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

[SuperSymmetry]

@The Anonymous Groupie:

It looks like your only exposure to modern music is what's in the mainstream. How do you expect to make a fair judgement of it when you've only been exposed to a very small fraction of it?

[RJDG14]

Really anything written prior to 1964 doesn't deserve the title of modern-day music. Anything before the mid-late 1980s just sounds dull. I know a lot of passion went into stuff in the 70s, but it just doesn't interest me. A lot of the musicians of these "dull" bands come over as very talented, but the melodies they come up with are just meh. That said, I like Joy Division, who released their first album in 1979. Post-punk (not new wave) is the exception.

I find that music got better in the late 1980s with the rise in popularity of bands such as Pixies, Husker Du, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, REM and Dinosaur Jr. This trend continued through the 90s with groups such as Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, the early Radiohead (Pablo Honey) and Green Day. I also like a lot of early 2000s music such as Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Idlewild, Ash, and the first three Coldplay albums. I feel things started to go downhill in 2006. The existing bands either became poppier (Coldplay), less melodic (Kaiser Cheifs and Idlewild) or thrashier/emo-like. Ditto for new bands. The definition of rock and alternative has changed, much to my disliking. Culturally I define myself as being stuck in the year I was born, not my teenage years.

[grindy]

Originally Posted by The Anonymous Groupie

what happened to the days of great music. I’m not talking about well produced, full sounding pieces of EDM ****. I’m talking about the real stuff. I’m a 94 kid, lucky to be born passed the times when the world was facing it’s real problems but unlucky to be born after the time when music was a great guitar solo, a singer’s crackling howl or the Smashing Pumpkins 1979.

Apparently people are saying that Tame Impala is the world’s last mega rock band, but to me that is the twist of the knife to my heat. No more originals by Bill Corgan, no more Anthony Kiedis losing his **** on stage, and perhaps the last greatest artist, Amy Winehouse. No more jazz, instead more “techno”, more of that “doof door” **** and more of that music that no one could ever really appreciate because it was never really great… unless played in a club with a bunch of kids either high, drunk or tripping of too many "MD’s" / "mollys" / "ecstactcy" / whatever it's called these days.

It’s sad to say, but it’s true. I wish I was born a generation earlier, perhaps even three or four so that I could have been born in time to see Jimmy Hendrix and the Gypsies let lose. A time when I may have had to face the real problems of the world but could have at least got lost in the real music of the world. Today my only connection to that world of music and time of life is martin scorseses’ Vinyl. Even the foo fighters have thrown in the towel, but we won’t go there, considering that they still may be one of my favourite bands. The fact that they came to SA and played with a random motor cyclist that they met is enough to have me sold.

Gone are the days of Kurt Cobain saying “I’m not gay, but I wish I were to piss off homophobes.” Now are the days of kids like Justin Bieber making headlines, Kanye & Kim’s wedding breaking the news & worst of all, Justin Bieber’s sorry topping Adele (right now on the billboard 100).

If I had a final wish it would be to see Oasis back in action, beating out Cigarettes & Alcohol & not giving a **** about the media or what anyone else said. Gone are the days of people like Amy Winehouse being quoted to say “all the instrumentation is completely live. I wouldn’t have any fake horns on my record. I think they put fake strings on Take The Box, but I wasn’t part of that.”

Maybe I’m nostalgic, maybe I’m snobbish, maybe I could be categorised as an "audiophile" but in all honestly, the best musicians seem to be the most troubled musicians (barring Dave Groll). But if I had one final wish, it would be to see these artists live, in all their glory.

Please, anyone out there who is half good at guitar, vocals and can strum a chorus, put your music out there, show me the light and for **** sakes, let’s pray that music isn’t dead.

"People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you. It's very selfish, but it's understandable.” - Mick Jagger

Give this a read & let me know your opinions. Would love to get some critique and conversations going. I'm not going to "push for people to share" but if you enjoy it, can relate, hate it, or have some words to say, pass it on. self promotion removed by mod

To be honest, I have no idea how reddit works but I hope this gets to the people who are interested.

This reads like parody. Well done.

[peavey_hermann]

Originally Posted by The Anonymous Groupie

what happened to the days of great music. I’m not talking about well produced, full sounding pieces of EDM ****.

I dont know how to explain this.... I'm a country rocker in a working band... firmly rooted in and influenced by older styles of music...

but for some reason I really like a lot of EDM. Shpongle, Crystal Method, Chemical Bros, The Books, Tycho, all kinds.

I even try to make some of it myself - I suck at it and it makes me laugh when my other musician friends mock EDM by saying its just some idiot in mouse mask pushing buttons on a laptop. Um, no, not so much... its quite involved, if you want to be really good at it.

from my experience anyway.... just my opinion.

[Tristan_Geoff]

I think you calling yourself an audiophile is ruled out by the rest of that post. If you really knew music, you'd know that it's not so cut and dry as what's popular is what's good and that's it.

[grindy]

FYI I stickied this thread. So we can put such whiny bull**** in here even faster.

[Aux-In]

Originally Posted by grindy

FYI I stickied this thread. So we can put such whiny bull**** in here even faster.

Thanks the gods. **** that ****ty dubstep music.

[Janszoon]

I'm happy to see this thread still being put to good use after all these years.

[grindy]

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I'm happy to see this thread still being put to good use after all these years.

I can't believe it was forgotten for quite a while. We need it.

[innerspaceboy]

I’ve just stumbled upon this magnificent thread for the first time. I’ve read through the first 15 and the last 15 pages and will certainly be revisiting the thread to explore more of your ideas. Great stuff!

As a listener who loves the Futurists, the Dadaists, Discordian-inspired musics, and the rich and diverse history of electronic sound, from wire recorder musique concrete to the advent of magnetic tape and onward, I am predisposed to prefer music in a socio-cultural and historical context. Music from the first and second centuries is still stirring and awe-inspiring today, so I believe I hold my expectations of music to somewhat of a high standard.

All of that said, I see straight away that many who reject contemporary music as a whole do so from the perspective that commercial/pop music is representative of its time. This is the fundamental flaw in such a dismissive stance. Whereas pop reached its peak in the age of MTV and the era of radio, mass media has since dwindled in cultural relevance with the democratization of music technology - both in its production and its consumption.

The internet and the age of digital piracy opened listeners up a significantly greater history of recorded sound, both commercial Library of Congress recordings and independent private releases. Accessibility today is immeasurably greater than ever before, creating an environment of better-educated and more discerning listening tastes.

At the same time, digital distribution rendered major labels and media conglomerates (the former gatekeepers to the public consciousness) antiquated and irrelevant dinosaurs of a rapidly dying industry. Those living in the present and witnessing the formulaic, one-dimensional, manufactured product that is pop are beholden to the stark contrast of artistic value and non-value between “real” artists and the saccharine charade which desperately permeates all facets of mass media but falls on deaf ears.

I think we haven’t seen a John Peel, a Stockhausen, or a Cobain in recent decades because the channels which would have broadcast them as cultural giants have now disseminated into millions of more intricate tributaries of cultural waters. You are no longer bombarded by news of which artist to worship in a post-television-and-radio cord-cut culture, so you’re left to discover great music on your own. There just isn’t the uniform cultural identity with a spokesperson or hero the way their was in the era of rock. But it’s most certainly out there.

Go and discover it.