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

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by tore

For the sake of discussion, I'll make an argument of why some music was better back then. Making it up as I go along ..

Music back in the late 60s and 70s (which I like) was not as derivative as it is now. Although the industry goes far back, music as something that really spoke to young people and gained the sort of status it has in our lives didn't really happen on super-large scale until the 60s. I regard the end of that decade and the early 70s to be sort of like a cambrian explosion of different styles. Music freed people in a way that had never been done before and the labels signed on all sorts of strange groups. They did oh so much cool stuff and that newfound passion found it's way into the recordings. You can find a way to get distortion on your hammond organ and play it like it was an electric guitar today too, but it's just not the cool and ballsy move it was back then when noone had done it before.

I also think the genres I like to listen to like hard rock and prog rock which can trace their origins back to that time sounded fresher then. It's not much of a mystery perhaps .. I listen to many of the same bands from later decades, but they're not as good then. Most bands seem to have an expiration date. Yes, Deep Purple, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Kate Bush, Frank Zappa and many many more were just better in the 70s than the 80s and later. Fans of such bands and artists' listening habits may be naturally drawn to these more distant times. Many of these bands still gain fans today and some are even still around.

[Paedantic Basterd]

Originally Posted by blastingas10

Any real musician with a sense of rhythm wouldnt have much trouble making some beats with their computers or keyboards. On the other hand, any techo musician wouldnt be able to do what Bach or The Beatles or Louis Armstrong did.

You're comparing apples and oranges. The Beatles can't do what Bach did. The Beatles didn't do what Sonic Youth did. It's all relative.

The Beatles are a particularly poor example, because they wrote pop music (a lot of which was pretty average), which technically speaking, all of mainstream music is doing today. I'm not denying their influence, but you can't hold influence against today's artists, because you can't foresee the effect they will have on music over the coming decades, or generations.

The production studio is but another instrument to play. There is no computer that can "write music for an artist". What we know as music is vibrations of air molecules that our brain interprets a thousand different ways and pieces together into what we know as a "song". Music doesn't enter your ear, only differing vibrations do. Music is a product of the brain.

It takes a person to write music, and a person to hear it. A person can use a computer as an instrument on which to perform music, but a computer cannot write music.

Originally Posted by This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin

Wherever you are right now--whether you're in an airplane, coffee shop,a library, at home in a park, or anywhere else--stop and listen to the sounds around you. Unless you're in a sensory isolation tank, you can probably identify at least a half dozen different sounds. Your brain's ability to make these identifications is nothing short of remarkable when you consider what it starts out with--that is, what the sensory receptors pass up to it. Grouping principles--by timbre, spatial location, loudness, and so on--help to segregate them, but there is still a lot we don't know about this process; no one yet has designed a computer that can perform this task of sound source separation.

If a computer can't even distinguish between the hundreds of different sounds that may comprise any one song, how can it be expected to compile them into anything resembling music without a human being involved in the process?

It is easier these days for a single person to produce and perform all of the parts on an album using modern technology and the recording studio as an instrument, but it is no easier to write the song (the melody, the lyrics, the harmonies, the arrangements, etc.) itself.

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

You're comparing apples and oranges. The Beatles can't do what Bach did. The Beatles didn't do what Sonic Youth did. It's all relative.

The Beatles are a particularly poor example, because they wrote pop music (a lot of which was pretty average), which technically speaking, all of mainstream music is doing today. I'm not denying their influence, but you can't hold influence against today's artists, because you can't foresee the effect they will have on music over the coming decades, or generations.

The production studio is but another instrument to play. There is no computer that can "write music for an artist". What we know as music is vibrations of air molecules that our brain interprets a thousand different ways and pieces together into what we know as a "song". Music doesn't enter your ear, only differing vibrations do. Music is a product of the brain.

It takes a person to write music, and a person to hear it. A person can use a computer as an instrument on which to perform music, but a computer cannot write music.



If a computer can't even distinguish between the hundreds of different sounds that may comprise any one song, how can it be expected to compile them into anything resembling music without a human being involved in the process?

It is easier these days for a single person to produce and perform all of the parts on an album using modern technology and the recording studio as an instrument, but it is no easier to write the song (the melody, the lyrics, the harmonies, the arrangements, etc.) itself.

The Beatles early career was pop music, their drug influenced music is another story. Apples and oranges? We have a Herman Cain in the building. Playing an actual instrument is harder than making techno music. Yes, the Beatles couldnt do what Bach did. But any modern techno musician couldnt do what either one of them did. And when i speak of The Beatles, im partially talking about their influence on culture. Anyone with any musical experience or sense of rhythm could make a techno song. It requires no musical education. There is some techno that uses real instruments, ill give them credit.

[Paedantic Basterd]

Using a computer is playing an instrument.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by blastingas10

The Beatles early career was pop music, their drug influenced music is another story.

The Beatles entire career was pop music.

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by Janszoon

The Beatles entire career was pop music.

A computer is not an instrument. It's a computer. And no, the beatles entire career wasn't pop. Just because something is popular doesn't make it pop. The beatles had very innovative and creative albums like revolver.
They made r&b type music, early pop rock that was influenced by buddy holly, they had songs that rocked like "yer blues" and physchedelic songs like "tomorrow never knows." they aren't pop, the many bands who mimicked their sound were pop. They were a very original band who inspired so many others. I'm sure some of the bands you listen to were inspired by them.

[Paedantic Basterd]

Bamf

"A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument."

Wrong. A spoon can be a musical instrument.

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Bamf

"A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument."

Wrong. A spoon can be a musical instrument.

Alright, it's an instrument. One that doesn't take much talent to use. It's definitely one of the easiest instruments to "play."

[TockTockTock]

Originally Posted by blastingas10

You think that any one of these electronic or "tecno" musicians are as talented or as influential as some of the great classical composers like Beethoven? Or one of the brilliant jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington?

Uh... yea. Even though the man was a bit misguided in some of his philosophical views, Karlheinz Stockhausen (an electronic composer) could very well be considered just as important as Beethoven. I also consider Alva Noto (a minimalist/electronic artist) to be just as creative as Duke Ellington, and he's one of those "crappy" musicians from the 21st Century that you keep going on about.

Originally Posted by blastingas10

It's definitely one of the easiest instruments to "play."

Your point?

[Paedantic Basterd]

I challenge you to write me a song on the computer. Right now. A good song, seeing as you think it's so easy. Failure to rise to this challenge will result in my disregarding your opinion on the matter of music as balderdash forevermore.