The Official "Music Was So Much Better in the Glorious Days of Yore" Thread

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by duga

This is all psychological. If you had never heard music before and started listening to stuff that is being put out now, you will think it is ****ing magical. Then, once you crave something new, you will inevitably look to the past for music you have never heard before. It has nothing to do with one decade being better than another, just what your personal tastes happen to be at the time. There was no one period of time where the musicians were much better than the best musicians of today.

Bingo!

[Neapolitan]

Originally Posted by duga

This is all psychological. If you had never heard music before and started listening to stuff that is being put out now, you will think it is ****ing magical.

That is not true, that is like saying if you never read French before when you pick up a French Novel it would magical - I doubt it. It's like a Catch-22 for music to sound magical you have to have some frame of reference, you had to hear music before, and develope your own musicality & critea of listening to music. A magical song only comes when you can compare it to other songs you heard before, and it blows your socks off because it sounds better.

Originally Posted by duga

Then, once you crave something new, you will inevitably look to the past for music you have never heard before.

I can't blindly agree with you like some people. There is two train of thoughts, one is delving into the past to learn about the history of music; the other is to stay with current music and ignore the past.

Originally Posted by duga

It has nothing to do with one decade being better than another, just what your personal tastes happen to be at the time. There was no one period of time where the musicians were much better than the best musicians of today.

Decade isn't really a good way to catagorize muisc, the end of one decade is entirely different then it's beginning, even from a economical, political or historical perspective. I think there are some periods that can be better then others, esp, when the period of time is known for a genre. That is because the continuity of musical ideas flow from one genre to the next, from one genreation to the next, each developing the some aspect of it through time. And there are like a nexus in musical history when everything clicks and it take on epic proportions, and the bands involve become stuff of legends. It happens all the time and most the time thats all people want to talk about is a band everyone heard; not a band like Pram or the Snowponies that no one heard about. But you have to admit some artist/bands that are called great in MB are not so great, like Michael Jackson or Bob Dylan or Lady Ga Ga or John Mayer - anyone saying those guys are good is blowing smoke up your ass. You can't cherry pick artist like say top artist in todays music are great because of Lady Ga Ga and John Mayer you have to go in the past and listen to all the bands together then realize yeah the 70's or the 80's were really awesome.

[duga]

^

Are you just trying to disagree with me? You reading so much into my post tells me you are.

Maybe to you a decade/point in time could be considered better than another because it is known for a certain genre of music you enjoy. We can all look back in awe at grunge, but I promise you the majority of people who grew up in the 70s/80s probably detested it (much like how I feel about emo these days).

But that is neither here nor there. I used the example of someone who had never heard music before listening to today's music as a simple frame of reference. Obviously, I didn't mean this applies to every human. For all we know, he could hate music in general. I also didn't feel the need to go into specifics about his musical journey, which I would assume would involve more discovery than just popping on the radio. Once he found the music he likes, he would find it magical, new, and totally original. Then, guess what? He wants a different band. Maybe something similar, maybe something totally different. After exhausting all his options on modern music, where to go? The past.

And your French analogy was horrendous. Learning a language and indulging in something so universal as music are two completely different things.

[boo boo]

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

Queen was better in the 70's when they swore not to use synthesizers.

What's wrong with synthesizers?

The Game is a damn good album, I don't care what anyone says, but imo they went quite downhill after that. Innuendo is good though, and some of the songs are just heartbreaking.

[CanwllCorfe]

Originally Posted by CanwllCorfe

I thoroughly enjoy modern music.. but since the majority of what I listen to is electronic, there's more of an ability to do new things. It sounds more organic nowadays. The stuff back in 98-03 was great but was kind of clunky.

Forgot to mention, I do enjoy Rock from the 90s. Probably because of all the memories

[Violent & Funky]

Personally, I agree with TheCunningStunt and I can relate because we are of similar age. My tastes begin with the alternative rock bands that were big during the 1990s. I have expanded the depth of the music I listen to by starting from what I know I like and exploring a little deeper. There are still plenty of great 80s/90s indie rock bands that I haven't given a chance, so I haven't really given a care to modern music. Sure, there are a few I have found that I really like--The Thermals, for instance--but it is usually a safer bet for me to just find a new 80s/90s alt rock band to listen to. My two main musical interests are rock with a funk influence and lo-fi/indie/garage/punk/slacker rock. Those seem like two genres that have seen better days.

And it doesn't help when I see a list like this:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

An Albatross
Black Moth Super Rainbow
The Book of Knots
Burial
Cannibal Ox
Cut Copy
The Decemberists
Dizzee Rascal
Dosh
The Dresden Dolls
Fischerspooner
Franz Ferdinand
Genghis Tron
High Places
The Hunches
Jesu
Kill Me Tomorrow
Kutiman
Liars
M83
Madvillain
Man Man
Mastodon
MIA
Milanese
Mu
Need New Body
A Place To Bury Strangers
The Polyphonic Spree
Sunn 0)))
Tomahawk
TV on the Radio
Vitalic
YMD

I have honesty heard of six of those bands. A lot of it probably has to do with the current state of mainstream rock music. It sucks. What current mainstream rock bands carry the artistic validity of a Siamese Dream or Badmotorfinger? None...

[boo boo]

Originally Posted by Rickenbacker

But everything these groups did in the 80s was laughable. Most of it, anyway.

Wrong on all counts. You do realise Appetite For Destruction was in the 80s right? And AC/DC had Back in Black and Queen had The Game so it wasn't all bad for them in that decade, at least they had a good start. And Van Halen f*cking ruled in the early 80s, 1984 is awesome, shut yo mouth.

[duga]

Originally Posted by Violent & Funky

What current mainstream rock bands carry the artistic validity of a Siamese Dream or Badmotorfinger? None...

To you, maybe none. I think it is quite a bold claim to say that they don't exist today. I have found a huge amount of contemporary bands that I think have just as much, if not more, "artistic validity" than those albums.

It is easy to say that Siamese Dream and Badmotorfinger are better in those terms, but there have nearly been 20 years between then and now. You forget they too had influences and many people like us would have been tearing them down just as we are right now with today's music.

This is coming from someone who considers Siamese Dream his favorite album.

[boo boo]

Anyway, I think there's great music out right now and there will always be great music. But in general I think a lot of modern music is terrible, both in and outside of the mainstream, actually, especially what is outside of the mainstrea, indie kids have seriously run out of stuff to praise and now they're intentionally searching for the most unlistenable music possible just to show how contrarian they are to everything mainstream regardless of quality.

Good music is good music, people who judge music by what kind of f*cking label a band is on are just pathetic.

Anyway, I'm partial to the 60s and 70s, a great majority of what I listen to is psychedelic, prog and classic rock. I enjoy a lot of pop music from these decades as well. Still, I keep up with all the decades and the 00s has had some great stuff, especially in the prog department. Still it's hard to ignore just how awful indie is becoming, and how so many of these bands take such great pride in their total lack of talent.

Originally Posted by Violent & Funky

I have honesty heard of six of those bands. A lot of it probably has to do with the current state of mainstream rock music. It sucks. What current mainstream rock bands carry the artistic validity of a Siamese Dream or Badmotorfinger? None...

Radiohead, Flaming Lips and Porcupine Tree, those are the main ones that come to mind.

[Nine Black Poppies]

Originally Posted by boo boo

Anyway, I think there's great music out right now and there will always be great music. But in general I think a lot of modern music is terrible, both in and outside of the mainstream, actually, especially what is outside of the mainstrea, indie kids have seriously run out of stuff to praise and now they're intentionally searching for the most unlistenable music possible just to show how contrarian they are to everything mainstream regardless of quality.

This strikes me as quite true (in a broad sense, at least) both now and in that it's always been true.
It's just with the benefit of hindsight, a lot of the terrible stuff--especially that outside the mainstream--has fallen by the wayside and been forgotten while the stuff with more (widely accepted) artistic validity has endured in memory. Combine that with the chance those records have had to age and secure themselves in both popular and personal consciousness and... well, there you go.

Plus, there are two problems with the whole argument. One is that a phrase like "artistic validity" is almost impossible to really define on an interpersonal level without getting into a major debate about aesthetics.

The other is that "modern music" is... well, so broad a term it's insane. The past decade or so has seen the music business (by which I mean people who release music, not necessarily the "industry"--I just can't think of a better term right now) splinter and fraction into billions of little micro-communities and styles. Because people have such easy access to so much music thanks to the 'net and the advent of HD radio, the "mainstream" practically doesn't exist anymore, at least not the way it used to. So, in a certain way, being dismissive of "modern music" as some kind of whole entity kind of misses the point of how the business, and as a result state of the art, is changing. It encourages more active discovery on the part of the listener, more of a willingness to see what's out there, rather than relying on the culture as a whole to move the way it did up through the '90s.

[/$0.02]