Has Pop Music Got Worse In Recent Decades?

[Minstrel SE]

Dark Side Of The Moon had "file under Pop music" on the back.

Well yes exactly but I dont like the catch all term pop music.

Popular!? Its like it was set apart from classical music as more lowbrow by some Smashie and Nicey character from the 50s or 60s........Not alf pop pickers!

I wouldnt use it to define everything from say Joe Dolce to The Sleaford Mods. To me out and out pop is at the disposable, novelty end of the market. I accept the issue of who then subjectively defines that.

Anyway I think there is a deeper reason I dont like this new genre of pop music and maybe its the people driving it now...it is the whole x factor thing and it all seems more cynical than it even was with the Spice Girls.

We do mature and I love all sorts including classical and opera now. There is some amazing world music out there and I can assure you its not Little Mix As Grant says who will actually remember most of it in 50 years time?

One thing I am sure about though is that the youth of today will feel like me when they get older as that seems to be human nature when dealing with younger generations and their shallow music.

[Stratmangler]

Popular!? Its like it was set apart from classical music as more lowbrow by some Smashie and Nicey character from the 50s or 60s........Not alf pop pickers!

That's exactly what happened, except that it's an attitude that goes back a lot further back than that.
My Dad was born in 1929, and grew up in a musical household. He, and his twin brother, were pianists, and both sang too.
In the time they grew up there was serious music (Classical of all varieties) and everything else was deemed to be lowbrow, and therefore popular, music.
The music charts for popular music were determined by sheet music sales.

[Yomanze]

Prince. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Nuff said.

[mikeyb]

Prince. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Nuff said.

Aye they were crap as well lol

[MikeMusic]

There was always loads of shite around. As the whole thing has got so much bigger there is more. Same percentage though - approximately

[Yomanze]

Aye they were crap as well lol

Aww come on Prince was awesome.

[Pete The Cat]

Pop music does seem to have become homogenous nowadays, if you define it as what's in the charts and on the playlists of mainstream radio stations. In the 1970s you'd find real diversity of genres, a broad age range of interests and some (usually appalling) novelty items. Today seems to be dominated by dance-lite from "so-and-so featuring somebody else" guest rapping in the middle of it.

Pete

[walpurgis]

The quailty of 'chart music' seems to have descended to the same level as it was in the earlier sixties, when garbage like 'Freddie and The Dreamers' was at the top. Any serious talent being sidelined as it is now. I doubt we'll see the kind of real music making that happened from the later sixties and into the mid seventies ever making a major impact on the charts again.

[struth]

Ah, good ol' Freddie... those were the days....not!!! well they were in a way. the honeycombs too with their female drummer

[Macca]

They knew how to do an album cover in those days.

Pal of mine was the sound engineer for Freddie And The Dreamers for many years until he moved on to better things ('Swan Lake On Ice' IIRC).