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

[Pet_Sounds]

https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/

Here's an interesting statistical analysis of the repetitiveness of top ten hits from 1960 through 2015. It's not a terribly serious piece, but it is interesting to see someone trying to discuss music quantitatively in a context other than music theory.

[Clefsong51]

Fact is there have been good artist in every decade of music, now with that out of the way I'll just say that the talent pool has thinned considerably since the early eighties.

[MicShazam]

I've been listening to 90's music and never most of the time, but recently I've been getting into some 70's singer/songwriters. There sure are a lot of excellent Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Carly Simons and Carole King albums packed closely together. I mean, Carole King alone released like 6 great records in a mere 5 year span between 1970 and 1974. You don't see many artists doing that anymore. Anyway, I'm still mostly about modern stuff, but damn... The sure were some years back in time which were packed tightly with albums that later became rather important genre milestones.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by MicShazam

I've been listening to 90's music and never most of the time, but recently I've been getting into some 70's singer/songwriters. There sure are a lot of excellent Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Carly Simons and Carole King albums packed closely together. I mean, Carole King alone released like 6 great records in a mere 5 year span between 1970 and 1974. You don't see many artists doing that anymore. Anyway, I'm still mostly about modern stuff, but damn... The sure were some years back in time which were packed tightly with albums that later became rather important genre milestones.

You should get you some Townes van Zandt.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

You should get you some Townes van Zandt.

I'm not familiar with the dude, but I'll check him out this evening. Thanks.

EDIT: In the interest of not spamming this thread further, I'm just adding to this comment.
I liked the first track more than the other two. I'm a sucker for old, melancholy sounding folk with flutes. The other tracks were ok too, but didn't leave much of a mark on the first listen.

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by MicShazam

I've been listening to 90's music and never most of the time, but recently I've been getting into some 70's singer/songwriters. There sure are a lot of excellent Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Carly Simons and Carole King albums packed closely together. I mean, Carole King alone released like 6 great records in a mere 5 year span between 1970 and 1974. You don't see many artists doing that anymore. Anyway, I'm still mostly about modern stuff, but damn... The sure were some years back in time which were packed tightly with albums that later became rather important genre milestones.

I think this is partly because of the decline in record company contracts keeping an artist to [x] albums per year, and mostly because of the increased amount of content on the internet. I think it's become a lot more difficult to market an album on a single alone, since everyone can easily access the whole record and decide that the band mostly makes filler, so artists are being more careful with their releases to make sure that they are releasing the most quality product they can offer.

Or maybe everyone just forgot how to write music without them dang computer algorithms.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Frownland

I think this is partly because of the decline in record company contracts keeping an artist to [x] albums per year, and mostly because of the increased amount of content on the internet. I think it's become a lot more difficult to market an album on a single alone, since everyone can easily access the whole record and decide that the band mostly makes filler, so artists are being more careful with their releases to make sure that they are releasing the most quality product they can offer.

Or maybe everyone just forgot how to write music without them dang computer algorithms.

I think everything you're saying here is true to some extent, even the things that contradict eachother a bit.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Frownland

I think this is partly because of the decline in record company contracts keeping an artist to [x] albums per year, and mostly because of the increased amount of content on the internet. I think it's become a lot more difficult to market an album on a single alone, since everyone can easily access the whole record and decide that the band mostly makes filler, so artists are being more careful with their releases to make sure that they are releasing the most quality product they can offer.

Or maybe everyone just forgot how to write music without them dang computer algorithms.

I'm sorry, that was a **** reply above. I'll try and say something more meaningful. There is no doubt the music industry has changed radically since the 70's. I'm thankful that so many artists still believe in the album format, even though market circumstances arguably make the album format financially obsolete. I personally absolutely love the album as an artistic statement and I imagine the same goes for all other users in here - the site being what it is.
I do feel that some 60's and 70's records perhaps have songs that are fairly faceless genre exercises that probably were recorded to fill out the rest of the album. I listened to an album by Golden Earring recently that had 6 tracks total. 2 were inventive and full of personality, 4 felt like cookie cutter butt rock template songs. At least I feel like modern albums tend to avoid that sort of blandness, assuming the album comes from an interesting artist, of course. More time between albums has its benefits, I guess.

[Dylstew]

Current pop music sucked, 80's and 90's pop music sucked just as hard, just in different ways. Ofcourse occasionally each era of pop makes some good ****.

[MicShazam]

Originally Posted by Dylstew

Current pop music sucked, 80's and 90's pop music sucked just as hard, just in different ways. Ofcourse occasionally each era of pop makes some good ****.

I can't think of any good contemporary mainstream pop - except if I get to count Kylie Minogue as current. I hate to sound like an old fart, but the top 40 looks a hell of a lot worse in the 2000's than it did at some good moments in the 70's and 80's.