Why is modern music so bad?

Some people think that modern music is just noise. Is this true? What do YOU think? ❤️ Support My Channel ❤️ www.buymeacoffee.com/davidmellor
CREDITS
'Chaise Longue' - Wet Leg - www.wetlegband.com/
'I Wrote A Song' - Mae Muller - www.maemuller.com/#/
NOTE ON FAIR USE
This video has been copyright claimed by the copyright owners of both songs. As reviews of both songs, this is fair use under copyright legislation. The claim is currently under review. www.gov.uk/guidance/exception...
UPDATE: Both of the copyright claims have now been released. I lost 37 days of advertising revenue which presumably all went to KZbin/Google.
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[@samuelhancock4471]

Im 17, and personally, I dont understand today's pop music, there is no movement, boring choruses and the idea of bridges or instrumental solos is practically extinct. Personally i love those older rock bands that really wanted to say something through more than lyrics.

[@DanteLikesRock]

" i am 14 and was born in the wrong generation🤓🤪" ...

[@1974UTuber]

Lucky for both of you there is decades of older music for you to appreciate and enjoy. And if you can steer clear of peer pressure, you can enjoy whatever period or genre of music makes you truly happy

[@viewfromtheanglo4334]

I’m a little bit older but when I was at school I was the only person into alternative music (extreme forms of metal mostly), and had to put up with all sorts of comments from people who were into general mainstream music or things like rap or grime (which I actually didn’t mind listening to). Anyway, like the previous poster put, if you can ignore the peer pressure and all that crap you’ll discover some great music and you’ll eventually be able to appreciate music from whatever genre. Keep listening to whatever you’re into my friend 👍

[@bloodyiceberg6827]

they are not really extinct they went to "bass drops" phase but it's sorta passing anyway to bridges with vocal vocalize parts or chops so technicaly they are still there. (if the track is longer than 2min that is). but i get your point you want that guitar solo after 2nd chorus and a 2nd solo in the final chorus with backing vocals going nuts all the way to the end. in this case you have to have more bars in the track. producers seem to shorten their tracks becuase most listeners have small attention span and less time to listen to songs because of heavy browising activities. mind you most people up untill the 2010's didn't have access to all forms of media on one device. nowadays music have to compete with videos and gaming & written text within one playback device.

[@scacchomattho]

I remember when Filthy Frank fucking demolished people like you. Please, tell me again how you bands like pink floyd and the beatles and how no one listens to "good music" anymore. Go touch grass and stop being such an ass. NOBODY CARES

[@thatsmyassbrostop]

I'm 33 and I really think that modern music, as has been the trend with most pop music, is less about making something sonically appealing and more about being catchy for a day or 2. I have some friends who are very big music lovers, but they only listen to what's current and it's in one ear and out the other. They rarely revisit anything from more than a couple of years ago. I feel that's a lot of people, especially the causal listeners. It's almost like disposable music that's produced quickly, easily, cheaply and then they move on. They don't take care on a single track or a single album. It's about quantity in our ever disposable society with horrid attention spans. Also, I think that most people don't hear what us music lovers hear, at the risk of sounding pretentious. People who know nothing about making or producing music aren't going to hear, or pay attention, to anything below the surface.

[@stevenhenry5267]

It's the musical equivalent of fast food.

[@nicksiegfried4906]

It's not even catchy, it's just vibes based. It's more made to be a soundtrack for something else (like TikTok) than something to be listened to on its own. There's more hooks in a single My Chemical Romance album than anything Drake has released in the last five years

[@270yis7]

@@nicksiegfried4906 Agreed. "Catchy" would be an upgrade because at least the songs would each have a distinct identity. The worst of today's material is amorphous, with no identity. To be fair, I've also been listening to some material from the 1960s that didn't chart back in the day, and quite a bit of that stuff was also pretty amorphous and lacked identity (hence, they didn't hit), but at least it was organically produced with real instruments and voices.

[@MrSupernova111]

Great way to put it!

[@Bananabread810]

If you're interested, i mostly listen to J-pop. It's very different from western pop music and isn't mainstream like K-pop, so it isn't jusy soulless corporations trying to make the next hit. Try listening to "Mixed nuts" by higedan, "Dramaturgy" by Eve or "Overdose" by Natori if you like a more jazzy laid back vibe.

[@petealba707]

Music has become more of a background thing than the centerpiece for many folks. Though people stream music, songs are shorter as are attention spans. Culturally, music is all around us and even more available than ever but does not have the same significance to many folks.

[@2basick]

Wow I didn't know how to put that in words. It's definitely background noise nowadays!

[@thepoofster2251]

Songs are actually longer now, depending on when you compare to. If you compare to anything before recorded music, music now is quite short. However, if you compare to the 50s and 60s pop, songs are longer. This is due to the length limitations on vinyl when they first caught on. Radio edits were 3 mins as an industry standard.

[@petealba707]

@@thepoofster2251 They are able to be longer due to less limitations but songs are still getting shorter overall. Sure, there is the occassional longer one but that is not the norm. Song length hit its peak in the 90's/early 2000's before a decline. They were shorter in previous time periods so perhaps it a cycle but with diminishing attention spans, I wouldn't count on it.

[@thepoofster2251]

@@petealba707 I disagree heavily. Music was longest in the era before recorded music. everything from 1400s to the late 1800s ish. A singular opus or movement can easily be a half hour long. So if we arbitrarily start measuring at the 60s, then yes. But when compared to the VAST majority of written music, all music written post 20s is super short

[@petealba707]

@@thepoofster2251 For sure, I agree with that. The title of the video is "Why is MODERN music so bad?" I'm only referring to the recorded era. Raga music in India can last for days in traditional ceremonies but I'm talking popular music.

[@marcussvensor]

Older generations never understand young people's music. But then music (sound) is just noise anyway.

[@jhmusichouse]

I actually think we're in a musical renaissance, despite what's "popular" now. Today you can find a ton of new music from artists that cover any genre you like, on a wide variety of platforms. It's just unfortunate that most the popular music today comes from artists content on selling their soul to the music industry in exchange for endless promotion of their homogeneous trash songs.

[@EgoShredder]

In the 1980s to mid-1990s I had to travel the length and breadth of the country, to find those illusive gems made by true artists that lived and died for the sincerity of their music, rather than chase the shekels of the industry. The internet has made this much easier, but its still fairly random trying to locate the gems.

[@PorchBass]

I always want lil Nas x to see my 5 year old innocently singing his deep lyrics!

[@The_CGA]

I wish it were so- But the truth is there’s just not enough money in music making to support a rigorous curriculum of practice and playing out. In 1975 a jazz gig would pay $75. In 2023 a jazz gig pays $75.

[@saxbend]

I am glad that's still the case. It always has been. In every genre you can find amazing work, even if you personally dislike that genre for the most part. But you have to really look for it. You won't find anything decent if you only listen to what is put on a plate for you.

[@kaasmeester5903]

I think that's the difference. It's not modern music that's bad, it's modern hits. Nowadays it's much more of an effort to find the good stuff, you have to actually look for it or get a fortunate recommendation from a friend or an algorithm. In the old days, much of the good stuff was in the charts (along with plenty of dross, sure) and that at the least let you discover the good bands. I see the difference when I look at what my nephews and nieces (Gen Z and late Millennial) listen to: plenty of hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s, as well as modern hits and more obscure modern music. But it's the older music and the modern gems they discovered themselves that stay on their playlists, not the modern hits. Not a one.

[@derekdfarrington11]

The sophistication of lyrics, chord progressions, timing, melody, harmony, song structure and the topics being expressed have overall become elementary compared to the twentieth century. That’s not to say that something simple can’t be brilliant, but it has to have something that makes it brilliant. Can’t say I hear that a lot today.

[@nrXic]

The reason why you aren't hearing it is largely because you have to hunt to find it. There's a lot of new great stuff. And there are some DJs that push the good stuff, but so much of it you'll have to hunt for yourself.

[@erevigs7590]

@@nrXic I agree here. I've listened to a lot of music from rhythm games, radio, SoundCloud, etc. and only a few usually stick for a moment, but the most memorable sounds will eventually come back into mind.

[@Ali-mc3iw]

This ☝️

[@damianketcham]

Computer analysis has shown music complexity has been decreasing since the 50s

[@nrXic]

@@damianketcham I believe it and it is sort of funny that most genre today have their roots in Blues and Jazz but are just dumbed down versions of it.

[@guillermogouldburn763]

I grew up in the 80's loving 60's rock and 80's pop. I was a teenager in the 80's who couldn't get enough of The Beatles and the Beach Boys.. Good music is good music.

[@fabionoronhazampieri7639]

Heck thomas the tank engine from 1984 to 1997 (seasons 1 to 5) had better songs, soundtrack, themes then taylor swift

[@fabionoronhazampieri7639]

And in season 1 to 2 in the uk of thomas Ringo starr was the narrator of the show

[@bullpup1337]

Its not new vs old, its popular-above-else vs music the artists makes for its own sake. Also, its not just the listeners age, its about how open minded and exploratory is in one’s listening habits.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

But it is interesting when "popular-above-else vs music the artists makes for its own sake" coincides. And it seems it is rarer now

[@progrockrules]

Well said - put the effort in and one will find fantastic music being released to this very day (thank you Steven Wilson....)

[@fonkenful]

From the point of view of a 72yo fart who’s been an avid music listener and purchaser for over 60 years, I’d hafta agree that thanks to the internet, there’s greater accessibility to a wider range of music - both old and new - than ever before. It’d be nice if the artists could be as well remunerated for their work as they may have been in the early years of my listening career - but that’s an entirely different discussion. I also happen to be a “recovering audiophile”, and while many of the hair shirt absolutists of that cohort love to excoriate YT for its sound quality, I must say that some of my most enjoyable new finds are from amateur street musicians/looping buskers, performing everything from deconstructions of old chestnuts to original jams. Not always “audiophile quality” in terms of sample rate, dynamic range, noise floor - pick your favourite technical spec, but seldom the noisy mess that passes for much of current “pop”. Listening to such free content on my Sennheiser headphones or my main HT rig can be as emotionally satisfying as “high SQ” streaming on Spotify.

[@Squidward_Tikiland]

We used to have genius popular music. We had toto and Genesis and Phil collins. We had Whitney. That shit was CLASSICAL in magnitude

[@everyonehatesfrauditors765]

@@Squidward_Tikiland ...and today we have 'insert your favourite band of the moment' - there is some stellar music being released all the time! Music is subjective - for example - I have every Toto album released (apart from 'best ofs' or live albums) - BUT - Whitney - I wouldn't give her the time of day - that doesnt mean her music is awful - it's just I - personally - cannot stand it - music is art - and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[@Spikeypup]

As a Mixing and Mastering Engineer, I try not to think of music in terms of "hot garbo noise" or not, instead I try to find the objective beauty in the sonic qualities of the music and instrumentation itself in each piece. I haven't reached the "New is Noise" phase, and I'm 42, but I sense it coming. The music coming out today, the loudness, the sheer sausage waveforms coming out, it's just shocking. There isn't anything to enjoy or pick out sometimes, it's all too damn loud, it all competes, it all clips, it all distorts, so then I'm faced with .... What's to like? So that's why I don't mix/master that way. Even -14 is too loud sometimes. Yet, I'm told in my educational institution to try to push -9 dB LUFS-I, which to me just seems insane. Although, in practice, if you achieve balance in the mix and in the arrangement, and manage the space well, -9 can sound larger than life in a wonderful way. And sadly, if you don't try to go past -14 towards -10 or further, then you will just sound too quiet compared to the next song in the playlist, and that's the fear, and that's why everyone wants to be the loudest. Bottom line opinion: I think it's all just getting too loud with no justification to be that loud other than a "Mine is bigger than yours" contest. It's hard to hear the nuance and beauty when my ears are bleeding from the piercing distortion and clipping.

[@FlorentChardevel]

I'd be curious to know what % of people turn loudness normalisation off in their streaming service. My bet is that the loudness war is kinda pointless now. However I don't really hear distortion (on a fairly compressed track) if I master it to around -11 or -10 LUFS. But I guess it's more audible in certain genres.

[@johannalvarsson9299]

Agree. I actually LIKE todays pop-music and grew up listening to black-metal. I can until today stand and love music that is that is 80% distortion and has no dynamics. But I do not get why you would want your melodic pop-arrangements to be that obnoxious. Another input: if you listen to j-pop-productions, they found a good way to manage that level of sum-compression: Compress the whole instrumental track as much as you like, but the vocal is completely over everything. This way you can at least follow something. The examples here are so horrible because everything is equally loud, subconciously disorienting. The vocals are too tucked in. There is no foreground.

[@KenTeel]

I find your words to be interesting from a production point of view, but has no content in terms of musical structure. You don't talk about melody (or the lack thereof.) You don't talk about key changes. You don't talk about harmonic content. You don't talk about chord progressions. All of these things is what music, itself is made of. Recording is an entirely separate subject. Production is an entirely separate subject. What you refer to is the electronic processing. I appreciate that, myself because, as a songwriter/performer/musician/singer I have to be involved with this stuff, if I want to have recordings of my work. However, you actually, inadvertently, de facto, point to an interesting problem: People doing production that are not musicians. I don't know for sure that you are not a musician (chances are that you at least do some elementary playing.) In the old days, people that produced music, were commonly musicians. They understood, at least to some degree, musical structure. Look at Herb Alpert, George Martin, Phil Spector,, etc. They're musicians. They understand music. When the era of the star producer arrived, people recording music, and making decisions about music, in larger numbers, knew little about what was being presented, musically. They went on feel. They didn't go on musicality. That created a problem, in some cases, because recording technique (and engineering tricks) became more important than the actual content of the music. Combine this with record company execs who, themselves, knew little about the stucture of music, and you have a recipe for a noise fest on records, rather than music actually being presented. Non musicians can recognize tempo, speed (how many speedy notes are in a solo), mood, and style of music. This doesn't include musical structure (music theory.) So what you end up with is a group of non musician business people, and non musician producers and engineers, catering to these limited thing about music that I just presented. These non musician are selling the lowest common denominator to the public. It works, because the public, generally, who doesn't understand music, will go for a strong beat, a style, and a mood, and repetition. This is the lowest understanding of music. When musicians were in charge of production and selling music, the public was educated about music. This is different than having the lowest common denominatior in music being catered to the public. If youi want better music, get the non musicians out of the studio, and out of the ranks of the music biz executives. Music was best when musicians were running it. It has gone down hill, when non musicians began to occupy the ranks of the music exectives, and control of studios.

[@Konspiration100]

I am sensitive to distortion and for me its really a terrible idea to even ad distortion to any piece of music.

[@johannalvarsson9299]

@@KenTeel In the "old days" you needed a technical degree to be allowed to record music. I would claim that today, it`s the other way round. Most mix-engineers and producers were musicians once. Also: Since most "mainstream"-productions are electronic, there is no difference between production and mix anymore really. I shared your opinion when I was younger, but now I think that it is pretty arrogant to think that there is "low" and "high" music, and people who hold the true understanding of what "good music" is. Music theory is also more than harmony and counterpoint. Rhythm and sound are way more important even in contemporary classical music than they used to be 200 years ago. The only thing I really agree with is that the guys who think that louder is always better do not belong in any decisive position. Louder is sometimes better, sometimes not. It all depends on the song and the message behind the music.

[@Ramt33n]

It sucks the most when a genuinely good music get destroyed for being competitive in the loudness war! It does hurt the song and ears. Also I realised tracks with dynamic range have much longer lifespan compared to crunched ones! Great take as always.

[@noodletribunal9793]

music is compressed the way that it is because of the fact that most people listen to music on subpar sound systems and in less than ideal situations, from what i understand. no point in having a high dynamic range when listening on headphones on a loud bus on the way home from school. or in your noisy car with poor sound isolation. i mean at the end of the day, all of the parts are still present in the song. it doesnt make it any less of a song

[@Ramt33n]

@@noodletribunal9793 yeah, but they still sound horrible and not long lasting! that's why I enjoy 70s and 80s mixes the more time passes. dynamic range of course! if I want to make it lounder I have a volume knob for that! remember volume is another expressive dimension at an artist's disposal, when we remove this utility we simply flatten the musical experience and that's the price with pay for loudness, not a good trade imo!

[@noodletribunal9793]

@@Ramt33n ehh, i dont agree, but to each their own! the music i like consists of pretty heavily distorted/overdriven guitars to begin with, so it kinda lends itself to the world of compression. umm yea, idk. it sounds good to me ( ´∀｀)

[@basspig]

Even the most beautiful music in the world suffers from this problem. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4O2YpZpiamnhZI

[@kevinj.oconner788]

Yes, compression does work well with certain types of music. But the excessive levels of limiting, compression, and EQ frequently used reduce dynamic range to a point where the music becomes unlistenable after a while. It's sort of like having a conversation in which everyone is yelling every word. That gets tiring to listen to, and pretty soon someone is going to exit.

[@gatblau1]

I’m in my 50s and probably about 70% of my Spotify playlist is music made by newer bands in the last 10 years. I don’t know if the music I listen to is “popular” but there is still great music being made.

[@user-yr9lc1mz2b]

Absolutely agree. The digital age is a curse and a bliss: I would assume that the financial investment required to record something with acceptable quality has come down a lot (think of Billie Eilish for example), and it generates opportunities for more musicians to get something out there. On the flip side, it seems that artists are promoted as products, not musicians. And you still need proper expertise for mastering (again: Billie Eilish as an example), although that still comes with -9 or so as the targeted average loudness level.

[@nate_d376]

I would say, the new 'pop' music is garbage, but like you, I listen to old and new music. I'm in my late 40s and love metalcore, and there are plenty of (in my opinion) great bands in that genre.

[@DanteLikesRock]

@@nate_d376 what "great" metalcore bands do you listen to?

[@kengwallgmail]

Wet Leg, Caroline Polachek, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Dirty Projectors… I’m in my 50s and there’s an abundance of fantastic music out there. Now, I cut my teeth on early Peter Gabriel, who incorporated a lot of dissonance and noise into his music, and I think Radiohead has nearly perfected the art of layering soundscapes of distortion into melodic pieces, so I’ve always had a preference for novel approaches to music. It’s not better… just what I prefer.

[@nate_d376]

@dantelikesrock ones like Kingdom of Giants, Crown the Empire, If I Were You, Enox, Savage Hands, Advents, Never Back Down, Saint Asonia, Lost in sight, Revaira, Avalanche Effect, Pridelands, The End At The Beginning, The Word Alive, SETYØURSAILS, ASHEN, Darkmatter, Frontières, As Within So Without, Nothing More. Now, some of these bands are Metalcore. Some people might say some of them are other genres of metal, but I like them, and to me, the lines are a little blurry. IMHO. Try at your own risk, lol. And There are many more I didn't list, otherwise I'd be typing all day lol

[@wcg66]

I’m 57 and I’m discovering new music almost everyday. I can’t imagine being stuck in the music of my teens. Wet Leg who are among one of the many new bands I like.

[@dallassegno]

yeah the argument is dumb

[@mauer62]

Checked Wet leg out and Im guessing you are joking right?

[@dodgerblue482]

yo i really appreciate you, because so many people just write it off as bad. if you like rap music i highly recommend you check out a few songs that i consider masterpieces, devil in a new dress, sing about me im dying of thirst, prom/king, and 90210 are all worth listening to

[@MaxoticsTV]

Same here. I laughed when he first said "Wet Leg". Their whole first album is musically inventive and fun. And I'm 62! Also, the distortion argument neglects to mention that almost every musician after the 1950s uses it like salt on fries.

[@rap3208]

Have you heard every music made in your youth?

[@markvandenberg4606]

I grew up on Nirvana and Metallica as a kid, then Dream Theater, Queen, Tool, John Mayer, Muse, Genesis and others in my 20s, as well as a bunch of jazz and classical. Now I’m 41, and lately I’ve discovered that the British progressive tradition really is what interests me most. I discovered Porcupine Tree on Spotify a few years back, rolled into Steven Wilson’s solo work from there, and that brought me back to Genesis and King Crimson (among others), and also to The Pineapple Thief. I feel like I’ve discovered this treasure and I’m unpacking it bit by bit. The common denominator among most artists mentioned above is how beautifully and dynamic their albums have been recorded. SW, in particular, is a true modern gem in this regard. “The Raven That Refused To Sing” is incredibly well produced. My all-time favorite band Dream Theater is a joke in comparison, I’m sorry to say. I think I can objectively say that most modern pop music is poor in terms of arrangements, creativity and originality, and it sounds crappy to boot thanks to brick wall limiting. All imagination and wonder has been replaced by the smarts of marketeers attempting to appeal to our young’s basest impulses. “It's only meant to repress and neutralize your brain.” Wilson had it exactly right. I really don’t think it’s “a matter of taste” any longer at this point.

[@herrpez]

It's a darn shame that prog/prog metal band names are... a little bit out there. 😉It took me forever to give Porcupine Tree a chance, but the "sister act" (Opeth, where Wilson has been a long standing influence) didn't trigger any aversion in me. Similarly Caligula's Horse... I mean... come on! 😄 But yeah, it seems like you and I have been on a similar journey. Not quite the same start, nor current position... but parallel paths at the very least!

[@markvandenberg4606]

@@herrpez Haha, I wish you all the best!

[@duncanparsons]

..just wait until you find Gentle Giant! I generally recommend starting with The Power And The Glory, however, given your apparent taste, you may find the first two albums (Gentle Giant and Acquiring The Taste) the better way in.. :-)

[@markvandenberg4606]

@@duncanparsons Thank you for the tip! I will definitely check that out.

[@jatodd3746]

The Warning. You want to hear The Warning!

[@christopherpaul1810]

I'm a bit older born '73 so 80's was my highlight for music. Today I'm into "classical" but hear a lot of kids I work with playing dubstep... which I actually enjoy to a point, but it's more or less "literally" just noise... or at least re-arranged noise. Interesting, sort of takes my 80's synth age to a whole new level 40 years later. Not really my thing but in my opinion it's one of the better and most innovated genres to surface. That being said, I still want my MTV.

[@pigknickers2975]

I was born in 68, and used to make a lot of dance records in the 90s, then moved onto mixing films and so on. Dubstep sort of amazes me, the weaponization and extreme organization of noise. I'm glad I don't have to program it though. I have mastered it though and got great results, the frequencies being quite satisfying and so rich.

[@badnick6659]

Which kids are listening to dubstep today?

[@orlandomarchena4885]

@badnick6659 I just listened to a few tracks. To me, they seem to be the equivalent of so-called "Break Beats" in Hip-Hop. Break Beats are NOT meant to serve as complete songs. Hip-Hop started with the concept : "Turntables Are Musical Instruments". Basically, a DJ would get two copies of a record pick one short part of a song (usually a drumroll) and keep switching back and forth between the turntables. By varying tempo, shortening or lengthening of the selected part of the original song , the DJ was creating "new" dance music. Again : DANCE music. Now, from what I understand, most audiophiles don't dance. Also, when the first Hip-Hop DJ's started doing this , the audiences would initially stop dancing (lol) in 🫨amazement🫨 until they realized that the drumbeat was what they should/could dance to. So again a dubstep "song" is only a part of a DANCE music performance. Hence the name dubSTEP. To get the full experience, one has to visit a party/concert where SKILLED DJ's will mix the tracks and create a dance-music performance. Unfortunately I haven't visited any concerts yet with skilled DJ's that use dubstep for mixing. Therefore I don't know for sure if I will enjoy a concert. Let me emphasize: the DJ who MIXES the tracks is the artist. If (s)he merely plays dubstep tracks in sequence, then the dance music performance is INCOMPLETE.

[@badnick6659]

@@orlandomarchena4885 been in the music biz since the late 80s, thanks for your history of modern music lecture, but I was there at the cutting edge, literally. All the best.

[@orlandomarchena4885]

@badnick6659 Would you be so kind as to name a few artists that you consider "cutting-edge"? As you may hve noticed, I'm always trying to broaden my knowledge in (dance)music. One last remark. "I AM A DANCER"

[@TheCrafsMan]

I appreciate these kinds of videos so much. Thank you for taking the time to share them with us!

[@generalsmite7167]

I’m 18 and I can’t understand modern music. Half the time it does not even sound like music, and the vocals don’t sound like singing. It’s like there talking with extra noise and sound.

[@stevenewtube]

I feel sad for the poor ears of the fans of this sound/music. One of the things we love about live performance is, dynamic range! It excites people. Why do people want to destroy their music by more or less eliminating dynamic range from their recordings??? Don’t get, never will. AND, we now have so much available range... it’s jaw dropping really. Go figure.

[@Arigator2]

Music is the best it's ever been. Because Babymetal :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXquopp7aaeqd7s They are my girls. Any who say otherwise get struck down with vengeance and furious anger.

[@AR7271]

They crank it at concerts too with digital brickwall limiters. The vast majority of concerts, that are charging $100+ per ticket, are using a digital console. Which I feel is a big mistake. Concerts should be as analog/straight line as possible. Digital console = analog to digital converters are employed. The days of FOH mix engineers having racks full of all analog gear are sadly, over.

[@Arigator2]

@@truesoundchris oh get over yourself

[@Arigator2]

@@maidenthe80sla I agree. I have found some very creative music around the world. The US music is dead. Mostly Japan. Babymetal is my favorite they invented their own genre. Nobody ever did what they do. But tons more. Yoasobi is Jpop based on Vocaloid. Atarashii Gakko is super unique I can't even describe them. Waggaki Band is a full rock band mixed with traditional Japanese music. Hanabie is an all girl Metalcore band that is now mixing in electronic music and becoming super unique.

[@thepoofster2251]

Well you definitely won't with that attitude! A little food for thought however: Maybe different people enjoy different aspects of music. If you want to dance, a limiter and some side chain compression goes a long way. The "pump" you get from that type of processing just does something to your body that other music can't. I didn't understand it until I learned to dance. Different strokes for different folks I guess

[@greenjelly01]

One reason why "old" music sounds good is because only the good "old" music is still popular. If you went back to the 60s and listened to ALL of the music of that time, I'm sure you will find plenty of trash.

[@themelancholyofgay3543]

modern music is immensely better if people knows where to look

[@uzumakikarin2226]

Correct

[@Michael-F4ul5kzbuck]

@@themelancholyofgay3543 how will it ever be popular if people dont know where to look?? or maybee you lying that its any good to make us think u have good taste...

[@chrisdorsch9754]

Todays music lacks melody. What made Ah Ha's Take On Me so great was that it has a Melody Hook in the intro. Human League Don’t you want Me had a baseline Hook. Melodies lend to harmonics and that's what gives you goosebumps.

[@thetubedude2011]

You are correct. Todays "artists" are not songwriters and prob neither musicians either.

[@spark300c]

yep and you can blame hip hop for that. There is no melody in vocals in rap. Rapper get big for no being good but the fact they are good at getting followers on social media.

[@Akab]

@@spark300c you are right but rappers can be good in a way. but it's not music in a common sense you could say. rapping is closer to poetics than music and the background "music" is often essentialy just a glorified metronome. Of course, some rappers can and do sing as well, blending those types of speech together but that's a rare thing in my opinion 😁 This is comming from someone who isn't a big rap fan, but I get why people might like it and don't necessarily see them as unskilled. (I can't rap 😆)

[@orlock20]

You are thinking of pop music. This is non pop modern music with melody: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faCcdpqrhdunick

[@orlock20]

@@thetubedude2011 There is at least one great modern song writer: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3nGmWWBecZ7oKc kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpypimeiprB8a8k

[@thesignupplace3123]

I'm 63, happily listening to today's alt-rock where melody and chord progression still thrive. I have enjoyed most popular, some disco, rock, grunge, and alt-rock music until recently when popular music became not musical. Every Abba song has a tune, not so much with today's hits.

[@c.7610]

I’m 61 years old and for me Band-Maid is one of the greatest rock acts of all time-five Japanese women, none past their early 30s. There is an amazing number of brilliant rock bands coming out of Japan these days. Nothing wrong with music today; you just have to know where to look for it.

[@jaelin_javelin]

Agreed. I'm a Band-Maid fan in my 20s who used to live in Japan. Their music industry is thriving. The CEO of Fender himself said that the Asia-Pacific market is the fastest-growing market for music.

[@Drstrange3000]

Most of the music I listen to come from Japan. There is still a lot of musical diversity over there and it isn't uncommon to find a lot of artists play instruments and mix multiple genres together and make it work. I really love the Jazz fusion genre over there. I also listen to some Korean music and some other music from the other countries. I grew up with Japanese video game music haha.

[@edmatzenik9858]

Funny you should say that. My current new-found favourite genre is from Japan too, but it was all recorded in the 1970s.

[@tobiasheath529]

I am 19, and have not been able to enjoy modern pop since I was about 10. I was brought up on older music but regularly complained about it being "too old." But then I listened properly to older music. And music went from being something with a singer and a little bit of assistance from computers to seemingly nothing but computers. Every song on the radio today has such little development, and almost no humanity to them. All vocalists sound almost the same because of the techniques they use. I might say that today, I have the music tastes of someone born in the fifties or sixties. I will listen to anything from the 1700s to about 2009 without much complaint. After that, no thanks...

[@bigbasil1908]

There are some songs from the 70's and 80's that do sound aged, but they tend to be songs with daft sounding synth sounds. There are plenty of songs from those same era's which have synth sounds that still sound great and pretty fresh today. I was born in the late 70's and grew up through the 80's. Some of that 80's music sounds great today but some of it sounds a bit stupid because of the choice of synth sounds.

[@gclip9883]

There is still music being made that is very similar to that of the 60s, it just doesn't chart. Take the first two Tame Impala albums for example (Innerspeaker and Lonersim), those are quintessential psychedelic rock that could've been made in the 60s. That is the great thing about todays technology, no one forces you to listen to what plays on the radio or in the charts. By looking into playlists from genres that you are interested in (e.g. indie rock), you can find many amazing artists from the 2010s and 2020s.

[@tobiasheath529]

Thank you so much for telling me about those albums, I will certainly look them up. I am certain that there is great music today, but as you say, you don't see it on the radio or in the charts. I will definitely have a look at some modern rock artists, for example.

[@duncanbrode381]

Thanks David for for bringing up these great audio points you mention! Great to hear them discussed by such a fine experienced chap as yourself , even if you do resemble Sir Paul! 😀👌

[@purelove9133]

I am 22, and I find that most of modern, trendy music lacks substance. In the past, creating music required dedication. One needed to learn to play an instrument and master it before even attempting to produce a musical piece. This rigorous process ensured that only the most committed individuals would endure the extensive learning required. Consequently, people created music from the heart. Today, however, music production seems driven by the pursuit of clicks, profit, and ego gratification, facilitated by the ease of creating music with modern technology. With the barrier to entry so low, a vast quantity of subpar music is inevitably produced by those who may have a casual interest in 'music' but do not invest their heart and soul into the craft.

[@bondgabebond4907]

For the old set, those born around 1950, the sound was representative of the times. Not to ignore the sound quality of music as it blasted through the airwaves, we got music from a different type of band, not like the Benny Goodman stuff, but San Francico and New York rock. The sheer variety of bands is what made that period so great. That is what is missing today. Imagine the year 1967, the year I graduated from High School. It was The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Procol Harum, Janic Joplin with Big Brother and Jefferson Airplane. It's easy to see that not all of great music was super processed, it was, to put it simply, different and beautiful. Who can't say the Moody Blues weren't great integrating orchestral music in their albums. Oh, and let's not forget when the Beatles arrived in the US, it was an event. All the girls were screaming and wetting their panties. Today is boring in comparison. As I tell people who are too young, you had to be there during that time period to take it all in. For those who were fortunate to live on the east coast, Woodstock was a experience no one who attended will forget.

[@smkh2890]

Boomer here. I followed popular music through the sixties and seventies, but moved out of England during the eighties so I lost track of the new music. Now I couldn't tell you who or what is in the charts, but I rediscovered Klaus Schultz of Tangerine Dream, and listen to a lot of electronica and ambient. Also plenty of Bach, Vivaldi, the Minimalists. The hi-fi is never off in my house!

[@NoNameNo.5]

This guy looks like McCartney

[@fernan5320]

Younger brod of Macca

[@seventeendegree]

The older I get, the more I like „old music“. I‘m currently listening to McCartneys solo work after the Beatles and love it. However, modern music can be absolutely mindblowing, if you look in the right places. Wet Leg blew my mind, now does Sir Chloe. Whitey is also a great underrated rock musician. Ex:Re - Too Sad is a modern song, that even brought me to tears. The guys from Radiohead are also getting better and better. Great times, if you ignore the charts.

[@DanWorrall]

Zero LUFS is not the maximum. I've released a track at +2.3 LUFS integrated. A square wave at 3k would read even higher, due to frequency weighting.

[@DjNikGnashers]

I'm so glad I have never been an 'average' music listener. As a 5/6/7 year old, I listened to a radio under my duvet, tuning it in to strange foreign stations on LW. I have never liked listening to the music that was 'forced' on to me by commercial radio, television, etc, and always tried to seek out strange, different, and interesting music from anywhere in the world. I discovered that music made in none western 'studio's' did not have the same production techniques (like the over use of compression), and thus had a much greater dynamic range, and was much more expressive. Wet leg are utter shyte. I saw them live on Jules Hootananny and they were pretty useless live, and even live I could tell they were using and needed auto tune. Modern music is made to a formula to sell as much of it as possible to consumers, most of whom do not know the first thing about music. Just the same as McDonalds sell massive amounts of crap food to plebs who know nothing about cooking.

[@halbos7637]

You are really on the right track. Very good characterization of your experience of today's popular music.

[@erestube]

I don't think Wet Leg uses auto-tune. The lead singer is trained in opera.

[@abortretryfail9350]

100x this. 👆

[@nancyblubberhead7256]

@@erestube Which makes the sort of stuff they churn-out even more unforgivable.

[@niemand7811]

That's like the dumbest thing ever said. It is quite so that plebs like you @DjNikGnashers think they are special. You are not. You just learned to find your niches but expext anyone else to like the same niches you do. Too bad when this takes away some of your friends when they don't follow you into every dark and damp alley you deem worthy. And I also think you are sour because you got tricked by McDonald's when your friends knew how to cook and eat healthier.

[@mcpribs]

Perhaps 20 years ago, or so (I’m 43 now) I was so disgusted with what was considered popular, that I forced myself to listen to the radio for a few hours, and find at least one aspect of each song that I truly liked. It could be an intro, a hook, a vocal harmony, some sonic characteristic, or even just a delay throw. I actually found it quite easy. Will I may have heard 10 songs in a row that I would never want subject myself to hear again, I also really enjoyed the journey of discovering the subtleties that formed the “ah ha!” moments that hit me with each new song. That forced exercise quite literally changed my life. If I could find the “hidden” joys in veritable sonic garbage such as those songs (term used loosely), what other wonders have I been missing out on? How else could I experience, or more importantly, help others experience joy, in seemingly hidden ways? Music, even when it is noise, is a gift of grace to be cherished until we breathe our last…

[@KenTeel]

Mcpribs, your words are ponder worthy. Your willingness to have a foray into music that you found distastefull, initially, is a statement on your curiosity and your intelligence. It's also a statement on your emotional control. Well done. You went on a search for "diamonds in a dirt pile." That is more than most of us are willing (and quite possible able to, from an emotional point of view) to do.

[@mcpribs]

@@KenTeel Thank you for your kind words! I was reflecting on that time, and remembered thinking at the time that not everyone would like music I made that o considered great. The least (well, second least, to be fair) I could do was give their creativity a fair shake.

[@pontram]

What you did was similiar to what students of musical instruments have to do while practicing pieces they do not like (or even hate). Or at least I tried to do that with what I got in my piano lessons, and some of my colleagues tried that, too, just to endure the unendurable ;-)

[@mcpribs]

@@pontram Been there…clarinet. Haha! Also, bass in a 70’s and 80’s cover band. And…playing contemporary worship at church. Every time I hear one of those songs for the first time, I get angry. “How can it be this bad?!” Haha

[@goodbyspam]

This is on a BBC page: (about forcing Noriega from an embassy ) "The US army decided to use psychological warfare - by blasting a wall of sound non-stop outside. A fleet of Humvees mounted with loudspeakers rolled in, and rock music rolled out. The troops' playlist came care of the Southern Command Network, the US military radio in central America. It featured hits picked for their irony value, including I Fought The Law by The Clash, Panama by the stadium rock band Van Halen, U2's All I Want Is You, and Bruce Cockburn's If I Had A Rocket Launcher."

[@danletras]

I am still blown away by new music and I am 56 years old; however, it is never new music found in the top 40, but rather among jazz hybrid stuff and stuff involving folk music forms from around the world as they meet other traditions or ways of arranging. This is because I value surprise within melodies and harmony, as well as lyrics that go beyond greed culture and variations on consumerist nihilism.

[@ncamara670]

I feel lucky to have grown up with 90s pop music because as the time went by there have been fewer and fewer artists whose sound attracts my attention. I have always liked music so, I now revisit the songs I like and YT sometimes surprises me with good recommendations. I also go to concerts and festivals occasionally instead of just streaming music because nowadays that is the best way to support artists you like.

[@KenTeel]

I really like your videos. Thanks for making them. I agree with you that most people tend to "look in the rear view mirror" when it comes to the music that they like. I use the term "most", because not all people are like that, just majority of them. Looking back, in regard to music, is a form of nostalgia. How old do you have to be to develop nostalgia? Well I'd suspect that nostalgia starts to kick in , somewhere around the mid twenties, for most people. Interestingly, this is when a lot of people kind of "lock the doors" to new music. When nostalgia kicks in, openness to new sounds diminishes, for a lot of people. Of course this can happen in the late twenties, early thirties, or late thirties. But, it does seem to happen for most people. It is interesting that this parallels the reproductive years, for people. The human brain isn't fully developed until the early twenties, yet people's reproductive systems have been "activated" for a few years, by the time the brain fully develops (Its is as if nature knows that if people's brains are fully developed, they might know what they are getting into, and realize the full responsiblity, and not want to reproduce, if the brain was fully developed earlier.) So, people are operating in a more emotionally charged way, before the brain is fully developed. We see this with impetuous behaviors with lots of people in their late teens. Music business people have figured out that people are the most "vulnerable" to musical sound tracks, when they are at an age where their brains are not fully developed, and when reproductive urges are very strong. These business people know that providing a sound track to all of this emotional behavior, especially formulated for the theme of love, is highly affective with young people (especially young women.) They know that young people haven't assumed full adult reponsiblities yet (mortgage payments, child care payments, etc.) and that they'll have the combination of a vulnerable emotional state (including an emotional vulnerability to dramatic videos with music) and discretionary income, which provides the fuel for music sales. After people, generally assume adult responsiblities, they are too distracted with those responsiblities, to focus on music, or soundtracks for their emotions. They are too busy working, paying bills, changing diapers, etc., to focus on music. Additionally, they are old enough to have nostalgia kick in. So, there you have the formula for most people, and why the music of their youth's is so powerful to them. Of course there are exceptions. Also, we musicians, oftentimes are on a journey to discover. This is not always the case (witness the number of cover bands playing classic rock, in your local area), but is significant enough to make note of it. It is interesting how the music biz has figured out when that vulnerablity for a soundtrack, for people is, and how they keep "servicing" that characteristic, with the same old sh*t listened to in their youths, by people (generally.) I find that if one wished to be creative in writing music for people who are over 25 or 30, writing something in a familiar style at least gives the music half a chance of being listened to. Afterall, it's the same old glove, just refashioned in a different color. Thanks for the video. I really like your intelligence, experience, and sense of dry humor.

[@Anarchy421]

I think this is a good take. Especially the bit at the end: "if one wished to be creative in writing music for people who are over 25 or 30, writing something in a familiar style at least gives the music half a chance of being listened to." I recently became a big fan of the retro synthwave and vaporwave genres. These genres are specifically designed to evoke feelings of nostalgia in people my age (30s) and they are incredibly successful at doing so. If you're in your mid-30's give retro synthwave a try!

[@thomasalexand]

I agree with most of what you say, but when in my thirties I enjoyed 80's music including synthesisers. In my forties I enjoyed 90's music. For me, things went downhill in 2007. I was brought up listening to Dean Martin and Perry Como (mum was Italian) and I liked it. In my teens I liked both pop music and classical. Artists that tailor their output to please fans are, in Oscar Wilde's opinion, mere tradesmen. Pioneers in any art form do what their instinct dictates and not what the industry expects. Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Tangerine Dream, to name just four, furrowed their own path.

[@KenTeel]

@@thomasalexand I don't know about including Pink Floyd, and The Beatles in the category of furrowing their own path. Pink Floyd guys were putting their finger in the "commercial winds" and figuring out that album rock was the de jour cool stuff, so they did that. The Beatles recycled Chuck Berry-EverylyBrothers-Buddy Holly, and tweeked it just enough to look different. I think that they were also keenly interested making a recipe that would sell. The Velvet Underground, well Lou Reed was second only to Yoko Ono in lack of musical talent. His presentations were along that line, too. He was another guy who was posing as avante guarde, but really just a hack. The guy who really did what you describe in furrowing his own path, was Frank Zappa. He wanted success, but he wanted it on his terms. I think that it's very rare to find people making art, who truly go their own way.

[@thomasalexand]

@KenTeel Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sergeant Pepper. Chuck Berry, and if he were alive, Buddy Holly, were both obviously heading in that direction. No, they weren't. Lou Reed was but one member of The Velvet Underground. Dark Side of the Moon was unique. Floyd wasn't mimicking anyone else.

[@MichaelBeeny]

I think you have it summed up correctly. It's not the music I dislike, it's the way it sounds on a HiFi system. But! probably 95% of people don't listen to music on such a system or even own one. If most music comes out of a telephone, being distorted does not hurt the ears quite as much because so much bandwidth and detail is lost anyway. If you started your musical life with a telephone, then that is the new normal. I remember as a kid my exposure to music was from radio Luxemburg and Caroline. AM radio, lots of fading, distortion, and nothing above 6K on a good day. When I built my first HiFi the music was almost unrecognizable. I now could hear, dynamic range and lots of detail and HF completly missing in the past. Now things have gone full circle, no dynamic range, we do have the HF it's just badly clipped and distorted and makes my ears bleed and does NOT sound better on a HiFi system.

[@nomis4913]

I'd have to agree. What's the point of buying a recording if it sounds less bad through a cheap Amazon Echo than it does through your multi-thousand-dollar hi-fi system? I don't know why artists don't produce two versions of their songs; one mastered properly, and one with the compressor turned up to 11.

[@andrewbrazier9664]

@@nomis4913 "Hit single edits were often the least dynamic tracks on an artists album. As you indicate squeezed to maximise impact on non hi Fi listening devices. Now it seems many very commercial albums are mastered to sound " like that "call the way through 🙄

[@gwine9087]

Well, for example, back in the day, singers did not have autotune so they, actually, needed to be able to sing.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I very much appreciate that you explicitly said “It’s not the music, it’s just what you’re used to,” and that is usually what you listened to in your formative years. I think there are really three kinds of people in this regard: those who just stop listening to anything new after they graduate high school/college, those who try to expose themselves to new stuff for as long as they can, and those who enjoy new music their whole lives. In my experience the latter are generally musicians or musician-adjacent. I think I probably fall into the second group, trying to stay current in music up until my mid-40s until I just kinda stopped giving a damn. It wasn’t that I stopped enjoying music, I just found it increasingly exhausting. The first group invariably accuse everything that came out after they were 18 or 22 as “just noise.” These are usually the same people who got upset when their parents complained about their music when they were young, and who swore they’d never be like their parents. My parents were almost completely uninterested in music, so I never personally had to deal with that, but as a consequence I had such an oddball introduction to music as a concept (growing up mostly listening to cartoon music on TV and old movie soundtracks) that I think I just held out as long as I did because I got a late start. “Wait, wait, wait….we can listen to something OTHER than talk radio in the car?” Frequently I don’t ‘get’ the new music, but I figure it’s just not aimed at me. As to the technical aspect of your discussion….I didn’t understand it at all I’m afraid. It was far beyond my comprehension, though I’m sure it was quite accurate. You have that air about you.

[@stevenhenry5267]

I tapped out around the age of 30.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@stevenhenry5267 well, I had a couple good college radio stations in my area, sooooo….. :) But it definitely required a lot more effort to keep up after 30

[@jasonlloyd33]

Great and informative video. I think one key factor is that there isn’t the money to be made in the record industry today because of streaming services. On one hand it allows for a greater number of artists to democratically have an opportunity to bubble to the surface, on the other hand I think it has lead to a diminishment in quality. I may also argue that the old formula of forming a band and honing ones sound through live gigging before going into the studio has largely been replaced by hobbyists in their bedrooms many of who have never performed live ( not to say that this can’t be immensely great) . Also the culture of the audience in their relationship to live music has largely changed and consequently so has the music suffered.

[@Drstrange3000]

I see the same phenomenon in indie videogames. More people can now make games, but there seems to be more and more hobbyist entering the field and making really mediocre games. I see with both music and games these hobbyists will just use already made assets/sounds to create their projects. I've even heard some hobbyist developers saying the art doesn't matter. It seems like mostly all the new artists are more into the production aspect and that can only take you so far.

[@garetteasdale7064]

something I have in common with my niece Rhian, of wetleg. we both got btec national diplomas in music technology! its quite possible this being the first work ahead of producing the album she did not have a lot of input into the production of the song, the studio probably used their junior engineers, even in post production, I am overjoyed she became a success on the strength of this tune. having listened to the album only on small speakers it is difficult to discern, but it sounds "live" like a live cut demo, not a meticulously and possibly over produced studio master, which knowing the energy the band has, is probably what they were hoping to achieve.

[@alancameron-duff2198]

They seem pretty good, but the production and sound seems total shit! Sorry to the producer...

[@franksherman1774]

Overall the video makes some very good points. But Wet Leg is a poor example. The song sounds fine...headphones and speakers. It gets a little over-excited at the end which I'm sure was the intention. There's nothing new about overdriven guitars.

[@gliddofglood]

@@franksherman1774 Let’s be fair: these days you’re lucky to get a guitar, that’s why most pop music sounds so bad. It’s mainly computer-generated loops and sounds and autotuned vocals. Remember when you didn’t need a computer to make music? That’s when you had some.

[@franksherman1774]

@@gliddofglood who me? You're right of course. Perhaps Wet Leg uses this technology as well, but I do hear guitars. Kind of retro, in a good way.

[@philipiacono2083]

Listening to their album right now and I have to say I enjoy it :)

[@logaandm]

I had an older brother who got stuck on 50-60's music. I have a younger brother who stopped at The Beatles. I think any style of music you have to teach your brain to like, sometimes through enforced repetition. I did this on purpose with The Chemical Brothers "Not Another Drug Store", which went from "Why would anyone listen to this?" to a masterpiece of alliteration, syncopation, tempo and contrast. Now one of my favorites. The appeal of music is repetition broken by surprise change, so something that has to be learned so you have a notion of hte basic patterns, which are then broken. I think there is natural tie in with human speech, especially female vs. male vs. children and emotion. There is also a natural tendency to understand the patterns of the natural world for obvious evolution reasons. Our brains are more interested in the changes of tone and tempo so we can understand both male and female speech as well as emotional intonation based on pitch, minor keys and breaks in tempo. We look for hesitation and intonation to detect emotion, lies, enthusiasm, gender. Music mimics and stimulates much of this. Some people learn music in their youth and then no longer wish to learn any more. I don't mean this as an insult, it is just the way their brain is wired. Their temperament is to use their brain and learning for other things, such as (actual) language. My temperament is a love of patterns (high on the Asperger's scale) so not only do I enjoy music, I tend to search out a new "fix" when my music doesn't have the same stimulation and novelty. In fact, I tend to listen to my old favorite music less because I can "play it" already in my head and I only need a reminder to get the emotional response I am looking for. I feel blessed because I like so much variety of music. I haven't caught up to the 2020's, as I'm still working my way through the 2000's and 2010's. I don't like all of it, but I can always find something that catches my fancy. My current ear worms are from Shpongle, before that The Chrystal Method. I am 65. From classical to hip-hop, grunge, techno, there is good stuff and not so good stuff. I have a great deal of respect for Hip-Hop because it put rhythm, words and (sometimes clever) rhyming poetry back into popular music. I like it all, except Country and Western. OK, one or two and who doesn't think "Johnny Cash at Fulsome Prison" isn't one of the greatest albums of all time.

[@TimothyCHenderson]

I was a teen in the 90's and mostly liked dance and dance-pop, with a heavy attraction to liquid, flowing melodies. I now listen only to opera, starting with the 1770's through to the 1820's (with Mozart and Rossini being my start and finish) but have since expanded in both directions to include more baroque and romantic works. So far, I've made it to the 1850's but have been a little stuck as song form and melodies become much more challenging beyond that era. There was the smallest kernel of interest at the beginning (in Mozart) that took many years to acclimate to and enjoy. Way back in my mid 30's, I bought a digital copy of Spontini's La Vestale and found nothing to enjoy in it. I now have a total of three copies as it's one of my favorite opera's. As much as my taste has vastly expanded, I still can't shake my love of effortless melody. I think that's the pre 20's artifact that I still carry with me to this day even though I no longer listen to dance/pop music.

[@DolphinWave]

It's not just the music, but current mastering tends. I am a Jean-Michel Jarre music fan (yes, I heard it first sometime in my 20'ies). I bought a "50 years of music" compilation of his tracks, made in 2018, and... I couldn't listen to it. At first I thought that my speakers were damaged and were producing those "farting" noises (pardon my french). But no, the speakers were fine. Everything got clear when I decided to compare that track to the same track from his original album from 1982. The new master almost didn't have any dynamics! No sharp "needles" - just a line at a top/bottom of a graph. It was the first CD that I really wanted to refund - so bad it sounded! I kept it, at the end, because I collect his work. But I never listened to that CD again. These were the same tracks as back from 1980'ies. But modern "mastering". I put "mastering" in "", because it's rather destroying the music, not mastering it.

[@djohnson2449]

Many of these "Remastered" tracks are a disappointment to me, as well. But what absolutely annoys me is the addition of reverb and other spatial effects that actually introduce phasing issues. Loss of dynamic range is annoying, but the injudicious addition of effects after the original mastering seems wrong. Morally wrong.

[@gourlishvideos]

I have a very early CD of Jean Michel Jarre's best known songs up to that point. It looks to be an original 1983/84 West German Polygram pressing, and sounds very good. Recordings from 40 years ago still sound very good for the most part, and early CDs were also generally well mastered, so with some exceptions there's generally no real need to remaster old recordings, at least not in the brickwalled form that most seem to get remastered to. As someone who is aware of what has happened to mastering techniques over the past 30 years, seeing "digitally remastered" on an old release is always a let down and in such cases I'll avoid buying the product and instead look around a little longer until I come across the older version that usually sounds superior. For some reason a lot of modern vinyl doesn't seem to get the brickwall treatment that nearly all new digital releases now get, which makes me wonder why the labels continue to think that it is needed for every new CD and streaming release. Digital remasters of old films typically have a significantly improved picture compared with the originals since colour reproduction technology has improved a lot since the 1980s, but I feel that remastered music, at least since the 1990s when the trend of brickwalling began, is a major marketing con. People see the word and think they are getting something superior, when in most cases the remastered versions are actually inferior aside from often containing additional content lacking on the original. Sometimes they'll contain less tape hiss than the originals, but they are also typically less dynamic. Some people have said that the loudness war was at its worst during the early 2000s but in my experience many of today's releases are even more distorted than releases from then. Most of today's pop and rock CD/streaming releases have dynamic range scores of just 4-6, and the highest I've encountered on any new major label release from the past 15 years is 10, whereas in the 1980s almost all had a score of at least 11-12, and it wasn't at all uncommon to find releases with scores of 14 or 15. Due to the number of remastered old releases, often the only way to hear a digital version of a lot of old music in its original dynamic form is to look around for secondhand CDs. Vinyl records from the 1980s tend to have similar dynamics to what CDs at the time had.

[@robertkiss7003]

The problem is that people tends to listen to music on little shitty BT-speakers and not equipment that has speakers that can handle proper bass frequencies. You can’t reproduce bass on tiny speakers.

[@DolphinWave]

@@robertkiss7003 I was listening it on my Pure Acoustics home theater system. Its subwoofer is good enough to reproduce lows, rated at 35-150 Hz, 175W (RMS watts, not fake). The new master is full of distortion. The same track of the original old album master sounds just fine on the same system. The playback system is not the problem. The problem is that the original track was mastered at -15.1 LUFS (integrated), while the 2018 version is at... you wouldn't believe it: -6.5 LUFS (i)!

[@user-yr9lc1mz2b]

You‘re right, and that‘s sad. The art of Re-Mastering to destruction.

[@inglepropnoosegarm7801]

Digital clipping is not like a 'bad mix', which is subjective. It's an objective deliberate abuse of the recording process intended to produce a non-musical effect (i.e. increased loudness). Therefore it is quite valid to say that it is ruining the music. That's before we even get to auto-tune.

[@Vindignatio]

a. Survivorship bias... bad music from the past has just been forgotten b. Emotional relationship to the music

[@niemand7811]

Short and spot on.

[@theboofin]

Nonsense. Even bad music in past often sounded OK.

[@cubemerula5264]

This is not the entire story. It's not just generational. I grew up with my father playing records, tapes, Mtv and the rest. The styles were so diverse, I have a feeling I wasn't left locked in a period with my musical taste. For short it was Eddy Grant-Mozart-Emerson, Lake & Palmer-Louise Armstrong-Mike Oldfield-Kid Creole and the Coconuts-Kraftwerk, it was simply everything available. So now, even in my old days, I can enjoy Weeknd and could enjoy Eilish if only she was at all good. Modern music doesn't immediately sound like all noise. Quite to the contrary, Taylor Swift and Adele, who, admittedly, sound much closer to older styles music, I literally can't stand hearing. So, obviously it's not old vs. new. I think ZZ Top is the most boring band of all time matched only by Joe Cocker and even coming close to how boring Taylor Swift is. The generational thing is much older that the sixties. History books teach us that opera was just cheap kitsch, entertainment for the masses and not refined. These days, you'd be considered to have a very high taste if your choice is opera. Still, the moment a certain distortion is not a limiting factor dictated by the stage of the technological development, it becomes a stylistic figure. Black and White photo or movies, sound distortion, pops and crackle of records or clipping. Eilish has a song where bass clips very heavily and it was deliberately left in. As early as 90' artists started artificially mimicking the pops and crackle of records and recording those onto a CD. (But the biggest "connoisseurs" could, of course, tell them apart from the real stuff immediately.) People are too quick to judge flatten dynamic range. But just as all those other distortions, I see them bad only when out of place. I think these dynamic range puritans are precisely the likes of people who'd say that Hendrix's guitar sounds wrong. Just like a musical academy (a Conservatory if you will), would never garner admittance to Tom Waits. A lot of pop music is loud and flat and doesn't really need huge dynamic range. It's only when you flatten music that is supposed to have dynamic range is when I see it as wrong.

[@ronmitchmusic4154]

Accurate.

[@JohnSmith-of4vh]

I became so disillusioned with modern music I went back to the baroque which makes me by your logic 250 years old.........😆

[@TheAgeOfAnalog]

That Wet Leg record is a hoot. So much fun and my vinyl copy actually sounds great.

[@AudioMasterclass]

I haven't heard the vinyl but it is possible that the mastering is different, perhaps with less added distortion. DM

[@fernandorivera9517]

Mine too...amazing band!...❤

[@zefrog7482]

Yeah, they are really quite darn good.

[@largeformatlandscape]

Yep. Brilliant track!

[@Thomas-pq4ys]

I'm 73, a musician, and have been since my 20's. I've been told I have a musical gift. I'm not sure if it is genetic, or I won a lottery. Some aspects of music come easily to me, while I see others struggle. As I progresssed as a musician, my listening skills became refined. I hear things in music I didn't when young, and even as an elder, I heard more nuances... I'm a tyrant of a band leader, or member. I'm more of an artist than a technician, but by simply working with music, I have no choice but to learn tech, so I can communicate. New music has had the crap compressed out of it. You mention dynamic range. It is non-existent in modern music, there are no "soft" parts, no expressive emotion. The beat is relentless. Vocal pitch correction also lends a specific sound to the music. I find it repulsive. Another is computer generated drums. They are perfect, but in the wrong way. Music should dance around the metronomic beat, not be locked to it. I have no idea how people can dance to rap/hip-hop. There's no life there, no swimg, or drag that gives music a "groove." As an example, bring up a video of Muddy Waters' song Honey Bee. The metronomic beat is merely suggested... all the players are coming in a nano-second late... every one, every time. It adds so much drama to such a slow song... makes it exciting. I could go on and on. BTW, i am a Blues, Country, Americana musician. I grew up in a household where all I heard was Broadway musicals, and Classical music. I still love these genres.

[@mikeables]

Thank you for explaining lufs. I wondered why my Amazon music service sounded so average with their ultra hd. files but when I listen on J Rivers the same files sounded much better. I went to settings and turned off volume normalization in Amazon and the ultra hd files sound much better.

[@tonedowne]

I think we are on the other side of the loudness war now. To my ears, masters are less wild than they were 5-10 years ago. The lufs limit on streaming platforms has really taken the pressure off. People are understanding that if you want to make your song knock, you need a bit of dynamic range to let the beat jump out.

[@davidstrumpf2312]

Great example track with Wet Leg. I have actually been listening to this track over the last 6 months or so. I am in my 50's and I sort of liked the track at the beginning. Simple beat and I thought the initial verses sounded pretty good. Both music and recording. Then, it builds energy to a point that seemed the engineer went on a bathroom break. Total distortion and clipping. Your video helped explain that they simply wanted it to sound "loud" to their listeners.

[@ZapAndersson]

I an 55+ years old, yet I love (and even create) "modern" music. The highly compressed sound has become an aestheteic in and of itself, you want everything to slam into the compressors, it's intentional. Sure, it cometimes goes overboard, but look at how any EDM producer basically sidechains EVERYTHING ELSE to the kickdrum to the point at in the literal moment where the kickdrum hits, literally every other sound in the track is at negative infinity dB's. It's a sound we are after, making it feel like the kick is so loud it drowns out everything else, yet allow it to be played on devices lacking the dynamic range to play it. Human psycho-acoustics apply compressen to what you hear *anyway* (which is why hearing a compressor work is so hard!) so we are playing into to the perceptual side of sound processing....

[@thelovepools4102]

Upvote this comment. Wait, im not on reddit

[@ZapAndersson]

@@thelovepools4102 lol thank you

[@Weirdbloke1]

The gear gets better but the sound gets worse. The way things are going generally. We seem to be going backwards in our "evolution".

[@JeffJolly1]

The first music I fell in love with was probably what you didn't like at the time - Gary Numan! Loads of 80s music then filled my collection, but mixed in with back catalogue stuff from the 60s and 70s. Things got boring for the most part during the 90s and 2000s, but there were always things around that I really enjoyed, although it tended to be non-mainstream stuff. I still find some new music that I really love to this day, but the "popular" stuff I can't bear listening to!

[@Arigator2]

I am loving Japanese metal. Japanese music in general is getting really good. Since 2010. Their music industry was not destroyed by downloading. I love the all girl Japanese metal bands like Nemophila, Band-Maid and Hanabie. I like women. I like rock. But my favorite is Babymetal. They make all the metal neckbeards angry. They are cute and they dance. That is not allowed in metal. They sing happy songs and smile. It's pretty hilarious. They invented their own genre of music. Cute metal.

[@shakitboss]

I’m certainly coming late to this conversation but after viewing your excellent video and reading many of the responses regarding “new” music or music outside the usual comfort zone, I’ll share how I adapt to such experiences: I imagine the environment where that music is probably being played. You see, music is more than sound, it’s a rhythmic, moving force. I often see dancers or a dancer, in a club setting or gathering of people moving to the music. What I’m suggesting is that in order to fully appreciate the music it helps to envision the activity that it goes best with. Youth does not stand or sit still, their active, with a beat, a reythim that mirrors their lives. I stopped expecting to appreciate music in a static mode. It really helps me to set the scene and groove with whatever environment the music places me.

[@Drstrange3000]

I guess it depends on the person. Trap beats do not make me want to move at all. In fact, they are like anti-movement and almost paralyze me. Now, more Jazz and funk sounds do move me a lot and I love that. I also love drum and bass and some rock/alt music that moves me. Most of the music I listen to is rhythmic, but I feel like producers think every song has to be trap to be rhythmic or danceable.

[@user-gt7vn9lz2m]

i keep up with music always, yep 1950-1999 was golden era , but i also like and listen modern music and always will. Never let kid inside you die. Most people get square when they get older. What a boring life to live.

[@ed.z.]

In the US we used to have music programs in public schools. It was hip to have private music lessons. Between 1967 and 1975 we had so much amassing new music every week. Yes. We have some great artists, today. But not in abundance. Adele and Billie Eilish are phenomenal but, have you seen the Grammys in the last ten years.

[@lorenzodicapo6305]

I used to think like the headline. What I realized is that there is always someone, somewhere making the kind of music you like. Don't like distortion? Don't listen to Wet Leg. Don't like it loud? Turn it down. As for the rest of us, we can happily listen to our loud, distorted, clippy music on our record players and eight tracks and folks like you can waste your breath telling us we're wrong. Good luck with that

[@brianbergmusic5288]

Your points about mastering and dynamic range resonate with me. I understand the history and competitive rationale behind mastering and the loudness wars, but I think it is a travesty that has hit this iceberg of saturation/distortion. No matter the genre, even electronic stuff, the listener (or DJ) should have personal autonomy with the volume knob.

[@pachoobamusic]

Im an "edm" producer and from my prespective distortion in general is used as a tool to get your sound to be loud on any system, especially your phone speakers. Now as a consequence of that pursuit most sounds you hear nowadays are grossly loud and sometimes obnoxious, although sometimes will produce plesant artifacts into your song such as sounding uniform through bass distortion. Another thing is that dynamic range (in my opinion) has kind of changed in definition with all the new techniques avaliable. In my own pursuit, ive produced songs that look very brick-ish due to me boosting volumes through distortion on spacial/immersive elements and i imagine many producers do the same. There is much more to discuss about this topic i just dont wanna type it all out, hit me up if youd like to discuss more

[@mrboat580]

I fell out of favor with the music during the hair band/mtv/song mill era. I ended up reverting back to the '60s & '70s music yet again. Only thing that held me over moving forward was the guitar virtuosos such as Vai, Satriani and SRV. There is/was a trend for most pop songs to be pumped out by two guys, which they pretty much just affixed a selected image too. Everyone started looking predictably the same. I gave in to it being a generational thing, until my own children started to adopt my music as well, more than their own. My children are in their 30s now and still listen to my music more than theirs. The newer music I tend to listen to is by bands who are returning more to retro styles with actual musical instruments. That overuse of the vocoder thing drives me insane. Not so bad when I can tell the artist can actually sing without it, but when used to stretch a less than capable artist's range, not so much. They used to use backup vocalists for that which added a bit of uniqueness to the harmonies, at least, that could stand up to acapella when unplugged. I like synth, but mostly via the pioneers of such, like ELP, or Yello, for instance. Other than that, I ended up going more retro into jazz and soul music that I didn't have time for when growing up. The newer stuff, some of the jam/indie bands give me hope, but that's about it.

[@JonnyHyperbole2090]

Plenty of stuff that doesn't chart is great, usually the stuff that charts is throw away music that'll get tired after a day or two. So much music coming out is fantastic and we've never had so much choice in what to listen to and so many artists that are evolving genres. NF for example just released a new album.

[@sillysad3198]

i am subscribed to the Stoned Meadow Of Doom

[@beecessity9189]

I think it's all where you look for music. I think if you look to what's popular on the charts, you will find music that takes little talent to produce but there are probably millions of songs recorded each year that are uploaded to various platforms and I think that there has to be good music in there. I think we just have to maybe look a bit harder and keep our ears open for it. I think that we should look deeper than the surface. Great video by the way 👏👍.

[@MichaelBeeny]

If you find any, please report back.

[@alobosk]

It used to be called crate-digging. It became just that now, literally and figuratively (on streaming services).

[@CrazyMonarchRaw-jt9cs]

Yep. If you're digging in the wrong place, sure its going to seem like things are getting worse. However, in my experience modern music has VASTLY improved over the past five years.

[@meis18mofo77]

check out Convexity, they make jazzy Colourbass, quintessential zoomer music but Very interesting in terms of music theory and timbre. It's a Subgenrw of dubstep that uses various sounddesign techniques to conjoin Heavie Fullspectrum Dubstep basses with more traditional harmony.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

But what is interesting, is what kind of music becomes/being made popular, now versus 'old times'

[@augusthavince8909]

When you say "limiting dynamic range," I'm guessing that's similar to using a compressor on an instrument, right? One thing that I notice about modern music that gets popular is the short musical phrasing and lyrics that are highly repetitive. But now that you mention the "compression" of all the recorded sounds, I'm noticing that in your examples. It just sounds like distortion and thudding beat. It gives a "claustrophobic" feel. Maybe it's supposed to sound like a packed club environment, which some people consider fun.

[@merlin5476]

Nowadays main stream music is purely about a crap fashion & narcissistic ego.

[@67Ivar]

I think its the sound, because old music can also sound terrible when its remastered too loud.

[@erevigs7590]

Something I noticed is that a lot of songs rely heavily on repetition to make itself addicting and more listenable. Less details are thrown around under the foreground because its easier to do so, and far less instruments, or the illusion of it, are on display. It doesn't mean that I won't like it as I've been exposed to all kinds of music before my 20s, but I will say I can notice the sheer differences in both theming for songs and tracks and how tracks are organized overall. I know music is a business but businesses are soulless and empty as their only motivation is profit in the long run. Music historically has been the opposite of what businesses want, which is to take risks. Today in all kinds of media, anyone who's made a living seems to be taking less risks. Kind of an advantage for us lesser known producers, wouldn't you say?

[@gbennett58]

Beware of making sweeping generalizations. Not all businesses are soulless and have profit as their only motivation. SpaceX for instance.

[@erevigs7590]

@@gbennett58 That is true and I would say I forgot about businesses that have nothing to lose. But it does feel more common that the bigger the success story and the more a business has to lose, the more likely it is to be swayed by the whims of the many and lose the vision that it originally had.

[@orlock20]

Pop songs tend to be based on repetition including the Beatles singing, "Hey" repeatedly. The repetition problem is between themselves. The Hot 100 sounds like one long song.

[@fairsaa7975]

​@@gbennett58SpaceX is absolutely a soulless corporation. It sets up launch spots in ecological spots with various endangered species and doesn't consult residents nearby, some of whom had their windows blown out due to the launches. That sound fucking soulful to you, Musk lover.

[@blasterkrios7253]

I Don't Know if my taste for music is any good, but there are my most favorite tracks listed: 15. Dante's Inferno (Iced Earth) 14. Across 110th Street (Bobby Womack) 13. Send Me An Angel (Scorpions) 12. The Count Of Tuscany (Dream Theater) 11. Raise Your Weapon (Deadmau5) 10. Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) 9. Hysteria (Muse) 8. Black Velvet (Alannah Myles) 7. Dream On - Aerosmith 6. After Dark (Mr. Kitty) 5. Out Of Touch (Hall & Oates) 4. Phase III - Astralasia Dream (Porcupine Tree) 3. Fear Of The Dark - Iron Maiden 2. No Quarter - Led Zeppelin 1. Come As You Are - Nirvana

[@kevinj.oconner788]

EXACTLY. I don't remember the exact wording, but Bob Dylan got it right when he complained 16 or 17 years ago (give or take) that "there's just sound all over those records". Current (re)mastering practices are all over the place, but still emphasize loudness and saturation over faithful reproduction of the music. There are artists whose music I love, but whose albums I no longer buy because the mastering quality is so horrible that it is sometimes painful to listen to them. (Shiina Ringo immediately comes to mind. She and her band are tremendously talented, but the way her records are mastered makes them practically unlistenable.) Anymore, when I do buy a new album (or, more likely, a new boxed set), more often than not I have to open it up in Audition and use the "Classical Master" multiband compression setting to tame some of that over-saturation and reintroduce some of the dynamic range that was eliminated in mastering before I can give it a proper listen. (Sadly, this is also true of most reissues; rather than attempt the best possible reproduction of the master tape, the folks responsible for them focus more on applying current production and mastering techniques, regardless of whether or not that is appropriate.)

[@pakopepefdez185]

30 years ago you use jingles to sell washing mechines, today you sell the jingles and call it "music". Capitalist industry, take or leave it.

[@enriquekahn9405]

There are two rules when it comes to music: 1- It peaked when you were 25. It doesn't matter when you were born, you were 25 when it peaked. 2- Yours is the first generation to truly appreciate Joy Division.

[@lionheartroar3104]

Those rules don't apply to all listeners.

[@stuartstark]

I'd say it peaks when you are about 16

[@stuartstark]

But everyone is different and generalizing is dumb

[@gteaz]

@@stuartstark I'm 41 and it has not peaked for me yet.

[@sideshowbob]

Music peaked for me whilst I was too young to appreciate it (late 60's / early 70's). By the time I was in high school, KISS RULED!!!!!! RULED I SAID!!!!!! Then there was Foghat, Thin Lizzy, Bachman Turner Overdrive. The late 70's Begat Boston, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, Van Halen. Oh yeah, there was Disco. And Punk. And 50's Nostalgia. I HATED all of it. ALL OF IT!!!!!! Sure, by college, I started Appreciating Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, The Clash, Patty Smith, etc. Of course, then, it took a few years of HATING on MTV before I started appreciating bands like INXS, The Eurythmics, Men At Work, Love & Rockets. Then there was the 90's, & again, took awhile to appreciate Morphine, Soul Coughing, Cake, Incubus, Blind Melon . . .

[@CalumCarlyle]

Well, your argument seems to centre solely on the loudness thing. And tbh I really don't think that's a major factor in whether you like a band or a song. Plenty of sixties music was very distorted, and deliberately, too, or early seventies at least. All of these things are available to producers to use or abuse. It's just whether you like it. I'm 'only' 45 and I don't find a lot of new pop music very good, but then in the nineties, before I was twenty, I actually didn't find the majority of music good then either, I just selectively remember only the good stuff from then. In fact, I now have a radio show on Dandelion Radio, and it forces me to seek out new music that I like. It turns out there is tons. Some sounds old, some sounds new. I suspect that it's down to what sources you trust to curate your new music for you, and what preconceptions you take in with you, rather than what time period the music comes from or what the fashion is in producing it.

[@BadEconomyOfficial]

Modern Music isn’t bad, modern MAINSTREAM music is.

[@MOSP14]

I’m 24, always have hated the direction modern music has taken, but there’s ups and downs and I’m hopping this trend will eventually end.

[@Bananabread810]

If you're interested, i mostly listen to J-pop. It's very different from western pop music and isn't mainstream like K-pop, so it isn't jusy soulless corporations trying to make the next hit. Try listening to "Overdose" by Natori, "Dramaturgy" by Eve or "Mixed Nuts" by Higedan

[@Pet_Hedgehog]

@@Bananabread810 dude so fucking true, im 23 myself so the good western pop was just my early childhood, jpop is quite appealing now since it doesnt seem corrupted by trends or other bullshit, it feels samey just like back then.

[@brandonsheets1883]

Where is it written that music must follow a specific formula to be good? It’s not, that’s the whole beauty of music. As with any art form, there are no rules or boundaries. What sounds bad to you, someone else might love.

[@Pet_Hedgehog]

@@brandonsheets1883 there is a rule about music that it needs to be artful, modern pop is none of that, you cant call a song about sex money and drugs art when it has no intention of respecting the medium.

[@MOSP14]

@@brandonsheets1883 that’s the easy answer but we all know there’s good and bad music, it comes down to to melody, harmony, depth of lyrics, arrangement, mixing, recording, vocals, etc etc etc, you can certainly like trash nobody is complaining about that but just because music is art you don’t get to say all music is equal and you just like what you like, there is absolutely better music than others, and the things that are being done nowadays in its majority it’s pure garbage.

[@everythingiseverything6740]

I am 58 and love all kinds of music, even today's music. I love; Wet Leg, The Strokes, The Beatles, Bruno Mars, MCR, Led Zep, Elvis, Disco, The Ramones and on and on and on. A great song is a great song, no mater what era.

[@EmperorMAR]

Modern music is the equivalent of Cheetos versus a healthy meal

[@MaxQ10001]

47 years, listening to a good mix of 70s and up, where probably half of it from the last 10 years. I would like for the loudness war to end. Many songs are close to being destroyed, and are therefore played less than they would have been. My ears get tired of the high frequency noise.

[@gourlishvideos]

Going back nearly a decade to my mid teenage years I found an old early 1990s Technics portable CD player that used to belong to my dad, and noticed when listening to CDs on it that ones mastered prior to the early-mid 1990s (during the first decade or so of the format existing) almost all sounded better than newer ones despite being quieter. I had been aware for a while before that that older CDs (in their original non-remastered form) were quieter than newer ones but had only listened to them on mainly poor quality gear. Technics were a pretty good brand and I could hear a lot of distortion on these newer CDs that wasn't present on early ones, and it turned out that the Loudness War was the cause. I suspect that the majority of people think that CDs have become louder due to "improvements" in technology. In reality all that making them louder has done has been a reduction in fidelity, to the point that I find the vast majority of releases from the past 15 years with rare exceptions to be almost completely unlistenable since training myself on what music should sound like unless there is an alternative Atmos mix available. Those old, "quieter" CDs retain the full dynamics that give the recordings their distinctive character which is sadly lacking on nearly every modern release, probably without the majority of people realising. I would argue that "quieter" CDs are louder because they have louder peaks if listened to at the same volume to a compressed CD, meaning a sharper, punchier sound, particularly on the drums. A lot of remasters sound worse than old CDs from the 1980s and as a result I seek out secondhand original CD copies from of a lot of pre mid 1990s music that wasn't originally brickwalled compressed because the original CDs nearly always sound better in my experience than their modern CD or streaming counterparts. It makes me question why the labels have been ruining their back catalogues since the mid 1990s with remasters that sounded better previously to anyone who knew how to turn their volume up. I feel that for the most part, good music recordings (at least in digital form) of non-classical or jazz music pretty much died about 30 years ago due to brickwalling becoming an almost universal practice in the industry, on the basis that it would make recordings seem louder to the average consumer. CDs from the 1980s seem to generally sound as good as they could possibly make them sound at the time, and many still sound fantastic up to 40 years later. We've seen a lot of advancements in digital technology since then, and yet most of today's releases sound poor compared with releases from then. I don't think vinyl sounds any better than CD as a medium, but it seems to nowadays get a lot better treated when it comes to mixing and mastering. I believe that back in the 1980s most audiophiles found CDs to generally sound better than vinyl, and at that point both tended to get an equal amount of care when it came to mastering.

[@MonguzTea]

Those "quieter" 80s cds will amaze most diehard audiphiles raised on 24bit 192khz.

[@gourlishvideos]

I don't think 16 bit 44.1kHz vs 24 bit 192kHz sound much different in practice. What definitely does make a difference in sound would be dynamics, which newer recordings are usually lacking in.

[@AvithOrtega]

great comment, I agree with every single point. Ironically as you said, old masters are in fact louder relatively speaking since they have more transients and energy; they are farter from the 0 dbfs ceiling, yes, but that is very simply resolved by turning up the f***g volume knob.

[@markvandenberg4606]

Completely agree with this. A well-mastered CD from the late 80s sounds better than a brick-walled anything produced after the mid-90s. It’s the recording and mastering which is the determining factor much more than the medium. And I say that as somebody who has used it all, up to 24/192…

[@gourlishvideos]

One article that I've read about the "worst sounding CDs" seems to mention at least one of the original c.late 1980s CDs of Neil Young's 1970s albums. I have a few of them, and they all sound great to me. They sound like raw master tape transfers without any noise reduction or brickwalling.

[@craigwillms61]

My own mother detested our music in the 70's, she called Freebird noise! Freebird, can you imagine? Obviously, my Mom was wrong. But really the stuff we hear in today's top songs on Spotify or whatever seem super simplistic even though the vocal performances can be quite good. I just don't hear much if any sophistication in the arrangements of the backing instruments. It makes the newer stuff sound incomplete, or if I may - lacking.

[@orlock20]

There was a story I read about a rest home that hired an Elvis impersonator to entertain the people. However they were fans of Frank Sinatra and thought Elvis was our version of Justin Beiber.

[@rsviews2167]

People who think for themselves and who take the time to craft their ideas are creators. Those are the people who breach into new sonic or esthetic landscapes and bring the listeners on for the ride. It's sometimes risky but at least it leaves room for innovation and discovery. You can find jewels in any genres, even jazz. Mainstream industry ( music or movies ) are mainly interested in producing winning formulas, because they only care about money, not art. Real music lovers never listen to commercial radio. They know it relies on sponsoring, and that it's not culturally motivated. Good music leaves permanent marks, trends don't.

[@fikreefauzi8604]

i'm born in 87, teenage of early 2000', i still hate 2004 song and above. Why is it happen? i find the 'old' song especially 70-90' no matter how dense the syntesized thing they put, they have a nice quality instrumental play... each music instrument is harmony and blend with each other... even if the same band reproduce the same song with improvised mellody it will never replicate the original version. that is a mystery😅

[@TheOnlyPommyman]

I'm 50 and love heaps of current music Wet Leg included! There's so much out there that is so easy to find that I could not have dreamed of doing when I was young. Problem is people equate the loudness of these songs to them being rubbish.

[@ericbrocious6047]

Couldn’t agree more. I’m also 50 and love music from every decade I’ve been alive and much further back as well. And Wet Leg is refreshingly awesome.

[@twtwtw1]

I'm 72 and Wet Leg bore me to tears, oh well. So, as you would probably advise I don't listen to them.

[@spoonmeanie5644]

I really like that you acknowledge it's a generational issue instead of going the Rick Beato route and saying everything is straight up bad, however i feel maybe those songs weren't particularly good examples, Wet Leg is a noise rock band so volume and distortion are kind of the point and the other one is just a particularly poorly produced song. If anything i feel a lot of the most exciting music being made nowadays uses minimal and sparse production, look at Rosalía or Kelela for example.

[@littlegems5097]

If anyone can tell me why any modern pop artist and their music is as good as the Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, The BeeGees, The Who, Pink Floyd, Queen, Abba (and so many more myself and fellow oldies could mention) then I'd be very interested. There are a few notable singers recently though, like Adele but they are not going to be remembered as great writers like the above. There was crap too in the old days but there was also much more variety of style in pop music and maybe it's become too homogenized for its own good or there isn't the talent to lick any of the boots of the above now. Some will claim it's there but has been driven underground by the fashion in music and by the way the pop industry works now. My belief though is that it simply isn't there now in anything like that previous quality.

[@azzonie]

Thirty years from now, people in the future will be nostalgic about today’s music. There will be 20s-themed music, a look back at 20s music festivals, Wet Leg, Maneskin, Lana Del Ray, Billie Elish and Taylor Swift will appear at music conventions signing autographs and posing for selfies etc.

[@aagevaksdal]

Refreshing! I watch Rick Beato (love him to death) pick apart chart tops, and with insight. But I agree, it is still an age thing,

[@ShamrockParticle]

Often, but I used to hate certain genres as a kid but would appreciate them later. Conversely, some bands I used to love back in the day feel too simplistic if not sophomoric. I would opine the early-80s was the last great era of wave of solid and creative hits, with some good songs since

[@NigelDixon1952]

I'm 70, and love modern music! It's nothing to do with age. Way back in the 60s there was plenty of crap going around that even we young'uns hated! If today's older generation just give it a chance I'm sure they'll get to love it........ Well, some of it!

[@artephank]

This. Most of what ppl talking about "good old days" is that they remember the good ones and not the bad. I hear a lot of people saying that the first half of 90' was marvelous time for music - I grew up in '90 and I remember a lot of trash. For each Nirvana there was thousands of Lou Begas or Vengaboys (and Nirvana wasn't that popular really).

[@NigelDixon1952]

@@artephank So true. There was even music I literally hated when I was young, but love it now!

[@drumlinbeatpaul]

Great video. Totally agree it's an age-related thing to an extent, but I think there's a very real sound-quality issue here too. Two big bugbears with current trends seem to be the use of auto-tune and the lack of dynamics. In the world of throwaway musical wallpaper, these things don't matter so much, but, when you want to really LISTEN to something, they do. Recent example: I first heard FLO singing acapella on the TV and thought they were stunningly good, but when I then started catching their recorded output on pop radio I was disappointed---they'd been ironed-out to sound just like everyone else. Whether we like it or not, the nature of how music is 'consumed' dictates how it is produced.

[@AR7271]

I discovered the Loudness Wars back when I was around 23 years old. It's definitely a sound quality issue and not age thing.

[@jpalberthoward9]

One thing I remember when I was a kid is there was nowhere near the generation gap between my dad and my Grandpa as there was between my dad and me. They both grooved on Lois Armstrong, just about anything from Gershwin, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, or Irving Berlin, Dad dug King Oliver and Bix Beiderbecke, Grandpa dug Sinatra and Tony Bennet. But they'd both give me the evil eye if I even mentioned the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Even stuff from the 50s was no good. Elvis, Chuck Berry etc. all got the thumbs down. Now, today I notice that the generation gap has gotten narrower once again, with younger kids digging the Stones or the Grateful Dead or Dylan, and boomers taking their kids and grandkids to concerts, while at the same time liking the Chili Peppers or Greta Van Fleet. What do you think might be the reason behind this?

[@MusicMike747]

As a musician, I like a ton of variety. Everything from Big Band to Barry Manilow, from Rush to Rage Against the Machine. Much of today’s “music” is objectively simple and lifeless, computer generated instrumentation and computer controlled vocals. However, some people still play instruments and write good songs. It takes weeding through the trash to find a few bits of treasure. Band-Maid has been my most recent discovery. Real music from real musicians

[@evacody1249]

All the great that being rock and metal was driven to the underground.

[@clvrswine]

Big Band to Barry Manilow, from Rush to Rage Against the Machine = cringe. Big sellers. Big posturing. Don't like bands because other people do. Find your own gems.

[@MusicMike747]

@@clvrswineI picked familiar names. If I had written “The Cold Stares to Maximum the Hormone to JJ Grey” nobody would’ve known what I was talking about 🤔 Or Band Maid, my current favorite

[@nimapocalyse9569]

There's so much incredible music being made today that's its literally overwhelming.... and you'll hear almost none of it on radio, TV, or mainstream sources.

[@MusicIsLegal]

The most incredible music nowadays is publiced by the non mainstream artists. The main stream artists make garbage.

[@chrisharris1522]

There is a lot of good music coming out of Japan

[@Kalamamimbibee]

23yo here. I actually never liked music directed to my age group (2010s/2020s). To me, it all sounds industrialized and emptied of genuine creativity and passion. It just sounds like its made to be forced into every radio station and streaming service for the purpose of profit, and listened to just because it has a "good beat". I dont really listen to anything newer than the 90s.

[@manniking233]

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 destroyed music by changing the outlook of radio and what was incentivized to get played. Blues and roots music was basically eliminated and replaced by digital music that became formulaic to get played by the radio monopolies that wanted to just play easy access music.

[@barryhall7]

I listen to BBC 6 music all day and have to say that modern music is really good. I'm also old.

[@mattylamb658]

LOL I do as well! I like both the old tracks and the new. And I'll happily listen to whatever Lauren Laverne plays :)

[@dudmanjohn]

Just looked at the Radio 6 schedule and wouldn't describe most tracks as 'modern'.

[@markbrookes5953]

Two tracks to listen to on a good system from the original mastered versions to show what is wrong today. 1: Dire Straits - Private Investigations (1982) 2: Phil Collins - In the air tonight (1981) I cant say if remastered versions will be as good as often they will be compressed to some degree. I try to avoid any re-release if it has the words 're-mastered' anywhere on it. Vinyl had a s/n ratio of around 60db, a decent cassette 50 db without noise reduction. CD has 90db (give or take a few db). So a lot of early CD released attempted to utilise this range. Many modern commercial recording could probably be released on something with 30 db s/n ratio or less as nothing would be quiet enough to hear the noise floor. There is still occasional new music that is OK...its just hard to find amongst the dross.....

[@rheathesecond]

The truth is that good music moved into the underground

[@Annunaki_0517]

as a child of the 70’s, and an 80’s teen, I’ve always looked for great new music, and it was plentiful until about 2005, when the internet (pirate streaming) killed off most of the record labels and that same internet (KZbin, Twitch, discord, instagram, etc) eliminated teenage boredom almost entirely which I always thought was a prime motivation for kids to find one another and form rock bands. When was the last time you heard a popular rock band with great original songs? I’m guessing it’s about 2005, (sure there are a few exceptions), but in general, that’s the rule. Most successful artists nowadays are solo acts, the days of great rock bands competing for the billboard charts are behind us. And with “I❤️Radio” having a virtual monopoly on the nation’s airwaves, it’s not likely to get better anytime soon.

[@fractalign]

I started discovering music in my late teens, that was the late 80’s. There has always been awful music through every decade, I don’t think music now is better or worse than any other decade.

[@beingsshepherd]

But is the collective Western psyche better or worse?

[@2000Doriyas]

I’m 30, and I’m starting to think music kind of peaked 7-8 years ago, cannot see people making albums better overall than they did in 2013-2015. Really hope my mind changes in this, but general creativity and album flow across the board has been in a downward swing for years, I kept telling everyone music was so good they just didn’t know for the last 13 years but that feeling is gone as of the last few, artists like Charli XcX, Beyoncé, and weirdly Enough Ariana Grande give me hope for popular music to grow and be better than the modern classics, but for now I either need to do some deeper investigation or the stagnation of modern sounds has actually been achieved. I don’t know if this is too much to read or not, but I had to stop myself from going fully into all of the major modern genres because I definitely don’t mean to only focus on pop, my favorite genres personally are death metal, post-hardcore, progressive rock, hardcore punk, and golden era boom bap hip-hop, but I am very familiar for modern rap (drake, Kanye, Travis etc), while modern rock is an enigma, people think Imagine dragons makes rock music, and the ones crying about the state of modern rock don’t like the actual artists like Every Time I Die or Coheed and Cambria because they’re too heavy or eccentric and deep into niches.

[@j.t.cooper2963]

And you would be totally wrong about that.

[@gerryasmus2]

I think one can say objectively that most modern music is, in fact rubbish. Gone are the days of songs that actually went somewhere, elicited emotions and had any degree of complexity. There has been a steady decrease in the complexity of music which has kept pace with the dumbing down of society in general. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

[@TabascoVolta]

Animals As Leaders and Polyphia. welcome to the rest of your life

[@lukastemberger]

Yup, there never been and will never be a time like the 90s.

[@maidsandmuses]

There are still new gems around, but as always it takes some active effort to discover it. But I hear you; society is simultaneously dumbing down as well as getting more complex in all the wrong ways. It is not your age, it is your experience.

[@billd9667]

No real drums, no real music. No dynamics, no music. If these two issues were addressed, I would actually listen.

[@tristramllewellyn8162]

The complexity and shape of most chart pop has generally dumbed down a lot. Listening as I did as a kid tracks would have an introduction price, not just the groove from the main track. There would be a chorus or even pre-chorus and bridge. Even better they might have an interesting transpose in it. Perhaps this is the age where that sort of thing doesn't matter but I prefer it. The issue of subjective level and decrease in dynamic range is I think clearer to identify. When you put that together with FM radio broadcast processing I find it unlistenable anyway. I think perhaps the rot may have started earlier than some imagine, maybe started in the late eighties and early 90s in the UK when dance records from club acts started filling the airwaves as record companies cashed in to the new thing. Cheap to make they might be a bangers on a 3k sound system at you local nunnery of noise but just don't sound that good on typical radio. I have nothing against the genre myself, it's just not very radio friendly. 90s Rock is fairly infamous in the loudness mix wars so it came at us both ways regardless of genre. As pop music industry's money slowly disappears so does the quality perhaps but also the loudness pushed to the max is rather like the print media (at least in UK) dumbing down to get every last customer. Ironic that in our post medium era we gave potentially the greatest dynamic range yet waste mist of it jacking the volume, then again mist listening takes place acoustically hostile environments or shitty earbuds etc. Hi-Fi is increasingly aged affair also too.

[@armchairzen]

Thank goodness, someone acknowledging that every "generation" of music listeners tends to bond to their formative years exposure. The whole current state of music is a far cry from times when music just wasn't that important, and didn't define our lives. We knew hymns and sang in church, maybe in the choir. Most schools had no "music program", and folks took private lessons or learned from friends and family. There were popular tunes. All the young people knew "Comin' Through The Rye", and sang it together around the spinet. Aside from that, folks led regular lives, and music was just one small piece of it.

[@c128stuff]

It is curious how that works for so many people, and from the title I already could guess where you were going with this. When looking at myself.. my favorite music only somewhat depends on the age when I was exposed to it. There are things I know I like because I was exposed to them during my formative years, because they are objectively not that impressive, but even then, most of what I like from my formative years has by now shown their staying power by virtue of still being played often, being covered often, or both. But when talking about my favorite music, that includes a lot of music which didn't appear before my 30s, 40s, and now 50s. I have become somewhat more demanding maybe, but when it comes to picking music to play, that can go anywhere from classical, opera, experimental Japanese synthesizer music, to mid 2000s trance to modern techno, or dubstep, or classic ska, or.. yes, even disco. Its really all over the place. That might be because I've always had young people around, and pick up a lot from what they listen to (and find them generally surprisingly curious about music from way before they were born, and recognizing more of it then they, or me for that matter, usually expect.