[Closed] Does modern music suck

Cash rich baby boomers will pay stupid money to try and relive their youth, simples.

Old bands have mastered how to make money from the same material over and over again. In 30-40 years it will be some of the current bands doing it.

Big artists draw biggest crowds shocker!

Modern music doesn't suck - there's some great stuff out there.

There are lots of people who still only listen to music of their youth though. They seem stuck in a period of time.

inoffensive blandness sells, doesn't mean there's no good music out there, just that you won't generally find it in the the charts.

I've seen the Stones twice in two years and poor old Mick just can't hit those high notes any longer although I'd love to know what he sprinkles on his cornflakes. All the other old crooners have the same problem with high notes, Elton John and Paul McCartney have to drop an octave and Roger Daltrey is just awful. The worst I've ever seen was Gordon Lightfoot, who had throat cancer a few years ago and just stands and gasps the songs while his excellent band supports him. I laughingly mentioned to another concert-goer that GL ought to retire and the bloke turned out to be one of the permanent entourage of fans who follow him all round the world and BS him that he still sounds great.

It doesn't seem to matter how bad they sound, the fans just keep spending money on tickets. The Stones do make a great sound so the concerts are still enjoyable, I guess.

Music taste (along with a whole host of other opinions and characteristics) is firmly fixed by about age 20 in most people.

It's all just noise.

I am sitting listening to Animal by Pearl Jam which is 24 years old. Hardly ever listen to modern music but maybe I am stuck in the past!

The see them before they croak premium. Next year pay to see the hologram.

It's not music, just shouting.

Currently listening to a band called teeff whom I came across by accident at ynot festival along with about 25 other folk. They are awesome live!

Modern music always sucks.

Look back 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50, or 60, or 70 years and music sucked then too.

For every Britpop anthem in the 90's there were probably 10 forgettable girl/boy bands with an entire back catalogue.

For every Durran Durran there was a Bananarama

For every Bob Dylan there was a Starland Vocal Band

The good thing about being grown up and hating modern music is you can tell everyone you like the Killers and Muse early stuff more, despite probably not having listened to the album until five years after the kids were bored with it.

All music has sucked since about 1998. EOT.

Music taste (along with a whole host of other opinions and characteristics) is firmly fixed by about age 20 in most people.

Agree.  Major exception is political where people become selfish tory bastards as they get towards 50 forgetting what it was like when they were 20.

I like modern music, I am just don't spend as much time looking for it as I did 35 years ago.  Listening to John Peel every Monday to Thursday through the 80s gave me a lot of bands to seek out.

As I have got older, I have less tolerance for listening to the shit music to get to the stuff I like. When I was in my teens, it was not really a problem to just have radio 1 on in the background and not really hear most of it until something caught my ear, these days the radio can go and **** off (especially radio 6, the beige trousers of music).

That and I do actually think that the music charts have aged down, it used to feel that they were mainly aimed at late teens and early 20's. Now they seem to be aimed at early teens.

I like Bob Dylan but thanks to Starland Vocal Band you cant beat some  "afternoon delight" give it a try

Earlier on radio 2 Bob Marley Lively up yourself was played, Bob was really good

Cash rich baby boomers will pay stupid money to try and relive their youth, simples.

Ever been to Glasto or the myriad of other PopUp Festivals?

Mum, Dad, Dads ex wife, Kids, Extended families Kids & Granny.. take the demographics and pitch your day ticket costs at £100 with weekend discounts at £175...

Annnnd as much merchandise as you could possibly pack into 3 rucksacks..

All in ? £2k fankuvewymuch.

Who has the money? Who? Yeah.. MAWCBs.

So what are you gonna do If you are some sort of business minded entrepreneurs?

Will you target cash strapped Uni Grads in thier formative employment phase ???

Nah, that’s right!

Ya target those with da cash.

Now then..

Well I have to admit that I don't listen to any modern popular beat combos but I do listen to contemporary classical music as well as stuff several hundred years old. As far as rock and pop goes I am indeed stuck largely in the 70s with a few exceptions. The age of music is irrelevant.

The age of music is irrelevant.

Agreed. But it seems, for some at least, that the age of the artist is far more important than the quality or ability.

Does modern music suck

Some of it does....

Ever been to Glasto or the myriad of other PopUp Festivals?

I'm going to a small one (local-ish)and they still want £50 a pop. But, mrsm wants to see The Quo, at least what's left of it, and in the interest of marital harmony we're ponying up. The daytime bit is child friendly. Fairground and falafels and whatnot. C'est la vie. However the demographic included very very few of an age to be interested in new music. Like an open air version of Radio 2.

Couple of years back the same do was just under £30 and the headliners were Bad Manners. Thought that was good for the money. Now its nearly double (and yet the same physical size without a significant increase in act quality) - I R unimpressed.

There's still good stuff out there but you have to look for it .....

The music industry has changed along with society - gone is the investment in a band to ensure longevity and a continued revenue stream, in it's place we now have throwaway pop where the charts are full of one-hit-wonders that burn brightly for an album (maybe two) before disappearing as quickly as they arrived.

It's comparatively easy to get music released now it's all digital so we also have the problem of proliferation, there are just so many new releases to sift through that the good bands are likely to get missed. Yes, we do occasionally get an artist that has the appeal and ability to last a bit longer but even they are under threat as that inevitably means a little longer between albums and there's then the threat of being replaced by a new in-favour artist. The flip side of that is that everyone wants a piece of an artist that appeals and that pressure can lead to an over-saturation and then we just get fed up and listen to something else.

Personally I can't see today's artists still touring and selling out stadiums in a decade, there's a couple that might but nothing like what we currently see of the pre-digital era artists.

Me? I'm listening to old and new music, yes I've favourite albums that are 20+ years old but equally there is a lot of new music I am enjoying too.

I was in Morrisons  yesterday when Teenage Kicks was played over the Tamnoy. For three minutes supermarket shopping seemed less tedious

We've had one hit wonders since pop got going in the 50s.

The digital thing, well, the problem, is:

"Wouldn't it be great if everyone could just release their own music!?"

"Oh god, everyone is releasing their own music!"

For every Britpop anthem in the 90’s there were probably 10 forgettable girl/boy bands with an entire back catalogue.

For every Durran Durran there was a Bananarama

For every Bob Dylan there was a Starland Vocal Band

This is totally true. There was always fantastic music in the charts, plus a lot of terrible stuff. Today is is easier to record and publish your own music and a whole raft of places to listen, rather than mainly just Radio 1 like it was in past, so it means that whilst there is a lot of good music being made there is also more c*** being churned out that you have to sift through to find it.

Think this has helped to make music less and less important to kids today, so the main audience becomes older (at 47 I can't remember the last time I went to a gig or festival and have been anyway close to being the oldest there, even with new bands!) so it will be the older established bands that make the most money.

At some point we can only hope that trends swing round and music becomes the influence it once was, and a new generation start producing their own bands.

How dare those old people attend festivals,cause everyone knows that all they ever listen to is R2 or Dull Fm.

There should be an age limit on the ticket sales,no over 30s .

😉  🙂

For three minutes supermarket shopping seemed less tedious

...that ruddy song - it and London Calling can go in room 101 never to be heard again! 🙂

How dare those old people attend festivals,cause everyone knows that all they ever listen to is R2 or Dull Fm.

There should be an age limit on the ticket sales,no over 30s .

I saw Queens of the Stone Age last year and the crowd was similar to when I went to see Foo Fighters a few years ago - full of under 30s. My internal grumpiness was shouting at them to sod off and find their own music. This is Dad Rock and doesn’t belong to you! (Especially when the bloke next to me thought that Iggy Pop was a bit crap. 😂

Loads of great new music out there and a lot of it is or has been influenced by the stuff that 'we' listened to when we were younger, look at the number of teens that listen to Nirvana, RHCP, Oasis etc and are now forming bands. Great new bands like DMA's are playing to crowds of all ages, Cardiff has a huge music scene (as probably most major cities do) with loads of young bands playing 3/400 capacity gigs. as said earlier, the proliferation of music and how easily accessible it is now just means there is more competition and less likelihood of becoming a huge touring/recording artist that spans several decades.....all IMHO of course

I think it's quite easy to find music that sucks no matter the decade, but likewise I also think there is always good music to be found. I find new music very exciting and am always keen to find new genres/bands/albums that I am really into.....I have always found it more rewarding than discovering other new media.

I am never sure why people listen to the same music over and over but are always on the lookout for new films/books etc. So to answer your post....I have no idea why people keep listening to the same shit over and over. People are strange.

There’s loads of good stuff around. And loads of shite. It was ever thus.

The one thing that’s changed big-style with the advent of streaming is that bands have to tour to make money these days.

Which means for those of us who love seeing live music, there has never been a better time to be a music fan.

I’ve probably gone to more gigs in my forties than in my teens/20s/30s combined. There’s always somebody worth seeing playing live in Bristol - I could go once a week if I had the time and inclination. Do I regret not seeing more live stuff when I was younger? Kinda - but there just wasn’t as much live stuff around

Ando some of the gigs I’ve attended in the last few years have been unashamedly nostalgic. In my 20s, I could never bloody get tickets to see bands on their once-every-five-years-tour and I was perennially skint. I’ll be damned if I’m going to apologise for spending £40 occasionally to see a band I didn’t get to see the first time round.

There are a few apps on my phone where I’ve got a list of my favourite bands saved - they ping me a notification when someone I like is playing nearby. A few clicks and I have a ticket. There’s never been a better time to like music - the sheer amount of it at your fingertips is huge.

I saw Leonard Cohen in 2013 when he was about 80 and he couldn't hit ANY of his high notes 😉

This is totally true. There was always fantastic music in the charts, plus a lot of terrible stuff.

Oh god this, my era was the 90s, which is old enough now to be retro cool. When people talk about the 90s it’s all Blur V Oasis (which was only ever in the minds of the music people, it was entirely possible and indeed probable to like both) Nirvana, Happy Mondays and others, but you almost never heard Nirvana or the Monday’s on the radio during the day, Oasis only got air play during that few month of ‘v Blur’ unless it was after 9pm.

No the 90s during the 90s was a sea of novelty songs and terrible ‘house’ remixes - I read the other day that Robson and Gerome outsold Blur and Oasis combined at the time and it took more than a decade to catch them up.

or do old people with money just keep listening to the same old shit music.

When ur a yout' you wake up in the morning and put some music on, listen to it all day, blast it out of ur car etc. and go and see bands or djs or toasters or whateva twice a week minimum. You wouldn't want to keep seeing the same people week after week year after year, particularly as they all sound the same. As you get older you get to the point where weeks go by without you deliberately listening to music. Once every year or so you arrange to stay up late enough to go to a gig. So you go to see one of the mega names from your youth, or a tribute band equivalent. It's years since you've even listened to one of their records and you've long lost interest in hunting down stuff worth hearing. It's an occasional night out and you want something reliable/predictable. That's my understanding of it. I don't do it personally but a few of my contemporaries have been to see these old warhorses recently.

Technology as certainly ruined music.

Previously that John Grant song they play on 6 would have been instantly forgettable.

With the aid  Auto Tune I now want to hunt him down and kill him.

Jeez ,if the artist can't sing just get someone else in who can.

There are a lot of Ed Sheeran and Adele wannables out there, which tells you something about the state of music. I listened to a Ed Wannable the other week and I thought he was having a stroke. Tedious/sentimental, just really bad. The sooner we can move through this the better.

George Ezra is allright, especially as he used to serve me pints of beer, and I like his new song. Maybe George will find a path out of the Sheeran malaise.Otherwise, the nail in the coffin will be when Van Morrison leaves us, I fear.

To add... I am a new music fan, and an old music fanz.

Age is just a number, good music will always stand out.

I do like the era we are in though, you can stream some random link with a like and find another track and so on..

I use Soundcloud as my main search engine, be it disco/house or thier derivatives.. new or old or remixes.

Some absolutely stunning tracks and artists post on there, thank god they do too. DJs post sets, artists post mixes and podcasts.. just brilliant.

I have a current fascination for Dance, the modern stuff... the 1biza variety. Currently listening to a CAlvin Harris remixes of One Kiss, and Tough Loves Podcasts.

Awesome.

Yet there are artists that I grew up with, eg: Eagles and Motörhead and Earth Wind and Fire and so on, thing is these guys ain’t gonna be around for much longer so it’s good to have lived through thier output and now listen to tomes of old...

Awesome time to live if you are into music I reckonz

I have answers!

Does modern music suck?

No!

or do old people with money just keep listening to the same old shit music.

Yes! Most of them anyway!

I’m trying not think about how lame all these concerts must be with geriatric old geezers croaking out decades old songs.

I don’t go, so I don’t care! I go n see stuff I do like!

Thing is, it’s music, everyone has different taste. But most people just don’t have any!

I spend my life looking for music that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before, whereas most people just love hearing the old familiar stuff, or stuff that sounds just like it.

Depends what you call modern music tbh.

If we are talking about the current tranche of vocoder ridden “new R&B” sung by god knows who and slickly produced by someone else with samples nicked from mo-town etc (music by numbers jobbie) then in my opinion yes it’s shite.

I have a leaning towards classic rock ..but I'm not stuck in the 70's ...although I did see an awful lot of bands back then .

There are a helluva lot of new bands still producing excellent rock music of that ilk ..

That doesn't mean to say that I don't listen to other types of music ..as an oldish git with a 15 year old son who is very much into modern new music I have very little choice BUT to listen to it on a car journey ..some of it is ok !😁

There is and always will be good and bad depending on your tastes. There have been  some cracking albums released in the last couple of years.

I think modern music is quite healthy. I actually like the fact that anyone can make and release music - yes there's lots of dross out there, but some amazing hidden gems too. I grew up with Indie music in the 80s and house, EDM etc in the 90s, and these had a similar liberal feeling - artists making their own music without feeling the need to be subservient to major labels. There's still joy to be had in finding a rare gem, but the places you look have changed (or expanded). I think the attitude of major labels, extracting every last penny from the catalogue, has done more bad than good over the years and is responsible for some abominations. But, ask yourself how John Peel would view the modern music scene and you'll have your answer as to whether modern music really is s**** or not.

Whover posted on here about Radio FIP wins this thread for me - perfect listening when you hanker after something new. 🙂

Most of my "new" music is from the 60s and 70s.

Bands I would go and see today are

Shame

Wolf People

Wolfhounds

and those pigs pigs etc people sound interesting.

For every Durran Durran there was a Bananarama

Banarama have aged a lot better than "Durran Durran" [sic] though. Except Rio, that's a cracking track. Anyway there's loads of good music about, personally my taste runs more towards the RadioX end of the market (Vaccines, Killers, Kasabian etc.) but the odd listen to other stations reveals lots of other great stuff out there.

Surprised to see a gig I was at on that list!

Saw AC/DC at Hampden and can honestly say it was far from geriatric. Just as well really as it was the last tour with the whole band.

In answer to the question though, no modern bands aren't rubbish, they just aren't at a point in their career that they can "justify" three figure ticket prices.

Amazing how popular U2 is on that list.  I happen to like U2 having been a teenager when they released Pride, etc.  but most of my younger friends and colleagues simply hate them - mainly because they think that Bono is a sanctimonious pillock. Or worse.   The very mention of them in the office gets a toxic reaction... Even from those who ltalk of Pink Floyd as if they'd discovered it - so it's not an "old music bad" thing

They do kind of annoy me a bit now too... Until I stick one of their better gigs on YouTube - and then I secretly really enjoy it.

Amongst all the youngsters I had one ex-colleague who was seemingly obsessed  by the Damned.  He left a while ago.... I miss him and his music opinions. I wonder what he's up to now. #pigface.

Even from those who ltalk of Pink Floyd as if they’d discovered

... it was a load of pretentious sixth form bollocks, at a guess?

Even from those who ltalk of Pink Floyd as if they’d discovered

… it was a load of pretentious sixth form bollocks, at a guess?

Pretty much.

With the aid  Auto Tune I now want to hunt him down and kill him.

Jeez ,if the artist can’t sing just get someone else in who can.

He can sing, and very well, too, I’ve seen him play live. I’ve heard the latest song, and I can’t say that it sounds auto-tuned, although I have a feeling that the natural pitch and timbre of his voice is not unlike the effect of auto-tuning on someone who can’t carry a tune in a bucket, ie the greater majority of what Radio 1/Heart/Kiss FM plays.

Might I suggest everyone contributing to this thread finds a copy of How Music Works, by David Byrne. Fascinating read, covers pretty much the entire music business, from the point of view of an actual recording artist, writer and musician, especially the actual business, finance side. That is eye-opening, particularly for emerging artists, when the promise of streaming is, in reality, little more than a sweat-shop, it doesn’t even pay minimum wage!

I agree about John Grant having a great voice, not sure about using auto tune. Although these aren’t mutually exclusive. Justin Vernon being a good example. Kanye being a bad one...what a twunt.

Guess it depends on your preferred genres? Some damn good rock and metal bands around as well as the oldies who are still producing new hits and flawless performances.

I don't know if modern music sucks or not. All I know is that I have limited time to listen to music, so I spend it listening to music I know I'm going to enjoy, which is old stuff.

I don't listen to music on the radio as I find the dj's annoying, and talk too much.If there was a modern John Peel or Andy Kershaw (is there?) I might.

The music threads on here are full of people posting links to stuff they like. I try and listen to some, but so far I haven't enjoyed any.

Guess I'm just an old git.

I saw Leonard Cohen in 2013 when he was about 80 and he couldn’t hit ANY of his high notes

He could never hit any notes. That's not necessarily a bad thing (see also Tom Waits).

I had no idea autotune was still being used, I thought (hoped maybe) it had died out).

Count Zero +1

Unless I've missed it there dosen't seem to be any decent dance music around these days?

As a teenager in the 90's we were spoilt for it, I feel like the kids of today are missing out!

Unless I’ve missed it there dosen’t seem to be any decent dance music around these days?

Sorry my friend but there are some stunners out there..

Sounclouds your answer.

So, as an example to my taste and old vs new music..

This morning I have been listening to (in no order)

2 x 1 hour long podcasts of Dance DJ’s off soundcloud.

Kenny Chesney’s latest album

Childish Gambino’s 1st and 3rd album

This afternoon I might head over Led Zeppelins way, let’s see shall we.

Didn’t go to ZedLepplin..

Stopped here for some more shape throwing 👌💃

Unless I’ve missed it there dosen’t seem to be any decent dance music around these days?

As a teenager in the 90’s we were spoilt for it, I feel like the kids of today are missing out!

Kompakt
Ostgut Ton
Warp (still)
Hyperdub
The Bunker New York
Planet Mu

Just a handful of labels putting quality dance music out.  I think it's actually better than the 90s at the moment! 🙂

What's modern anyway?

I saw Leonard Cohen in 2013 when he was about 80 and he couldn’t hit ANY of his high notes

He could never hit any notes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing (see also Tom Waits).

I had no idea autotune was still being used, I thought (hoped maybe) it had died out).

Turn on Radio One at any given time and you can pretty much guarantee that there will be some producer-led track with a heavily auto-tuned male vocal with some female singing over it. Both pretty much anonymous and forgettable.

As for Laughing Len, he never, ever hit high notes! He spent his entire career singing in a baritone monotone, that got deeper as he got older. I had the great fortune to win two tickets to see him perform at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, also on his 2013 tour, and it was magical, he came across as a real gentleman, taking his hat off and standing back when one of the female members of his band took a solo. I don’t think there will ever be another like him. I have to admit, it took me some time to really grow to appreciate his voice, whereas I got into Tom Waites years ago when I obtained a white label of his Small Change album, and I’ve loved him ever since.

For those who don’t have much opportunity to listen to much radio, and I get little chance to hear anything on 6Music these days, apart from my forty minute commute each morning and afternoon/evening, might I suggest buying Uncut magazine. It has a bunch of selected tracks from reviewed albums on a free CD every month, plus a whole load of good articles and reviews on new and re-released albums. I spotted a review in the latest issue of an album by a new female trio called Honey Hahs, sisters with an average age of thirteen and a half! Turns out their mum was a singer with a band called Tiger, who I say three or four times and absolutely loved, so I feel obligated to check out their album, which is lo-fi, with an emphasis on death, Trump, and the current state of the world.

, might I suggest buying Uncut magazine. It has a bunch of selected tracks from reviewed albums on a free CD every month

Christ, I wouldn’t -the whole focus of Uncut is old music (just look at the cover every month) and the only cd with anything listenable on it in the past year was the “Noise” one, which their readers mostly complained about! (Except me, who had a letter published praising it 😂)

They have perfunctory reviews of new stuff, but usually anything remotely innovative is given 7/10. I cancelled my sub when they had a whole page feature on a Beatles tribute band...

It's better now than the sh it we had to endure in the 80s.

I haven't  really got past 70s rock yet ...