Response to "Why is Modern Music so Awful' by Thoughty2 - The Decline of the Pop Song

This is a response video to 'Why is Modern Music so Awful' by Thoughty2. It's the most viewed video on the topic of popular musical decline. It's a complete rehash of the study: 'Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music' which came out a few years ago.
My response calls into question the importance of the musical properties being discussed: harmonic complexity, timbral diversity and loudness and I also point out some basic logical flaws too. All in all, Thoughty2 has done a terrible job of informing the public and I'm attempting to do my part in order to set things right.
So if you're a music fan or a person interested in alternative music who thinks the world is moving on without them, you may find some solace in this video.
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Please Support Me On Patreon: / tantacrul
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Attributions:
The horror music at the end of the video was created by GowlerMusic:
freesound.org/...
The violin & guitar icons in the 'Let's Talk Timber' section were by Grégory Montigny from the Noun Project
Special thanks to Luke Knight and Savith Wadasinghe.

[@snowleopard9749]

One of the key flaws of the database is survivourship bias. Nobody remembers the throwaway timber that was cut down 50 years ago, we only remember the ones made into fine pieces of furniture.

[@JeanClaudePeeters]

Like Norwegian Wood?

[@r.v.datmir992]

Survivourship bias explains it only up a particular point. Pop music is prone to be dumped in the parents' basement for future deportation to the Goodwill when its fans grow up a bit, or when the teen sensation reaches age eighteen, half the fans lose interest because they grew up, and the remainder lose interest because the teen sensation lost her appeal when she turned eighteen, and those more mature fans are off to the next jailbait sensation.

[@r.v.datmir992]

@flmvdvsrg What is Veritasium?

[@oali2478]

@@r.v.datmir992 a youtube channel, very educational one at that.

[@foljs5858]

Actually that's a non-issue, because we can just stick to examining the Top-100 in each era, and we'd still get the same results...

[@marthur1971]

If timbre falls in a forrest and no one is there to hear it, does it make overtones?

[@izvarzone]

Yes

[@lanni5]

No

[@alexismiller2349]

This comment is so good

[@camw621]

You sick bastard, that was hilarious.

[@ThomDeWit]

This is perfect

[@janbelcher1896]

I was born in the wrong generation. I only listen to Neolithic Rock Smashing

[@Tantacrul]

I prefer the early stuff, before they figured out how to make rock hammers out of harder rocks.

[@etooamill9528]

I prefere water splashing as it has more timber in it

[@darthplagueis13]

It all went south once they stopped smashing bones against trees if you ask me....

[@alpacamaster5992]

Soon modern pop will return there.

[@LukusCannon]

In as much as it inspired the Neolites, I only hope we can one day recapture the sonic evanescence of the Moon exploding from the Earth

[@MarkALong64]

The vast majority of modern authors use word processors. That is why all books are practically identical.

[@graealex]

Even worse, many of them use very similar words, and certainly lack the usage of the word "timber".

[@robopope7584]

I’ve noticed there is a massive use of a certain word: “the”. It’s frankly worrying to see how often such an unnecessary word is used in literature that is, otherwise, original.

[@AndrewYac]

@@graealex "Tom bruh"

[@misiekt.1859]

Yeah, It's been all downhill ever since Gutenberg ;)

[@arkanon8661]

@@robopope7584 yeah. and also the word "a"?? like what is the point in putting single letter before nouns?

[@kevinevano4497]

Peasants: Listen to AWFUL modern day music Me, an intellectual: Listens to woodcuting noise with maximum TUM BRAH

[@sorrychangedmyusername3594]

Lumberjacks would be music connoissuers.

[@jco_sfm]

Doom 2016 soundtrack

[@iveseenyourface5404]

Tom bruh

[@iveseenyourface5404]

Fuck someone said that already

[@elvellarambles9151]

killing TIMBER to get more TOMBRUH

[@beanbeater]

You're just his evil cousin Thoughty1.

[@killermetalwolf2843]

I believe you mean _41_

[@tmsgaming5998]

thoughty2 is a unoriginal dumbass this guy is pretty cool

[@shifanahmed3990]

@@tmsgaming5998 exactly, thoughty2 is unoriginal cuz he's the second

[@smakkacowtherealone]

this

[@oumardiop1]

@@shifanahmed3990 actually hes the forty second

[@TazzeOptical]

The cheese melts in the microwave The music melts in Sibelius The timber melts in Thoughty2

[@Zadamanim]

I've heard this phrasing before, what is it referencing?

[@TazzeOptical]

@@Zadamanim kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnzbYqqkjaifmas

[@Zadamanim]

@@TazzeOptical Oh yeaaaah i knew i had heard it before lol

[@DerekPower]

Timber gone. Sibelius crashed.

[@diddy_dante]

It burns

[@nathanh9726]

Love the music is getting louder stuff as if Tchaikovsky wasn't out here using cannons as instruments

[@magnifichades9710]

Have people ever listened to a symphonic orchestra live? It can get INCREDIBLY loud especially when brass is involved.

[@you_tubeslonelyheartsclubband]

Another genre is Jazz. The point was to get an *EXPLOSIVE* sound, especially Big Band jazz, and even genres like Bebop.

[@thenamesianna]

I'm sorry but using cannons as insturments is one of the most Russian things to do

[@delta3244]

Or that one piece of orchestral music with the notation "ffff _(louder than possible, substitute_ [a different kind of percussion] _if needed)."_

[@jasonreed7522]

Also our recording technology has improved alot over time, old music has lots of "croning" because that's what was best picked up by the recordings. (Today a diaphragm moves a magnet in a coil and we amplify the induced current, at some points in the past we engraved discs using only the power in the sound itself which obviously muffles it and may not even pick up softer tones.) The evolution of audio recording tech and its impact on music is facinating,and today should include all of the computer generated sounds that would otherwise be impossible. (I can drive basically any voltage wave that is real world possible to a speaker and it produces a sound, not necessarily an enjoyable one but it means that maximum freedom of expression is theoretically possible due to the lack of technical limits.)

[@jeffirwin7862]

I appreciate musicians who know how to work with timbre, that's why my favorite band is The Carpenters.

[@cyncynshop]

All these Timber jokes are killing me

[@GTAmaniac1]

Lumberjacks are better tbh

[@AbsoluteAbsurd]

Tom bruh*

[@julijakeit]

:D

[@sephikong8323]

Yeah, Carpenter Brut is really good at using timber I agree

[@raruther59]

One thing that contributes to the vague feeling that “music was better X years ago” is that over time, mediocre music gets forgotten and only the best remains, so when you’re thinking of “60s music” you’re only thinking of essentially the greatest hits, which on average will outpace a randomly selected modern song we might not remember 20 years from now. There’s still plenty of great music being produced today, and I’d bet my yearly salary that in the 2040s people will be listening to today’s greatest hits and bemoaning the decline of their decade’s music.

[@GeneralNickles]

At the rate things are going, there won't even be music in 2040. It'll just be radio static with a generic synth beat under it, and it'll win every music award known to man kind.

[@GeneralNickles]

@birds don't blame me. Blame society and there utter lack of taste in music.

[@danielpatternson6149]

@@GeneralNickles wow, cynical much.

[@GeneralNickles]

@@danielpatternson6149 don't blame me. Blame society and they're bullshit.

[@Isakube]

@@GeneralNickles wow, their* much.

[@emperorpingusmathchannel5365]

"Let's compare the best music that survived to be still popular today to popular music produced today."

[@inotfunny8506]

That mistake is made too often...

[@jackthorton10]

nuff said

[@Theocloud]

Gregorian chants ?

[@tms229]

I AIN'T GAY BUT I FUCKIN LOVE YOU FOR BEING THE ONLY ONE TO BRING THIS ANALOGY!! FUCK ME PLEASE

[@nikibronson133]

Exactly

[@computername]

His videos are highly agreeable for many because they play on some very fundamental patterns of human perception: * The future is doomed * Everything was better in the past * Everything is under control by some sort of Elite (Only two guys making ALL songs) for the boomer audience, there is also a bonus pattern: * _OUR_ culture is in fact better than _THEIR_ culture A lot of people seem to live by these paradigms and everything that seems to fit the narrative gets logged with a "Ha, I knew it!". It's a self fulfilling prophecy as people basically want to see everything as evidence of their already established patterns. We all do it. But some people almost indulge in it. Apart from that, all these edgy LED-Zeppelin snobs will still secretly be vibin' to Lady Gaga in the car..

[@ligmaballs2022]

I'm 19 years old and I DEFINITELY do not vibe to Lady Gaga. Besides, I don't have a car so jokes on you

[@Haispawner]

@@ligmaballs2022 Edgy contrarian zoomers rise up!

[@ligmaballs2022]

@@Haispawner *napalm death enters*

[@Haispawner]

@@ligmaballs2022 Oh hell yeah, get some Scythelord in there too. Kind of obscure old-style death/thrash fusion thingy made by Vinesauce Joel.

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

There's lots of young people complaining about the present too. Not just boomers. Being a doomer or just blaming other groups isn't helpful. The future is what you make it.

[@Roy-ts9nv]

Confirmation bias masked as objectivity is a very powerful drug. His video as of today has 9.7 million views...

[@ELEcomments]

That's because he made good points. Instead of this guy who just misdericted all of us with his narritive. Complexity and context are NOT the same thing yet he went on for quite a while acting like they were. Thought 2 wasn't talking about context. He was talking about basic complexity in musical arrangements.

[@ysgatora9287]

@@ELEcomments all he did was make it clear that Thoughty can't even use these terms correctly. If you think music is getting worse, you're just that close minded. You know people make new stuff everyday, right

[@ELEcomments]

@@ysgatora9287 Thoughty2 never said all new music is bad either. And neither am I. but I agree with his other points. Also, for the guy who was mocking him for not doing his research this guy should really do more research cause guess what I looked up both Dr. Luke, and Max Martin and available right there on their own wiki pages is a list of people they have produced and written for; Katy Perry, Kesha, Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5. Cher Lloyd, Pink, Usher, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, The Weekend, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Nsync, Kayne West, Juicy J, Kendrick Lamar, Backstreet Boys, Speech, The Veronicas, Paris Hilton, Miranda Cosgrove, Flo Rida, Miley Cyrus, Adam Lambart, Pitbull, Lil Jon, Taio Cruz, T.I, Rihanna, Nikki Minaj, One Direction, Will.i.am, Robin Thicke, Becky G, Shakira, Ne-Yo, R. Kelly, Pusha T, Fergie, Tyga, Lil Wayne, Juice Wrld and more still... Many of these they even worked on together. Most of these as well are or have been huge superstars in the last 20 years with many hits and being played on the radio, movie trailers, commercials all over the place. Tell me how his point doesn't stand?

[@ieatpeople7055]

@@ELEcomments tantacrul is a composer. thoughty2 is a nobody. thoughty2 is in no way qualified to talk about music

[@ELEcomments]

@@ieatpeople7055 You don't need to be a chef to know when the food is bad.

[@fromchomleystreet]

I love that one of his examples of the degeneration of complexity in music is “how did we go from Bob Dylan to Britney Spears?”. It’s difficult to imagine an example he could have come up with that is less harmonically complex than the music of Bob Dylan. Dylan’s reputation rests almost entirely on his skills as a lyricist (something not within the scope of this study) and the biggest Dylan fan in the world wouldn’t claim there was anything especially sophisticated or inventive about his chord sequences. The whole point of folk music is that it’s simple and derivative of traditional structures. I love Dylan, and I’m no great fan of Britney Spears, but I don’t have to be to recognise the obvious fact that “Toxic” is an infinitely more harmonically and rhythmically complex piece of music than “Blowin in the Wind”.

[@geoffreybrunell5592]

Exactly! These people say "Oh it's not about nostalgia, music from the past was actually better," but then they put no thought into analyzing the music of the past and just *assume* all of it was more complex than the music today, proving that for them, it is indeed about nostalgia and not about the actual music.

[@njoYYY]

"Dylan’s reputation rests almost entirely on his skills as a lyricist" Untrue. He just has an "awful" voice.

[@rob0nemusic369]

I think he never listened to Bob Dylan but still used him as an exemple...

[@Frosty_tha_Snowman]

I'll agree that he used a bad example, but that's because he's 100% out of tune with what people listen to today, everything else he said about how music is degrading is true, however.

[@geoffreybrunell5592]

@@Frosty_tha_Snowman What proof do you have of this?

[@leahliddle324]

"how did we get from Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga" totally different genres. We went from Led Zeppelin to the Arctic Monkeys (which is like... not a HUGE step down imo) and went from Pat Boone to Lady Gaga (a pretty massive step up imo).

[@Cabecadeplanta]

And tbh nostalgia aside artic monkeys has more interesting lyrics because tell me why stairway to heaven is good but makes my brain melt from how boring it

[@irishakita]

@@Cabecadeplanta yo don't rag on Stairway to Heaven

[@stefanpredoi4564]

Honestly there's plenty of current bands which have tremendous instrumental skill and great songwriting. A great recent example is Converge, responsible for some of the most aggressive and fierce yet complex metal music of the past 20 years. I'm pretty sure they could "out-play" LZ. Similarly, I'm sure that Tigran Hamasyan could "out-play" a lot of older jazz pianists. That's not the point of music though - it's about artistic expression, and that's something that's very tied to time and place. Also Gaga is a fantastic songwriter, at least on her "classic" material.

[@TruthDoesNotExist]

Keep in mind that Rock was very popualr at the time and was mainstream, if you turn on th radio now there are very few current rock artists that are popular

[@HedeccaTamer]

I love that type of argument, and the ONLY reason they do it is because "Lady Gaga is worse than Led Zeppelin" is really hard to argue with. If they were honest with it, their point would fall flat. Elvis to Justin Bieber sounds bad, but when you consider It's just hot guys singing songs other people wrote to make teenagers horny, they're the same The Beatles to The 1975? Two charismatic bands that dominated and influenced a whole decade at least Whitney to Beyonce, Madonna to Miley, Jackson 5 to BTS The only one who's never been replaced is Prince, and the world accepts that that just can't happen

[@katicasey4610]

I was born in the wrong generation, I only listen to Yoko Ono screaming into a microphone smh kids my age don't appreciate good music.

[@freeparking301]

Yoko’s voice is magic...just listen to the chorus of “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” and tell me who else can impersonate a dying cat so well that it over rides John Lennon’s lead vocal and sends you diving into a fiery chasm leading to the gates of Hell

[@axelbergstrom3644]

Hey, Yoko released plenty of good tunes

[@ayhamshaheed7740]

a bit much. Most people don't even like Yoko Ono lol

[@hickorymccay2994]

@@ayhamshaheed7740 Hey, I like Yoko!

[@ayhamshaheed7740]

Hickory McCay 😂 sorry about that. Well, I did say *most* people 🤷‍♂️

[@SQUIZZLER24]

I’m quite disappointed by your discussion of timbre. You mentioned nothing of density, heart wood, sap wood, fibre length, shock resistance or even anything to do with quality issues such as shake. You clearly know nothing about music.

[@KilaKrumpira]

Timbre bs is irrelevant, especiallx in modern music and it's perfectly measurable with precision.

[@Alsry1]

@@KilaKrumpira good job, you missed the joke.

[@marcocosentino7239]

Hardness and appearance are of paramount importance if you want to build musical instruments and make timbre out of timber

[@harryfloros8796]

And no opportunity must ever be lost to distinguish between hard wood and soft wood. People just don’t appreciate the different timbres.

[@hbb1939]

@@KilaKrumpira *perfectly measurable with a ruler.

[@gb-jl9yq]

I once read a 50s teen magazin. They were talking about how many people complained about "modern" music and how much better 20s music was. People will always complain about new things.

[@targetbuddy5]

I'm always reminded of this quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” - Socrates, circa 400 BC EDIT: This quote was apparently not a direct quote from Socrates, but rather a sort of summary of grievances against youth around Socrates' time, written by a history student at Cambridge in 1907. The more you know!

[@drunkene.flatmajor9892]

@@ChideraAAbviewssecondsago Cuz they are crap

[@lupaloops4166]

@@drunkene.flatmajor9892 I'm sorry but we listen to 5000 B.C. rock smashing and we don't listen to mainstream Bach. 😩🙄

[@drunkene.flatmajor9892]

@@lupaloops4166 I believe so...

[@patrickwayne9074]

I have looked for the old magazines and never found anything like this. It would be cool to read some.

[@thewhiterabbit8581]

"and computer software" This is a sentence made to appeal to boomers that haven't heard any new music since the death of jesus

[@Skrkro]

"The sine wave on an electronic synthesizer has no overtones, which makes it The Devil." i'm dead

[@plutosgardener2631]

God will only show his face to those who praise him with t o m b e r a

[@Bushwhacker-so4yk]

And here I thought the devil was a tritone.

[@bobbymiller7242]

It's funny because literally almost no one uses a plain sine wave. The entirety of FM synthesis, for example, is literally adding waves to get those overtones.

[@Skrkro]

@@bobbymiller7242 I love the plain sine wave, but only when it's at about 60 hz and 100+ dB. lol

[@Scooter_Alice]

People say music is getting worse, but they don't realize that there used to be just as much bad music as there is now, we just don't remember because we moved on from that era. The same thing will happen to us; all of the bad artists will fade into obscurity just like they did back then, and people will look back on current year and say "what happened to all the good music?"

[@davidlust2895]

But what about the new generation liking the older stuff?

[@jokerbattle7331]

Back then music was music industry had talented people make music and all the bad stuff went under the rug. Now due to modern technology it is easy to produce music that's way we have we have more music and most of them are shit. Singer using autotune instead of their talent. It feels more mass produced.

[@jokerbattle7331]

@@Scooter_Alice But there are many good and talented singers and musicians but are underrated. They use their talents to create great music. Sad reality is they are not given attention by mainstream producers. Only thing they care about is money and image. They will hire good looking people with no talent than a person with talent.

[@mlsdreavusjargon6910]

Yep, and the same thing can be said about any medium. Games today are getting worse, anime today is getting worse. And yes, some more niche or new mediums like those have more releases now in general, and so it would follow that more bad stuff is coming out than before, but there was still a bunch of mediocre stuff not worth looking twice at and just downright bad stuff coming out back in the 80s, but after decades of newer content, when people think back to that time they remember what is worth remembering. When people think back to the previous decade in 30 years, they won’t remember Aliens: Colonial Marines, or whatever bland party game was released late intonations the Wii’s life, or whatever random shovelware was coming out, they’ll more likely remember The Last of Us, Breath of the Wild, Persona 5, the games that left an impact, or the niche favourites that stick with people. They won’t remember Arifureta or Conception the Animation, or Charlotte, they’ll remember Shirobako, Made in Abyss, Kaguya-sama and Sangatsu no Lion, or again their more niche favourites. You just need to step back and look at how many good or great pieces of content is coming out, and how it’s actually pretty ok for the number of years you’re looking at.

[@smithwerber414]

I have recently started watching older anime. Not just the good ones but any kind of old anime from the 90s. I picked them randomly even some obscure weird shit. And I can tell you why so many people says that. Most of those shit i watched had better storylines and dynamic characters compare to today's anime where most are harem with bland characters. I have also seen some older harem(if they are known as harem back then) but the thing is they have better stories than today's worst anime. Although some of those older shit have worse animation they still have some charm to it. Back then when they produced something they made sure to give their 100%. Mow due to technology we can make most stuff easily. So it is easy to make everything with little to no effort. Which feels soulless. Now we have more anime than before but with no story. Compare to older shit that has bad animation and art has better story.

[@arciphera]

oh man. what you did with that freeze-frame at 7:22 is just brutal. Thoughty2's never gonna live that down.

So subtle, so great

[@philiprousseau7333]

I really think you misunderstood the dude here, he was of course talking about timber and not that timbre stuff. timber is a value that is equal to the amount of pitbull in a song, which obviously means more timber, more gooder

[@kathorsees]

hah! you're such a sham! obviously "timber" is already the comparative - it's "the timber the music, the gooder", you nincompoop

[@geometrydashbayve5004]

@@kathorsees Jesus fucking christ, just throwing out the n-word like that

[@ZenoDovahkiin]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-WOOH! kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKm1q6adqduUobs

[@Sammie_Sorrelly]

Timber? I hardly know 'er!

[@OrangeC7]

@@kathorsees nincompoop is a word I see spelled out so infrequently it still surprises me when I see it in writing

[@loweffortproductions1985]

Your timber joke is overused; I wood appreciate it if you'd cut it back a bit.

[@christianfriisjensen2055]

hi dad

[@francesconicoletti2547]

Shane McCollum I see what you did there

[@Tantacrul]

@@francesconicoletti2547 I would have preferred 'trim it down', but it was still pretty good,

[@theinspiringengineer-scien6393]

Yes - just shave it down a little :D :D PS - loved the timber gags :)

[@greedokenobi3855]

LOL

[@Ryan98391]

One must never forget the musical masterpiece of "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" written by Bob Merrill in 1952 and made famous by Patti Page. It requires not one but TWO chords to play and is written in the bizarre time signature of 3/4. Oh, the horror! One only hopes that we will ever attain such musical complexity and timber, timbre, timber, timbre ever again.

[@andreasvandieaarde]

"These days, painters are all just using the exact same stuff - brushes, colour, and *I D E A S* " That part killed me

[@stephk5797]

Here have a comment

[@ThatHorribleMusiciandork7]

here have another comment

[@jaredjoe133]

⁠@@ThatHorribleMusiciandork7 here have another newer comment

[@Datboichannel]

Here have a reply

[@jaspermooren5883]

Here, have another reply.

[@Zonno5]

Everyone who creates titles with TRUTH in it can not be trusted.

[@markschwarz2137]

Also, any vid with the title format "X DESTROYS Y!!!" is designed to confirm an individual's preconception that X is amazing and Y is pants.

[@Tantacrul]

@@markschwarz2137 Oh yes! If 'Destroys' is in the title, it's a sure sign the video will be garbage.

[@ZenoDovahkiin]

@@Tantacrul Thanks for showing people the *truth,* man. You totally destroyed this _triggered_ musical _snowflake_ with *facts* and *logic!* Totally pwnd!

[@thealientree3821]

What about (NOT CLICKBAIT)?

[@Hastilygrim]

Ain't that the truth?

[@krishnatamang1561]

If you like a song, you just like it, don't let people ruin it for you.

[@juancamilo4684]

right? i dont know why people keep buggin me for liking R Kelly, hes amazing

[@masteroffear5762]

@Elias Yildiz Hate is a strong word, i'd respect more with people who dislike it than just hate it. Hate will be like ridiculing someone's taste for like a week without doing something productive, at least that's how i feel with it personally.

[@ashtar3876]

Honestly i feel like this channel and others have done that to me

[@BlackbeltHitoshi]

@@juancamilo4684"age is just a number" 💀

[@juancamilo4684]

@@BlackbeltHitoshi right? and urine is the same as sweat just a bit yellowish

[@josephstalin2829]

Other funny little contradiction from Thoughty 2’s video, He says how in the good ole days people took the time to listen to a record, and that they listened to it several times so that they could get the nuances. And that today people switched a lot faster between songs, not taking the time. Later in the video he explains how you’re being brainwashed by modern music, because they “force” you to listen to a song over, and over, and over again. So, is listening to music over and over again until we like it a thing of the past, or a modern brainwashing method? That video is full of logical fallacies.

[@S41t4r4]

Being manipulated to like something by constant exposure and repition isn't even new. That was a thing even on early radio. The new thing is that you pay money to generate streamed numbers, not only to get it recommended over and over again but also to get those numbers to impress the consumers to think that it must be good.

[@tungster24]

ok joseph stalin

[@TrueKivan]

It is being forced in workplaces and shops all around the world though, that is exposure for sure.

[@louisalzate6185]

thanks stalin

[@unknown41030]

To anyone interested, I know a few good reads around the subject: "On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind" by Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, and "The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory" by John Seabrook.

[@SawedOffLad]

I wish I was born during the Big Bang, listening to the creation of the universe, hearing galaxy’s and stars form. That was real music, none of that shit where all you do is bang sticks and rocks and call it music, I was born in the wrong generation

[@sloper013]

big bang is still going on....

[@chromso]

@@AbcIHateYou3 you're just not trying hard enough bro. if you try really hard you can feel the vibrations caused by the big bang simply by putting your hand in the air.

[@bloodyhell8201]

@@AbcIHateYou3 no air in space to carry the sound to your eardrums Oh god, it was around all along..

[@ttty2242]

@@AbcIHateYou3 Just sense the microwave background radiation, ez

[@seannewport1543]

the big bang wasnt loud at all, it just seemed that way cause there was nothin goin on at the time.

[@rongpirson5250]

3:02 how did you miss the goldmine that is “hamonic complexity”

[@Tantacrul]

Amazingly, I missed it... and if I hadn't... it would have been Timber and Ham throughout. Such a pity!

[@allanmoorhead9492]

@@Tantacrul Yeah, comic gold.

[@ElectricUnicycleCrew]

Thoughts from a musician and fellow composer here - Thoughty2 claims that over time, timbre in pop songs has 'dropped drastically'. This makes no sense because timbre is a qualitative parameter, not a quantitative one. For example, a sawtooth wave contains more overtones than a sine wave, but we wouldn't necessarily say it has 'more' timbre, we would just say it has a 'different' timbre. It's like saying something which has more sugar has 'more taste' than something with less sugar. That's how I think about it anyway.

[@marinewelsh9927]

Read max stirner

[@Liliquan]

@@marinewelsh9927 Lol, random but I must agree.

[@RegahP]

Yeah, the dude is oversimplifying to the point of nonsense, you can't describe music in 3 quantitative properties, if it has little or lots of timbre, if it has little or lots of harmonic complexity, like that makes no sense it's not how music works at all

[@anonymouswitness3835]

Learning about this music theory stuff makes a lot of things make sense. I used to think electronica and pop was 'bad' because it made my ears hurt. I now realize that lack of overtones in music can be overstimulating for my poor autistic ears, but there's nothing objectively 'bad' about it.

[@radiobiologist]

He is just pro classical.

[@onlookerofthings6029]

The Beatles were out there with lyrics like "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah" and "Beep beep, beep beep yeah" Powerful ✊😔

[@nikitahichoii482]

And "Obla-di obla-da live goes on, bruh!" dont forget that one!

[@matthewlachance3362]

Well if you go on r/unpopular opinion you’ll see a lot of people saying that they’re overrated af. They aren’t really famous for their talent they’re famous for the influence they had on the industry

[@devlintaylor9520]

@@chrishaake8126 yea people who listen to songs just for the lyrics should just read lyrics, music is about the sound

[@akshaydalvi1534]

My favorite - I am the egg man They are the egg men I am the walrus Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob

[@subpar7404]

This comment thread makes me want to kill myself

[@instinctbrosgaming9699]

Modern music is garbage, but that's actually because everybody composes on Sibelius.

[@instinctbrosgaming9699]

@@SikerScrapyard Contrary to popular belief, it takes months to complete a song because Sibelius keeps crashing whenever you open it, so you have to download an online fix every six hours.

[@HurricaneSA]

Hah. Compose? Nobody composes music these days. You open your DAW and tell the computer to give you a few chord progressions in whatever key you want. Once you find one you like then you tell the computer to create the chords, add a rhythm pattern, bass line and arpeggio. Now make a copy of the arpeggio, remove and/or add some notes to form a melody and boom, you're done.

[@HurricaneSA]

@@DJKinney Fair enough but I will say it is not an idea I just came up with by myself. Take a look on KZbin at most of the "How to produce with " and you'll be amazed how accurate I described what I see. I might not know much about producing but I do understand when people talk about plugins like Scaler, EZKeys, Captain Chords and so on.

[@rsimchik]

I've been lurking, but I lost my shit at "Captain Chords" for some reason.

[@HurricaneSA]

@@rsimchik Yup. The sad reality (and my point) is that it seems, at least according to what is portrayed on the "producer" channels here on YT, that it's all about getting folks to churn out garbage as fast as possible instead of them learning actual music theory. I dunno, maybe I'm just over thinking it.

[@Posiman]

I'd sincerely encourage people to sift through the TOP50 hits of the 1960's There's shockingly few anazing songs by Dylan, Hendrix or Joplin as compared to the tons of run of the mill bubblegum pop like the Ohio Express or The Archies

[@cheopys]

The Guess Who were on AM radio when I was in high school. Listen to "No Time," a better song than anything that's come out of rock in a generation.

[@Miranox2]

Yep, golden age syndrome relies on forgetting the bad stuff of the past.

[@DanJackson1977]

​@@cheopysthis assumes you've heard every rock song of this generation. Also, it's based on your purely subjective taste.

[@cheopys]

@@DanJackson1977 I am not at all interested in discussing subjectivity. I know music theory, I love music. In my youth there was great music everywhere, now one has to search hard for anything listenable.

[@kekkiko6647]

​@cheopys Simply not true. Many many songs in this generation are good. But for someone who enjoys smooth, classical rock, you won't find a lot of new things because the cultural boom of classic rock has died down. Not saying that nothing is produced, but it doesn't stay as visible as old rock that is already known. It's simply a matter of ear, and as someone who enjoys a wide variety of genres from hyperpop to death metal, I can find many good songs.

[@NegativeReferral]

"We're losing the timbre! We blame four versatile musical tools that can sound like anything in the hands of a skilled sound designer!"

[@NegativeReferral]

@@iamacdr9998 Umm.... what does this have to do with this comment? There's only one stop motion film on my channel BTW.

[@iamacdr9998]

@@NegativeReferral you're a neolib for agreeing with a side of this debate instead of hating both sides. music today isn't a net improvement or a net negative. plus, your analogy of using fuckin mattell toys to describe transphobia is wack and half-baked.

[@Carbon2861996]

Instruments are no longer made of timber!

[@furcornmanwiththemasterpla8380]

The four chords that are actually less common today than they were in the 80s and early 2000s! I don't actually listen to music today, I just automatically assume that it uses the 4 chords because that's something easy to criticize. Either that or I group every bad popular song from the last 20 years into this box of "Bad music," even if they've gone completely out of style in favor of more complex music, because that's somehow fair!

[@averagecoasterenjoyer]

That's excatly what I was thinking when watching the video

[@SmartStr33t]

Modern authors are so rubbish. In the past authors used all kinds of pens, pencils and quills, but nowadays they all use CoMpUtEr SoFtWaRe.

[@chidori7234]

Pre-modern puritans be like: _Reproducing books is so rubbish. Back then people commissioned scribes to reproduce a book, word for word, every MINUTE detail. Nowadays people use Gutenburg's stupid printing press. What a bunch of lazy degenerates..._

[@Thunderlion-yd4nv]

@SmartStr33rt I don't think that analogy works--You see, if modern authors did what most modern musicians do: It would be equivalent to typing a paragraph or sentence and then copying-and-pasting it repeatedly, only changing one or two things about it throughout.

[@SmartStr33t]

@@Thunderlion-yd4nv I just think this misunderstands what musicians do. Also it falls into the fallacy of comparing what is popular now with what was good in the past. There has always been popular music which is necessarily simplified and dumb, and there has always been good music, which never reaches the same levels of popularity but has much more staying power. E.g. if you think of music of the 1990s, you might think Nirvana, Bjork, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Blur, etc. But then look at a wiki page for every number 1 single throughout the 1990s and it tells a completely different story. The popular stuff is rubbish and it's quickly forgotten.

[@Thunderlion-yd4nv]

@@SmartStr33t Umm...I don't think this misunderstands what most modern musicians (esp. rappers) do: If you listen to most chart-topping modern rap songs--for example--you will hear that it is mostly a drumline and few notes that repeat over and over again...Making it obvious they probably copied-and-pasted and/or recorded a half-assed sample and then clicked "loop", before adding minor things to it as the sample progressively repeated and repeated

[@SmartStr33t]

@@Thunderlion-yd4nv I don't think any rapper is using 'half-arsed samples'. And you can make anything sound bad if you want. Modern books? Authors nowadays just take a bunch of half-arsed words and plug them into tired old narratives. Modern painting? Artists just chuck paint at a canvas. Baroque painting? Artists used to just draw people without clothes on and then just colour them in with some half-arsed oil paints. I'm tempted to say if you think writing a catchy pop song is so simple then you have a go at it.

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

There is amazing musicians that most people have never heard about. A reason why people might think that music is getting worse might be that sorting algorithms just keep recommending them the same stuff over and over again and they never step foot outside of their bubble, where they might discover new music they enjoy.

[@averagecoasterenjoyer]

People's taste in music is worse, not the music itself

[@rainberry2159]

@@averagecoasterenjoyerthat makes a lot of sense, the songs that people listen to and the music that is mainstream has declined in quality IMO. but there’s still so many great artists out there and people would rather harp on how awful mainstream music is instead of just listening to the music that IS good out there

[@Kat-Kobold]

"Punchy bass is a pop thing that has made music worse" Arran is lucky that Lemmy isn't alive to hear him say that.

[@dysfunctionalcaramel3821]

Hey robotnik how are ya?

[@stefanpredoi4564]

Listen to any old dub reggae album from the 70s and you'll realize that we've enjoyed punchy bass for a very, very long time

[@you_tubeslonelyheartsclubband]

I hope he doesn't listen to later Beatles records or Motown/Stax/Soul.

[@you_tubeslonelyheartsclubband]

@@stefanpredoi4564 Even in jazz, people set their action(height of the strings from the fingerboard) on their upright basses higher so that it was punchier and louder.

[@stefanpredoi4564]

@@you_tubeslonelyheartsclubband That's really not surprising. In the days before amplification was widespread you had to cut through the room somehow, especially considering that the bass plays an essential role in the chordal structure of jazz ensembles. Also yes, Motown and late Beatles have some stellarly punchy bass that manages to still fit in super well into the mix. The mono mixes are superior in this regard.

[@ecyvalon]

I watched his channel years ago, but nowadays it seems like he has overdosed on redpills and his viewerbase just eats this stuff up

[@bencristofani3116]

Same. This video is a good critique of his bs

[@redgeoblaze3752]

Thoughty: "How do we scientifically measure music quality" Musicologists: "Step 1, Give up. Step 2, Grow up."

[@xCorvus7x]

That feels a bit like what linguists have (perhaps also) done long ago when they rejected prescriptivism and assumed the descriptivist position.

[@wm97ab]

Very simple. Did others feel it was worth making themselves?

[@crazydragy4233]

@@xCorvus7x Indeed. Though that made me stop, had to remember there are some descriptivists around x’d . Prescriptivist are louder by design.... Complaining always draws more attention than observations.

[@xCorvus7x]

@@crazydragy4233 Ah, yes, the vocal minorities. Though, as far as I understand it, descriptivism is the default in the field, so they'll be always around.

[@matthijsblomjous3671]

well looking at the comments I guess I'll throw my degree in music and technology in the trash because everyone is a musicologist or has a masters in music.

[@moth5799]

Something you didn't touch on but also explains why people think modern music is "bad" is selection bias. We only remember the great songs from the 70s and 80s, not all the trashy ones that were only popular for a week or two. So when someone who grew up in the 70s is comparing the music they remember to the music on the radio, not only are they looking at the older music with nostalgia but they're comparing the very best of the 70s to the average of today.

[@rudolfambrozenvtuber]

I am cursed with the knowledge that there were Lionel Richie clones. And oh boy did they chart

[@moth5799]

@@rudolfambrozenvtuber Exactly! None of those clones did anything interesting musically, they just produced rip offs of great music. People loved them then but no one nowadays remembers them. That's exactly what's happening now as well. 40 years from now only the truly good bands will be remembered, just like how only Queen, the Beatles etc are remembered now.

[@derdritte7957]

Such a weird argument, given the defence of today's music always is "Just look outside the top 100!".

[@cheopys]

I never listen to Ten Years After anymore, but they were still better than anything coming out today. A year after Thriller was the best selling LP of all time, you could buy it for 5¢ in a used CD store. Meanwhile people still listen to the Beatles and Yes. Music today is like a hotel room toothbrush, single-use and disposable.

[@emdiar6588]

Modern music is so awful because... 1. It doesn't remind me of my youth. 2. I can't identify with anyone who has ever used the abbreviation ''gram' as a verb. 3. Young people are shallow and generally suck. 4. What was the question again? 5. Where did I leave my Crumhorn? 6. ....

[@biivamunner3122]

wait this isn't a letter

[@jonathanjohnson9611]

Exactly.lol it’s all BS

[@jonathanjohnson9611]

@The Stonefish Yeah because shallow adults don’t exist. It’s only the youth 🙄

[@GeteMachine]

6. "Music sucks today because I don't like the music marketed to, or popular among young girls, screaming fan girls are annoying to me. Music is dead." 7. "I grew up socialized to this genre from my parents and I liked this genre, so therefore maintream music sucks." 8. "The obscure indie band I like isn't mainstream now, so therefore music died." 9. "I can throw out names of already the go-to-names of classical artists or popular 70s band artists that I am pretending aren't mainstream despite everyone knowing the names of- to say music sucks because they aren't popular now." These 3 are also very common. Now its. "Cherrypicked articles or studies I take out of context, proves the music I like now, is better so therefore all my prejudices are factual objectivity."

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

I dislike people just bashing the present, but I think there were other reasons. Some are not so bad. Such as some modern songs sing just sing about promiscuity, vulgarity, drugs, violence, and bashing their ex. Also, some say too much repetition and too much autotune. But people should search for good songs.

[@simP001]

I once found a comment under a Thoughty2 video which reads something along the lines of "Who needs school? I learned so much from this video instead!". I get frustrated every time I remember that one comment

[@mariejuku]

/god/ that makes me shudder

[@kaitlyn__L]

Christ. I’ve seen comments like that under actually-educational physics or maths channels. Not thinkpieces… ugh

[@imjustaguycalledsano]

As a person who is currently studying music. The dudes comparisons were bullshit already when he started mentioning artists in entirely different genres. Which disregards all the development that occurred through those times.

[@javascriptkiddie2718]

Pop is dance music. It's hard to dance to something with constant changes in harmony/mood and that's why it's simple and loud because it's intended to make you JAM. Same for a lot of EDM. That's the problem with all these videos. It's like comparing salt to sugar, or a drill to a saw. All music is actually good if you know where to apply it.

[@averagecoasterenjoyer]

YES! I watch his original video and that's what I was screaming (also was screaming how he never mentioned any *great* artists like Kendrick Lamar)

[@Monti1999]

Well say That to Rock, Punk, Metal. 😆

[@cheopys]

BS. Pop is vocalist shit. And most vocalists are headache music.

[@psychodrummer1567]

Music is music, though, therefore you can still compare it, just like you can compare The Godfather to Avengers: Infinity War. The only caveat is, *your bias* determines which one of those two titles you consider to be "the better movie".

[@Dojafish]

Pop isn't really only just Dance music ,there alot of pop songs out there that are complex . Bjork is a great example of that .

[@ajmeyers5661]

This was very on point, well argued and f**king hilarious, however you're doing it all wrong. If you want 2.4 million subs you have to be willing say to them: "you were right all along". Doesn't matter the topic, just: (1) find out what most people believe (2) say that thing back to them and (3) profit

[@pneumonoultramicroscopicsi4344]

Frick... seeya at 10 million!

[@modifiedcontent]

'Wisdom of Crowds' - or 'Gesundes Volksempfinden' as we used to call it

[@criticalhippo4294]

His whole channel just panders to boomers: Depressed millennials, friendless millennials, renewable energy is dumb millennials dumb, millennials = dumb dumb, you catch the drift

[@samerm8657]

You forgot the eyebrows. remember the eyebrows

[@DerekPower]

Say all the correct opinions whilst playing Minecraft.

[@lerippletoe6893]

I think music could have *generally* gotten worse for business reasons this study was not capable of addressing. The big dumb lake got bigger and took a larger portion of the market, but quality and differentiation in the rest maybe even got better, and people have more access to the better stuff now too so that difference can give people today an effective access to better music. Older music has the benefit of being filtered too - if we had to listen to the older music in the proportions and selection people who lived then were subjected to, we might have better perspective and get annoyed by it just as much as we're annoyed by modern top chart hits sometimes.

[@morbidmanatee115]

The problem with trying to make objective statements about *any* art being better or worse than another is that no matter how long you talk, how many technical terms you use, how deeply you analyze the pieces, all of your arguments can be destroyed with "but I like it." There are definitely principles of good art, but they're descriptive, not prescriptive. We look at the things humans tend to like and we look for similarities. And then we go "Hm, people seem to like this song with a rhythm more than they like the sound of me randomly throwing a box of cymbals around, I should keep that in mind." Understanding these principles and using them effectively can definitely help you craft something that a larger number of people will consider good. But it's not like there's some all-powerful council going "THOU SHALT ENJOY RHYTHM" and everyone else went "aw, I thought I liked random-box-of-cymbals guy, but I guess I was wrong!"

[@TallicaMan1986]

While I agree, I feel people are unable to talk smack about the things they like. I like a lot of watered pop music written by 10 people to ensure it's as simple as it can get. I know it isnt particularly smart music and the subject of the song most of the times is rather dumb as well. When people tend to think of things they like. They have to like 100% of what's going on and I dont think that's entirely true and not entirely honest with themselves and the people around them. This is the exact same phenomenon in Film. There are many many cinephiles that like shit movies for exactly that reason. The Room is probably the worse movie made with real effort. People love it, but know it isnt exactly intelligent. These people are honest. When I say I like something dumb. I'm not defending it even in the slightest because I'll never use this level of subjectivity to defend these things and as a musician who can crank out shit. I will never let another random person tell me what I cranked out first hand tell me it's good. Theres levels to it like everything in life.

[@spracketskooch]

I disagree, I think there are objective standards for all art. The problem is you're mistaking people's enjoyment of a piece of art the standard, therefore everyone has their own standards and there is no objective standard. But enjoyment of art has nothing to do with the objective quality of it. For example I like songs by Santigold, but I also like songs by TTNG. Using things like technical difficulty, originality, complexity, how it affects emotions, etc. It's very clear that TTNG's music is objectively better than Santigold's. It's the same thing as when your kid gives you a painting they did, and it brings more to your life than all the other paintings combined, but it's still nowhere near the quality of say a Rembrant. What is popular is not necessarily what's good. On a slightly different note, it's strange that TV used to be the same way as the modern music industry, filled with mediocre shows. Then people started taking chances and putting objectively good stuff out like Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones(first 5 seasons) and lo and behold the good stuff rose to the top. It's almost like people aren't as dumb as executives think. Maybe if the music industry took more chances and assumed the audience wasn't a herd of idiots that can only accept what's tried and true, the objectively better artists might have a chance at crazy success. That said since the music industry has lost it's role as gatekeeper, there's a lot of good music out there but you just can't trust an algorithm to find it for you. I have a playlist on my channel called "good music" if anyone wants to check it out. Not everything on there is objectively amazing, but its a good starting point to hear a lot of music you probably haven't heard before.

[@spracketskooch]

@ Nope I don't. Shit is harmful to you, and I don't know what it tastes like but I assume it's not sweet. Ice cream isn't that harmful to you, and it's sweet which we're biologically wired to seek out and enjoy. Ice cream is objectively a better dessert than shit, regardless of whether you enjoy shit more. For any set of goals, there are objective standards for what's best to accomplish those goals. Experience is subjective, quality is not. I'm sorry but you just have to come to terms with the fact that your will does not determine quality. It's just one of those things that you were told when you were young by an authority figure and just accepted as truth because the majority of people were told and believe the same thing. Like that men are rewarded for sexual promiscuity and women are scorned for it, which I can get into if that's something you want.

[@spracketskooch]

@@bacicinvatteneaca I know you're being facetious, but we've all heard of the four chords that made a million right? Both the concept and the song by Porcupine Tree. Just to be clear, I never said all pop music, or pop in general is bad. It's a song by song analysis here. I honestly think that even the level of emotion a song can evoke is limited by it's objective quality. Like there's more emotional territory to explore in an odd timed jazz song than in a 4/4 pop song. You can argue that my bar of quality is too high, but you can't argue that there are an objective set of qualities by which all humans judge all music, otherwise we would actually enjoy a guy banging pots and pans around.

[@spracketskooch]

@@bacicinvatteneaca My mistake then, it's always kinda hard to tell the tone of a person from text. Especially when you're in defend your idea mode. Or maybe I'm just dumb and missed your point entirely, either way I apologize.

[@dbrock1553]

I think your description of Thoughty is pretty accurate, he sounds good unless you actually know something about what he is talking about then you realize he's just Googled a bunch of random facts and has no idea what he is actually saying. He is pretty much the embodiment of the Dunging-Kruger effect meets the office know-it-all. When someone like Rick Beato talks about the evolution of music he knows what he is talking about, when Aaron talks about it, he is just summarizing an article he has no ability to critique and then tossing some misunderstood Googled "facts" on top.

[@cewla3348]

the dunning-kreuger effect is just that self-expectation starts high, but grows slow e.g quantifying skill means that a 10% skill person believes themselves to be 50%, but a 100% skill person believes themself to be (if i remember right) 75%. There's no big fall-off or rise.

[@dbrock1553]

@@cewla3348 It's more about a lack of comprehension of a subject. It's about skill and knowledge, and it's about being deficient in understanding to the point that you cannot comprehend the depth and breadth of a topic and thus cannot even estimate your relative competence, so it's not JUST self-expectation but rather inability to understand how to anchor your expectations ( I tend to favour the metacognition theory BTW). When you gain experience and understanding you start to realize how extensive the subject is and your confidence will align with your actual understanding and abilities. Experts are the most accurate in their self-assessment but do tend to slightly underestimate their knowledge and skill as they understand their limits and the limits of the subject or skill in toto. There is a drop at the flexion point where a person actually gains enough knowledge or skill to understand how little they really know, although not the way most people have seen the curve, but I'm not sure where you get those percentages since there is no precise way to quantify these flexion points for every possible subject as they will vary greatly by subject and not just individual. Those nicely round points (10%, 50%, 100%, 75%)are rather suspect.

[@cynicanal111]

I know this is an older comment, but in recent times, Beato has gone down the "boomer music was the best and everything afterwards is just trash" rabbit hole and begun yelling at clouds just as hard as anyone else on KZbin.

[@DJstarrfish]

I think Vsauce did the best take on pop music in "Juvenoia" where he argued that pop music is getting more homogeneous but that's okay because it means it's getting better at what it's indended to be (i.e. catchy and short), and overall music has only gotten more experimental over time

[@Nemo_Anom]

That's a bad take. The purpose of music is to express something. Pop music is designed only to be a cash-grab earworm. It's not up to the same job. It's the difference between a chicken salad and cheetos. One is food the other ain't.

[@PanjaRoseGold]

Theo Smith 1. You can consume both of those, therefore they must both be food and likewise with pop and other genres. 2. He never argued that the music was good, just that it was doing what it was supposed to and doing it better than the pop of yesteryear. It’s not a “bad take”, it’s just you wanting to argue something the commenter never was implying to begin with.

[@jojbenedoot7459]

@@Nemo_Anom uh oh guys, KZbin commenter Theo Smith has set down the decree of what music is. Pack it in, everyone

[@ppppppqqqppp]

@@Nemo_Anom so are you like, 14 and new to the idea of different stuff for different jobs, or are you a 60 year old boomer who thinks only the beatles are real music?

[@voidoesminecrafta2706]

Theo Smith so your 10

[@Ric-Phillips]

“Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini.’ Your honour, the defence rests.

[@Neion8]

That lyric is the musical equivalent of a brain aneurysm.

[@gilespeterson6832]

Ric Phillips I like bananas because they have no bones >

[@caseyb1346]

Bird is the Word, ya'll.

[@blackhogarth4049]

And furthermore, "ooh ee, ooh ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang."

[@Lochness19]

I feel like a lot of 60s songs would get ridiculed today for how corny they are. Most younger generations just aren't aware those songs existed because the only songs they know from that decade are pretty good like Paint It Black, Sound of Silence, Ring of Fire, Fortunate Son and Here Comes The Sun. That's not too say bad songs have gone extinct, Justin Bieber just released "Yummy", but all but his blindest fans seem to find it laughably bad and I doubt the song will have much legs once the hype of getting new music from a very popular artist like him wears off.

[@cziffrathegreat666]

its like the baroque era critisizing the romantic era with all its free rubato and "loudness and quietness"

[@KelnelK]

This is what happens every time a journalist writes an article about a scientific paper without actually talking to someone who knows the academic field well enough to explain why the paper doesn't "scientifically prove" anything.

[@onkelpappkov2666]

Scientist: "Would you like me to explain--" Journalist: "Nah nigga I'm good, I'm smart." **SCIENCE SAYS TUMBOR KILLS MUSIC**

[@badasunicorn6870]

Admittedly, the paper (according to tantacruel, I'm not gonna pretend I red it) had it's own flaws by assessing musical quality only by the pure sound data, as opposed to the musical data.

[@alazrabed]

A couple years ago I stumbled on an article claiming that "Extraterrestrial life exists, and it's been proved mathematically". After digging a little and reading the gist of the quoted paper, it turned out to be completely misleading. The main idea put forth was a rearranging of a relation (the Drake equation) that tied your intuition of whether life was out there or not with the corresponding probability of life appearing somewhere in the universe and developing into a technological civilization. Nothing close to a mathematical proof -- but then again, you can't sell if you don't pimp it, right?

[@storerestore]

It's also one of the more benign examples of applying AI or machine learning to bad data to answer incorrectly posed questions. Unfortunately, similarly haphazard techniques are used elsewhere (to draw similarly ridiculous conclusions) to decide which friends' social network posts someone is likely to be interested in reading, what ads will most successfully manipulate someone into giving money away and how likely it is that someone is a criminal.

[@ten_tego_teges]

You'd be surprised to discover how many scientific papers are rubbish.

[@casperchristiansen2458]

This comment is for the Aphex Twin appreciation.

[@emmettm.975]

Hell yeah!

[@lohollywood1f428]

Appreciation noted!

[@64_bit80]

ayyyyyyy 😎

[@alivenotwell]

thanks mate

[@Phantasma999]

Aphex Twin is appreciated.

[@abbadonvr9045]

I am a producer, and I come back to laugh at this every now an again. I love the takes of the general quality of music, given to me by people who do not make music. It's very funny.

[@blackskeleton7817]

also a producer, been doing it for close to 6 years, and man; ive come back to this video SO many times, and every time i find another layer of depth to the absolute ignorance of thoughty2; the comments are also a goldmine, full of people that dont know the first thing about music lol

[@averagecoasterenjoyer]

"oh no, timbre and lyrics are the only good things about music" - probably Thoughty2 No

[@morbid1.]

I find it funny when people refer to music from 60-70 by naming literally most popular 5 bands that are not even "pop" genre and compare it to some pop singers most people will not even remember 30 years later.

[@aronpuma5962]

Oh definitely. The biggest hit in America in 1969 was "Sugar" by the Archies. That song has been immortalized in some great Simpson's memes, but uh, not for its quality and dignity. It's certianly not better than America's biggest song of 2019: Old Town Road, which is also pop, and I find a lot less annoying at least, your mileage may vary, though I'd argue it's a lot more distinct a song anyways.

[@PuffyRainbowCloud]

@FuckOuttaHere You're partially right. There are two things called "pop music". There is the original definition; music popular during a certain period of time; and the newer definition which came about due to a long time of nearly all popular music sharing certain things in common; certain harmonic, melodic, lyrical rules which are still largely the same today as they were sixty years ago. Usually when people today talk about pop music they are referring to the latter; the musical style.

[@justwonnowimlost]

why compare the golden handful of older music that has survived with the piles of new music that hasn't been sorted through in the long term?

[@LiamNajor]

Independent artists or people messing around on laptops probably account for 90% or more of the music on earth at this point. The barrier of entry is far lower then it has ever been.

[@TTFMjock]

Because that golden handful no longer exists in mass-market music today. There is no Led Zepp today. There is no equivalent of a Stevie Wonder, a Dylan, a Marvin Gaye, etc. You get a thimble of water in a desert today. The best material from all of 2010 to 2020 would probably stand poorly against the top 40 in a bad month any time from 1965 to 1975.

[@TTFMjock]

@@justwonnowimlost I mean, sure, that's obvious. Oldheads dig the past. But that's a different thing from saying "studios today are pushing 4-chord pop with extremely derivative melodies and no-talent (but well-connected) artists, and dumbing down the public. This has nothing to do with nostalgia. Consider that no one really talks about "Doggie in the Window" or the "Disco Duck" in a nostalgic way. They talk about the Golden Age of Rock from 1966-1976, after which most people acknowledge a gradual decline throughout the late 70s through about 2000 (people differ on the details) and after 2010, pretty much every active music listener observes a plummeting of quality.

[@fobusas]

If it was survivorship bias, my spotity playlist wouldn't be so lopsided from 60-80's and barely anything from the last decade. Or is good modern music really obscure and I suck at finding it?

[@jetison333]

@@fobusas More like the way music is generally written has changed, and your tastes are still "in the past" so to say. Im not saying its bad, its just different.

[@YayaFeiLong]

It's the same reason people say Vine was better than TikTok. No it wasn't, it's just the only Vines that anyone remembers are the funniest ones

[@simondalzell1965]

I'm a French guy who works in music. I didn't realize timbre was pronounced the French way. I feel silly.

[@silentstrike220]

Well it depends on where you live, here it's pronounced (tam-bre) but I don't think anywhere is it called (tim-bre)

[@WilliamAndrea]

It's a bit different. In French it's /tɛ̃bʀ/ "tim-br", in English /ˈtæmbər/ "TAM-bər".

[@simondalzell1965]

@@WilliamAndrea I wish IPA were more commonly taught in school. I've been singing in choirs since I was very little but never got a proper lesson on it, and I keep finding situations where it would be useful as hell :/

[@mccalltrader]

Y’all should hear how that there word is pro-nounced here in Texas Boy howdy, it’s different!

[@ryuuji159]

aparently is one of these words that is from latin and pronounced mostly equally in most languages

[@onlyontuesdays4483]

My homie told me thoughty2 always has this 🤨 expression and I haven't been able to unsee it

[@greentaigo2552]

Its one of those things that always annoy me when youtubers do it, he's so clearly trying to convince you he's smart. Same with his speaking patterns and the way he stresses certain words.

[@theliberation9061]

Funny thing is that I actually think modern *pop* is abysmal and truly a sterile, soulless trainwreck eating its own tail, but beyond the top 20 lists or whatever, music is doing better than ever - established genres keep doing great and evolving, and new stuff keeps appearing. It's telling how many of the people who claim "modern music sucks" have clearly never even attempted to search for anything else than what is served to them, despite it being easier than ever.

[@robtilley8922]

This is it exactly. I try to be open minded and listened to BBC Africa on my way home from an improv jam - they play mostly mainstream pop. After 6 songs I couldn't take it anymore.... the same tempo for 6 songs in a row (about 65 bpm), EVERY voice autotuned, no live drummer (all trap beats with 16ths on the high hat), same harmonies, melodies with perhaps 5 different notes and an endlessly repetitive phrase or motif (I counted for one song and stopped at 150 repetitions!). Then there's Snarky Puppy, or Dodie, or Wulfpeck, or Glass Animals, or hundreds of others writing really great stuff. They just don't sell millions...

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

@@robtilley8922 65 bpm only? Isn't that kind of little.

[@darkstarr984]

I find it easiest to look things up that are mentioned in videos and forums, plus go to music festivals so I can find bands and acts I enjoy then support them. Folk music is absolutely thriving, and rock is just something that went from the mainstream to a minor thing - not dead, just small now.

[@missoats8731]

@@robtilley8922 Did you say Glass Animals? 😂😂😂 Maybe you should actually have a look at the charts from time to time...😉

[@MusicalRadiation]

I concur. I hate the standard radio pop music. But on the other hand, there is currently an insane Australian Psych Rock scene happening which I'm part of. All these bands like King Gizzard, Pond, The Lazy Eyes, etc. are putting out insanely good records. This results in me listening pretty much only to 'modern' music, which according to Thoughty2, should be bad music.

[@goodlookingcorpse]

In between having to buy the music or hear it on the radio, and mp3 players, there were blank cassettes. There was a whole moral panic about how 'home taping is killing music' that was almost exactly the same as the one about downloading mp3s.

[@vaiyt]

"Home taping is killing the music industry. We left this side blank so you can help." - the Dead Kennedys when they were still cool

[@sirspookybones1118]

I was born in the right Generation so I can listen to all sorts of music from any recorded era. Especially last decade with Animals as leaders, Muse, Arctic monkeys, Trivium, insert competent band/artist here

[@clemensmoeller4549]

I feel the same, but I still wish I could have seen Metallica live sometime between 1986 and 1990.

[@sirspookybones1118]

@@clemensmoeller4549 yeah I'd like to see some older bands live in their prime, but at least we got recordings for a bunch of really good ones

[@mauve9266]

When going through my ‘wrong generation’ phase *shudders* I always fixated on what I’d never get to experience, and whilst I’d still have loved to have seen certain artists live or be at particular events, I can’t say that I’d trade that for the insane access to music I have now. It’s actually surreal and I’m so grateful for it. I highly doubt my taste in music would be as diverse as it is W/o the internet

[@miguelmanzano3960]

That's okay for me but it's crap the the whole society liked the modern music and i don't so i always feel alone especially in the pandemic And my only friend that love old music i can't see him no more i always remember talking to him about old music and we're the only one who can relate we're obsessed with queen and always singing the bands song and everyone is looking at us lol

[@Liggliluff]

Yes; with the modern age, you have access to a lot of music. Sadly not all; there are music I'm trying to get, but can't find neither a legal or illegal way to get my hands on. Although songs do show up on KZbin, but I was hoping for nicer 320 MP3 or FLAC quality for storing in my music library, not crappy KZbin quality.

[@littleferrhis]

Bob Dylan and Led Zepplin never made a number one hit, I don’t even think they ever made a top 10 hit. Smells Like Teen Spirit only made it to number 6 on the pop charts. One of the most influential albums of the 1960s, Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys, was a complete commercial flop, despite being made by a commercially successful band. In other words the music you remember as being popular or being great from that era really weren’t pop artists. Pop music generally doesn’t make the trends, it rides them until the next thing becomes popular. The only real exception to this was the Beatles, which is one of the more surprising things.

[@_LastYearsMan]

Bob Dylan didn't even have a number one album until 1974 with Planet Waves!

[@AaronKaiMCDNLD]

i mean Abbey Road by the beatles had mixed reception back at 1970 but due to time and rising interest on the beatles in todays world it was heralded as one of the best Beatles Album

[@pryan455]

Jimi Hendrix was never realy on the charts except for all along the watch tower, but the show where he lights his guitar on fire is called the Monterrey Pop Festival. I think we're talking about music that plays on the radio here

[@MattMcIrvin]

I was wondering how much of this was bias caused by the fact that a sample of significant music is going to pick up a lot of contemporary stuff that is pretty ephemeral, but only the best-remembered music from past decades.

[@KKSmith]

@@MattMcIrvin Well I just picked 1975 as a random year to check the top 10. Sure there is some fluff there ... Captain and Tenille "Love Will Keep Us Together" were kind of riding that "Bennie and the Jets" piano pop sound. Glenn Campbell is there with Rhinestone Cowboy which is a pretty gormless country pop hit. Before the Next Teardrop Falls from Freddy Fender is something that hasnt really stood the test of time. Same with My Eyes Adored You from Frankie Valli (although I think it would be unfair to call Valli fluff) But then you have Elton John, David Bowie, The Eagles, and Earth Wind and Fire. 4 hugely significant artists who write, play, and perform their own music (yeah yeah Elton John + Taupin). So where would their equivalents be in the modern top 10? Halsey? Post Malone? Maroon 5?

[@HonorWillow]

The study was wrong from the get go. You can’t measure whether music is good or bad: only if it follows technical rules. It’s just music snobs, which is also why musical complexity was one of the factors when there is nothing bad about simplicity. Actually, a lot of times less is more!

[@thomaspoteete4119]

Musical snobbery in college straight up caused me to refuse to be a music educator. Can't stand self-righteous douches who think complexity equals quality. Nah, Dr. Director. The music you're making us play sounds like ass even when we play it perfectly. The song is ass, and only you and the other professors want to hear it. All of us want to play something that actually SOUNDS good.

[@BDozer666]

You have to draw a line somewhere. It can't be too complex or too simple, otherwise someone might consider Stardust's awful derivative/downgrade ''Music sounds better with you'' a good song when it's just less than 2 seconds of sound being looped for 7 minutes straight.

[@HonorWillow]

@@BDozer666 or we could just let people enjoy music as that’s the purpose, not to be judged objectively as good or bad

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

It's not even music snobs because as Tantacrul noted there were no musicologists. The study didn't even involve any professional snobs. The study is a bunch of people fiddling around with AI and seeing what measurements they can make on a large dataset, and then fishing for some kind of narrative hook that will get them published. And as it happens, one of the most time-tested formulas for a great article is "new thing bad, old thing good", so that's what they went with.

[@midasiscariot]

The biggest lie I've heard was how music is the most universal language. I have been listening to music all my life and I still can't find one fucking word to describe what it makes me feel.

[@OskarSvan]

For people that say that music is bad now, here are some bop makers: Jacob Collier, Vulfpeck, Cory wong, Bill Wurtz, Loney Dear, Veronica maggio, The Altogether, Voiceplay has some bops and I personally really like Bo Burnham.

[@runningwithscissors7780]

you wrote this a pretty long time ago, but i’m still excited to see vulfpeck on here! they’ve been a favorite of me and my dad for years, love their stuff

[@you_tubeslonelyheartsclubband]

I personally like Scary Pockets, they're a funk cover band, and Silk Sonic(Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak).

[@LePeppino]

Very based of you to include Bill Wurtz. I agree tho, his tunes are refreshing, complex and catchy af.

[@chinchiIIa]

@@LePeppino actual facts, his music is good because anyone can listen to and enjoy it, but it also might be complex

[@nfdhje38743m]

jacob collier is mid

[@stockicide]

People usually attack this argument from the angle of "modern music isn't that bad" rather than "most old music wasn't actually very good or complex." Pop songs from the twenties and Motown singles are largely just 2 minutes of repeated choruses. Ditto for many of Sinatra's hits. We remember the good stuff and the rest doesn't get passed down, making older music seem better. It's the difference between listening to the radio in the 60's where one out of every ten songs was great, and listening to a classic rock station today that only plays the stuff that's stood the test of time, back-to-back constantly.

[@marmolejomartinezjoseemili9043]

but eevn then complexity =/= quality, in art there is no real objective quality

[@Daz912]

Ok. We just had an entire decade of music between 2010 and 2020 that was objectively worse than say 1970 to 1980.

[@fredrikhallstrom8639]

This is such a good point.

[@keyboardstalker4784]

@@Daz912 shut up boomer

[@AlexCab_49]

You got a point. Even today people already think 00s music was good because the songs we like are what het remembered and other songs don't.

[@authenticbaguette6673]

"Haydn , mozart , and beethoven .. those degenerates .." Beethoven : "what did you just say ? No seriously I didn't hear you" Sorry .

[@kinhamid9665]

"How did we get from Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga?" I mean, how did we get from The Shaggs to King Gizzard, or from Tiny Tim to King Krule? Cherry-picking examples only makes your agenda easier to spot.

[@cebo494]

To paraphrase VSauce in his Jeuvenoia video: Complaining that all pop music sounds the same ignores the sameness of all pop music's goal. When you are trying to make music that will appeal to the largest number of people and will get stuck in peoples head so they keep listening to it, you are going to end up converging on some sort of optimal pattern of music over time. But, as mentioned in the video, there is an entire ocean of variety out there, it just isn't pop.

[@missoats8731]

As I always say, Pop music is made to be popular, hence the name. The "best" pop music is the most popular music, because it succeeds the most in what it was supposed to do.

[@cebo494]

@@sunkintree They aren't trying to make bad music, but they also aren't trying to make "good" music. They're only trying to make music that will appeal to the largest audience; conventional musical quality is simply not one of it's goals. It is completely fair to not like it but it's not really fair to call it "bad". It serves its purpose better than any other style of music. It's like saying that white noise is bad music. It's not trying to be good music, it's trying to block out other sounds. Or like saying that horror movie soundscapes are bad music when, again, they aren't trying to be good music, they're trying to create an atmosphere to put you into the right state of mind to be spooked.

[@n8pls543]

To a certain extent, what we call "pop music" is purpose-designed to be like the muzak of yesteryear. Actually less for a consumer, and more to stock the necessary corporate soundtracks - any individual sales is just an added bonus.

[@masteroffear5762]

@@cebo494 Yeah i wish i can like this comment more than once because this comment really speaks what i've been saying a lot of times about pop music. You're seeking for advanced structure of music, you won't get it here. After all, pop music is a reflection of society we're living right now, and it's not a bad thing as long as people at one society can enjoy it and feel happy with it.

[@xBINARYGODx]

plenty of top 20 music is good, actually - its loaded with shallow fun crap, but also many song that will stand the test of time - much of what people are remember from the good old day is top 20 stuff. that said, plenty of pop music (pop as in style, not just happens to be popular) is not just simple trash - there are some pretty well know pop acts that have albums and singles that are not just shallow trite.

[@bigfluff1409]

This reminds me of the good old "rock is dead" b.s people scream about everytime maroon 5 pumps out another unit. If you look hard enough you can find just about any kind of music you want.

[@tibbygaycat]

Dude I literally was able to discover Daniel Kahn's discography of Yiddish punk folk, people are seriously lacking in imagination with this. They don't even mean what they say, they just purely say this for social capital to differentiate themselves from others.

[@NVRSE500]

One word, DOOM

[@ML-xp1kp]

You don't even need to look outside of the well-known. Metallica's Hardwired is a thing, and is certainly one of their best albums to date.

[@grmpf]

I think it's pretty clear what they mean is that rock has largely disappeared from the mainstream. When is the last time a rock band or artist had a string of Billboard top 10 hits? What is the last time there was more than one number one hit for a rock band (not the same band, any rock band) in a whole decade? Of course we now have access to a larger variety of bands and artists to explore than ever before, but that's not the same as the genre being part of mainstream culture. I'm not saying that's good or bad, just that's probably what the "rock is dead" people are talking about.

[@termitreter6545]

​@@grmpf I dont think thats clear at all; most of those people usually say there is no good music, or at least rock, made anymore. They actually think that. But even if we go with that idea; imo its pretty shallow and backward to put much value into the billboard top 10 these days; if anything, that list shows how meaningless those charts have become. To use them as a measurement for anything shows a very outdated approach to music. Music these days is a lot more diverse, there is not one defining type of music; even the most succesfull hip hop/rnb/rap/etc stuff, which youll find in the billboard top10, is generally pretty bland and shortlived. Funny thing is, you know whats among the biggest, and therefor by definition most mainstream genres right nows? Metal. A style of music directly developed from rock, which has literally hundreds of subgenres, a crazy amount of quality music and tons of festivals all the time. Even appears in national charts reguarly, particuarly in europe. That might have supplanted classic rock in many places, but youll still find plenty rock/hard rock in the vicinity. Its always funny to me when people talk about mainstream music and pretend metal doesnt exist. People perception of music and mainstream is just really damn weird. Sure its not part of some cultural revolution or anything; but thats a ludicrous expectation, and has nothing to do with quality.

[@doug2434]

"Since it's part of a basic harmonic grammar we all understand." You vastly underestimate my musical ineptitude.

[@newportbot7709]

“Ok boomer”, the video response.

[@somedudeok1451]

Ironically Tantacrul is probably quite a bit older than this wannabe old timer. Btw, through his ambition to please as many people as possible with as little effort as possible, Thoughty2 has managed to echo fascist ideology in some of his videos... probably without realizing it. Probably.

[@pinkabstractions1752]

@@somedudeok1451 the saddest thing is that dude has like 2+ millions sub and many of them are probably kiddos...

[@atespeach5672]

@@somedudeok1451 nice Same guy who doesn't believe in evolution as happening, "anymore" so I doubt it.

[@chitchit2732]

I am honored to be the 666th like

[@pinkabstractions1752]

@@chitchit2732 I'm here to witness your special moment

[@alextw1488]

Justin Timbrelake

[@Jumsut_]

Timbreland

[@averymetagal]

Bravo

[@AvixkThePig]

Thoughty2 gives me low-effort, content farm vibes. No personality at all.

[@noahmay7708]

just like the infographics show, the shit urks me.

[@z-beeblebrox]

All the videos I've seen from him have this perfect combination of smugness and faux "don't shoot the messenger these are just facts" objectivity that I find utterly obnoxious. And yet, if he has any strong detractors besides this video, youtube has never surfaced them to me

[@tyranneous]

He just strongly reminds me of Paul Joseph Watson, someone who shills soy-based "brain force" supplement pills while criticising "soy".

[@egilsandnes9637]

@@noahmay7708 Oh, you mean that waving muppets with circle for hands show?

[@Mehwave]

Thoughty2 talking about modern music: "It's going down." also Thoughty2: "I'm yelling TIMBER"

[@mauve9266]

😂

[@kingmac6638]

😂

[@dvmpgmhl1191]

😂

[@AnimalProjec]

😂

[@naoexistimos777]

It's going down; I'm yeIIng timber

[@quinnmartin4236]

*timbre

[@iz2333]

Tombruhhhhhh

[@lepkember6913]

My opinion is, that many people prefer older music, and think it's better, because time "filters" it out. Sure, there are many successful musicians nowadays, who make average, or even bad music, jumping on trends, etc. But these things existed the same way in the past. The difference is, that people forget about most of the less valuable acts with time. Just as an example, the 2000's and late 90's had a lot of bad rock bands pushed by MTV and other brands, like Simple Plan, or Limp Bizkit. These bands were massively succesful, often more successful than many of the bands around that time that are remembered more fondly. You can see similar examples in rap, many people only remember Vanilla Ice as a joke, but forget that he was massively successful at the time. I think that time will tell, which present musicians will be remembered well in the present. I do believe that someone like Lil Pump won't have the influence like other, better musicians nowadays.

[@orangenotviolet]

As you get older you tend to idealize things from the past plus you get to lazy to actively seek for interesting music...

[@wokk9543]

true and im so tired of people saying new music sucks every few years

[@thraitor7819]

This exactly lol

[@theimaginatrix7625]

This exactly. My mother readily admits there were some really godawful songs released in her era. You don't hear those on the Classic Hits radio stations, and they don't make it into the Classic Hits playlists. Just like there'll be songs we remember thirty years from now, and ones we'll gladly forget. But also, musical preference is very very subjective. I like things others don't, and others like things that I don't, and that's okay.

[@simonsmatthew]

Easy way to compare this would be to compare the top 100 Billboard Hits right now with this day 50 years ago. But most likely this exercise would simply show that musical tastes have changed, rather than things have got better or worse. You would probably find the music of 50 years ago was more 'classic' - ie it would use sonorities found in Bach or Debussy. But that is because such music was mainstream in the 1970s. (Far more mainstream than punk or rock was, but people have forgotten that.) Now you will find less music that uses traditional harmonies. In fact you will likely find far fewer things happening harmonically full stop. But that does not necessarily mean it is worse.

[@user-sl5xz9oi6s]

he has so many subs cause he tells ppl what they wanna hear there are so many people around the internet that wanna hear that today's music is bad to justify their "unique" taste

[@antenna7002]

That's not really it.😂😂

[@energeticyellow1637]

@Disney is the Devil today's pop music is bad. Look beyond that and you'll find so many amazing tracks.

[@64_bit80]

@@energeticyellow1637 I don't like pop music but I don't need to dunk on it to justify my weird tastes

[@alzarian3702]

If those people think that today's music is actually bad, and there's a lot of them that agreed to it, whose taste is actually correct? I think there's a good and a bad music in every era. It's just that today's music is more about marketability rather than the actual value of the music. Just like how tiktok songs are getting popular today. There's also the KPOP, which is more of a corporate than an artist situation. They are required to create songs for a deadline rather than for passion.

[@dimebagdarrell2390]

@@alzarian3702 yeah and that’s a massive problem. It’s not music it’s a product

[@tieegg]

It always bugs me when people say media is getting worse cause nobody remembers all the bad songs that came out in the past. The bad music falls through the cracks and we forget about it, leaving only the gems. Now it looks like that's all the past had to offer and its all good. No, just no.

[@toussaintmaxwell8071]

Yes, media can get worse, from bringing information as objectively as possible to spreading propaganda and ideologies. We the people are the problem.

[@merrittanimation7721]

This video is wrong. When life gives you lemons, burn life’s house down.

[@someonesomewhere3902]

With the lemons

[@HPalternetive]

Don’t make lemonade, take those lemons back! I don’t want your godamn lemons what I’m I supposed to do with these.. I’m gonna take those lemons and make a machine out if it To burn your house down, with the lemons

[@dwaynecamacho3907]

I’m gonna have my engineers design a combustible lemon that burns your house down

[@gamiket628]

When Life gives you lemons, squirt them in Life's eyes.

[@summerdeaf]

DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!? I'M THE MAN WHO'S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS!

[@DOPPELgameplayVIDEOS]

Lost it at the pause on 7:22

[@Tantacrul]

That was an accident I decided not to correct!

[@Tantacrul]

PeacefulDrago they knew what they were doing and they said just about enough to get the media reaction they wanted. Also, that substitution argument is actually a pretty obvious comment that music has gotten worse.

[@Tantacrul]

@@PeacefulDrago Yeah, I generally agree with what you're saying. The statement they're making is pretty banal when you think about it: "If you take a song and remake it using the stylistic idioms of a different era - it will sound like music from that era". Lol. You don't say? If you take a quote from Cicero and have Obama say it, it'll sound like Obama said it.

[@BlenderDumbass]

@@Tantacrul I was sounding and looking like a foreshadowing of the temporal imagination part later on.

[@sammikinsderp]

Haha same

[@micke_mango]

All my friends are nostalgia junkies when it comes to music. They don't listen to anything that debuted the last two decades and if they can choose they'd still go to concerts with the same shit they listened to in the 80s and 90s. I claim that music has never ever been better. So many more female creators/artists, so many more produce themselves, so many more can start a career of their own, without labels, with the aid of free music platforms and social media platforms. Another massive improvement is that you can discover music without the marketing/filtering of record labels and all the male bosses/managers and without the support/shield of distribution channels (or imports). And read about music without the filter of male rock journalists and male editors of the rock magazines that mainly targeted a male audience. In the 80s I mainly listened to music from my home country, UK, Germany, France, US, Japan and Italy. Today I listen to new music from probably 40-50 countries, including Ukraine, Buryatia, SKorea, Yemen, Israel, Brazil and almost every western/European country. I have found about 500 new artists/groups to keep track of the last 5 years. I think at least 50 of those started by publishing on their own on youtube or tiktok without the support a label. Rarely (2/year), I have a nostalgia session with the stuff I listened to in the 80s, but even when including the nostalgia effect, today's music gives me more pleasure. And it's so much easier and quicker to find new, exiting music. In the 80s I had take the bus to the next, larger city in order to look for imported music and cheat read imported English music magazines and stay up late in order to listen to the few music radio programmes that played interesting music. Today youtube recommendations find me dozens of new artists every month, out of which I usually find about 5-10 interesting.

[@alistairgeorge5082]

I'd honestly have to disagree about modern music being better (mostly mainstream stuff and possibly just nostalgia on my part) but I have to agree with you on music being more accessible nowadays.

[@sirvalot8360]

It’s going down, I’m yelling Tom-bruh

[@IslaCarruthers909]

This is a tom-bruh moment

[@perspii2808]

I remember getting sucked into this mentality in 2018. It felt good to feel ‘superior’ to people based upon my (then) music listening habits. The funny part being that I barely knew anything about music, I just listened to popular music from the 60’s and 70’s. I wonder how many other teenagers got dragged in by this nonsense

[@brettmcpeak4105]

Can confirm, I got sucked into it as well. I hated modern music for the most part. I listen to mostly modern music now though, funny how things change.

[@NVRSE500]

Yeah I was trapped in the same cycle, and then I listened to synthwave and virtual riot, and since that got me into music production, and now that I have experience of the pains of creating modern genres, I cannot put into words how much I hate these music elitists who claim that everyone is dumb except them. Take one piece of advice from me, throughout human history, the regressive purists who believe that their way of living is better have always targeted culture to reel in gullible victims, case in point, the attack on modern art that happened a while back.

[@BichaelStevens]

Believe it or not but I hate electronic music (shocker!)... And rap/hip-hop (shocker!) As quick as you are to getting sucked into "everything modern sucks", you're equally as quick to getting sucked into "you all are supposed to like everything and you just hate things because it's modern!".

[@thehuman2cs715]

I was like this but for everything instead of just music, I genuinelly don't understand how I had friends back then

[@fulldisclosureiamamonster2786]

@@BichaelStevens He didn't say any of that tho?

[@fatboysgarage7984]

I went to college for music and learned a lot, despite not finishing my degree. The one thing Aaron said in his video that I agree with is that we're saturated with music and sometimes (not always) it does take some digging to find the good stuff. One thing he didn't mention is that what one person might deem to be "good" another might say is "trash". For example, my best friend and I have a lot of similarities in our music taste. However, there's a lot of death metal and electronic music that she can't stand. Just like she listens to a lot of rap that I can't stand. There's really no "right or wrong" genre of music. It's all about personal taste.

[@Des-q]

this guy also made a video talking about why toxic masculinity is a myth made by the scary 'feminists'. I would say that this video barely scratches the surface of issues this guy has with logic. to think I used to be a fan of him lmao

[@iagmusicandflying]

I used to watch a few videos by him, and thought they were mildly entertaining, but they always felt "off" to me, somehow. I missed this video you're talking about so it's apparent my instincts were on point.

[@tongraymondtong6693]

@@iagmusicandflying One thing that’s actually getting worse is KZbin lmao

[@una-mura]

@@iagmusicandflying Same for me. When I started to get into his videos, it felt off, like if it was incomplete. It was because I was ditching my braincells lmao. It took some more videos to see how much of a jerk he is, and I feel bad for how sucessful he is, growing and making a living out of misinformation

[@DavidNorthMusic]

I noticed his videos on my KZbin homepage and they always had titles that were really interesting to me. Then I'd watch them and just not agree with so much of what he said. Trying to stop his videos from coming up on my page now.

[@YWNBAW69]

toxic masculinity really is a myth though. you're just a brainwashed libtard

[@haymyellow1880]

their first mistake was in trying to measure a subjective quality objectively

[@kencur9690]

Funny how people like you speak so authoritatively on the subjectivity or otherwise of art. Meanwhile, Immanuel Kant (and other great thinkers) dedicated whole books to the question. But hey, if you say so, in a one liner comment no less, then it must be true. How many years of objective experience and academic research have you had in this world, might I ask.. I am betting at least several decades. Kudos for sharing with us your cultivated wisdom...

[@haymyellow1880]

@@kencur9690 holy shit i finally have something to post on reddit

[@haymyellow1880]

@@kencur9690 whether or not music is 'good' is the definition of subjective, but okay.

[@graealex]

@@kencur9690 I fully agree that people make it too easy for themselves just crying that it's subjective and as such never subject to any quality measurement. Because with the help of a recorder and zero musical training, talent or skill, I can always prove to anyone that there is such a thing as "objectively bad music" where everyone will universally agree that it's horrible.

[@kencur9690]

@@graealex indeed. Yet look at the number of clueless unthinking brutes “thinking” like the OP, the biggest unthinking brute of all. Boggles the mind, but hey, as long as he finally has something to post on reddit... Perhaps that comment is what should really be posted on reddit.

[@discflame]

It's just weird to me how "more complex" = "better." How is that justified in a material way? How does the quality of complexity amplify the quality of goodness? People who insist on older music being better are also ignoring survivorship bias. If the song was popularly received as bad, people stopped playing it and it didn't carry any popularity into the modern day. If the song was popularly received as good, it's called "classic rock" or "old country," or any other qualifier for whatever genre it may be. I never trust these people who attempt again and again to convince the masses that people are bad at understanding/enjoying/listening to music because, throughout all of history, the forces of regressive ideology--as they attempt to control the population--always target culture first. That's why reactionaries hate "modern art" (even though that's a vague category and ignores a lot of the things I've mentioned before, just translated into the art world).

[@syber-space]

It's definitely interesting. I think it also might have to do with differing methods for showing musical talent via medium. I'm a big fan of Vocaloid and as such appreciate and enjoy the range of the synthesized voices, but to most I talk to they just hear autotune.

[@gyniest]

@William Magee Depends on what you mean by "complex." Dylan wrote a lot of different styles, some songs simpler than others. But if we're referring to complexity in terms of key and tempo changes, not to mention lyrics (most of which were on par with poetry/literary narrative, not the fourth grade English level that pop songs tend to center at currently) if we're comparing much of Dylan's work to what's currently on the top 10, it is in that sense more complex. I'm not saying his work is as complex as bebop, say, or symphonies, just that it did have variation.

[@llewliet4021]

Maybe because it makes us stay innovative? Simplicity is a reminder that anybody can do it, especially with the new softwares that permit those who don't own or know how to play instruments to create songs without them.

[@NUKELEDGE]

@@llewliet4021 That implies you can't be innovative with simplicity, to which I ask you to identify why there's so much variation in lo-fi hip hop

[@gyniest]

@@llewliet4021 Good point. I'm not anti simplicity. Taste is really just about preference. I like all sorts of things, from simple to complex. Overall, I'd say the world would be poorer with less musical variety, and even if it were true that best music stopped being created by, I don't know, 1997 (when pro tools was widely used) there's so much music, and so much I haven't heard, that it's enough to fit my listening (and inspirational) needs for a lifetime. Also, it reminds me that there's no excuse to stop creating my own art.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

I find it hilarious that the study went to 2010, it highlights the short sightedness of the study and this kind of claim. As 2010 and the years previous is not particularly known for bad music, and it is after the 90s which was known for a bit of a dip in quality in certain genres. Maybe in 2010 people were complaining about Adele, but now that would sound ridiculous. And now in 2024 we have people complaining about whoever and maybe in a decade we will find that ridiculous too.

[@defvii]

Most People who say that "music is getting worse" are basing this opinion off a sample size of high charting music only (in that means pop and hip-hop only). There's so much music produced today outside this remit as it's so much easier to release and tour music outside the ecosystem of the big labels, due to the death of radio and the discovery and release tool that is the internet. Hell, one of three "big" genre that people think of (rock) is completely ignored if you don't listen to more non/lower charting releases. These people try to pass themselves off as music elitists but have only experienced a tiny non-representative sample of contemporary music.

[@gangstasteve5753]

i dont think its getting worse. But those high charting music stations are really getting annoying. people do indeed listen to it though.

[@alexeypolevoybass]

The thing is, they are too dumb to dig better. Also, the popular music was always shitty, because shitty (i. e. too simple, overly repetitive, having too predictable harmony, and so on) IS what people usually like. It's very uncommon for a really good album to hit the tops of any charts just because most people don't really have a clue about how music works. They just consume it. A good cook can be never found buying burgers at McDonald's, because they know a place that prepares them a lot better. But the majority still goes McDonald's, KFC, and other shitty chains for their burger meals, and they are totally satisfied with what they get.

[@greentaigo2552]

@@gangstasteve5753 I have to listen to it at work and yeah its awful, but the thing is its music made to play in the background. In the age of streaming people with an interest in music don't care about the radio anymore, so the radio has one function only and thats to be background noise in shops, public transport, cars and that kind of stuff.

[@greentaigo2552]

@@J2HATMgoo They mean radio music, difference is small but radio music also includes generic rap and r&b while pop music includes creative artists such as Charli XCX, Rina Sawayama and HAIM

[@janminor1172]

I think everyone complaining that modern popular music is deteriorating in terms of harmonic complexity, lines and lyrics should go back and listen to some blues of “back then when music was still good”. Always the same simple harmonies - check. Simple song structure - check. Same same lyrics about women and booze - check. On a serious note, probably why a lot of people think so fondly of the music of the sixties, seventies, [insert favorite decade] is that we nowadays only listen to the maybe 10 percent that stood the test of time. All the mediocre stuff has long been forgotten. And the claim that “modern music is shit” has most likely been around since the invention of music... Apart from that, there is actually no way to objectively measure “good” music...

[@i_kill_for_zardoz]

I'd still take 50s-90s garbage tier pop over 95% of the current year Billboard top 100 songs :) I can't imagine the 70's singer-songwriter era ever being surpassed for mainstream pop quality, even though I was rather young for most of it, and my proper "era" was the 80s. So yes, every era has it's crap.. but I'm thinking of the massive hits for each year, not just the lesser fluff. I just went over to the Billboard top 100 and "Travis Scott Sicko Mode" was the number one current hit. That sort of song feels like alien sounds to me, with no real aspect of musicality to it, aside from the repetition of certain tones. As someone who enjoys everything from the Andrew Sisters to Slayer to Morrisey to Daft Punk , and most everything in between, I'm a bit bummed that more and more modern mainstream music is so alienating to me that I can't connect with it at all. Every year, digging out the current gems feels harder and harder. Whether that's due to an objective decline in modern mainstream music, or me getting old, it''s hard for me to say. I'd say a case can be made for both. But no other era in history has as many "doesn't even qualify as music" hits to me as in the last 10-15 years.

[@unteroffitzierschultz4288]

Hmmm, now this is where you're slightly wrong. If you say that "there is actually no way to objectively measure “good” music..." Then music made by Justin beiber and solja boy are lesser or equal to something of Wagner, Bach, Barnes Chance, Ralph Vaughan, ect. Interesting view you have there, as music is all about feeling and thought.

[@karlpoppins]

@@unteroffitzierschultz4288 Ralph Vaughan is so bad that I might as well be listening to Justin Bieber. Both sound gay, but Bieber less so. On a more serious note, 'good' is a subjective descriptor, which is why it's safer to simply state one's personal opinion with maybe a bit of consistent justification than to try and make truth claims that cannot possibly be made. After all, the criteria by which one judges anything are one's own and do not reflect a universal standard.

[@karlpoppins]

@@christiantaylor1495 One doesn't know one's standard, but one can create a model of it by trying to find common elements amongst all musical pieces that one likes. The "real" reason why one likes or dislikes something is purely physical and it nests in one's brain interactions with external stimuli, but this reason is irrelevant as it is not linked to one's experience, which is metaphysical. That is why musical criteria are not physical (e.g. "the sonic spectrum is X") but abstract (e.g. "the harmony is chromatic").

[@karlpoppins]

@@christiantaylor1495 Well, yes. Consciousness is obviously not physical, but it does emerge from a complex physical system, which is why I said that the _ulterior reason_ why one likes or dislikes something is physical. Music is a collection of sound waves that is converted to electrical signals and interacts with one's brain, leading to action which causes certain subjective experiences.

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

Capitalism and the commodification of music, has made music _seem_ worse because it _seems_ like Taylor Swift (or other "artists" who don't actually write any music) are all that exist. But bedroom DJs and "garage bands" are always doing cool new stuff, you just won't find it advertised on £100,000 a minute TV commercial slots or giant billboards.

[@anwa3237]

@@cinnabarite But we kind of are forced to listen to it? When I take the subway or go get groceries or whatever, I'm never gonna hear modern blues or garage rock or psy-trance or some underground rap. It's always gonna be easy to digest pop with a side of electro, and a handful of rap/hip-hop and rock "classics". On a really lucky day they'll have some "expert" talking about punk and maybe they'll play one or two songs by the Ramones or Sex Pistols and the guy will say punk ended with them.

[@Boldozofurizo]

This is why the the concept of mainstream is not dismissable and is in fact valid, contrary to how the video trated it, as it continued to base all the statements on its denial.

[@siladex-gaming]

@@cinnabarite if no one's forcing you to listen to pop music, then how come my top 40 radio keeps playing these and shove it down my throat

[@ZENOBlAmusic]

It is exactly the opposite, music on the top of the charts became more similar as two different companies brought up all of the radio stations. Clear channel has one play list for all their stations. There is a monopoly, capitalism is exactly the opposite of that, capitalism relies on less restrictions and competition. Stations used to be owned by different people, and they were more regional. There was competition between stations in the same area, and DJ's could add some of their own influence to what was playing. With companies such as Clear Channel everything is the same and there is no completion, and there is no push to do something different or to be unique.

[@pjubo]

Oh yeah, cuz in a communist utopia, filthy pop wouldn't exist, and mysic would be so much better. unbelievable how naive you commies are 😂😂

[@discord_and_entropy]

Thank you for responding and clearing this up. But at 2:42 it sounds like you begin to get very mad. You bring up criticism about Aron's presentation that are excusable and not relevant to the points he's trying to make. Unless you were just trying to show he doesn't know much about music and he's just churning out videos for his job? Edit: it kinda sounds like at 8:00 your just making fun of how he's holding his eyebrows? Is this for comedy because this video is public?

[@CollinKeegan]

9:22 his whole video is based on that one study. It's the "one large 'truth,' lots of little lies" method. Even if the study, the "truth," was actually based on solid reasoning, he's using the one study to lend credibility to all the other claims he goes on the make without and source or fact backing them up, and then using all of that to reach the conclusion of "new music bad old music good" which itself seems to have been chosen for the video topic to get views by confirming the dislike some people have of newer generations and culture with "scientific" fact. It's bad reasoning on bad reasoning on bad science. Thank you for showing precisely why his horrible video has no logic behind it, Tantacrul.

[@rockyblacksmith]

"Hamonic complexity" Is he talking about japanese swords?

[@pie6029]

Breathing correctly is very complex. Hamon isn't easy.

[@SpectrumDT]

You need to fold your chords multiple times and apply differential hardening.

[@senza4591]

I have no idea whats going in here but i just wanna say swords are cool

[@rockyblacksmith]

@@senza4591 A "hamon" is a feature of japanese swords like Katanas or Tachis. The edge and the back of the blade have different properties and slightly different colours (due to the differential hardening that has been mentioned above). The curvy line separating the two colours is called the hamon. And since he wrote "harmonic" wrong, this one lent itself to a joke.

[@ARTEMISXIX]

Lmao at the "How did we get from Led Zepellin to Lady Gaga" mfer... Led Zepellin stole like 80% of their riffs LMAO cmon dude

[@mihaelkYeah]

Not to mention Lady Gaga happens to be a competent musician. Making pop music doesn't necessarily mean you "can't make something more complex", often times it just means you know how to make (or perform) stuff that gets you money.

[@LambruscoPeter]

They stole 80% of their riffs from LMFAO

[@embrao]

@@mihaelkYeah everybody steals 80% of their riffs. Sometimes, they just use them better.

[@christinenadeau6371]

What got me about that comment was just how far sound synthesis has come since the mid 70s with our modern music technology. It's not fair to compare Led Zeppelin's sound to Lady Gaga's at all.

[@kaemonbonet4931]

And pretend that lady Gaga doesn't make banger after banger.

[@StrewthSeeker]

Thoughty 2 is a great exhibit of the Dunning Kruger effect. Some of his videos are actually pretty good, but he regularly strays outside of his knowledge base, and that can cause anyone issues.

[@TheMilitantHorse]

I mean, Mozart was a degenerate, but not musically...

[@alexbennet4195]

I hope you’re using that term ironically and aren’t actually a weird neo-Nazi or anything....

[@siliconpeasants1023]

@@alexbennet4195 the word has been going *down* in use since the 1900s, and while ngrams isn’t clear on which usage of the word is used, there is nothing Nazi, let alone neo-Nazi, about calling something degenerate.

[@TheMilitantHorse]

@@alexbennet4195 Man, that's a pretty stupid comment you got here.

[@seanshin1615]

I think everyone here missed the joke. Mozart is suspected to have been into scatology and scat play. For those who aren't aware of what that means, it means that he may have been sexually aroused from fecal matter. This supposition has been fiercely contested by some. Here is a good starting point on the topic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_and_scatology

[@blueguygaming1330]

@@alexbennet4195 how the fuck does calling using the word “degenerate” have anything to do with nazism?

[@kaladin783]

I honestly think that we’re living in the best time for music, recording technology and creativity has never been better. I mean, I mostly just listen to jazz fusion but that genre alone is so hype right now. You’ve got Silk Sonic, Thank You Scientist, Jacob Collier, Thundercat, H.E.R., etc. it’s actually crazy the amount of creativity and diversity in music right now.

[@charlesmartiniii1405]

I would never call silk sonic jazz fusion, but the rest hell yea. Owane. Casiopea, and more are killing it

[@seriouscat2231]

One does not actually "create" anything via music. The end result is a spectrum of emotions, all of which have always existed and been known. It's like creating new fonts in typography but not being able to say anything different ever.

[@ariadame102]

@@seriouscat2231 Does it matter? Music itself IS the creation. This alone suffices to classify music making as a creative endeavor.

[@seriouscat2231]

@@ariadame102, it does matter if you need to dilute the meaning and create confusion to make your point. Music is an arrangement, an act of reordering already existing things.

[@ariadame102]

@@seriouscat2231 Reordering a thing create a different thing. It's the same way any object is created: via reordering of existing atoms. If you think nothing is created after the Big Bang, then we can stop the discussion right there.