Music.... Wow, why is it getting worse?

[The Black Adder]

After a day of listening to Viking Radio I've been exposed to the latest of the chart tracks as well as other previous chart stuff.

I have to say, it's not until you spend a day listening to such a station that you realise that music is suffering dramatically. The style of todays tracks are a simple rinse and repeat formula. You could do a carbon copy of most tracks and still come out with a track which would be worthy of airplay.

I don't mind change, I embrace it. But change which copies the same change is just boring. And it has no credible benefit to creativity. So, it makes me wonder where are we going? I thought by 2022 we would have done away with autotune and semi dubstep beat lines by now. But no... we are still there.

How do you find todays chart music?

[struth]

i dont listen to radio fortunately so cant help. ive a fairly eclectic liking for music but not for chart pop, and really never did.

[CageyH]

What is this “chart” that you speak of?
I stopped paying attention to that years ago..

[The Black Adder]

lol... it's the stuff workmen have on in the background mostly.

[Barry]

lol... it's the stuff workmen have on in the background mostly.

And for them it is just something played in the background - I doubt if they pay too much attention to it.

When I listen to the radio (usually Radio 4), it is for the plays and arts programmes. Radio 3 when the Proms are on, and occasionally BBC Radio Essex for '60s and '70s pop and rock.

[Sherwood]

The “charts” are no different now to what they have always been. They have never been about the best quality or the most original music. They are the product of the marketing efforts of the record companies and the efforts of “pluggers”. The stories of how the charts were manipulated are well-known, including the complicity of multiple record stores in fiddling sales figures. Amongst the records that made it into the charts were the products of such musical geniuses as: Terry Wogan, Benny Hill, Max Bygraves, Paper Lace, Renee and Renaldo. I could go on but the memories are too painful.


There are plenty of excellent new acts. Some of them make it into the charts whilst others don't. However, the charts are less important now in the success of emerging acts. Modern streaming services give us virtually unlimited access to personalised playlists rather than the curated, and often commercially determined, choices of radio stations.

After a day of listening to Viking Radio I've been exposed to the latest of the chart tracks as well as other previous chart stuff.

I have to say, it's not until you spend a day listening to such a station that you realise that music is suffering dramatically. The style of todays tracks are a simple rinse and repeat formula. You could do a carbon copy of most tracks and still come out with a track which would be worthy of airplay.

I don't mind change, I embrace it. But change which copies the same change is just boring. And it has no credible benefit to creativity. So, it makes me wonder where are we going? I thought by 2022 we would have done away with autotune and semi dubstep beat lines by now. But no... we are still there.

How do you find todays chart music?

[Macca]

we have the radio on at work but on the 1970s channel. Occasionally we have the 1980s and 1990s channels just for a bit of variety.

Proper music pretty much finished at the end of the Nineties as far as I'm concerned. Could say the same about films as well.

[Pigmy Pony]

I agree that for the most part, films I like ended in the 90s. With a few exceptions by my favourite directors ( Michael Mann, Coen brothers, Tarantino, Martin Scorsese) who did a bit since 2000. But that might just be my tastes, I prefer dialogue to action and special effects.

As for music charts, I stopped paying attention in the 80s. I don't bother with radio at home, but while working it's Radio 2 (which is mostly my era), and 6 Music, which can throw up some decent quality imo new stuff. My lad doesn't like it though, he just wants Ed Sheeran, silly boy. He's 28.

We had a debate last year (who's best, Sheeran or Bowie), which entertained the customer so much he asked for us by name to go back and do further work for him. He came down on the side of Bowie of course Apparently Sheeran's music sells by the shedload. During Bowie's heyday you actually went into a shop to buy your record, while these days younger music buyers just do a couple of clicks on their smartphones, and there it is. Bone idle little shoites.

[Pharos]

This is my ongoing gripe.

It is a reflection of the whole of our societal changes over the last 50 years, caused by a conflation of causes.
A shift to the right politically, starting with Thatcher, reduced the rebellious tendencies of the young; they were encouraged to pursue money via business rather than indulge as so many had done in the analytical protesting of the 60s and 70s.

Money tended to become a 'God', individuality was defined by personal acquisition rather than expression, and record companies stopped investing extensively in the artists over the following decades. PWL evolved to make their 'corporate formulaic music', to quote Peter Waterman, "Its just something for the kids to have fun with". It certainly was for me not art. They were indeed 'so lucky, lucky, lucky'.

The equipment available now does everything for the (supposed0 writer, no real ability is required, no virtuoso singing or mastering of an instrument. Just get a computer and loop a load of sounds, correct any errors on the screen, and produce yet another vacuous pallid bit of crap. If you are female, make sure your teeth are perfect as are your boobs and arse, if exaggerated, and hope to get rich and famous with that.

The young are too worried about their future to be rebelliously complaining, look at the pressures to which they are subjected.
I have yet to hear on the media anything resembling profoundly moving art containing powerful statements, sung with a real feeling for the writing, and which exposes new truths about life.

King Crimson's Epitaph, Steve Miller's Return to Eden, anyone? The words of both fit the dire state of the world we have produced.

[Mikeandvan]

It's absolutely appalling, I listen sometimes in the van, but invariably turn it off cos it's so God awful. May be popular music has run its course? What could possibly come next after the dance music revolution of the 80s/90s?