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

[Mucha na Dziko]

Originally Posted by rostasi

What we have is basically a bunch of old people putting a template around the musicians that they grew up with and screaming loudly about their singular greatness while being baffled at why everyone else can’t see this “greatness” that was so ingrained in their genes.

But why do you think that a certain era of music/painting/sculpting/literature/or even car making couldn't be objectively better or greater than another?

[rostasi]

Individuals can relate or feel better about certain eras, but what’s the universal yardstick that you’re using for objective measuring when it comes to the arts?

[Frownland]

I think that the Nirvana/the 90s/Lil Wayne/the boogeyman killed music mantra is likely pushed by the music industry in response to organic artistic shifts so that they can provoke a reactionary sell-off of the remaining supply of albums they feel will fall out of favour. Now that new artists can put out their new music digitally, industry giants are focusing more on reprints because they have a built in nostalgia market, plus they can market it to the younger crowd that they sold the Music Is Dead myth to as Good Music They Don't Make Anymore. Once time sifts the sands of digital music and some level of cultural consensus is reached, those albums get added to the nostalgia cycle.

Originally Posted by Mucha na Dziko

But why do you think that a certain era of music/painting/sculpting/literature/or even car making couldn't be objectively better or greater than another?

Any parameters used to establish an objective standard of quality will be based on subjective preferences. Restricting the conversation to top-selling radio charters when radio and physical media are declining in prominence will deterministically lead you to the conclusion that music as a whole is on the decline. Unless you're talking about song length, number of instruments, and so on, there really is no objectivity in music.

[rostasi]

Originally Posted by Frownland

I think that the Nirvana/the 90s/Lil Wayne/the boogeyman killed music mantra is likely pushed by the music industry in response to organic artistic shifts so that they can provoke a reactionary sell-off of the remaining supply of albums they feel will fall out of favour. Now that new artists can put out their new music digitally, industry giants are focusing more on reprints because they have a built in nostalgia market, plus they can market it to the younger crowd that they sold the Music Is Dead myth to as Good Music They Don't Make Anymore. Once time sifts the sands of digital music and some level of cultural consensus is reached, those albums get added to the nostalgia cycle.

Any parameters used to establish an objective standard of quality will be based on subjective preferences. Restricting the conversation to top-selling radio charters when radio and physical media are declining in prominence will deterministically lead you to the conclusion that music as a whole is on the decline. Unless you're talking about song length, number of instruments, and so on, there really is no objectivity in music.

Yup. I'd definitely go along with this.

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by elphenor

Who specifically sold the "music is dead" narrative?

Fukuyama.

Originally Posted by elphenor

I think reprints became popular just because people wanted them

That's the built in market I was referring to.

[Trollheart]

Perhaps the point here is that you just don't like music made after 1990. That's your right as a person, but it doesn't make it "no longer music" or give you the right to smirk and sneer at those who either enjoy it or accept it (as everyone should) as being music. One thing that's certain: technology in the last twenty to thirty years has allowed artists not only to express themselves without weighing themselves down with the chains of record labels and executives, and their fans to access their music freed from the same constraints, but to create music that simply would not have been possible thirty years ago, or even twenty. I refer you to Bull of Heaven, who, while I may not have any particular interest in them, have created music that is apparently quite literally endless, one song that is due to run for quadrillions of years, give or take an epoch. So how that could indicate music is dead in the 21st century is a mystery to me.

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by elphenor

digital seems a real raw deal for artists

Swift and Metallica and whoever are right to complain about it even if it looks bad coming from them

it doesn't end up changing anything in regards to charting artists, but the lack of funding makes a considerable difference at a local level with artists who would use record sales to eat

Totally, but maybe there's some diffuse benefit to music losing its reputation as a get rich quick scheme.

[SlyStone63]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Perhaps the point here is that you just don't like music made after 1990. That's your right as a person, but it doesn't make it "no longer music" or give you the right to smirk and sneer at those who either enjoy it or accept it (as everyone should) as being music. One thing that's certain: technology in the last twenty to thirty years has allowed artists not only to express themselves without weighing themselves down with the chains of record labels and executives, and their fans to access their music freed from the same constraints, but to create music that simply would not have been possible thirty years ago, or even twenty. I refer you to Bull of Heaven, who, while I may not have any particular interest in them, have created music that is apparently quite literally endless, one song that is due to run for quadrillions of years, give or take an epoch. So how that could indicate music is dead in the 21st century is a mystery to me.

The 90s and later were just a terrible period for music. If you like it, fair enough

[rostasi]

Yes, of course, this person’s dislike of stuff past the 90s is the only point and for people like this it means a lot to be dickish about it by trolling others. People who refer to the death of music - at any time - are basically lazy-minded cretins aching for attention.

Bull of Heaven have had interesting conceptual ideas, but the pieces that are meant to last unnaturally long amounts of time (meaning generative in nature) are still conceptual works that don’t really have anything to do with the longevity of music itself.

The definitions are the ideas we’re dealing with here: if your idea of music is a specific something that fits your extremely narrow template and you’re not being satiated by what you hear, then music is “dead” to you and you’ve already lost any joy that you might’ve received in music. Just don’t inflict your lack of attention on the rest of us and insist that we’re somehow wrong.

On the other hand, if you are on the other end of the spectrum and can’t help but find constant joy in all kinds of music and sound that surrounds you every minute of the day, then this is what is really meant by an “endless” music. You don’t ever need to have some lazy drones of Bull of Heaven to keep your mind continually activated when you have such an enormous sound-field existing during your lifetime.

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by SlyStone63

The 90s and later were just a terrible period for music IN MY OPINION. If you like it, fair enough

Just fixing that for you. I'm sure that's what you meant to say. Nobody can say definitively that any period was better or worse than another, as, as has already been pointed out, music, and its appreciation by people, is entirely one hundred per cent subjective. I don't like jazz, at all, but I'm not stupid enough to make a sweeping statement like "jazz is terrible." It is, after all, always only one person's opinion, and you know what they say about them...