the CD boom the strategy for someone like Britney Spears was an album 3 singles by the best songwriters of the day combined with the current hot super producer and then 10 more tracks of shit turned out in a day by anyone around at the time. 
That's why the term "All killer, no filler" was created for albums where people actually tried to make something good.

That's why iTunes was so disruptive because people could just buy the 3 decent songs for 99p and the label lost the other £13 for the album

Now albums have loads of short tracks that are exactly long enough to get you paid for a "Track play" on a streaming service.

RocknRollDave

Does it matter? I don’t have to like what is on anyone else’s dinner plate.

digitalkettle

monquixote said:

Now albums have loads of short tracks that are exactly long enough to get you paid for a "Track play" on a streaming service.

Shrewd proggers still write 15 minute songs...they just break each one into five parts for Spotify

ToneControl

Look at the the top 50 albums or singles from any era, 80% of it is rubbish.
Over time, the rubbish gets forgotten, but people listened to it and paid money for it back then.
I assume the same applies now.

Litterick

(1) is partly true because a lot of us are catching up on music we missed when we were teenagers.

CE1

I’m more surprised that no-one has questioned the idea of Radiohead being music.

roberty

I was a fussy listener when I was young. My first tapes were classical music, then I got into queen, and then nirvana, then Radiohead. Then I started going backwards, to the smiths, the Sex Pistols, the Beatles, and Bo Diddley. Then there was hip hop and aphex twin, and then when I was older I started clubbing a bit and went to drum'n'bass nights. And more besides

I liked the shit late 00s indie stuff at the time but mostly because it was there and happening. I can't stand it now (no pun intended)

I like grime, some of it is mind blowing, but boy in da corner is 20 years old now, it's hardly a new genre

What I can't stand is lazy writing and gimmicky faddish production. I can't listen to four diatonic chords in a repeating cycle for four minutes while someone sings do re me

It's important to separate the laziness from the just-new but I think some yelling at clouds is justified

There was only 9 years between I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Dark Side of the Moon, it would be silly to pretend that music and music production is traveling at it same pace as it did in the 20th century 

Vintage65

There is a lot of new music that is just as good or even better than the music I grew up with.

CharlieShaw

There’s good music and there’s crap music, as always.