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Thread: An insightful look at today's music industry

  1. #11
    montesquieu Guest

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    Well I stand by my comments from the last time this video was linked to here:


    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Well I think all the points he makes are spot on - they are measurable after all:

    So-called popular music is becoming less harmonically complex - well this is intuitively true and I would suggest a bad thing. And measurable/demonstrable.
    So-called popular music is becoming less melodically complex - again this is intuitively obvious, the dumbed down millennial woop is something you can also count.
    So-called popular music is becoming less interesting and varied in the textures and timbres used - again, the studies are irrefutable.
    So-called popular music is overly risk averse, due to the amount of money needed to break a band now - I would say this is less measurable but I think perfectly defensible.

    The result overall is that today's so-called popular music is pretty shit. Note that I'm talking about POPULAR music - the stuff that's forced down your ears when you go to the barbers, or got to a noisy pub, or any other source of noise pollution. The stuff that's everywhere, in Nandos, in the charts, whose stars' names are on the telly and in Hello magazine, who people are supposed to know by sight. And the fact is - it's the shittiest it's ever been.

    By no means am I saying that all modern music is shit, or that all kids have bad taste. What I'm saying is that what passes for 'common', shared music of our era, the stuff that's unavoidable unless you go round with ear defenders on, is the absolute pits. Think about it - talent contest rubbish, mass manufactured crap. Was it better in the days of Showaddywaddy, Bay City Rollers and Boney M? Well probably, yes. It was certainly less offensive and had a bit more variety.

    I am most certainly not talking about other kinds of music. I have kids too, now 19 and 21. My daughter's taste is completely off the wall and I doubt you'd ever find any of it in the barber's. (She's also a pianist and harpist though, so I'd expect her to have some taste). I use to take the piss that she was putting her south korean bazuki music on again. My son astonished me though, A combination of old Zappa and modern Thundercats-type stuff, his music is not far off the same sort of Jazz Rock I used to mix with classical at that age (I recently bought him a turntable, since I found he already had a vinyl collestion) - but again it's not, by any definition, pop music.

    As for comparison with Dylan, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, even the Smiths - yes you can compare it perfectly legitimately, because for all it's treated as art music these days, it competed against the daily dreck and somehow made it to the top of the charts, people got their pocket money out and bought this stuff in their millions. It's a mark of how far pop music has fallen that some would now argue the comparison can't even be made.

  2. #12
    Join Date: Feb 2013

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    i agree re the most popular stuff. its been like this for years tho
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  3. #13
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by struth View Post
    i agree re the most popular stuff. its been like this for years tho
    The point of the youtube video is that it's become measurably (not just subjectively) worse in the last decade and I think his argument is well-made.

    The last time this was discussed few people posting actually bothered to watch it and the thread descended into grumpy-git vs groovy-dad tediosity.

  4. #14
    Join Date: Feb 2013

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    of course harmonic complexity isn't the be all for music. much top music is fairly simple but still good. its just when you get a system where the singers all sound the same, look similar and the music is pretty similar it breaks down as an art form.
    companies just want it all that way because thats the tripe kids like now. imo its the listeners that accept this canned music that are to blame.. its laziness
    Regards,
    Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work
    .... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
    FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -

    Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?

    “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".

    “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

    "You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”

    “There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”


    ***SMILE, BE HAPPY***

  5. #15
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by struth View Post
    of course harmonic complexity isn't the be all for music. much top music is fairly simple but still good. its just when you get a system where the singers all sound the same, look similar and the music is pretty similar it breaks down as an art form.
    companies just want it all that way because thats the tripe kids like now. imo its the listeners that accept this canned music that are to blame.. its laziness
    The video (which of course as with last time, few will bother to watch) puts the blame on the industry and makes a decent case for that.

  6. #16
    Join Date: Nov 2011

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Well I stand by my comments from the last time this video was linked to here:

    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Well I think all the points he makes are spot on - they are measurable after all:

    So-called popular music is becoming less harmonically complex - well this is intuitively true and I would suggest a bad thing. And measurable/demonstrable.
    So-called popular music is becoming less melodically complex - again this is intuitively obvious, the dumbed down millennial woop is something you can also count.
    So-called popular music is becoming less interesting and varied in the textures and timbres used - again, the studies are irrefutable.
    So-called popular music is overly risk averse, due to the amount of money needed to break a band now - I would say this is less measurable but I think perfectly defensible.

    The result overall is that today's so-called popular music is pretty shit. Note that I'm talking about POPULAR music - the stuff that's forced down your ears when you go to the barbers, or got to a noisy pub, or any other source of noise pollution. The stuff that's everywhere, in Nandos, in the charts, whose stars' names are on the telly and in Hello magazine, who people are supposed to know by sight. And the fact is - it's the shittiest it's ever been.

    By no means am I saying that all modern music is shit, or that all kids have bad taste. What I'm saying is that what passes for 'common', shared music of our era, the stuff that's unavoidable unless you go round with ear defenders on, is the absolute pits. Think about it - talent contest rubbish, mass manufactured crap. Was it better in the days of Showaddywaddy, Bay City Rollers and Boney M? Well probably, yes. It was certainly less offensive and had a bit more variety.

    I am most certainly not talking about other kinds of music. I have kids too, now 19 and 21. My daughter's taste is completely off the wall and I doubt you'd ever find any of it in the barber's. (She's also a pianist and harpist though, so I'd expect her to have some taste). I use to take the piss that she was putting her south korean bazuki music on again. My son astonished me though, A combination of old Zappa and modern Thundercats-type stuff, his music is not far off the same sort of Jazz Rock I used to mix with classical at that age (I recently bought him a turntable, since I found he already had a vinyl collestion) - but again it's not, by any definition, pop music.

    As for comparison with Dylan, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, even the Smiths - yes you can compare it perfectly legitimately, because for all it's treated as art music these days, it competed against the daily dreck and somehow made it to the top of the charts, people got their pocket money out and bought this stuff in their millions. It's a mark of how far pop music has fallen that some would now argue the comparison can't even be made.
    Having actually just bothered to watch the video posted on here, I would tend to agree with the comments made above. I would add the following observations made by myself.

    1. To my ears diversity and quality of music, certainly pop or commercial music, seemed to fade during the 90's, by the 00's it had become homogenised into all sounding similar.

    2. I think what is happening today can also be explained by the iTunes and streaming site phenomenon of paying for your favourite songs that you wanted permanently for £0.99, or a monthly subscription. If you think about it for it to work at this level of cost the record companies have to aim at very large mass markets(global), not just the local country home markets. So as the chap in the video says this means air time and exposure everywhere and making songs that are subconsciously familiar to the first time listener, in other words create them using patterns that are known to sell because it has before. So as time progresses variety and creativity become lost as they are not supported.

    3. Luckily there is still some great music out there, but you need to look hard for it, and sadly very few of these make it big.

    I eagerly wait for the modern day equivalents of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd etc. to appear, if any of you can point me to some new artists that are promising I would certainly be happy to have a listen.
    Listening is the act of aural discrimination and dissemination of sound, and accepting you get it wrong sometimes.

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  7. #17
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    Next time you are in the car swap between listening to Radio One and Absolute '80s. The difference is shocking. And I wasn't much for 1980s pop music at the time. Now it sounds like genius by comparison. Although we still switch over if The Smiths come on.
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  8. #18
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    Not all the Smiths are bad - Curt and his mate Roland Orzabal did good Not keen on Sam Smith though, sounds a bit girly-girl pain whinge.
    I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in

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  9. #19
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    Fair point - their crisps are pretty good too.
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  10. #20
    Join Date: Jun 2014

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    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    Fair point - their crisps are pretty good too.
    But they were better when they came with a scrunched up bit of blue paper. Just like pop music, they seem fine when you're too young to remember how good they used to be.

    If we could just shed 30 or so of our years we could enjoy lower standards and so appreciate more of the cack that's around now.
    I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in

    T/T: Inspire Monarch, X200 tonearm, Ortofon Quintet Blue. Phono: Project Tube Box CD: Marantz CD6006 (UK Edition); Amp: Musical Fidelity A5 Integrated.
    Speakers: Zu Omen Def, REL T9i subwoofer. Cables: Atlas Equator interconnects, Atlas Hyper 3.0 speaker cables

    T'other system:
    Echo Dot, Amptastic Mini One,Arcam A75 integrated, Celestion 5's, BK XLS-200 DF

    A/V:
    LG 55" OLED, Panasonic Blu Ray, Sony a/v amp, MA Radius speakers, REL Storm sub

    Forget the past, it's gone. And don't worry about the future, it doesn't exist. There is only NOW.

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