Modern music is rubbish?

Culture
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I follow Rick Beato on YT. This is a recent video, in which he compares current (US, I think) chart music to 1973.

His conclusions will probably not surprise you.

https://www.youtube.com/live/KphPa_i2VXE?si=uuSN6Q_95-ulNOTX

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I was discussing this with one of the 20somethings I work with last week. It’s pretty much what they said.

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A TL;DR(DW?) would be helpful.

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I think that was the thread title.

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Sorry - it’s as @Ancient_Mariner said!

Apart from the songs where the production was good (but the song wasn’t), and two decent songs (Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift), the rest of the chart was lazy and banal and you couldn’t ever imagine covers of most of the current songs.

There’s plenty of great music being produced today, but what’s in the charts isn’t it.

Curious that, in an age of much greater choice, the quality of what is popular has greatly diminished.

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It was ever thus. The Birdie Song charted higher than much better music. Punk was a cynical scam that devalued ability and promoted stupidity etc.

The masses will buy faeces over quality because it’s what they are conditioned to do.

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The great majority of my music is from the 1980s as I was very lucky that there was excellent music of every genre being made during my late teens-early twenties.

There’s been small outbreaks of originality every once in a while since (Madchester, BritPop, Grunge etc.), but it’s mostly been utter ****.

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I had assumed that the video would say that the reason for this is because music is made for algorithms these days, not humans. The chart is often based off streams, and to get streams is a very different skill than to organically get listens.

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‘‘Twas ever thus, through the ages the vast majority of music and art has been quite forgettable and the charts have never really been a reflection of good music as opposed to popular music.
It’s easy to look back and cherry pick what we oldies remember as good and quite often it’s not what we liked at the time. It’s a bit harder to forecast what today’s generation will remember because there’s lots of great new music out there.
Frankly it just sounds like a variation of the modern life is rubbish mantra touted by some segments of the older generation.

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Ruddy Damon Albarn, eh?

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He is 55 so not sure I see your point.

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The “Stonedead” Festival seems to have been a great success… despite the rain this weekend…

Is their music considered modern…

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Thanks for the link Porridge. I really enjoyed Rick Beato’s interview of Thomas Newman. Like Rick I am a massive fan of Newman’s film music.

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I just read that as the Stoned dad festival :wink::sunglasses::sunglasses:

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Daughter and her pals go every year… since forever it seems… :wink:

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Hah, I was never a fan so that went right past me.

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As has that Streak, A4 Pacific. Being at school not a million miles from Grantham I saw every one of those over the years. :joy:

Sorry, modern music is not my thing. Apart from the Beatles, the Stones, Abba and one or two others my interest spans the years from the 20s to 1959. :rofl:

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I used to love listening to Malcolm Laycock’s programme on R2, which featured dance band music from that era.

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I listen to all sorts of stuff, some quite esoteric, some absolute bubblegum for the ears.