Music nowadays is shit: Discuss. (1 Viewer)

[Diumraid]

Should I insert another google rock rant here ?

Just link to an older one

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

Should I know what a google rock rant is?

 

[Diumraid]

Should I know what a google rock rant is?

I think it's a 1950's novelty dance..

 

[ann post]

Anyway, music should have stopped in 1989, apart from Prince

it should resurface for sparks to do hello young lovers though.

Look at TOTP 1978 or 79. Amazing stuff in every genre, selling by the boatload.

i torrented every number one since 1952 - the 70's are head and shoulders above all the other decades in terms of variety and quality. the 90's are horrible.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

I like the 1990s ones especially the non-boring indie stuff and the commercial dance. Some of the 1970s editions that I have caught on BBC4 have been dreadfully dreary.

 

[washingcattle]

Just link to an older one

Should I know what a google rock rant is?

Here's one I made earlier

Lately I’ve been complaining a lot about the fact that every time I turn on a radio or listen to the “hip” new thing on the internet it sounds like something I heard 15 years ago and it was an oldie even then. Apparently Robert Smith is in about 40 fucking bands these days because his high pitched yelp seems to be fucking everywhere. He looks like he doesn’t get off the couch unless you have a Mars bar attached to a rope at the end of a stick to bait him with, but apparently he’s out there every night singing his heart out and wearing tight jeans and disguising himself as a younger skinnier man. Like a cast member of Beverly Hills 90210 - the original one where everyone was actually 35, not the new one where everyone is 22. It’s the kind of thing that I love to complain about. Then there’s surf pop. Don’t get me started on fucking surf pop. Buy a fucking surf board anywhere in these islands and you’ll soon be writing an album about how life is just impenetrable wave of misery after another. That the cold of the water is equal to the coldness in the hearts of men and that the end - like hypothermia - always looms large in the immediate future. You sure as fuck will not be writing about how lovely the sun and sand are because they fucking aren’t. The sun is either scalding hot on our pale freckled skin or fucking absent and the sand is full of sharp objects, beer cans and used condoms. Fuck surf pop.

My theory on why there are so many retro acts pumping out derivative grim rehashes of their influences and why this retro obsession remains so prevalent is called my “google rock theory” I’ll explain it in full one day but basically the bones of it are that:

Because of how Google and other search engines work, content on the internet has to be easily found and as a result the key phrase and key word to describe your site, or your product, is almost as important as the product or the site itself. So for example googling football highlights brings up a page of results on which several sites which stream illegally uploaded content are higher in the pecking order than Sky Sports or BBC. This is all part of modern marketing - it’s vital because what’s the point in having a website if no one can find it?

So, in short, bands and more importantly the ‘industry’ (i.e. promoters, journalists, labels etc.) have to do the same, since the internet is the easiest and most effective way to disseminate your work. Unfortunately there are always a bunch of lazy pricks who can fuck everything up and make the world infinitely more fucking boring. In this case I’m taking square aim at the ‘curators’ (a term that fucking disgusts me by the way).

With literally billions of records out there all democratically available for your attention people have turned to these noble folks, these ‘curators’, for guidance. That’s nothing new. Music journalism has always been there but never before has it been so fucking lazy. Most of what you read about bands now are just a list of names of other bands. For example, 10 years ago:

Interpol = The Cure + The Smiths + Joy Division

So it’s unsurprising when the ‘industry’, so to speak, employs the same formula to find, mould and sell bands in the first place i.e.:

The Cure + Joy Division + Siousie and The Banshees = Savages

Pavement + Dinosaur Jr + any fucking other band circa 1990-1997 = Yuck

And it almost has to be this way so that the internet can easily cross-reference everything and link it together. Music Journalists used to be gonzo lunatics who drank too much and typed late at night while on a speed binge. They used to die at 40 after a string of failed marriages - they died from failed livers, half deaf and utterly broke. Now they’re vegan fucking librarians who can link two pages of the internet together. Well done shit heads. You’re fucking things up yet again.

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

How about:

All music relies entirely on what came before and always did,as a result no music ever was original,there just was a point in time you hadn't heard enough to realise that.

Try not paying attention to what other people say about music,especially people who are paid to or would like to be paid to critique. Just listen with your own ears. And decide just one thing,is it any good?

 

[washingcattle]

How about:

All music relies entirely on what came before and always did,as a result no music ever was original,there just was a point in time you hadn't heard enough to realise that.

Try not paying attention to what other people say about music,especially people who are paid to or would like to be paid to critique. Just listen with your own ears. And decide just one thing,is it any good?

Well kind of. My theory is that industry types deliberately sign bands that are easy to sell, and that and that what's easy to sell has become more and more a direct copy of what has sold well already they're way less likely to take any risks whatsoever.

For example that let's say Bjork and PJ Harvey. Back when they got signed they were compared to Kate Bush and Patti Smith. And sure they do reference their them but neither of them ever sounded like a derivative version of those influences.
Two things I think are true

1. Neither Bjork nor PJ Harvey could get signed by a label today.

and

2. Even if they did get signed, the label that signed them would find it extremely hard to market and sell their records because they simply aren't easy to categorise in an internet sense.

There are exceptions to this rule of course. I'm more than happy if you think I'm wrong.

For me it seems that between 1977-2000 there was a building up and a tipping point of the "alternative" culture of music

- and let's not forget hip hop and "dance music" for example once represented the absolute far left of "alternative"-

Even pop music, absolute top of the chain out and out number 1 in the charts pop music was fucking weird. Like this for example

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There is nothing out there as fucking mad as that, nor has there been for quite some time.

if you think about it in the 23 years between 77 and 2000 Punk, Hip-hop and Electronic music were created in that period.

It's 14 years into a new century, and what's new* ?

That's the problem.






*To be fair noise/math rock only really got attention after 2000 and yes those "genres" do reference the past i.e prog /no wave but bands like Battles, Lightning Bolt, Yellow Swans, Wolf Eyes even Death Grips at a stretch who are mental sounding aren't ever going to reach the kind of audience that Sonic Youth or King Crimson might have back in the day and those bands were fucking mental. And this is after the internet was supposed to make it easier for people to get their music out to a greater audience.

Noise/Math rock were the only two genres I could think of off the top of my head that are "new" I'm not endorsing those genres. Most of both is pretty dreadful.

 

[Diumraid]

Contrary to the idea of music having to stand the test of time, I would say that the greatest thing that can happen to a music fan is to be following a band as they crest a creative wave - to be waiting for the new album and being blown away by how they've outdone themselves. No time like the present.

 

[egg_]

All music relies entirely on what came before and always did,as a result no music ever was original,there just was a point in time you hadn't heard enough to realise that.

Try not paying attention to what other people say about music,especially people who are paid to or would like to be paid to critique. Just listen with your own ears. And decide just one thing,is it any good?

Agree!

Except for the the "decide" bit. You don't need to make a decision, you just experience it. If you like the experience, then the music worked

There's fucking loads of good tunes around from the last 3 years. FUCK ING LOADS. I don't want to turn this thread into a list of new bands people like, but ... man, even in the charts there's been a some deadly shit. Are you talking particularly about rock music? I don't think I've come across much in the way of new indie/rock shit that's blown me away in a while ...

 

[Lili Marlene]

Well I don't see having access to the entire history of recorded music as a bad thing, god forbid you can listen to what you want to rather than what some corporation is pushing on you. I also don't find any problem with this googlerock idea on its own, mixing genres is what people have always done. I think due to speed of information these days musicians in general get pushed to the forefront way before they're ready. So while a band may find their own sound by mixing several they googled, so to speak, they're blown up all over pitchfork while their influences are still very obvious and they haven't learned their chops as live players yet.

Some of my favourite music ever has been released in the past 3 years, most of it by people who have been in the business a good few years and have developed their own sound. Very little of this music has been especially successful but sure that's always been the case.

In the end you have to dig, it's not going to be in your face but since when has anyone on thumped supposed to have given a fuck whether their favourite band is being trumpeted by the major outlets? I thought you grew up listening to punk rock ffs.

There is certainly something to be said for music not having a place in peoples lives that it did in the 70's and 80's due to, i dunno, computer games, Bob Lefsetz says this ad nauseam, but so fucking what.

In regards music journalism, yes there is a major issue with both the pitchfork x+y=z method and the buzzfeed 17 buzzbands you should clickpage this week. Collapseboard.com spends 60% of it's time whining about this. However, there is longform music writing out there if you're willing to go seek it.

As an example, I subscribed (paid actual money) to Maura Magazine there earlier last year because it was specifically launched to have thoughtful pieces about pop music and culture that would never work as clickbait. It's really good.

There's loads more too:

* Angry punk rock stuff - try The Media and whatever that Ian Malaney is doing this week

* Po-faced writing for beards who only want to talk about noise rock soundscapes and the 80's groups they liked when they were 12 - The Quietus

* Smash Hits - Popjustice

I'm sure you know most of these but I'm just saying it's out there. Hell even Pitchfork has some good articles when some of it's more thoughtful writers put pen to paper.

Finally the idea that music writers used to be "gonzo lunatics who drank too much and typed late at night while on a speed binge. They used to die at 40 after a string of failed marriages - they died from failed livers, half deaf and utterly broke" is demonstrably fucking nonsense. Just because Lester Bangs and about 3 more were around once upon a time doesn't mean there weren't 8 thousand more boring journalists. Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau are still going and they invented the damn thing. Besides we all know there's nothing worse than a writer who thinks they are Hunter S Thompson re-incarnated and set out to prove it.

 

[Anthony]

I heard an interview with the dude from Trouble the other day and the interviewer was asking him what music he listens to these days. He honestly answered that he listens to the same stuff he has always listened to and is really enjoying how he is responding differently with age to the same music he enjoyed in his youth. I'm paraphrasing obviously but it was a nice answer from someone who clearly loved and still loves music. Is this relevant to this thread?, maybe.

 

[Diumraid]

Part of this question, as some have hinted at, is not so much what it means to those of us who came of age some time ago, (I could spend a dozen lifetimes getting the most out of the music I've already got) but rather the people who are coming of age in this time. As a very old man i should be at least a little frightened of youth culture but instead I find myself frightened for the kids. One look at Scuzz TV and I'm quaking.

I think it has to do with the industry getting better and better at manufacturing emotion and creating emo bands (for example) that play a teenager's soul like a grand piano.I know this is not new but the more they move into rebellion and dysfunction etc., the harder it becomes to tell the real from the ersatz if you don't know any better.

Like I said before the music being produced is only good when it's idea-led (artist-led) and the business follows. There seems to be no ideas in mainstream culture right now, only market targets. We got our jollies from mainstream portals like TOTP, MTUSA, MTV (old style) and others. How different would it be to grow up now?

 

[Diumraid]

Further to this: the product-oriented model teaches young artists to think of their work as 'making product' and then selling that product.
To do a little creativity here i will make an analogy. Professional sport is essentially competitive so in theory everything hangs on who wins. I think any true sport fan would agree that a good game with a bad result is better than a bad game with a good result, unless (and this is key) you have a lot of money riding on the result. When you place process over product, art over commerce you move in the direction of magic which is the transformative power that, I believe, we crave as human beings. Attitude!

 

[Lili Marlene]

Part of this question, as some have hinted at, is not so much what it means to those of us who came of age some time ago, (I could spend a dozen lifetimes getting the most out of the music I've already got) but rather the people who are coming of age in this time. As a very old man i should be at least a little frightened of youth culture but instead I find myself frightened for the kids. One look at Scuzz TV and I'm quaking.

I think it has to do with the industry getting better and better at manufacturing emotion and creating emo bands (for example) that play a teenager's soul like a grand piano.I know this is not new but the more they move into rebellion and dysfunction etc., the harder it becomes to tell the real from the ersatz if you don't know any better.

Like I said before the music being produced is only good when it's idea-led (artist-led) and the business follows. There seems to be no ideas in mainstream culture right now, only market targets. We got our jollies from mainstream portals like TOTP, MTUSA, MTV (old style) and others. How different would it be to grow up now?

Yes, this is a good point. There's a weird subculture on the popjustice forums which I've observed over the years where they fan out and discuss how well a song is being marketed and whether the song could be a bigger hit if they had followed 'x' marketing plan. I'm kind of torn between being utterly fascinated by it and thinking 'Christ this is NOT the point of music'.

Thing is, the more mainstream culture has blandified the more it has lost control over the popular consciousness. Don't get me wrong, it still has a HUGE amount of control, especially somewhere like Ireland where 2 or 3 radio stations can still rule the airwaves, but people are so tech savvy it would be very hard for a young person to not be aware that there are other options out there.

If mainstream culture is dying a slow death then my only problem is that it won't die quick enough. Mad songs like Sledgehammer or When Doves Cry or whatever were remarkable for the time but thankfully we don't need that kind of song becoming a major hit anymore because the outlets are so diversified and niche-orientated.

 

[Lili Marlene]

 

[egg_]

To do a little creativity here i will make an analogy. Professional sport is essentially competitive so in theory everything hangs on who wins. I think any true sport fan would agree that a good game with a bad result is better than a bad game with a good result

... but every good game ever has emerged from people trying only to win (and not trying to play a good game)

 

[Diumraid]

Is there a distinction? I don't mean to suggest that they should try to entertain rather than win .... good playing equals a good game no? I'm talking more about the attitude of the punter and other invested parties. The idea of it rather than the doing of it.

 

[rettucs]

... but every good game ever has emerged from people trying only to win (and not trying to play a good game)

disagree

high level sportspeople want to win but it would be a fundamental mistake to try and win. To focus on anything other than your performance (which I equate to playing a good game) would be foolish.

 

[Theseus Mock]

I'm not sure that music is any shittier nowadays, it's just the ratio of decent vs. shit has gotten completely out of whack.

The music charts are essentially controlled by 12 year olds and women in their 30's who can't let go of their love of Westlife. The music 'taste makers' (ugh, hate that word) of NME/Pitchfork are now excited to review a Beyoncé album. I watched the BBC 'Sound of 2014' program at the weekend. The short-list is full of really young soul vocalists singing along to a background racket of post-dubshite.