Music nowadays is shit: Discuss. (2 Viewers)

[Diumraid]

This is the last word in creativity

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[GARYXKNIFEDX]

women in their 30's who can't let go of their love of Westlife.

I think a lot (but definitely not all) of the people who complain about music being shit nowadays,can't let go of the charts(or whatever tastemaker they follow).

 

[Jerry Twig]

I think a lot (but definitely not all) of the people who complain about music being shit nowadays,can't let go of the charts(or whatever tastemaker they follow).

Say what now?

 

[nlgbbbblth]

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. .

Do you post there?

I am waiting ages to be approved. Great site though.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Do you post there?

I am waiting ages to be approved. Great site though.

Nah, I could never commit to actually joining the forums. I read through them now and then though. Peter Robinson is a top notch journalist though, even if he has some quite awful taste in music at times.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

I need some outlet to discuss 1980s-7"-edits-on-CD

 

[hydromancer]

The radio can be unbelievably bad they will literally play the same annoying three minute pop song over and over again like non stop for a half a year or more ! I mean do they not realise there is other music out there ? And then besides that you have to listen to the djs !

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

The radio can be unbelievably bad they will literally play the same annoying three minute pop song over and over again like non stop for a half a year or more ! I mean do they not realise there is other music out there ? And then besides that you have to listen to the djs !

Lyric FM.

 

[ann post]

I mean do they not realise there is other music out there ? And then besides that you have to listen to the djs !

Commercial stations (income based on adverts) carry out market research and stuff and the dj's rarely have a choice in the music because they have to score listener percentages to maintain advertising contracts - they will be issued a playlist to choose from which either come from management or group meetings with staff, or worst case scenario focus groups - its what eventually neutered phantom fm, with the exception of late evening and speciality shows. stations like lyricfm, 8radio and flirtfm* (vested interest) have a license based on providing specific content so the dj's have a choice in what goes out. 8 radio has great stuff, lyric has amazing stuff, RnaG after hours is great, flirt fm evening speciality shows range from metal to electronica to movie soundtracks. outside paying "pat kennys wages®" this is where the tv license money goes.

In my experience there are dj's who literally hate music but love 'being a dj's and there are passionate people out there doing amazing stuff.
licence is weird thing too - there are talk obligations, like % of hours that have to be spoken.

 

[washingcattle]

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!

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you there. Firstly as an Everton supporter I'll take a scrappy 1-0 victory over mindblowing 4-3 defeat any fucking day.



Part of the problem with the mainstream media is that bands place far to little importance on commerce. Process and art over commerce is fine but the way things are now bands don't engage with commerce in any way at all and that's not a healthy thing.

The simple fact is that far too much music is given away for free by bands.

Bear with me here because I know you're all chomping at the bit to call me a capitalist shill but here goes.

Mainstream types are interested in making money, artists to an extent aren't that's fine. When E.M.I signed The Sex Pistols, Elektra signed The Stooges or when Geffen signed Sonic Youth why ?

A. They liked the tunes

B. The musicians saw it as an opportunity to reach a larger audience and to have someone else do some of the leg work involved in the business of being a band.

C.They (both the band and the label) thought they could make some money.

On the labels part they knew they could make money because they knew there was a market out there.

None of those are bad reasons, but today bands, especially those that make anything interesting, are seemingly convinced that music has no monetary value, thusly they give all of it away for free and as a result the mainstream leaves them to it.

The overall result of this is that the underground, the alternative the fucking wild and mental and interesting is being pushed further and further away from the mechanisms which are supposed to get music into peoples heads and hands. But how is anyone surprised by that ? Anyone with money to invest in the weirder types of music can't see that there is any kind of market because as we all know 50,000 spotify plays does not mean one actual fucking purchase so why risk it ?

Unfortunately we live in a capitalist society and capitalism does have an effect on absolutely every aspect of culture including all art, if you don't believe that go to any art gallery, theatre, cinema, or concert hall on earth and see if anyone there is working for free. Go to a gig though and the only motherfuckers in the room not getting a fucking cent are the fucking bands. Even Fugazi charged into their fucking shows It's fucking mind boggling.

You can't make great art purely for money, that's fine, but the flip side of that coin is that you can't make great art which reaches an audience by devaluating your own efforts.

 

[sleepy]

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.



*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.

2 things just stuck out here for me. Bjork and PJ Harvey were compared to Patti Smith and Kate Bush because of lazy music journalism/PR, nothing more really and it's the same thing that happens constantly of trying to make something new palatable to audiences. It reminds me of reading a review of tuneyards (I like her but I kind of assuming you probably don't) in Hot Press a while ago where they compared her to PJ Harvey. The only similarity between the 2 for me is that they're both women and that's kind of it. For me it just shows that the writer is dealing with a very limited frame of reference or is maybe just kind of sexist and only thinks of musicians in terms of gender.

The other thing that's sticking out for me is just where you say bands like Death Grips and Battles will never get the audience that Sonic Youth did but they kind of already are. Battles and Death Grips both completely sold out their last gigs in the Button Factory and Whelans respectively. And Death Grips were signed to a major label. The only reason they're not currently is not down to musical reasons. Sonic Youth were nearly 10 years into their career before they reached these levels.

Sorry if this is nit picky

 

[sleepy]

I guess what I was trying to say in that last post is that PJ Harvey and Bjork would still get record deals today but people will try and attach their own frame of reference to them, no matter how off the mark they might be.


Also, I haven't heard anything by the other 3 bands you mentioned in that last paragraph and I'm kind of excited about cheking them out.

 

[washingcattle]

2 things just stuck out here for me. Bjork and PJ Harvey were compared to Patti Smith and Kate Bush because of lazy music journalism/PR, nothing more really and it's the same thing that happens constantly of trying to make something new palatable to audiences. It reminds me of reading a review of tuneyards (I like her but I kind of assuming you probably don't) in Hot Press a while ago where they compared her to PJ Harvey. The only similarity between the 2 for me is that they're both women and that's kind of it. For me it just shows that the writer is dealing with a very limited frame of reference or is maybe just kind of sexist and only thinks of musicians in terms of gender.

The other thing that's sticking out for me is just where you say bands like Death Grips and Battles will never get the audience that Sonic Youth did but they kind of already are. Battles and Death Grips both completely sold out their last gigs in the Button Factory and Whelans respectively. And Death Grips were signed to a major label. The only reason they're not currently is not down to musical reasons. Sonic Youth were nearly 10 years into their career before they reached these levels.

Sorry if this is nit picky

Nit pick away, like I said I'd rather be wrong about most of these things, it would make me a lot less depressed about music. In terms of audience though, Sonic Youth or King Crimson could have sold out much bigger venues than the Button Factory or Whelans in their hey day. I made a similar point recently about Glastonbury headliners. When a festival like that is drafting in people who have been around for 15-20 years rather than anyone "new" it's a sign that there is a problem.

I guess what I was trying to say in that last post is that PJ Harvey and Bjork would still get record deals today but people will try and attach their own frame of reference to them, no matter how off the mark they might be.


Also, I haven't heard anything by the other 3 bands you mentioned in that last paragraph and I'm kind of excited about cheking them out.

Yeah that's kind of the problem as I see it though, lazy journalism is one thing but lazy A&R is something quite different altogether. See my usual bug bears like Yuck and Savages for examples of how to sign a successful piece of derivative shit.

I'd prefer if I was wrong.


Also check out Yvette, like Suicide, but not, as a journalist might say.

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

I don't for a second believe record company's sign bands because they make good music. Maybe at one point,a very long time ago,but I'd say nowadays you could write the best songs in the world but if you can't be marketed they won't sign you.

(maybe you'd get a job as a writer,but only maybe,and then you'd probably be told what to write)

 

[Anthony]

Music enjoyed in the way we're discussing is a fairly new thing really. Every day or year is a step into the unknown. Maybe this is just the music that gets made when we have all this recorded music around? Maybe it'll take another few generations before musicians' brains adapt? In short. Stop complaining and dig it.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

dig it.

as I read this I am listening to

The Mock Turtles - Can You Dig It? [Fatboy Slim and Simon Thornton 2003 Remix]

AS FEATURED IN THE VODAFONE TV AD.

 

[sleepy]

Nit pick away, like I said I'd rather be wrong about most of these things, it would make me a lot less depressed about music. In terms of audience though, Sonic Youth or King Crimson could have sold out much bigger venues than the Button Factory or Whelans in their hey day. I made a similar point recently about Glastonbury headliners. When a festival like that is drafting in people who have been around for 15-20 years rather than anyone "new" it's a sign that there is a problem.


Yeah that's kind of the problem as I see it though, lazy journalism is one thing but lazy A&R is something quite different altogether. See my usual bug bears like Yuck and Savages for examples of how to sign a successful piece of derivative shit.

I'd prefer if I was wrong.


Also check out Yvette, like Suicide, but not, as a journalist might say.

I will definitely check them out. And all the other ones mentioned.

And if it's any consolation, no one seems to be listening to Yuck anymore. I think most people came to the same conclusion you did.

 

[sleepy]

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.

I think you're kind hitting the nail on the head there when you say it's nothing new. It's pretty much what The Shangri Las and the Manic Street Preachers based their careers on

 

[egg_]

I think it has to do with the industry getting better and better at manufacturing emotion

But isn't this a positive thing? That's exactly what I want music to do, to affect me emotionally

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

"manufacturing emotion"