Why New Music Sucks

[@ghoti_phnq]

One thing that saddens me about the way we consume music today is that there's no incentive to learn to like music that's not instantly gratifying. You might hear a song or artist, not really love it at the time, and then forever abandon it. Some of my favourite music started out as regret for wasting money on a record I didn't love. But out of shear determination to get my money's worth, I'd force myself to listen over and over. Sometimes it didn't help, but quite a few times if became some of my favourite music!

[@carlhicksjr8401]

Remember when you would buy a whole album and then find out that your favorite song was a B-side that will never get airplay?

[@Longhorn.Rock_Roll61]

I know Stairway is the forbidden riff but that's just an example better get the album some like Montrose you can put it on and walk away as the Highway to Hell album in my humble opinion

[@dungareesareforfools]

Yes, I totally agree! I always buy albums in a physical format, because then I’m invested in them and some of the best pieces of music are “growers”.

[@Morstius]

I can´t say that I agree, maybe I´m misinterpreting it, but I have learned more about music, the musicians and singers in the last 5-10 years than I ever had before, I´m born in 1990 so maybe I´m still too 'young'. Thanks to especially youtube I have found bands I would never have even heard off and loved their work, and learned to love a band in genre that I would never have given a chance 15 years ago.

[@jakebrown3822]

@@Morstius No, I am with you. Anyone that says 'there's no incentive to listen to albums' or 'streaming has ruined my listening experience' or 'I only listen to individual tracks now'.... that's their problem. I was born in 1993. I listen to full albums non-stop, and I'm deep diving into and researching bands constantly, too. It's so easy to do this.

[@NikhilYadav-px8rz]

If you look at the way music embeds itself in our brain, literally any music can be good. A particular genre will always sound same to those who are not exposed much to it, like how some think Chinese people look the same or all hot wheels cars are kind of same. The ability to discriminate between patterns which are similar develops over time with repetition.

[@artofscoobydoo]

EXACTLY, finally someone said it. Every genre sounds the same unless you know it well enough.

[@SolusAgomor]

This the most true thing that someone can say about music!

[@deadtornadoYT]

I love how you worded this! For me, I don't know much about rap, so a lot of it feels the same. Feels repetitive. But when I talk to my friends who enjoy rap, they are always talking about how diverse it can be! Nicely said!

[@CubeAtlantic]

Music is an nostalgic thing the vibe, sounds, patterns, flow & et-cetra. 💜

[@UnicronTGOC]

I just like good chord arrangement, proper modulations and unrepetivness to save the life of the song. Musicians , producers, engineers and vocalist do a very very good job of avoiding this.

[@tomdaniel5039]

I'm an old college music theory professor who grew up on The Beatles, but I've re-worked a ton of my class assignments with music from video games. I personally don't get it, but it's amazing how well it connects with the students.

[@Spladoinkal]

For video game music, a lot of times it's not necessarily the music itself that is the cause of joy, but the game that the music was in. The music brings back happy memories of the game.

[@WOTM8]

games music like fall out 4 songs?

[@Spladoinkal]

@@WOTM8 correct. Or Legend of Zelda, or Mario, etc.

[@bradyhayes9818]

@@Spladoinkal Very true. Though some games have objectively fantastic music - Nobuo Uematsu's music for the FF series comes to mind

[@Spladoinkal]

@@bradyhayes9818 absolutely! I'm so sad I never got to see the black mages before Nubuo's health started to decline

[@christianfoster3806]

Actually, the phenomenon of each generation having its own music genres and styles is relatively new, and seems to be linked to the overall industrialization of society. For millenia, styles of dress and music and speech would evolve ever so slowly and people danced the same dances to the same songs their parents and grandparents did. Music used to be categorized by the century it was composed, now we refer to its decade. I guess it's great in some ways that so many musical possibilities are being discovered, but at the same time, is new and revolutionary necessarily better than writing a song that is comfortably familiar and helps people connect with themselves/each other?

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Kpop, Jpop, Thai pop, Qpop, Vpop, Ppop, Cambodian pop, Bollywood, Malay pop, and some other like Italian pop music, African pop music and middle eastern and central Asian pop music, as well as some Latin pop and Western pop

[@James_Knott]

In general I agree, but the music of my parents generation was crap! 🙂

[@christianfoster3806]

@@James_Knott every generation had its share of gold and crap.

[@James_Knott]

@@christianfoster3806 I guess you missed the 🙂. Kids weren't allowed to like their parents music back then. Wouldn't be caught dead listening to it! 🙂

[@brucelangsteiner4599]

I love the access we now have to music. I can listen to Mozart, Frank Sinatra, The Eagles, Nirvana, etc., without changing the application I'm using for music play. So awesome!!

[@michaelbyrd7883]

You don't look Gen Z.

[@d.e.b.b5788]

This is something people tend to forget. We have access to well over a century of recorded music at our fingertips. My phone had my entire 120 gigs of music on it, from the jazz age to today. Even though I can't stand most rap, there are a few rap songs on there, too. And because I'm 'old', no videos. Just sound. That's what music is for people who grew up before MTV. Sound. Not video. The visuals distract from the song. I always scroll down so I can't see the video while listening to a song for the first time, to see whether I truly like it, instead of the hot chick wriggling away with nothing on.

[@HittingImage]

@Saul's Cart Webstore So me listening to Lizzy McAlpine is just me imagning things?

[@Ilikewrestling201]

Kendrick Lamar better than all those mfs 🤓🤓🤓

[@sankalpdharge7584]

​@Saul's Cart Webstore Justin Vernon?

[@mortache]

When you hear a song from an older generation, you're selecting the best of the best from over a decade. Of course it is statistically more likely to be better than whatever random new stuff you found at the moment.

[@QuotidianStupidity]

That is an interesting point... I will go and find a 2010's playlist and see if it is as crap as I think it is compared to other eras

[@GoodOnAccident]

this is exactly what I always say. People use to complain about "trashy music" from the 2000s but now they start acting nostalgic about it but its only because you only hear the music that stands the test of time. It's just a statistical bias

[@felipegiraldo8100]

are u sure about that? because if you go look for music of whatever genre from the 40´s up to the 00´s im pretty sure each one of those decades had a shit ton of great mainstream and underground music in Comparison with nowdays music which is indeed generic AF.

[@mastermlgmarchantdefruit3236]

@@felipegiraldo8100 Don't break their fun

[@geotom2023]

Its not that gen Z are "dumber" musicians or singers. Its because baby boomers n gen X had earlier access to wider options of rhythms and musical arrangements than later generations.

[@leov91]

I love music and it always disappoints me when people box themselves in on the music they grew up with. I love nostalgia, but not in music. I get EXCITED when i hear something new i love and then fall into a rabbit hole of their previous releases. Thank you for speaking about this. It's become a pet peeve of mine haha

[@fightersweep]

Though in doing that, you can also be missing fantastic music from the past. "My time" musically was the late 70s up to the mid 80s. That's when I got into music in a big way. Thanks to the internet, I've discovered fantastic music that I simply missed back then for many reasons. It simply wasn't possible to catch everything then when all I had was Top of the Pops, radio and recommendations. I've had a blast discovering those gems that were lost to me, some remarkably obscure, others not so. Don't think though that I only look backwards. I'm also having a blast with the post punk stuff coming out of Russia and eastern Europe over the last few years. It's remarkably good stuff.

[@ToniToniChopaaa]

I listen to jpop and that’s basically it I don’t listen to American mainstream rap because it is honestly grating to hear

[@projectx7453]

@@ToniToniChopaaa I don’t even listen to the most popular music in the U.S. anymore tbh… except for The Weeknd and Post Malone though. Nowadays I’m either listening to phonk, vaporwave, synthwave, lofi, Japanese rock, Japanese pop, and a bunch of other genres that I can’t name at the top of my head rn

[@ToniToniChopaaa]

@@projectx7453 i love Japanese rock and pop

[@RevStickleback]

@@ToniToniChopaaa I'm similar, although weirdly, other than Band-Maid, who really got me into it, all of the other bands I like are really small, such as Rumkicks (actually they're Korean), The Let's Go's Mutant Monster, Junky58%, 東京初期衝動, Tetora, 虎の子ラミー, Su凸ko D凹koi, Unfair Rule, ローレルズ, カライドスコープ, and others. I don't think it's just nostalgia that stops people appreciating newer music. Quite often they just don't like the newer music they hear, but perhaps more telling, especially these days, it that there's nobody introducing them to new music that they might like. Musicial curation for different genres is dead, as the mainstream outlets for music now only care about songs with mass appeal.

[@SodiumTF]

I personally just find it pretty sad that nearly every song that I listen to nowadays was created before I was born, it just feels like no song is original nowadays.

[@henryvincent5188]

The issue isn't music, it's you. Try and discover some music not on billboard charts

[@sevenchambers]

@@henryvincent5188Give a list then.

[@izzy3005]

​@@sevenchamberswhat type of music do you enjoy?

[@mars-jr5uu]

@@izzy3005heyoo😊

[@stoneneils]

@@sevenchambers They never do. The only band I kept getting was greta van fleet and man do they suck.

[@sybamunki]

It’s true that there’s always ‘rubbish’ pop music. I hated 80s music when I was a kid, but all the good stuff was outside the charts and hard to find. Now, though, I find there is too much choice and it’s overwhelming knowing what to listen to.

[@51tomtomtom]

Same here , found Disco as trashy as nowadays highly visible crap........but I'm NOT nostalgic since I find everyday something interesting , some even from NOW

[@hannahgarcia8645]

What was the good stuff? Always looking for reccomendations :) (ps lol I loved what was popping in the 80s, bands like Iron Maiden, U2, Duran Duran, etc etc so I'm super interested in your catalog!)

[@51tomtomtom]

@@hannahgarcia8645 You see how difficult that is: I "hated" all you quoted ......some U 2 songs became great in covers .....

[@mortache]

A community can help you there. Maybe friends, maybe a reddit or discord group, maybe even a youtube reviewer. They'll tell you about something they liked and why they liked it, and then you can try it out.

[@JohnnyLodge2]

i guess you could call Whitney Houston's "I wanna dance with somebody" just an 80s rubbish pop song. But some day you will realize that a packed wedding dance floor full of people singing and dancing to it is actually the very pinnacle of what music is.

[@jeffaltier5582]

Personally my "problem" with a lot of pop music today is simply that it is overproduced to a point where it loses all individuality. But that is where it is up to me as a listener to explore other genres, alternate artists, etc. to find a sound that speaks to me. I grew up in the 70's, which certainly had its share of great-- and terrible-- music. It was only by expanding my horizons that I found the sounds that appealed to me and its how I discovered some of the vastly diverse music I listen to.

[@shortwinger3]

Unfortunately, the average person doesn’t try to expand their horizons yet tries to say they do because of Spotify recommendations. The reality is that if you listen the overproduced pop trash that you mentioned, you will only get recommended more overproduced pop trash. So, Spotify’s impact on discovering new music that is actually worth a damn is negligible. Yeah, mainstream radio may not be to blame as much as it was 15 years ago but when labels still have millions of dollars to shove into advertising for non-artists like Justin Bieber, BTS, Chris Brown, and Post Malone it hardly matters. Labels just need a new outlet to spoon feed it to mindnumb fools.

[@jonp4846]

​@@shortwinger3 I felt that Zappa said it best when talking about "the person who is in the executive chair may not be the final arbiter of taste of the entire population" As long as I can get what I'm after, fuck the average person 😂

[@zachary963]

Have you considered that a lot of the musical artists these days love producing and that produce is the artistic and passionate part for them? Much how every guitarist knows exactly how to get their sound? What really is the difference between Hendrix using a fuzz face and a wah, and a kid in these days using a Glitchmatchine plugin?

[@wodediannao4577]

The pop music of the 70s was disco, which was as heavily produced as they could make it. And, just like there were interesting things on pop radio in the 70s that you had to listen through hours of bubble gum pop, 12-bar blues, and disco to find, there's interesting and innovative music on pop radio now. Billie Eilish sounds nothing like anyone else. Kacey Muscgraves is a brilliant songwriter. But, more importantly, pop music is now just one of many choices rather than an overarching cultural force. It's just as easy for youth to listen to Tinariwen (innovative Tuareg rock band) as Taylor Swift.

[@shortwinger3]

@@wodediannao4577 the difference between now and then is that back then even pop musicians needed to be atleast somewhat proficient in their craft. That’s not a requirement in pop anymore. Billie eilish is an exception. Not the rule.

[@psa110]

At 72, I love watching these KZbin "first time listening to" channels with young people like you, Mary, and younger listening to and experiencing the classics of the 60's, 70's and 80's and commenting how great the sounds were and how good the groups were, even wishing they knew about this music earlier.

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

And I do otherwise. I am watching Boimers reacting to Millenials' music.

[@CubeAtlantic]

i'm 27 & young me and my wife favorite 60's romantic song is the iconic My Girl song by the Temptations. But vibin' to old-school smooth jazz always has this unique & A1 effect of tranquil nostalgia :)

[@smithjedediah]

This right here. The desire not to seem "old" or "irrelevant" is matched by the tendency towards ageism against older people in a culture that worships youth blindly to the point of pathology. Of course art is subjective, but that doesn't necessarily let a 33 year old writing 6000 word essays in Slate about how Third Eye Blind were actually brilliant off the hook. The difference in the degree of severity and solipsism when it comes to the nostalgia of Millennials vs. both older generations and even Gen-Z is very palpable and we've been seeing it play out for the past 15+ years. It may not be the most serious problem in the world, but people nevertheless get really defensive about even discussing it.

[@devinvenne]

@Karl with a K wow this is stunningly false and ignorant. Take twenty one pilots for example. They have built an entire world and story around their music. And their fans are dedicated to searching every last detail for hidden meaning. This is just one instance. I have many more examples if you're interested.

[@thomastimlin1724]

@Karl with a K HAHAHA. Exactly....former music teacher here.

[@20thCenturyMan80]

chord progression, hooks, bridges, textured, distinct voices, playing real instruments at a high level, emotion in a real singer's voice that is pure and void of any technical upgrade is what is missing in today's music. The masters of composition have long left the music industry. Now you have a low barrier to entry whereas before you were NOT getting let into a recording studio if you were not skilled. Not happening. Now everybody and anybody can put out songs.

[@RodVonLongrod]

Unfortunately, most kids making music these days either use a MIDI interface with either buttons, pads, or keys connected to a DAW, or they use a groovebox. They enter notes on a grid, and play along to either a drum loop or a beat they programmed. The end result is kinda sterile and lifeless.

[@bunsenn5064]

This is my point with what Nirvana caused. They convinced an entire generation that you don’t need any talent to make popular music. So then a bunch of talentless people started making it. They effectively socialized music.

[@RodVonLongrod]

@@bunsenn5064 No talent? They wrote their songs. Kurt was a good guitar player. Krist is a great bass player, and we all know how talented Dave Grohl is. He's a good guitar player and a great drummer.

[@kubeckjay1137]

So right on! Sounds like a screaming two year old pounding the sides of his/her stroller!

[@JCole78]

⁠@@bunsenn5064I don’t even like Nirvana and think you’re way off base. What changes with music was when the music industry became monopolized by companies like iHeart, and Sony. Bands like Metallica, & Nirvana became what they are because they became popular locally and some DJ got their hands on a demo and started playing, and the bands popularity grew from there. Today’s radio DJs don’t even have a say in what is played on over 90% of the radio stations. They’re given a program to run and that’s it.

[@bluerev]

Very balanced and intelligent take. I'm a millennial too, and paradoxically, the older I've got the more open-minded I've become not only to new music, but in general to music outside my comfort zone. The current era of technology is allowing us to enjoy vast swaths of music we otherwise would never have heard of, or had access to. It's beautiful!

[@wmtaylor6705]

Totally agree! 👏🏽👏🏽

[@moladiver6817]

Very true. What's different though is that most really good music doesn't make the charts anymore. Radio is full with purely commercial songs and MTV isn't even about music anymore. Great music will always be made but the old mainstream media have completely lost their ways. Thankfully we have Spotify now and other platforms that don't decide for us what we hear and we don't.

[@Quadrant14]

Then it should also be easier for you to go "back" and listen to the massive 70s output and mid to late 1960s as well as getting into todays stuff, that scratching of records by some guy with headphones on on a stand and adding computer generated drums etc and vocals on some rap/hip hop you can bearly understand is what annoys me

[@dogsmusicbookstravelscience]

@@Quadrant14 Exactly. One can spend a lifetime exploring only 60s and 70s music and not get anywhere near all the worthwhile music produced in that era. The "access to more nowadays" argument for me works only if one is content to wade through deeper and deeper layers of shit to find a rare diamond. Then again, knowing how musically illiterate the online generation generally is, they're bound to mistake the shit for diamonds. Well, bless 'em, for they don't know what aural stimulation they're missing out on.

[@loftyjones675]

@@dogsmusicbookstravelscience If you feel that way about new music, I strongly feel that it is either due to a lack of open-mindedness or you yourself not knowing how to find the diamonds in the rough. I'm sorry you feel this way, but I really do think you would be surprised at the sheer talent and broad range of music today. Similar to how new athletes continue to break world records, the best of music today in many ways is better than ever. Tell me what you like about music and I'd be happy to send you recommendations that help you expand your horizons. Coming from a musician.

[@brianpateman2666]

A very well made case Mary. As one of your aged followers (70) I find that my musical interests widen by the day almost. I love discovering new performers and singer songwriters (in particular) as much as I did in my teens and 20s. Keep making music and keep communicating!

[@cdnbaconeh7321]

58, totally agree, love discovering new music. The age of radio dictating what you are exposed to is done.

[@robertcronin6603]

@@cdnbaconeh7321 yes... true

[@MartinBaldock]

Like Brian, I too am in my 70's, and I also regularly discover new music, have done since The Beatles opened the floodgates all those years ago. Until about 10yrs ago my own desire to make my own music was hamstrung by other economic priorities. I had always played guitar and keys with whatever I could afford, but never been in a band. Since then I've been able to acquire the gear, join others in bands, and so on. I still buy music too, often by artists I missed before, or new stuff, when I find something that I like. My own music is often improvised, electronic(plus guitars), and I doubt there is a market for it, but it's mine. I just wish there was a scene nearby where it could be played to other open minded souls... thanks for the video Mary

[@startreker8591]

I discovered them when I was in the elementary circa 60’s in our Islas Filipinas…the Spanish Italian( classical songs opera( music books)Portuguese Mexicans …then the Americans (American classical with country soul African etc roots)…so it became of my taste🎃🎃🎃🎃

[@jackhaskell694]

2 cents from another cranky boomer - I love the access we have today to artists and genres. Audiences today do have shrinking attention spans, and I’ve enjoyed some of its side effects. One manifestation of this is in the melding of styles within individual songs where pre-chorus, verse, bridge and outro can seem like different songs entirely. I see this clearly in K-pop. I personally still prefer less heavily produced music that can be lovely in both recorded and live formats though. My guess is we are going to see more jarring shifts within all styles or music and performance going forward. The good news is that great musicians emerge in every generation and styles that seem rough at first will be elevated.

[@johmami4825]

I feel like I'm in a weird situation as an 18 year old where everyone in my generation loves new music while I hate it, and gravitate towards 70's rock. Even my mom thinks I listen to music that's too old, so I can't talk to anyone about the music I like unless it's online.

[@JasonSmith-jr7jh]

You are a true MUSIC lover. I wish there were more "young" people like you!

[@KaiDecadence]

I wish I could say it gets better but I remember being in the same spot around your age back in the late 2000s and I was much more into 80s and 90s rock as opposed to what was mainstream at the time which was a lot of bands that were trying to sound like Nickelback or Avenged Sevenfold and a lot of Hip Hop & EDM acts. So I can relate having trouble talking music among peers. If there are any record shops in your area, I highly recommend checking them out and you might be able to find live people to talk music with you and share the likeness.

[@JTCurtisMusic]

It’s nothing new - I was born in the 80, grew up in the 90s. And while I did get into Nirvana, Soundgarden, bands of my youth, I found my parents’ record collection so much more enticing: The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, even old blues records. It just feels like the 60s and 70s were this rare time where FM radio encouraged creativity and the art of the album (and more importantly GOT IT PLAYED) before MTV suddenly forced a mandate on image, formula and gimmicks for publicity’s sake that we’re all still dealing with today. That’s not to say that there wasn’t a bunch of crap in the 70s (I can tell you in the 90s that for every “Teen Spirit” there was a “Barbie Girl”) but there doesn’t seem to be a mainstream outlet for it.

[@inklinedecline]

Remember this. There's no such a thing as old and new music, just good and bad. I was born in the 70's and can tell you there's a bunch of garbage going on in every single decade. The problem today is that in order to find the gems we have to do some serious digging. There's good music out there, but you have to exorcize yourself from the polished garbage established media wants you to consume.

[@joshvanassche6061]

70s rock was the best in all rock history.

[@fenderjazzbrian]

I like what Rick Beato did recently, which was make a video that purports to illustrate the current top 10 (I assume of the billboard chart but I’m not sure as of this writing) and dig into them a bit, and all the songs are great. I can see his point, that there is in fact great new music out there and perhaps we have to take a more active role in seeking it out these days.

[@AlexnoAnder88]

My only fear is that as we move forward with tech in music we will lose the human aspects of making music on an instrument or voice. The perfect pitch tuning has already removed emotion from singing in some instances. This will be interesting to see the future of music

[@enriccaldentey3915]

Im 21 and im a musician/drummer. I love technology but If I was the producer of an album I would record in a organically/humanly way proving that the musicians that play are good in the art of playing. Then I would mix it with interesting, avantgardly and modern elements. But always with people that know how to make music without the help of tools like quantization, overcorrecting the voice or always relying on a metronome to make a robotic, soulless drum groove. It's what you say: technology, new ways of recording, mixing and producing should not kill the feeling and art itself. Which is precisely characterized by being human.

[@universalsubliminals1174]

i think tech/electronic aspects in music can still make really great and interesting pieces. (not talking about billboard hot 100 stuff but genuinely cool electronic music). i think its an addition to what we have now in music, i don't think it will ever really replace it though :)

[@warrenbridges1891]

@@enriccaldentey3915 Kate Bush was already proficient on piano, but composed through the '80s using the Fairlight CMI, to get an idea of the finished product. Then, once finishing a composition, brought in string ensembles, guitars, drums etc. to record the actual track. I've got no problem with these tools when used strictly as an aid for composing.

[@davidsanz9332]

"My only fear is that as we move forward with technology, we will lose the human aspect of making music." - Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) before the invention of electricity.

[@dreamingaboutbulls]

this is pretty true for rap especially lol, u have people like lil baby constantly singing in robotic voice, and while sometimes it works for me. most of the time it doesn’t, as i feel like im listening to an AI’s music

[@garrybartlett6853]

Its demonstrable that as time has moved on things have got worse and worse...

[@aporue5893]

music has got worse because of the popularity obsession and tiktok. It's utterly vapid.

[@ChildrenOfDesire]

Exactly, there has been studies showing that over the decades, since the 1950's, music has become lyrically and harmonically increasingly homogeneous and less complex.

[@arneysrackangast7140]

I personally feel the difference between older music and "present" day is the absence and dynamics of a band. Virtuoso musicians mixed with lead and harmonic vocals and performers. Many bands were comprised of studio musicians who were the best at their craft. The musician could be a star as much as the vocalist. During a performance, the vocalist shines, but also gives the way during a break or bridge to the swell of a guitar, piano, bass, or drum solo. This dynamic all took place all in the course of a single song. Today's music is computerized, filled with tracks and individuals with all the effects afforded to them. Don't get me wrong, modern music can sound really good with all the technology, but lacks the dynamic of the band atmosphere. Dueling guitars, or fiddles, or the overlay of orchestration into a song.. all of it conspired to make music that was full, dynamic, and captivating.

[@Nabium]

To some extent I feel the same way, Arney, and I feel for the many talented artists who master musical instruments these days but cannot find any work or pay. But at the same time, I listen to _dozens_ of current bands that perform in this dynamic way, with live instruments. It's not a old vs new music thing, it's a braindead vs stimulating music thing. Go back to any random week and listen to the top 20 chart of that week from 1960 to 1999 and you'll find most music back then was really bad and simplistic and just made to sell records for the braindead masses. And a lot of the great classics didn't even make it back then, even if we now thing they define that decade. Like the unforgettable song What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong which didn't even make it to the top 100 at the time. The masses have always been braindead, and there's always been proper music as well getting less attention. And it didn't change, there's still loads of music out there being made right now by captivating and dynamic bands.

[@lunasanja4574]

The problem with new music is that Rock is dead, lol. I admit, it‘s a bit oversimplified but also true.

[@michaelbyrd7883]

computerized music lacks soul, only human beings playing a real instrument can deliver that or singing without autotune.

[@PeteS_1994]

There is still collaboration, they can even do it more distanced thanks to the internet. But I would agree a lot though. I still find great modern music but I think because it is usually produced differently, it's hard to get the same results as older music and maybe actually musicians do a bit too much as they can do more by themselves thanks to the DAW. By doing too much it might mean that they may not explore certain sounds as much as they could if there music involved more collaboration.

[@HuginMunin]

@@lunasanja4574 Japan. The rock is in Japan.

[@GuitarLessonsBobbyCrispy]

I listen mostly to music from the 1960's because the melody, chord progressions are so clear. There was also an explosion of creativity and experimentation during that period in music, where instruments such as synthesizers and sitars were added to popular music. Unlike today's music where the melody and chord progression are almost non-existent ( or as you say, 'sucks', lol ).

[@typhoonfox6478]

Statistically, the variety of instruments and melodies have been steadily going down since the 60s

[@KratostheThird]

A lot of this was because the underground scene was booming. Many people know Jimi Hendrix and how talented he was, but there were a number of music artists back then that made music just as good. They never got popular apart from one hit song or so, and once the era died down, they fell into obscurity.

[@JimiHL]

I think the most creative time was the late 60s/early 70s, with bands like Pink Floyd, zeppelin, Yes, and Genesis exploring different sounds.

[@zurichsee706]

@@typhoonfox6478 yes, but other aspects of music are now booming in the experimental scene, like timbre and sound scapes. Music can get better today as well. The problem I see is: algorithms and shit..... the creat listening sheeps that listen to the same shit.

[@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music]

Where can I find a good source of 60's garage bands?

[@bradberkely7448]

I would say with how easy it is to produce and distribute music now, then there's a lot of good music out there. If you can't find any you like, you're just not looking hard enough. My boomer dad got pandora and through that he ended up finding so many artists who only started in 2010 or 2015 but he's already huge fans of theirs. You just need to know where to look to find it.

[@RevStickleback]

I think you need to know where to look. If you can find one new band you'll get suggestions from fans of that band, and you can be away down a rabbit hole.

[@ct2xperience749]

🙃

[@earlgrey691]

Depends what you mean by 'good' ? l'm sure if songs were written of the calibre of,say Stevie Nick's-'Dreams',Led Zepps- S.T.H.Tangerine,babe i'm gonna leave you-Doors-Light my fire,U2's 'one tree hill'...(bit of a long list)...we would sort of 'know about it' and wouldn't have to look too hard.Trouble is the cupboards all bare and has been a corpse for decades with rap providing the quick-lime.There's nothing left to equal the golden age 1965-1980 imho.

[@51tomtomtom]

cheers to your dad .....from a(notarially boomer= born 1951 , but not in the US ...which seems to be "the normal " of all this stupid discussions ! THERE IS A WORLD OUT THERE.......

[@GodspeedProductionsStopMotions]

Ok where do we look to find it

[@timnewman1172]

As someone who grew up with Slinky's, Mr. Potatohead, and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, I think now is one of the best times to be making music! We have access to nearly everything in the known world, the availability of affordable GOOD playing instruments, and the amount of freedom of expression was unheard of when I was young...

[@bobhindla4161]

unfortunately, the majority of people have nothing to say . . .take contemporary country. It's country whose heartache has been replaced with bass drums and guitar that belong in car commercial.

[@veejay5730]

My parents never got me Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. That’s probably why I’m such a bitter person today.

[@idontknow5249]

@@bobhindla4161 Maybe search for music beyond what you hear on the radio?

[@brucedillinger9448]

I'm 65 and admittedly I gravitate towards music of the 60's thru the 90's. However I try to keep an open mind towards new music. I know there is just as much talent out there as once existed. But I don't rely on the radio to expose me to it. Can't handle the commercials nor the inane presenters. Also I become overwhelmed by the sheer volume available. ✌

[@richardcrook2112]

I'm young and I can tell you it's not age, the inspired era particularly for rock was 1965 - 1995

[@stephenlitten1789]

What I find annoying about "classic rock" stations is their limited playlists. The niche bands are completely ignored for the vapid commercial successes

[@Soundbrigade]

I am slightly older and found “my music” in progressive rock in late 60’s and 70’s. Even today I tend to look for new music that swim in that same river. But I also look and find other kinds of music that can tickle my nerves and I have made great discoveries in countries all over the planet. The last ten of my working life, we had a radio playing in our workshop but the music played didn’t give me anything; it was boring. Short 3 minute pieces with bad lyrics, no instruments but MIDI-conducted “playing-machines”, artists most often using auto-tune. And all and every song sounding like anyone else, but for the few cases when a producer wanted something to sound different and hit the WEIRD-button on his mixer. Have some 500 CDs that I can listen to and I am very happy with that.

[@richardcrook2112]

@@Soundbrigade I like the Scottish 70s prog rock band Beggars Opera. I have they're first five albums - that came out before I was born - and I have listened to all of them to death.

[@Soundbrigade]

@@richardcrook2112 Sad to say that my children, in their late 30's, either use music for background noise or listen to popmusic of today. Maybe I have to target my grandchildren .... It is said that you tend to stick to the music you listened to in your teens and that goes for me. But today I also try to find new inspiring music that is way outside my comfort zone, just because it is "good".So I got a heavy metal Moonligt Circus album from Italy and some redneck music from USA - Reverend Peyton and His Big Damn Band ...

[@revan7383]

Im not very old but I used to think I was better than my peers because I didnt listen to rap. I guess I thought there was some kind of beef between rock and rap but now I realize how much the two kind of have in common and how plenty of people in both camps respected and blended the other. Music is in good hands and Im not worried

[@ely-rv9bw]

rightt, they both go hard

[@apisdude]

The advances in tech makes me envious. To have that stuff available as a young musician would have been amazing for me. What I hear nowadays with that tech being used is simply amazing

[@carlhicksjr8401]

Yeah but autotune still sucks dog balls.

[@jankapaa3074]

Same here. I’d have done A LOT to have a decent recording studio at my own desktop. And to be independent of my bandmates’ broken hearts, Maths exams and budding substance addictions. And to be able to cooperate with people who live a couple of continents, not necessarily a couple of bus stops from me…

[@swagmundfreud666]

I remember when I was 15 making beats on a pirate of Ableton Live 9 in 2018. And yeah, I totally get why you would be envious. I had a tool more powerful than a million dollar studio in 1980 on my laptop.

[@oehlda2000]

You don't need tech to make music.

[@PxThucydides]

But the old tech sounded better. Plug a Focusrite into the laptop: sure, it's convenient and quick. But my old 8 channel Tascam deck that cost me $2000.00 recorded such beautiful, full sounds- analog- I can't get that sound any more. And neither can I find anyone who can fix my Tascam.

[@scottpederson952]

I'm Gen-X, and my music is my favorite 'because' it was the soundtrack of my childhood. Each time I listen it brings back those innocent memories of youth. As I've grown older I begin to discover new bands who were influenced by the same artists I listened to. It's nice to appreciate and recognize styles as the generations grow. Loved the comments!

[@michaelwallace1189]

The 80's was astounding as a musical decade. The industry changed around the mid 80's and ignored new or different for similar and sells. This is what happened and why it feels so stale right now. KZbin has the best artists at the moment...

[@KyleReeseCel2029]

@Scott Pederson Name these great new artist. I will judge for myself if they are crap or not.

[@santosmadrigal3702]

I believe the reason people like music not of today . Is because there was no computer . The chances are that the musicians are standing toe to toe in the same room ... Music and art is a human thing . A computer can't have heart . A computer can try to simulate it . But the result = today's music sucks .

[@LeeDeeThe1]

@@KyleReeseCel2029 Dodie, Orla Gartland as two Pop examples. And there also are many amazing indi rock and pop acts like Skating polly that are not mainstream but take older genres and do interesting fun things with it.

[@Dragon-Believer]

@@KyleReeseCel2029 Nemophila (metal) Otyken (tribal dance pop). Deco27 (vocaloid). Band-Maid (hard rock). Hanabie (metalcore). The Warning (hard rock). The Hu (tribal metal). Bloodywood (Indian metal) Babymetal (cute metal). Ado (singing over vocaloid). Maximum the Hormone (weird AF).

[@A_guan]

As someone who was born in 2000...music in the early 2010s just hits differently

[@victorelias589]

Yeah life also seemed more cheerful then. That music definitely shaped a generation

[@seiwarriors]

@@victorelias589 I feel like even 2000's was a great time too.

[@xx_furby_lover_xx5812]

Ikr

[@Wolfdragon92584]

Music honestly began losing its luster in the mid-90s. The rock movement began slowing down. We had a brief resurgence in the mid-2000s with garage rock but after that it just sifted away. Now it's regurgitated faux-rap garbage with autotune.

[@smnkumarpaul]

How many GenZ have the mental capacity to sit and listed to a 8 munites of song. Gen Z want's tiktok music, a small catchy phase and rest don't matter. Let's say the song "Running Up the Hill" by Kate Bush, ask if any Gen Z knows it more than the chorus lines.

[@y-s-]

it's an error to think that just because older people typically don't like newer music, that this means that new music is never inferior to older music and that this is just a quirk of the perception of people as they get older. there are periods of creative decline on a cultural/societal level. not saying we're in one now particularly. but you fall into 'all music is subjective' territory and stereotypes about older people very easily. yes, music is subjective, but you can make some judgments about the general quality of music, and of the general quality of popular music in a given timeframe. sometimes new music really just is inferior. (that said there's so much music being made these days, that there's bound to be amazing stuff, and there is! but generally we're talking about popular music when discussing this stuff)

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Kpop, Jpop, Thai pop, Qpop, Vpop, Ppop, Cambodian pop, Bollywood, Malay pop, and some other like Italian pop music, African pop music and middle eastern and central Asian pop music, as well as some Latin pop and Western pop

[@XeroFace]

Depression is up 200%, suicide among teens has skyrocketed since social media.. certain things where better in the past and music is one of them.. its not that older ppl just be hating… more options equals blandness. It’s over saturated and soulless and fake. Everything is digitally perfected to beat the soul out of it.. Also, Remember when albums where conceptual and you had to listen to the whole thing and not just random singles to truly get it? We have lost a lot.

[@philipiacono2083]

Yup, and there’s still good stuff out there nowadays, but I believe it’s just harder to find the good new music, because the radio pushes catchy, trashy tracks. Once in a while I find a new art/experimental artist and I’m happy

[@philipiacono2083]

Yup, and there’s still good stuff out there nowadays, but I believe it’s just harder to find the good new music, because the radio pushes catchy, trashy tracks. Once in a while I find a new art/experimental artist and I’m happy

[@philipiacono2083]

Yup, and there’s still good stuff out there nowadays, but I believe it’s just harder to find the good new music, because the radio pushes catchy, trashy tracks. Once in a while I find a new art/experimental artist and I’m happy

[@philipiacono2083]

Yup, and there’s still good stuff out there nowadays, but I believe it’s just harder to find the good new music, because the radio pushes catchy, trashy tracks. Once in a while I find a new art/experimental artist and I’m happy

[@xenobreak1160]

I'm old enough to remember when music was a huge part of culture. These days, I'd say that the internet, technology and video games have become the biggest part of culture.

[@carlosw1687]

I was born when most of the best rock or pop artists where no longer active, died, or past their peak. Yet I loved them and still do. Rarely I was interested in "current" music

[@moleedaboi]

Oh wow, so unique and quirky....

[@sieteocho]

I thought I had it bad when I was growing up in the 90s and missed out on legends like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane. But now I look back on the 90s like they were another golden era. Today's music does not have groundbreaking stuff that people want to emulate. Maybe all the great ideas dried up already. Truth be told, you can sum up the musical innovations of the 20th century in one sentence: "cool stuff you could do once recording studios and amplified music were invented". We discovered all the cool stuff already, and there's nothing left to discover.

[@DK-ox3ox]

Music has changed so much since I was a kid growing up in the late 60's all the way til the early 2000's. One could turn on the radio and you were exposed to all different genres. DJ's played pretty much what they wanted, not just an artists current hit but the "B" sides and other songs from a particular artists recording. You could find just about any kind of music from popular artists, up and coming artists, not so popular artists and every genre of music by going to your local record store. Now it's all about what record companies want you to hear. Today's musians don't have support from record companies like in the past . Back in the day an artist made most of thier money from record sales and royalties from radio airplay. Those days are gone since streaming came into the fold.

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Thai Tpop, Ppop, Vpop, Cambodian pop, Jpop, Cpop, Bollywood/Ipop, Kazakhstan Kpop, Armenian pop, Iranian pop, Kazakh pop, South African pop, Tanzanian pop, Ghanaian pop, Nigerian pop, Kenyan pop, Turkish pop, Greek pop, Italian pop, Egyptian pop, Eritrean pop, Ethiopian pop, Moroccan pop, Tunisian pop, but do listen to some other songs as well

[@lurji]

@@jameshenrysmithmr worldwide holy shit

[@hoshi4042]

@@hajxty is algerian pop even a thing ? i always thought it was called "Rai"

[@collinloretitsch4731]

Thats why music will never be the same again. I was born in 90, & i still know the facts u just mentioned. It will never be the same, it's only going to get worse as the years go on

[@pabrodi]

​​@@jameshenrysmithunfortunately, most, if not all of regional pop music turned into auto-tuned, overquantized, mass consumption product with no soul. Almost a self-satire of what Western music should sound like with their local artists.

[@Maxwell_Brune]

The fact is that most popular modern are more of a celebrities than actual artist and ghostwriting is now a thing more than ever

[@andyk6792]

whoa whoa let's not get carried away here, ghostwriting was probably a bigger thing in 1950-1965 more than it is now.

[@Martinroadsguy]

I am an 80s millennial, and from my perspective I'm actually surprised by the apparent lack of diversity in what people listen to. When I was a teenager, I begrudgingly avoided popular music. Back then, it seemed harder to avoid popular music. The music that most people listened to was what was on Clear Channel dominated radio, MTV, and in the new releases at CD stores. Today I've totally lost track of what's popular now, and where people find music. Today it's never been easier to find different music, but the majority of people seem to be pipelined into listening to the same stuff. Radio and TV has just been replaced by algorithms. Added to that, it seems like the distinctions between different genres are also more blurred than ever. Whether consciously or unconsciously, and for better or worse, I think this is also fueled by algorithms that reward music with the broadest of appeal, and pushing aside niche content. I don't think this is any different than the music industry was 20 years ago, but rather that it's more efficient than a record executive betting on whether a band they would sign would sell, and the results are more instantaneous, rather than waiting a few weeks to see if CDs sell at Sam Goody.

[@chrisdick2305]

The algorithm is not like radio and MTV. It is more like a wealthy person's butler. If you tell your butler you like chicken, he will serve you chicken four times a week. You need to train your butler not to do that. This can be done, but it takes some work. If you are passive, and lazy, you are going to eat a lot of chicken. Do a little work, you will find great music.

[@neilbradley]

Regardless of the nostalgia angle, in the 90s, mainstream music became homogenized to a point where only a handful of producers and record companies controlled and defined popular music. The diversity of popular music was much, much wider prior to the 90s, and since then, it's all formulaic. For example, in the 80s, on the top 40, you'd have Ratt, Def Leppard, Duran Duran, Men Without Hats, Art Of Noise, Human League, etc... all very different bands. The 90s gave widespread rise to boy bands and popular music became much more manufactured. It's the nature of the music and movie business - in the 90s, they became VERY risk averse, which coincidentally is when all Disney movies made after around 1990 were essentially the same story. Granted great, diverse music is out there, but record companies don't push it. They push what sells, seldom straying from Dr. Luke/Max Martin authorship. And by the time songs are released, they've had 10 songwriters, 15 producers, and a whole slew of musicians in between, seldom the artists themselves controlling their creative destiny. But the great thing now is that music creation tools are available to everyone, so no longer do the big studios have the lock on recording and music production. The playing field has leveled.

[@modularcuriosity]

@FoundationSS of Musickkk What a f*ing troll. Neil's comment was really well thought out. Also, it's "you're"

[@neilbradley]

@Dominion Philosophy Nice shitpost, and not even remotely what I was getting at.

[@semyaza555]

@@neilbradley How old are you?

[@d.e.b.b5788]

I started going international in the 1990's; Scandinavian, Korean, Japanese artists. That's how I found new things to listen to.

[@paulthomas963]

There's still no distribution. Maybe these gems exist but nobody is hearing them...

[@moladiver6817]

Great music will always be made. The difference is that we all used to enjoy the same amazing songs together as they came out. Nowadays great music doesn't make it to the charts anymore and we all enjoy our music in our own Spotify bubbles. That's a shame because music is often the best when enjoyed together. Everytime a great song comes by that everyone in the room likes it's an old song, usually from the previous century. Music like so many other things seems to have turned into an individual experience. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we'd all go to virtual concerts.. all by ourselves. Who needs a crowd when the computer can generate one for you instead..

[@moesalamander7012]

Great music was usually always off the charts in the past too, we just forgot about the garbage that was popular

[@moladiver6817]

@@moesalamander7012 All those great classic rock songs of the 60s and 70s. Even lots of amazing stuff from the 80s. They were all top hits back then. Sure there was lots of garbage but the radio played it all. MTV introduced the video clip and made music even more magical. Young people now discover Kate Bush through a tv series which is awesome. I was about 6 years old when Wuthering Heights was on TV as a new major hit. And that was in between all the other 80s classics that are still played today. That kind of quality music is a farcry from the what's on the charts today. I still enjoy new music. It's just that radio stopped playing quality and moved to commercial pulp almost exclusively. Pop music went from great and pulp to being pulp only. I stopped listening to what's on the charts somewhere in the 2000s. Just can't be bothered anymore. Luckily Spotify filled a void but it's not the same magic as in the past when we were simply given these gems from time to time.

[@moesalamander7012]

@@moladiver6817 I’d argue there’s still quality pop music on the charts, maybe you just don’t connect with it bc your lived experiences are different from our generations’ (which is fine). I’m glad you still enjoy new music though that’s cool

[@moladiver6817]

@@moesalamander7012 I had and occasionally still have pretty wild parties. Lots of electronic music passed the scene along with music from the 70s and eerlier which we already called classics back when I was a teenager. I grew up with lots of music around. I went to quite a few concerts of some of greatest artists. But I also spent time in the European hardcore scene which experimented wildly on its own (which had a lot of influence on the main stream btw). I simply noticed over time that pop music started to degrade into this autotuned monotonous garbage. So many songs nowadays sound so much alike. It's a constant repeat of the same chords and beats churned out by computer programs. Mainstream music isn't what it used to be. Music changes, of course. But music always used to surprise and that's where the current mainstream is failing heavily. I moved away from pop music because it started being boring.

[@moesalamander7012]

@@moladiver6817 “Its a constant repeat of the same chords.” Lol have you ever heard of 12-bar blues?

[@rocketguardian2001]

I am hard-pressed to identify any new style of music that has emerged since the turn of the century. Part of what made earlier music interesting was how like-minded musicians would somehow coalesce into a specific style that would become its own thing...Funk, Punk, New Wave, Rap, Grunge...there isn't enough of that these days. Everyone fits into the same old categories now.

[@lianxie5582]

…If you’ve stuck to looking at the music you like, then don’t be surprised if you don’t find upcoming new genres 🤷

[@wantspizzadaily1316]

When dub step came out I thought something new was happening but it turned out to be a dead end as far as I can tell

[@gordianknot6867]

The only things that have come out are maybe small subgenre’s like emo rap/mumble rap etc there is good music here and there but truth be told the John lennon’s, kurt cobains and Bob dylans of gen Z are not getting the same opportunities and are being restricted by the current model, which favours those who are good at optimising social media by being influencers.

[@rocketguardian2001]

@lianxie5582 could you point me in the right direction? What new genres do you know of? I'm honestly interested.

[@mrglasses8953]

UK garage was the last "new" scene I can think of. Specifically the dubstep, bassline and UK funky subgenres.

[@keneisner3445]

This is terrific, Mary. You're really carving out your own territory with these philosophical excursions!

[@davekraft5132]

As a 71 y.o. from Chicago I have to say -- you NAILED it! While I fondly remember my own garage band days (LONG gone, but fun memories), and do not listen to "new" music hardly at all, I DO have to roll my eyes at contemporary friends and family who make these statements. And I am hugely grateful the indies of all generations who have been killing the predatory record industry which killed the music of my generation. Karma's definitely a be-atch! and in this case, one to be savored. Thanks Mary -- keep on playing!!

[@RandyLewisBrown]

Mary, I just turned 70 and released my 8th album in September. I agree with you 100%. Times change and every generation always thinks the next one sucks. Those folks are wrong. Music is a continuum. Ever changing, morphing and becoming something new. Ain’t it beautiful!

[@KyleReeseCel2029]

This was a terrible take to say the least. It considers almost no facts whatsoever. It's more of a personal condemnation of older people.

[@5150forever]

@@lebe220 Boomers can still Boom!

[@theragingdolphinsmaniac4696]

C'mon you're old like me. Music styles used to change every 10 years or so and nothing has changed in 20. It isn't changing or morphing at all. We still have Avril Lavigne copycats *20 YEARS* after "Complicated." The current state of popular music should have changed twice over by now, but it's still exactly the same...

[@michaelbyrd7883]

I don't know why you guys comment like you do the 60's and 70's had the greatest talent by far in rock, blues, jazz, hard rock, soft rock, crossover, country, ballads, soul, funk, duets, 3 piece, musicals etc, just the musicianship and song writing was top notch there's always exceptions in every decade. The 80's had some, the 90's got real thin and the 2000 next to nothing comparing the 200k bands making music. I can't think of anyone today even close that could write a song like Paul Simon or Paul McCartney or Neil Young or James Taylor or Dylan or Joni Mitchell etc. Can you? I can wicked jam a guitar and bass pretty well but can I write like them? No way! Can I transpose or transcribe songs like say Jaco Pastorius, Nope! Neither can 99,999 others playing today also. Maybe 10 in a million can write songs like these guys. Who can play trumpet like Miles or sax like Parker or Coltrane. That bebop stuff is impossible to play.

[@TPABenjoyer]

@@michaelbyrd7883 Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Clairo, Joji, Beach House, Earl Sweatshirt, Tame Impala, Weyes Blood, The Weeknd, Sufjan Stevens, Jay-Z, Car Seat Headrest, just to name a tiny fraction of the people writing great songs today. Try to give more new music a chance and don’t be so close minded. If you want some song recommendations of what I believe to be as good as anything that came from the “old days”, I’d be more than happy to give some

[@matty6878]

personally for me its finding new music from any generation in any genre. it took me a while to find music that i really enjoyed from the 2010s but that was only because it took a while for all the fluff to fade out and the ones that lasted to get passed around til it landed on my PL. i won't rule out that there are great artists out there but fat chance you'll hear them on the radio. as always you gotta dig deep if you want to find something that suits you, just give it time.

[@coolbrotherf127]

True, I haven't bothered listening to a radio in about a decade at least.

[@collinloretitsch4731]

No........

[@matty6878]

yes actually @@collinloretitsch4731

[@gregfender]

I'll always love the music I discovered in high school, but I rarely listen to it anymore. The excitement for me comes from discovering new music. It's sad how many people get stuck on "their" music and shut out things that they might otherwise enjoy.

[@thephantomoftheparadise5666]

It's not all modern music that sucks. Just the mainstream crap they play over the radio.

[@ryandeffley7652]

I've been focusing way more on 80's and 90's music, movies, and TV shows than anything current. It makes me miss when life was simpler and more enjoyable. 💯

[@Thespeedrap]

You can tell after 9/11 everything just went to hell.

[@McLarenMercedes]

4:39 "A smorgasboard" Yes, that is true for those *willing to try something they haven't tried before at said smorgasboard* . I'm afraid 90% will still go for the stack of easily-recognizable fast food and not even think for a moment about trying the other food. What point is a smorgasboard when people go for the "immediately rewarding and familiar" ? While more music is readily available than ever before the *irony* is that music taste has probably become more streamlined than *ever* . And why? When 90% go for the "most watched video" list rather than looking up something on their *own* the "strength in numbers" becomes the guiding light for far too many. But you'll say it was pretty much the same in the 1960's. Well fair enough the newspapers wrote all about Beatlemania and listed the top-10 most sold singles. *But* there was a fundamental difference. Most young people first heard the music on radio. That's how most people who love music talk about how they first heard band X, Y or Z back in those days. Since radio listeners couldn't see the faces or bodies or clothes of the musicians performing them much focus was on the music *itself* . The radio playing those songs didn't go "we have 20 million listeners all over the world giving thumbs up to this song". Had there somehow been I reckon the 60's music scene would have looked poorer. Don't get me wrong here. I believe there's *tons* of great music being made today. But unfortunately it's largely *overlooked* . No, the bitter irony here is that even though we have an endless supply of variety the sheep will follow the largest herd. And thanks to the power of the internet that herd counts in the hundreds of millions today. Kudos to your optimistic appraisal but I see the present day music scene as a large city where *tons* of new restaurants (serving food from all over the world), cafés and deli shops have opened. But to no avail since the overwhelming majority will still always flock to the fast food joints. Taylor Swift might be at her all-time peak and on top of the world right now... ...but will a new generation listen to her in 20, 30 or 40 years? I doubt it.

[@michaeleastes1705]

I’m a 70 year old novice bassist, with a love of playing but honestly no chance of going anywhere in music except with my friends. I do take enjoyment from sharing my favorite music, from the Yardbirds to Yes, and much besides, with my granddaughter. She’s a 16 year old cello and guitar player, and she sends me the new stuff that she likes. We both seem to like what the other sends.

[@saint_of_saints]

I mean, I definitely feel you on the whole "keeping an open mind helps with juvenoia" (paraphrasing) type of thing, but I also still feel that because music is so quickly processed today, it just doesn't have the same weight and soul of the previous gens. We'll never get the same angst, power and grit from these newer kids that we got from Bob Seger, Alice in Chains, Ray Charles, James Brown, Phil Collins, Tupac Shakur, etc. Not sonically, not emotionally, and not socially. While a "more democratic" approach to art is probably objectively better for art/creativity in general, I also feel as if it has also created a much more weaker sound and integrity in the music/art. That's just my opinion.

[@goldenoodles6281]

Yea there are many good pieces, but still i personally think that the songs in the top charts are honestly not that great. They generally feel very robotic and algorithmic. Though some of their ideas are great but there's still a big portion who try to create the most popular rather than the most creative right now.

[@letym2271]

I agree with you 100% it's all washed out nowdays

[@chrisdick2305]

You are just not looking hard enough. Over-generalizing about new music on the basis of the pop charts is not the way to go. There is great new music around -- just as good as the work of the nostalgia acts you love. You gotta do the work.

[@pwnedeful]

Its because music streaming apps like Spotify gives people the incentive to apply themselves when it comes to listening to music, and as a result these bands don't know what their influences are, and what they like about the bands they listen to. Bands from the 80,90s bought albums, and listened to every song from each album they bought, and as a result they knew what they liked from what they listened to

[@saint_of_saints]

@@chrisdick2305 yeah but that's kind of the issue, back then i didn't have to do the work to find good music. Sting was on the radio, Sade was on the radio, Phil Collins was on the radio, etc. but now, all that's on the radio is fluff and algorithm/agenda based music. it's no longer talent based.

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Very much spot on and even though I’m growing more to be Grandpa Simpson regarding new music (and try to be aware of it)… I still can’t help feel that some of the good skills of songwriting and technical production is a bit shady these days. There is something that still makes me turn to stuff made in the 80s and early 90s because the sonic choices of current music just doesn’t cut it anymore. The loudness war, incessive compression/loss of real dynamic range and a seemingly lack of good musical theory background when composing are some of the issues I seem to have some beef with with today’s Top charts. Maybe shouting at the cloud, or… I dunno. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@bryantwalley]

You are correct. What they call the monopoly of the past also worked as a filter. Now the filter is gone and all the crap comes through. There is good music made today it's just really hard to find when it's buried in all the crap.

[@TheJonHolstein]

Keep in mind that when you listen to music from the past, you are selective. You don't put on the music you didn't like that you still don't like from that era. You might put on some music you didn't like back then, but have started to like. But you don't put on the music you don't like. the late 80s and early 90s was also plagued by the poor sounds of the synts/workstations of the time, so there are a lot of cheesy sound that were put on there not because of choice, but because of lack of choice. The loudness war is an issue though. The auto-tune sound, can be quite annoying, especially when there is software that has the capability of doing a much better job (though it can be abused to do the auto-tune sound), but listening back on some late 80s, early 90s music, I can't believe how some of the vocal takes could actually be released, instead of hiring a new singer or re-do until it was good enough... I'm just surprised that I wasn't as annoyed by it back then.

[@AndersEngerJensen]

@@TheJonHolstein Yeah, I’m aware there were plenty of crappy music then too. It’s always been like that and I know I have picked my favourites from my youth as the measuring stone. But I also approach this from a musician/composer POV, and the latest decade har brought too much of the mentality of «fix it in the mix». Like Beato said lately, they cheated a lot back in the day with tracks and some tweaking of tuning the vocals. But today it’s just crazy. I’ve seen so many medium to big artist live in my daily job (AV-rental) and I can tell that artists today have a worse intonation and pitch than the stuff I grew up with in the 80s where people were forced to rehearse and be good at it. They also chose to do all sorts of weird falsetto/soft vocal stuff on records today that doesn’t translate well to live settings without using a buttload of tracks and complex effect chains to recreate it live. That’s a kinda stupid move in my book. Making sure you can play what you lay down in the studio, live is my mantra. Anyway, it’ll be like this and we’ll eventually die off as old dinosaurs. I’ll keep turning to my 80s heros and stick with them. ;)

[@iolairmuinnmalachybromham3103]

@@AndersEngerJensen ​ ​ I’d like to add to this discussion if I may. When you mention the “fix it in the mix” approach that has taken over today, isn’t it worth considering that maybe a good studio track is valid in and of itself, and that maybe not all artists are meant for live performing? The sound of a heavily produced track is pretty distinct from that of a straightforward acoustic recording, to the extent that you might be able to think of the distinction as an artistic choice, and some artists may simply want to make the former rather than the latter. I do wonder if discontent some people feel with today’s music is really that they’re listening to a genre that’s not for them. I don’t like most of what I’ve heard of current pop music. I’ve tried listening, and I still don’t like it. The genres of music that I do listen to haven’t fallen into the the same traps to nearly the same extent as the popular. The folk scene in the UK, for example, still involves plain a cappella performances of songs, musicians playing in pub sessions, and music that is generally meant to be played live, and so holds up well when it comes to it. I say this because I’m often saddened when I hear people give up on listening to music being played today who’ve only listened to a very narrow stream. There’s honestly so much out there, and I wouldn’t want people who don’t get anything out of the mainstream to miss out. But then again, if you’re a Mary Spender fan, you probably know that.

[@cameronpfiffner3415]

I grew up listening to much older music- my father started collecting 78 rpm records when he was a teenager in the 1930s, and when I became a teenager he gave me access to them. The biggest adjustment you could make in those recording setups was where you placed the musicians in relationship to the single microphone. As a consequence, I thought of recorded music as a documented performance rather than an assembled artifact. Obviously the performers in those days had to be completely competent, able to sing and play in tune in the moment and project their energy over a large distance. The advent of sophisticated recording equipment and editing techniques made it possible for a person or people who simply couldn’t perform at that level live to produce records that sounded good, but initially that didn’t have much impact, because the established industry standard was that of live performance. I agree that there has been much worthwhile music made in studios by people who aren’t good at live performance, because the artwork in that case is the artifact assembled over time, not a document of a single performance.

[@KevinS47]

25 year old here, born in 1999. All sandwhiches today suck bad 04:40, sorry. The incredible complexity of songs from groups like Genesis or Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin..(etc..) and messages they convey almost through poetry-like lyrics is to this day unrivalled.. They made you use your brain and think, not everyhting was about quickly satisfying your crippling emotions and extremely short attention span, music was multi-layered and complex. So much so that you could easily learn life lessons through it, if you paid enough attention that is. Today that music would never fly, and the reason is that masses have lost the ability to think and to PAY ATTENTION. This is also why we see a degrading society today (especially during the past 6-8 years) in my opinion. The same 3 seconds of tune repeated over and over and over again in succession with digitalized voices ""singing"" (about extremely superficial topics and without ANY depth whatsoever) over some basic repeating tune.... With that last sentence I described about 95% of todays "music" (noise). Of course there is that 5% left from today's music that is actually decent and sometimes even good, but 5% is a very small fraction of all music, and if I have to make an overall general statement, what I wrote above stands. I've seen my friends bang their heads on these trends, like mindless sheep. When I ask some of them what is so good about the noise they listen to, they just tend to be dismissive or simply "don't know". I can tell you why they like it. Because they've BEEN TOLD that THAT is what people should like today... nothing but a trend. This reminds me of all the times between 2006-2015 when people would all of a sudden start following the very new "fashion" trend and wear the same "clothing" type (constantly changing from month to month)... Well guess what? *You are what you wear.* Sheeps following the herd, without ANY self-reflection or a single thought in their mind as to what they are doing... This scares me and saddens me, because all the trash that comes out today is burying alive some of the most incredible and important music that has ever been created. If your choice is today's noise over yesterday's music... Just know that, that means you've never had a chance to truly feel and experience the highs and lows of life, and that is just sad.

[@collincartier6848]

Bro that’s wild, can’t believe you are 4 years older than me but are feeling nostalgic for bands that realeased music decades before you were born. Anyway I got a few points that seem to be flying over your head: 1) labels and artists incentivized by capitalism to appeal to the (often lowest) common denominator. You can very much see this with all the nostalgia bait to show people familiar sounds ( I despise David guetta) so that means there are lots of nothing burgers that are allowed to exist. 2) the gatekeepers that existed during radio just don’t exist: nobody cares about rolling stone mtv pitchfork so really anything can fly there is no quality control whatsoever. Labels and artists can beam a catchy chorus straight into your dopamine receptors. 3) awful artists existed during the 60s 70s and 80s due to mainly survivorship bias. But also the fact that curators and gatekeepers still had some power. Pick a random month from a random year hot 100 and there will be plenty of stinkers even from whatever golden era you think exists and is “unrivalled.” 4) nowadays there is so much more variety everywhere like if u look at the charts. Hip hop, reggaeton, r&b, rock, country and whatever else there is no longer a more or less monolithic or at least bigger groups like their used to be. Like we will not have a grunge movement that dominated (mostly white) culture. Everyone is more insulated than ever before because of the internet. 5) music rather then being art really seems to be part of culture at large and is really important for community. More like a cultural medium like clothes rather than something like movies. Most people whether subconsciously or consciously pick the music they like because their family likes it or their friends/people the respect like it. Also u fr come off very holier then thou. It seems like you didn’t even give modern music a chance and are just listening to the same stuff over and over. Like zeppelin and Floyd are great (genesis sucks low key) but there is so much more if you truly like the medium of music. Modern technology has only made more creativity possible all you gotta do is look for it. For example I will only use reletively popular music (1 mil min Spotify listeners) and came out 2023. Also sounds like you hate hip hop so I won’t recommend lmao. King krule - space heavy, soundscapes as luscious if not more so then pink Floyd with very thoughtful lyrics. King gizzard and the lizard - petro dragon… Australian prog rock mixed with thrash metal taking it to places led zeppelin never could as it’s a concept album about humanity reliance on petrol that creates apocalypse as we continue to pollute told through a fantasy lens. Sufjan Stevens - javelin illustrious productions with sad bittersweet lyrics about him dealing with the death of his lover and questions and the insecurities he processes.

[@JaguarWisdom-9]

Maybe you should start writing lyrics, people now or in the future might be interested in somebodies take on their own generation through the medium of music. Make yourself. And my generation had The Spice Girls and Take That!!! FFS it used to make me sick, BUT, we had Oasis and Blur (among others) too.

[@kelseygloeckner1478]

BRO NEEDS TO HEAR LIFE IMITATES LIFE BY QUANNIC (18 YEAR OLD GEN Z MUSICIAN)

[@a.d.365]

25 and typing like this is crazy I am struggling to breathe from the cringe

[@agustinpugliese1715]

What I really dislike about "new" music is the abusive use of auto-tune on singers

[@michaelmeer4720]

Very interesting, well thought out and eloquently delivered. I was born in 1961 and it makes me sad to see that the majority of my friends and contemporaries only listen to the music we grew up with. Now that the record companies can no longer completely dictate what gets released, there is so much out there to choose from. And with the ease of access today, it is not difficult to find music being made today that is wonderful. All it takes is a little exploration to find something that appeals to you. The amount of young, incredible talent out there is remarkable. I have been blown away by the likes of up-and-coming drummers Yoyoka and Sina, not to mention the kids from the O'Keefe Music Foundation (their cover of Tool's 46 and 2 is epic). I do look back fondly on the days when buying a new album was essentially a religious experience: spending a lot of time in the record store agonizing over the choices, bringing it home and placing it on the turntable (and cleaning it with the "disc washer," of course), and listening to it over and over while looking at the cover art and reading the liner notes. But, in my opinion, we have it so much better now.

[@51tomtomtom]

relax , I was born 10 years earlier

[@stommx]

Really? Go look up the UK and US top 100 charts to see the utter shite that's on them. "We have it so much better now". Ha

[@michaelmeer4720]

@@stommx It seems to me that you did not understand the point of my comment. I am not, nor was I ever interested in the top 100 US or UK charts. I always chose my music based on my own tastes, not by what was popular. The point that I was trying to make is twofold: 1. The volume and diversity of music available today as opposed to before the 1990’s is astounding. With the digital age, the record companies are no longer the sole dictators of what is available to the public. It is far easier today to find music that fits one’s tastes. 2. Music is far more accessible today than in the 80’s and earlier. A few mouse clicks are all it usually takes to listen to and download whatever you want. In the days of vinyl, we were limited to what was available in our local record store. Researching music that was not part of the mainstream was very difficult, let alone obtaining it. Music catalogues and record shows/expositions were a couple of the ways of finding music that was off the beaten path. Imports and bootlegs were essentially holy grails, and they cost a fortune. Looking at it from that perspective, the top 100 charts have nothing to do with my premise and I stand by my statement that we have it so much better now.

[@stephenvalente3296]

Most of my favourite music is 60-80's and still discovering songs I've somehow missed over the years. Love classical too, the odd bit of jazz, musical theatre tunes and even European foreign language tunes. A lot of modern songs are instantly forgettable unfortunately.

[@makimakipapura7543]

Too new for my taste.

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

I have a huge gratitude for video games introducing me to some amazing music. The portal games, Xenoblade, Persona and lots of others have all given me a lot of great music to listen to. I also love that Anime has introduced me to a lot of Japanese music I would have never listened to otherwise.

[@naibaf99]

The japanese make a lot of amazing music

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Thai Tpop, Ppop, Vpop, Cambodian pop, Jpop, Cpop, Bollywood/Ipop, Kazakhstan Kpop, Armenian pop, Iranian pop, Kazakh pop, South African pop, Tanzanian pop, Ghanaian pop, Nigerian pop, Kenyan pop, Turkish pop, Greek pop, Italian pop, Egyptian pop, Eritrean pop, Ethiopian pop, Moroccan pop, Tunisian pop, but do listen to some other songs as well

[@I_Have_The_Most_Japanese_Music]

Is there a place you can go to find Anime and video game music?

[@TheBoyInBlue1209]

COD black ops introduced my to rock, if it weren’t for The Rolling Stones I would probably be listening to todays music

[@bobespirit2112]

Listening to BAND-MAID? They’re one of the best, imho, of making music than spans and appeals across generations. Ofc, some younger people will discount and be repelled by any music that has appeal to their parents and grandparents, but the MAIDS have a unique way of doing that. If you haven’t already, I recommend you check them out. ✌🏼🎸🥁✌🏼🎼😀

[@nomannic1]

I'm a gen z er who likes jazz and classical stuff, and there's been so many cool and unique innovations in harmony and improvisation in the past 15 years. People tend to build off of what the greats did, and make it their own. I'm blessed to live in this time where we can appreciate Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Bird and more as well as domi keys, Cory Henry and Jacob Collier. The internet is a beautiful thing and we have a wealth of recordings to consume.

[@makimakipapura7543]

Have you tried older stuff?

[@Dexter649]

I'm also Gen Z and I love listening to classical, big band and classic rock n roll and I love most of the classical recordings from the 1950's-1970's and the 1980's is the last good decade for music in my opinion.

[@masterfrank7607]

@@Dexter649 I am also a teenager as well. I don’t really like jazz, but I do like pop, rock, and metal. I do like a little jazz, but it’s not really my thing. I feel like the decades with the best music were from the 60s to the 90s. I like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Nirvana, etc. I feel like the 50s are kinda basic, but if you like it, then go ahead. If you want to listen to a more modern rock band that sounds like 80s rock, then check out Dirty Honey. It’s not that popular, but it is somewhat well known.

[@s.gharavi1614]

Popular music in America has always been mind numbing and constantly gets worse as each trend goes on. But I love the niche music gen z is making.

[@kamizzard3721]

I've always hated when people sayed that new music sucks as there is too much out there to just say it is all bad and I feel like it's something that people in the guitar community say a lot. I thought this video was going to be about how new music is bad and I was very happy to hear someone acknowledge this. Great video!

[@kevinb3812]

People just box out new music and don't give it a chance. Sure there is a lot of crap pop, but there always has been! You have to go deeper than what's being pushed at the moment.

[@thedanceninja]

I feel the same, I think when people make statements like that they're really just talking about mainstream/ commercial pop. You can't group all new music from all genres and say it's bad just because it's new. There's so much out there. Some of my favorite genres are folk, EDM, and classical :]

[@whyvern6817]

frfr man

[@dvvaughn564]

95% of new music is utter garbage not just pop(100% of pop is garbage) but ALL music. most new rock is not very good at all, country? ughhhh metal? ughhhhhhh its just not very good

[@dvvaughn564]

@@kevinb3812 OHHHHHH so i gotta listen to a crap ton of crap pop to find one good song? yea fuck that heres a better idea make a crap ton of good rock/pop and allow me to skip the one crap song. but making mostly good music takes talent, and i do not think the talent is in the music industry anymore. dont think you thought your comment through very well.

[@christopherwall444]

Melody, instrument expertise, song structure.. Now its more sound production where producer with a million knobs is king. Music is forever subjective...my opinion is just that..my opinion....there truly is no right or wrong

[@AgainstTheeWickedlyMusic]

This was a very well made video. As part of Gen-Z, even I tend to dislike a lot of the things that people are creating these days, especially on TikTok, but I'm also realizing how unfair that is, since I'm a musician, too, trying to create my own place, and my own sound or sounds. I needed to hear this today, because lately I've been really hard on myself with my music. I suppose my primary issue is marketing, but it's hard to get people to care about what I'm doing, and I often wonder if it'd be better if I just made something safe, something that's already been done before. Your latest few videos have inspired me to remain creative, to keep blending genres, and to keep being geniune as a creator. Maybe this hard work will pay off. Thank you, Mary. 🤘

[@thejawshop-AdventureRecording]

Marketing is such a hard one for me to wrap my head around. I figured that documenting the surroundings through my own filter systems is marketing in itself. Simply put, the creativity you engage in will be what shines, and it isn't safe. There seems to be a lot of contrived esoteric content being made as a way to mitigate this marketing puzzle. It is a tricky balance, and in my view, letting the muse speak first is the most important part, and that is a discipline in itself, staying open to it and keeping a lifestyle that leaves room for it. Being hard on oneself only clouds this process. Brian Eno deletes stuff to keep a healthy relationship with the muse.

[@buttoneer63]

Amen 🙏✌️❤️

[@rickyalonzo4169]

I completely relate to this as well. I've gotten so discouraged with the "will people even care" side of creating that I had literally just stopped doing anything all together for over 2 years and only now recently am I starting to make small steps to start making music again and I'm 36 now so i feel like I relate even less to what's being made that's popular these days. Nonetheless I do find encouragement from these type of videos. Stay the course and never give up! Cheers!

[@AgainstTheeWickedlyMusic]

@@rickyalonzo4169 that's pretty much exactly how I've been looking at things lately. I took about a year off of music after I released my first few singles, and then reinvented my sound. I'm back now and commonly writing, it's just getting stuff recorded that is tough. I'm 19, I think what I do is very outside of what is popular, but it's what I truly want to do. These videos are encouraging. Stay strong with your creations, as well, thank you! Cheers 🍻

[@abelmelo6409]

As a marketing specialist, and also a musician. I think i can give you an specif insight: It´s not about making people care for what you do, it's about making the ones that truly care special. Then they will gradually grow as you keep doing your thing, because they will be passionate about ir. Solution: keep doing your thing for the people that like you and be public about it as much as possible.

[@pjk35]

I'm a Gen-Xer myself (born in 1971). I've seen a lot of "seismic" forms of music come around through these times and it seemed like it happened quite a bit. The last time something I would consider seismic came around was in the early 90's when Nirvana ushered in the age of Grunge and alternative. Since then there has been nothing in my opinion. I am really hoping that you are right and a new sound comes around that knocks us all for a loop in the next few years!

[@franknada8235]

There are a lot of these people with poor understanding of music who want to conflate the subject of the qualities of music through times just by pointing out there's always been garbage music around. But that is irrelevant deflection. The two most relevant things are 1. Technical skills combined with originality 2. The compositional level. It is only expected that when technology gets to a point when it is easy to produce, that the people involved in (and consumers of) music will increasingly be of the "cheap" kind. Less labor needed, less talent&skills, less work to become a craftsman. It's like with food. People are drawn to sugar, salt and cheap spice and the industry has capitalized on it, but the result is poorer food and health. The music _has_ become poorer in quality. The turning point was probably in the early 90's. No excuses. And it is the fault of consumers cheap poor taste and the industry including TV&radio always trying to promote and create fads that really are nothing but different combinations of sugar, glucose, sodium and pepper. The contemporary menus are either just noodles or blandly cooked copies of classic dishes. There are some very talented people out there, but do they compare to the classics (and I'm not talking about charts) in originality?

[@jessejames5147]

Thank you! I feel like the whole problem about talking about "Generations" in general is already a setup for a strawman argument. It limits the scope of places looked, and of individuals' tastes and backgrounds. I mean not everyone born a Gen Z or Millennial " could even have access to social media, games, and movies growing up - it's not like we all had access to those things. I'm young and in my mid 20's but we were poor, and often had to rely on older media from previous generations of tech if we wanted to enjoy things growing up, even though hi-fi stereo systems, Blu-Ray, and whatever new tech was available to those who could afford it. Also thank you for bringing up soundtrack music - many have failed to notice just how powerful and amazing music can be without the need for our preconceived notions of what should be popular. Music is universal, an art that helps us through the mundanity of life and how that life makes us feel. We're so focused on grouping over individualizing, and I feel that harsh overboard dive into one side without the other can only separate us, rather than finding respect for, and despite our differences. Thank you as always Mary!

[@DevourTheBleak]

Well stated opinion and video. I’m older than you and feel the same on all your points. I do feel a music BOOM is bound to happen, it’s just a matter of time…and it is thanks to KZbin we can share our music as musicians so easily. Things have changed, adapting is critical to survive, the best musicians will continue to flourish.

[@eieghn]

Great commentary. As a Boomer (1955), I STILL explore new music. On 24 March, I'll be seeing Drumcode ft. Adam Beyer, Juliet Fox, Kölsch, and Layton Giordani at Radius in Chicago. Last month I saw Buddy Guy starting out his last tour (he's 86 and one of the last OG Blues players). Too many - WAY TOO MANY of my contemporaries are stuck, Stuck, STUCK in the late 60's - early 70's. Me? I started branching out with glam-rock and early EDM with Kraftwerke. In the late 70's, I got turned on to NYC Rap, and I still love it! It hasn't stopped. It is said that a musical generation is only 7 years. That has not changed. What has changed is recording quality got ramped up in the late 50's through the early 60's. One can play older recordings that present themselves aurally, as current. I keep exploring.

[@Jack-id4qm]

Shimmer - Klimeks Islands - backwhen Ozeanblau - Ambyion 3 of my favorite songs I think you'd be open to 🤙

[@ReeseHolmes]

I was born in 2009. I listen to all types of music from all different time periods. I don't see the point in putting others down for their music tastes. Some older people should just give some modern music a try without comparing it to older music. People can have opinions of course, but people are also going to look back at older times in a specific way and cherry-pick things.

[@liltree8382]

I think it’s unfair to think an older person won’t compare music now to music of their childhood everybody will do that when they grow older

[@lovelydolltime8006]

As much as I like the songs "Zombified" and "Foundations of Decay", older songs such as "Situations" and "Famous Last Words" are indeed better than newer songs. Music peaked in the 2000s and nothing can change my opinion.

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Thai Tpop, South Korean SKpop, Ppop, Vpop, Cambodian pop, Japan Jpop, China Cpop, Bollywood/Ipop, Kazakhstan Kpop, Armenian pop, Malay pop, Iranian pop, Kazakh pop, South African pop, Tanzanian pop, Ghanaian pop, Nigerian pop, Kenyan pop, Turkish pop, Greek pop, Italian pop, Egyptian pop, Eritrean pop, Ethiopian pop, Moroccan pop, Tunisian pop, but do listen to some other songs as well.

[@uranusneptun5239]

Well putting others down comes from the way the industry is penalising innovative and hard working artists. Streaming platforms are literally benefitting artists who already have the biggest numbers and new creative artists have a hard time being seen and heard by a broader audience. Most people don't look and search for music, they just hear what gets suggested to them, the so called "mainstream". And the quality of that mainstream has gone down insanely over the decades, especially the last one. They try to make the biggest amount of money with the smallest effort. There is no talent or hard work required anymore, as technology has evolved so much and everything is based on market data now. That's what's so frustrating about it. In the past talend and hard work could bring good musicians to the bigges audience. Most indipendant musicians nowadays rarely make any money off of their music. They make their living of everything around it. Which is cool but not every artist has the skiils required... Just a decade ago there was still a time where the big industry was left out a bit, because through the internet so many creative artists had their chance to become relatively big, by being indipendant, but the industry found ways to take it all back to the days of TV and radio or even worse.

[@georgecovetskie6717]

Ok, here is an older generation opinion. I aplaud you all for the creativity and talent and effort in making todays music. The thing I see thats lacking today is the ability to enjoy all there is about the music and artist and their efforts long enough to actually respect it. Things move so fast today I see this like this. When The Old train that was going to a location you enjoyed everything along the way because you noticed these things. You wonderted about them, you take in sights you may have missed when you were not looking before. Today, the train is going the same direction but it is going so dam fast you do not have the time to enjoy the ride. You get to the destination so fast and lack all the moments it took to get there. All wound up, ready to jump on the next fast train. Life is full of music and art. Spend some time with all of it. Dream about changing stuff when you think of better ways to do them. All in all, allow yourself to enjoy, dont miss out. Thats why record albums are so impressive. There is a lot going on there too.

[@js_brick1954]

Why I think my generations is bad as a Gen Z is that there are only covers samples and Remixes. Musicians are lazy today

[@kevinsworld5088]

I am 70 years old, and the best decision I ever made was suggested by my Mom. She said let everybody else have the kids, you just enjoy your life. Best Mom ever! ps. I loved all my girlfriends, living alone, seeing the world, and being Blessed!!!

[@DoomKid]

A life spent well! Inspiring

[@nottusleinad]

I love nearly all genres of music (I still don't "get" grime), but I always seem to revert to bands and acts that can actually play their own instruments (and I include EDM artists in that category). Music is probably the one thing that I couldn't live without.

[@mrdngm]

Such great insight on this topic. It's incredible how the music industry seems to change, I'm not sure but it seems that when it's not changing culture it moves with it, like a flow or a sway.

[@JerryBaiden-G]

Please read my book, Why Pop Music Sucks. Published this past March 2024. Thanks

[@thomasmurray3920]

As a child, I listened to AM radio which brought Rick, pop and instrumental music like Herb Alpert. In the 70s (high school and college) it was progressive rock (Yes, Jethro Tull, Focus, etc) and bands like Chicago, plus Jesus Christ Superstar. In the 80s I listened to Japanese Enka and pop, jazz, bossa nova, new wave and synth pop and things like Chess and Jeff Wayne’s musical War of the Worlds. This continued as new wave, punk and soul nth morphed into related sub-genres. Classical music was always a part as well. Some disco (Chic) and early hip hop were also on my radar. It was only in the 2000s that new music started to lose my interest. There were some exceptions (like Pink) but if MTV killed the radio star, mp3 killed audio fidelity. The musicianship of bands like Yes didn’t shine in this format. Good looking women who couldn’t sing as well (or in as interesting a way) were becoming stars. Even very talented singers like Ariana Grande sang stuff that actually hid their talent. Repetitious lyrics, too many meaningless runs, and overly produced music made for boring listening. Even great singers like Kelly Clarkson eventually fell into the trap of repeating tried and true methods, resulting in a certain sameness. Speaking of sameness, overuse of a limited number of chord progressions, automated drum lines, and cookie cutter singers makes for boring music. Bands used to play live when in the recording studio, and you could often kick up their excitement and energy. Now, that is almost totally lacking. Where is the inventiveness of Yes, The Cure, Talking Heads? The variety of singers like Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Kate Bush, Pink and Kelly Clarkson? Country music that told a story or had humor, rather than the country rock that repeats the same chord progressions about the same theme. Even smooth jazz has become boring and less melodic. My Gen Z son agrees with me, so it’s not just this old man yelling at the clouds.

[@BobBrophy78]

Having access to so much music is in my experience is kind of a blessing and a curse. Having any song you want at your finger tips is great but it does take away a lot of the mystique I once had for music. Very similar to the old days of Blockbuster, that nostalgic memory of going there and picking a select couple of movies at a time vs now where it's any movie, anytime you want.

[@BobBrophy78]

@ghost mall I agree that I'd never want to go back. Sort of like people in the 1920s would never want to go back pre car, plane, radio. But I believe when moving through life so fast you can often miss out on things you would otherwise notice, IMHO at least.

[@465marko]

@ghost mall Yeh, when every song that's ever been made is neuralinked into your mind all at once, that'll be a bit much imo. I'll probably call it a day and dust off the old tape deck.

[@Tastyjamsandwich]

Aside from recent times, it was much harder to get a song to the masses. You usually needed some sort of record deal, which entailed convincing someone with money to pay for it. So generally speaking (not always, the content needed to be good to justify the investment). It just isn't the same nowadays, it is much less restrictive for artists to get recognition for their work, with much less capital investment (in general). Therefore I would argue on average this naturally leads to lower quality with drastically increased supply. And drastically increased dross. There are exceptional artists still out there as there always will be, but nowadays they are just harder to find because of the increased noise

[@MrStrenggeheim2000]

I'm always astonished whenever a youtuber accomplishes several 100k views without artificially tensioning of the video with background music or special video effects. Just plain and informative content.

[@steeliewheelies]

I unfortunately find myself in negative perspectives of the direction music is going from the standpoint of new artists, so this was a real feel-good video to watch. Thank you for opening my eyes to the positives of what’s possible in the next 10 years. I’m excited to be applying modern time’s methods of operations to older styles of music I enjoy listening to & creating.

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Thai Tpop, South Korean SKpop, Ppop, Vpop, Cambodian pop, Japan Jpop, China Cpop, Bollywood/Ipop, Kazakhstan Kpop, Armenian pop, Malay pop, Iranian pop, Kazakh pop, South African pop, Tanzanian pop, Ghanaian pop, Nigerian pop, Kenyan pop, Turkish pop, Greek pop, Italian pop, Egyptian pop, Eritrean pop, Ethiopian pop, Moroccan pop, Tunisian pop, but do listen to some other songs as well.

[@jameshenrysmith]

I usually listen to Kpop, Jpop, Thai pop, Qpop, Vpop, Ppop, Cambodian pop, Bollywood, Malay pop, and some other like Italian pop music, African pop music and middle eastern and central Asian pop music, as well as some Latin pop and Western pop

[@Alanb_69]

The problem I have with today's popular music is only a couple of genres dominate the charts. In the 70s and 80s specifically, you had so many types of music that were popular. Today hip hop and pop seem to dominate and anything related to rock is barely given a listen. There are some good newer rock bands out there that the youth of today do not know exist. In the 70s there was rock, metal, jazz, R&B, funk, country, progressive rock, yacht rock, psychedelic rock, pop and many others that were all on the radio and charts. In the 80s you had all of the same music along with hip hop, hair metal, college rock, alternative and the 90s grunge. There were many genres of music that were popular that gave you so much variety. I do not see that variety of music today with the popularity it had in the past.

[@joshuagregoire9504]

That's because the best of rock music today is not as good as the best of rap today lol. Also there's more genres than rock.

[@stevemuvjele789]

I can't disagree more to every single point made in this video, but as you said let's wait few years and see what happens. For the sake of argument I will pick up one of the points: "Smörgåsbord". It is actually scientifically proven that having too many options can shut down your brain, create a choice overload and make you completely insensitive to the entire experience.

[@ricthechamp4]

First time I heard Cage The Elephant was on Borderlands(fps game) in 2009 already. Who doesn't love Shake Me Down or Aberdeen. It's strange how younger generations can look back and enjoy old music easier than the older generations. EDIT: The track on the game is "Aint No Rest For The Wicked" and you won't be disappointed ;)

[@Hammerbruder99]

Thank you for the recommendation, it's awesome. ^^

[@thewooddove2]

Omg yessssss Borderlands! I remember playing BL2 when I was 5 up until less than a year ago I grew up with that series.

[@JanickGers0]

Awesome band that got popular thanks to the game. I got into The Heavy as well because of that game.

[@Helaw0lf]

I remember fighting to get them on the radio that year and 2010, via new music mart show.

[@addison_deez]

ABERDEEEEEEEN

[@Alex-cw3rz]

I would agree in some ways, however to deny we are in a slump in music quality because people have been incorrect in the past in it. Is almost as short sighted as the people who always say modern is worse. Tik Tok means songs require 30 seconds the music world has always been commercialised yet at this point it is getting ridiculous and big artists are no longer hitting the best they did in the past, because they can pump out anything and get a number 1 track anyway.

[@lev0207]

I'm 73 years old and I loved your video. What I say to my contemporaries (or anyone else) about music is: "The best music is always written today.".

[@destructionman1]

"These are the good ol' days" is what I say. The good ol' days are always right now, never in the past.

[@dvvaughn564]

clearly you have not heard today's "music"

[@ronbock8291]

Hey, I’m on the cusp between Boomer and Gen X, 1964, and some things I’ve noticed about the millennial and gen z musicians that I’ve seen live is how sophisticated and accomplished they are, even as they start out, in comparison to my own peers at the same age. It was rare to see or hear a young band in the in the clubs in the early 80s with the kind of harmonic knowledge and chops that I’ve seen frequently in the clubs over the last decade. I ascribe this to a couple of factors, first of all the ubiquity of music, it’s possible to listen to virtually any recorded music whenever you want to - definitely not the case when I was learning how/what to play - and it’s also possible to watch an online tutorial of how to play most of that music on pretty much any instrument any time the spirit moves you - also not the case for my peers, Dylan and The Beatles talk about crossing town to learn a D7 chord form a cat they heard knew how to play one, and my era was not much different. Music lessons were available, but they were not yet designed to accommodate what punks or metal heads or what have you most wanted to learn, and were expensive. As a result, I find young musicians to be uniformly excellent whenever I encounter them. Which brings up the elephant in the room - clubs. It seems like the small venue market has collapsed, which is ironic, because young musicians are so accomplished. I play with a bassist who is 14 years older than I am, and his live musical experience was quite different from mine - he was able to make a good living as gigging local musician as a young man, because there were literally 100s of clubs to play in that were within a 3 hour drive, so he played virtually every night, learning and honing his chops. Even by the early 80s when I started gigging, that era was already dead, but we had dozens of clubs we could play in, and so were busy at least a few nights a week, with occasional sojourns farther afield, so it took longer, but within a few years, my cohorts were seasoned performers. Nowadays, it seems like there are precious few opportunities for young bands to play, so I fear they will be great musicians, but not necessarily great performers, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I appreciate your optimism, and hope, for my daughter’s sake - she’s currently taking a degree in music - you are right, and that music somehow manages to regain at least some of the centrality, and pay, that it once held in the culture.

[@carolgebert7833]

A great comment. You are right that cheap live music is mostly dead. Only concert tours remain. Once upon a time, garage bands played at popular pubs, but not any more. Furthermore, the club scene changed. Now, young people date each other through internet dating services, not by going to the pub. So the audience for live music disappeared. Now we have solo artists, identified as talented from a young age. No more rough garage bands.

[@X-boomer]

Your perception that younger musicians are better trained is not exactly universal. I was shocked to discover that so many of the rock, blues, soul and jazz musicians of the 1970s (those whom I have always most admired) had music degrees. The advent of punk rock is often described as a reaction to all that and so talentless musicians got more exposure after that. But have things begun to change back since then? Yes I would think so. Without a solid grounding in music theory you don’t get geniuses like Thom Yorke. So I think it’s going to depend on what kind of music you like to listen to.

[@rudygracia5573]

​@@X-boomer Rock is the standard.80's was the absolute pinnacle.The more steeped in Theory,the more unpopular.The best selling,most popular artists were fairly simple/straight forward.Ex;Van Halen.There'll never be another band like this.

[@X-boomer]

@@rudygracia5573 I completely disagree. The peak of rock creativity was the 1970s. Almost all 1980s rock was dull, formulaic, repetitive commercial dross. It’s worth noting that almost all the most innovative pop and rock musicians are British. In the 1980s, British output was all electro pop so there was no source for groundbreaking rock acts during that period. This didn’t change until the start of the 1990s and the britpop phenomenon.

[@rudygracia5573]

@@X-boomer Teens are buying vinyl of 80's Rock.The 70's lacked in production polish.Guitar tones were primitive,drums sounded like💩on tape.The innovation may have been there,but capturing it beautifully wssn't.The 80's were sweet;The planets aligned!Gary Moore(early 80's),VH,Saga(on the loose!),Europe,GN'R!...Every Rock band really hit their stride.When you hear sporting event themes"The final countdown"..There's a REASON for this,it was the BEST!You'll never hear Rap or Alternative/Grunge promoting these events.

[@KernowRoadcam]

You are one of the wisest voices regarding music consumption on KZbin. I rarely use streaming services because I think that they do reduce the ability to engage with music and artists in any meaningful way. I do believe one of the factors that cause older generations to dislike more modern music, and one that stems from nostalgia, is that it is easier to listen to something that you are familiar with than take the time to have multiple listens to something that you didn't 'get' the first time. Some of my favourite songs and albums are ones that I had been disappointed with on first listen. But because I had paid money for the music, I still listened to it multiple times. That familiarity is the key to enjoying any era of music and it is why, at 56 years old, I am as happy to listen to Stravinsky as I am to Dave Brubeck, Radiohead, Sabrina Carpenter, or foreign language artists that people have never heard of such as Alika Milova who sings primarily in Estonian. Most of the music that I have listened to this year has been music from the last 5 years. It is music that I have bought and paid for and taken the time to enjoy.

[@jacobdeanmusic]

Thank you for such seriously sharp insight and commentary. The honesty and humility; your ability to clarify and explain is so sharp and precise. Thank you for your time making this video! I am so thankful for the variety available today even though I grew up in the 90s. This helped me calibrate my nostalgic energies with the availability of new music I've come to love in a harmonious fashion .

[@tdougadair4405]

Thank you Mary, thank you for helping a fellow musician think a little bit differently today. That was important...and needed.

[@SteveBonario]

The video game Death Stranding introduced me to some incredible new music. And that music was an integral part of the emotional experiences of that game. Great synergy.

[@tinamartin4498]

You are forgetting that auto-tune and pitch correction has taken over. There is no spacing, no arrangement, and no incredible harmonies. The rythym is a straight 2/4 dance beat that doesn't change through the whole song, absolutely no lyrical poetry, for example like Joni Mitchell, Elton John & Bernie Taupin had. And to cap it off with a most important fact, almost nobody plays in a band with real instruments. So these are some reasons why today's music actually does truly suck. When's the last time you heard violin harmonies in any songs today?

[@mooseweather314]

Love it. Puts it all in perspective. As a 60+ year old, I am listening for new music more and more. I find some great music is found in short films, which has led me to check out artists I was unaware of. Thanks!

[@johnskerlec9663]

So many times I hear sound in serials, films and other visual productions, and find I love that sound. Sadly, sometimes the composers are not credited and therefor lost. Seems to me many replies are from real music lovers, and that reflects on your enthusiasm for music. Thanks Mary for your posts.

[@dls3939]

As long as the album never fades away, you just cant replace that feeling you get while being completely lost and found again in a full length LP experience.

[@HardwareFahrrad]

Even better is listening to multiple of these in a row. Like maybe 4-6

[@fredholley6248]

Yep, I remember we had a couple radio stations that labeled themselves 'album rock'. And that is what you got, an entire side of an album uninterrupted! It was awesome and opened your ears and mind to more than just the 'popular' stuff played across the rest of the FM dial.

[@HardwareFahrrad]

@@fredholley6248 Did they ever play any Death Metal?

[@fredholley6248]

@@HardwareFahrrad Not that I remember. Hard rock, yes.

[@HardwareFahrrad]

@@fredholley6248 Ah alright, yeah Hard Rock can be pretty great too.

[@therudeawakening51]

Something I've been thinking about for that last few months... As much as the Internet is thought of as something modern and futuristic, it also serves as a great archival tool. Previous generations didn't have as much access to older music because the only way to obtain it was in physical form from a store. A store can only hold so much inventory so they had to stop stocking older music to make room for the new. But now storage for digital music is essentially limitless. The floodgates have opened. People can just as easily explore 80s metal as they can 1940s jazz or newer vaporwave. Maybe there's not a lot of innovation (yet) because we're enjoying the smorgasbord.

[@makimakipapura7543]

What you fail to understand is the importance of the most accurate and affordable reproduction of a phonographic recording. You can't listen to a recording from 1940 and expect something as crisp sounding as a contemporary album or single. What we need to do with those older analog recordings is to find a way to reproduce them in true hi-fi (not taking or adding to the format taken from the original tape or disc or safety copies).

[@makimakipapura7543]

I want someone to invent a physical (preferably analog, because it is more stable than any digital format.) device that can accurately store almost every sonic information from a recording. I know we've already got reel-to-reel tapes, but they are extremely costly. We need something less expensive, but to keep the quality.

[@TheWayfarerFamily]

I remember the record store days, meeting my mates behind the desk, chatting bout new bands, popular and underground, all genres, and making that difficult choice to spend my hard earned $30NZD on one album of the many that would blow my mind. Cut to today and I still dig and dig most days of the week to find the diamonds in the rough, and… find tonnes of great interesting innovative music. Often it’s pre-2020, but I am very open to new ideas and styles and iterations and experimentations. I love that not all the music is perfect and mind blowing, that some of it I will love and yet listen to only once, while others will find themselves seated in my all time faves list. Also, I love the OST. Always have since buying the blade runner ost on cd back in the day. I appreciate where things are and how this is pushing artists to bend and break the rules and continue making brilliant music. One thing I am very consciously doing, is inviting my son to consume music as albums rather than single songs. Sure there are playlists he makes (mix tapes anyone?) but he knows entire album sequences, as we did pre internet. It takes time to digest and internalise a whole album, and enjoyed in its entirety bringing new meaning to individual songs, changing their flavour. I personally don’t think there really is a problem with where we are in the modern music sphere. Also gives us time to catch up on all the bands we missed in their hey-day. Perhaps treat your music streaming time in the same way you would if you could only have one album and explore a bit before you settle. Avoid most curated playlists and dig deep in the mine, consulting online lists of ‘the top 100 post-punk albums’ etc and see what you find. I think the search for great music has to have the same pure intention we had in those record store days.

[@crimsonwring2723]

Much respect and intrigue for a very well-constructed thought piece on the subject matter of “new music” captured in the perspectives of generational awareness, current social expectations, and technological influence - and framing it all as VERY realistic yet positive takeaways. This could easily be a masters degree thesis!

[@RevStickleback]

There is a ton of great new music - you just have to go out there and discover it...and in many ways that is what has changed. The charts used to have a pretty eclectic mix of genres, so people could be exposed to loads of music that wasn't just the mass-appeal stuff, but that's greatly reduced. Even radio stations that focus on rock tend to only play old stuff, not anything new, because they live in fear that listeners will turn off if they hear stuff they are familiar with.

[@rft2001]

The problem with a lot of the new rock music is that it has the same boring wall of distortion guitar sound and a singer that always sounds angry, low range and one-dimensional. No interesting acoustic touches. No genre hopping like the older bands who could switch up from a rock and roll sound to a folk sound to a jazz sound to a blues sound, to an r&b sound to a country sound to a pop sound to a Latin sound, etc. No varied instrumentation. No bridges in the songs. No singer who can express the gamut of emotions. Even hard rock bands like Black Sabbath had blues, jazz, folk, classical, psych, pop and prog influences and songs as well as songs that switched gears in the middle of the song. Older bands all played with the contrast between light and dark, loud and soft, electric and acoustic and had singers like Jim Morrison, Ronnie James Dio, Glenn Hughes, Robert Plant, etc who could do that. There are some new bands that do this but they rarely get much exposure.

[@RevStickleback]

@@rft2001 Your last sentence says it all really. New rock bands don't get any exposure unless they play the dreary middle-of-the-road rock that's deemed radio friendly. Personally I find myself looking to the far east for new rock, and new music in general. My personal favourites are Band-Maid, but there are loads of bands over there who still do things 'the old fashioned way'

[@rft2001]

@@RevStickleback Good to hear. I personally, I am not super up on a lot of newer scenes but I have heard some Swedish and Australian bands that I like as well as some from the US and England. I haven't heard much from the far-east.

[@thehearingaid]

​@@rft2001 I think the nature of when you discovered them and how makes a big difference, having my parents play those artists a lot (plus also featuring a lot on various radio & music shows) made them feel very bland and run of the mill when i was growing up. Like they are good & i will still listen to LZ, BS & JH quite a bit now, despite their obv creativity and versatility they still come across as safe & easy listening. I think how your exposed to it has a large degree of how you interpret it, as other artist like Bo hansson & Rodriguez were my own discoveries among plenty of jazz & soul and they all felt fresh and exciting.

[@thehearingaid]

@@rft2001 & while you may not like any of these suggestions; you could try King gizzard and the lizard wizard, Black midi, Destroyer, Coheed & cambria, Yves tumor, Darkside, Songhoy blues, Between the buried and me, parcels, foxing or Squid

[@michelledianatarotarts]

I am in Gen X and I see SO MANY fellow Gen Xers who haven't even tried to graduate past the media of the 80's and 90's. They think everything new sucks, and it's a shame because they are actually missing out on some amazing talent with wonderful music. I'm grateful that I didn't stay stuck in the past and chose to keep broadening my horizons!

[@Zimbokasa]

I'm genuinely so happy to see people who think this way! It really is a shame, because they *are* missing out. A lot of them imo are really short-circuited when it comes to today's media. They're too lazy to look underground for some undisclosed reason, and that makes me sad as a music lover because there is SUCH a plethora of ways to access entertainment now. I cannot stress that enough! They just miss being young, but that longing should NEVER replace your opinionss on the world around you - and this is coming from someone from Gen Z who feels the same about their own childhood! (I'm 16 as of now.) I used to be one of those kids who just listened to 80s and 90s music (I'm on a supermassive Radiohead phase at the moment), but I've been slowly graduating from that phase, and I haven't been happier. :]

[@y2craze]

Meh… The past 25 years of music has not been up to par with what came before sorry to the British woman in the video but I’ve heard those tired arguments before name me the artists that have been huge in the last 25 years and they’re probably still active in the mainstream, the music of today is very bland it just doesn’t compete and at this point we’re just pretending, I love how Gen Z apologists will say new is good your stuck in the past and then I go check the charts and see the worst rap fad that’s happening right now, or some horrible EDM tracks that’s grown tiring hell rock music isn’t even a thing in the mainstream anymore some depressed teenager from the Disney channel made it mainstream for half a minute and people act like it came back in style, before people make these arguments please look at the mainstream right now it’s been the same tired trend since 2013 and doesn’t seem like it’s changing.

[@michelledianatarotarts]

@@y2craze Taylor Swift is at the top of the charts now, with an album completely unlike anything she's ever done before, with intelligent and introspective lyrics that stir emotions that clearly, millions of people all over the world can relate to. She's one of the greatest songwriters of our time. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas also make music people can really relate to on an emotional level. Alice Phoebe Lou and Lady Blackbird give me chills when I hear them sing. I could list so many more - girlinred, Phobe Bridgers, on and on - talented people who make real music for real people. And if female singer songwriters and pop music isn't your thing, there's tons of great rock music in the indie underground, some really great punk and metal I could list countless awesome bands who kick ass live and in the studio but this is already a novel - as someone who loves music and listens to new stuff as well as old all day every day - there's really something for everyone. You just won't find it if you don't look for it, and if aren't open minded to it because calling everything shit is more emotionally fulfilling to you. It's edgy to hate everything instead of look for what's good and maybe actually enjoy it. TL;DR: Is there tons of garbage out there? yes. Is it *all* garbage? No.

[@Zimbokasa]

@@y2craze You're proving a lot of people right by saying this. You're only focusing on the *mainstream.* Yes, a lot of it is garbage, but where did all of the good music that came before come from? *The underground,* believe it or not. And to make it more surprising, people hated *that* music too! I probably just gave you an aneurysm with that Earth shattering statement, so let me water it down for you. If you want to find good music, look for it. Though I will absolutely agree that modern hip-hop is garbage (some of the artist's personalities do make up for it though), at the end of the day, it is and always has been subjective territory. Music evolves, everything does, and I guarantee you that parents/grandparents from the 80s and 90s were saying the same things you are about the 60s and 70s, and so on and so forth. I still see it now here on the Internet. With all of that said, want to find something you dig? *Look for it. It isn't a hard task. You have the internet. Put it to use and don't spread the same thing that I read every week.*

[@y2craze]

@@michelledianatarotarts I knew you would mention Taylor who’s currently in her reinventing phase because she will soon be fizzled out of the mainstream due to its ageism, Rihanna is going through that as well because she is also reinventing too soon you’ll see most of the 2000s icons come back and reinvent heck Beyoncé did that twice, my point is that there is little to no heavy hitters in the MAINSTREAM the MAINSTREAM is what’s the most impactful, looking for music is cool for your own personal taste but the mainstream has always set the trends that everyone else follows including your underground acts, today’s music trends are what? soundcloud rappers, EDM, Moody Pop these trends are heavily played out go to the mainstream songs of 2016 and those same trends persist, sure could you nitpick a couple of singer songwriters in the mainstream yeah but for everyone one of those there’s about twenty more of these moody, bland, boring and played out pop songs in the mainstream right now that has sounded the same since 2016. Past hits have always had a sense of verity where there were tones of different trends and genres filling up the charts heck even the loathed 2000s never ran into this problem, but today’s hits have the same tired trends that won’t go away.

[@GoshJoshthatsPosh]

I was making a record with a producer who was in a rather big band in the early 2000s. He was talking about his time in Liverpool, growing up in the 70s. He remembers not knowing about a band being in town until the gig was virtually upon them. They had no warning until the town started to fizz with excitement. Kids would start to run or bus or bike towards the big venues not even knowing who it was they were going to see. "Who is it?" they'd ask. "I don't know. Maybe Zeppelin!" They'd get there, buy tickets, have their hair blown back by a band they knew absolutely nothing about (except the odd song) and then the band would be off again, like ancient viking warlords onto plunder the next town's young minds.

[@thedj9553]

I’m in my early twenties, and I find myself listening to music from before my time just as much as I do the stuff I listened to when I was 14, with a few songs here and there by artists newer than the mid 2010s. I have songs in my playlist from when my parents were kids, like Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock by Elvis and Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin, and going even further back I’ve got music from before even my grandparents were born, like Stumbling by Frank Crumit from 1922.

[@BDUBZ49]

That's awesome. It's hard to actively follow current music when there's so much music from the past I have yet to explore. There's only so many hours a day/week/month. I just try to keep my ears open.

[@SimplyAubs]

I remember moving out to San Francisco for my job - a coder...and somewhat surprised that I was surrounded by Millennials - and felt "old". Granted, I AM a Millennial...but I claim the micro generation of Xennial. It's really amazing to look back on this changing time frame! Well done!

[@imperfectxennial3008]

Xennial here as well, and I completely agree.

[@SimplyAubs]

@@imperfectxennial3008 so it’s NOT just me?! 🤪

[@SimplyAubs]

@A. weird…yeah, but totally true! And you understand from your own perspective. 🤓

[@Arkansya]

xennial : born just before mainstram internet, web user before Facebook, but still there. very special gen, we actively lived the web 2.0 revolution but knowing what it was without it

[@SimplyAubs]

@@Arkansya YESSS!!! Right on - that’s exactly it!

[@Yakushev15]

You're such an inspiration, Mary, and you've certainly got a point, which you conveyed cleverly. But I think that musical nostalgia has less to do with the music itself, but rather with the emotions it once evoked. When I was a teenager, music was a very important part of my life, since there was not much else to do! I still remember a silly amount of lyrics, because they spoke to me at that point in life. And I believe that is true for every generation and perhaps a natural reason to value it more. But staying in a frozen mode of nostalgia is so sad. It's like saying "From now on I'm just going to look at red things". But there are millions of colours! I am so fascinated by the endless musical landscape (and yes, Bach, Burt Bacharach and Bachman Turner Overdrive are there, side by side...).

[@Kasino80]

I don't know what I've done to my kids but my daughter is in a punk band a la bikini kill, and my son is traversing through the entire Queen backcatalogue on both albums and piano.

[@TheGroovyGuitarDude]

What you said about video game soundtracks is so true. I recently got an Xbox and started playing Forza 5 after not having really played videos games for the past 10ish years, I was SHOCKED how great the soundtrack is!

[@consistentialist]

Sadly Bloodborne is only available on Playstation, would be interesting to see how you'd react to that music...

[@romeoiipunzalan1079]

As much as I agree with you that gen z are artistic with their music, I just have not heard anything from this era that even comes close to past music.

[@LordMalice6d9]

Its because it lacks any defining mood, melodies and harmony. Even video game music is better written and produced.

[@yup8865]

Really depends on what mood or genre you are trying to find. I don't see how there would be a shortage in most genres. Usually in my own experience I've been able to hop around from recommendation to recommendation and find gems here and there along the way.

[@la6136]

I haven't heard anything from Gen Z that is good. What music are you referring to?

[@AmiboW]

@@la6136black country new road

[@kateferguson309]

This was such a refreshingly optimistic take on the music of today - thank you Mary! x

[@KyleReeseCel2029]

This was a terrible take to say the least. It considers almost no facts whatsoever. It's more of a personal condemnation of older people.

[@kateferguson309]

@@KyleReeseCel2029 I don’t think so - she was just pointing out that dislike for the music of younger generations is quite normal and has always been present throughout history. She didn’t condemn older people!

[@switchgrindgamer1878]

All in all, I can only agree with you...we live in a musical desert today. Only about 2 years ago I noticed 3 very young sisters from Mexico. I'm talking about the band "The Warning". The three have been making music together since early childhood (first classic piano music - and later rock). All three were born in this millennium and have already released 3 albums (not to mention what you can find on KZbin). They make theirs own music and don't care what the industry demands. Andreas, Germany.

[@joshuacolow1287]

What a breath of fresh air! There's so much great music happening today. Thank you Mary!!

[@timmycorbitt5870]

nothing there

[@heinoustentacles5719]

Do you have any recommendations?