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

For the record, I'm not personally a subscriber to this particular school of thought. But since people are constantly starting threads to discuss this topic I figured we could do with a central location for them. If you want to discuss how musicians are less talented/original/classy/whatever than they were back in the good old days, this thread is the place to do it. And every time I see a new thread started on this topic I'm going to just go ahead and merge it with this one.

There's plenty of great modern music. People need to quit bitching.

I agree, but I figure since I can't prevent the bitching I may as well try to contain it.

If there's plenty of great modern music, I'm yet to find it. Talentless bastards.

This is the first moan about the current state of music in this thread! HORRAY!

It's not about the music itself. It's about the way people approach music--there are times in your life that you're just more open to certain kinds of... I dunno, emotive association, I guess.

I miss the music scene I grew up with (the mid to late '90s, basically). There are records from that period that I can't even look at with any kind of critical assessment because they're so much a part of my life and formative experience the music is inseparable from the memory. Actually I think it's that I miss more than the music itself--being so fully steeped and soaked in it.

It's like falling in love. Your first love always sticks with you as a unique and kind of untouchable experience, no matter how much and truly you can love someone else later in life.

Aww man, music isn't real anymore. Today it's all about the money. Back in the 70's it was all about the passion and the music.

Very well said. :beer: In fact that pretty much sums it all up. Close thread, lol.

Yeah, it doesn't need to be discussed, being written in stone as fact and all.

Wait, what's written in stone?

The past few years has seen music of such quality not known to man since the glorious year of 1998. I completely reject the idea that music was better at a certain time. Music can only get better, as new sounds are explored and new bands are formed.

It sounds more like you embrace the idea of music being better at a certain time, it's just in your case that time is the present instead of the past. At least your perspective is more optimistic than the people who think the best times are past though.

:laughing:

Ah nothing, tongue was planted firmly in cheek anyway.

Yeah, I think I should probably have worded that differently. More like "I completely reject the idea was better way back when". That makes a bit more sense.

music was so much better in the glorious days off yore because i hadn't been exposed to very much yet and in turn had no idea how crappy some of my tastes actually were.

People tend to forget what what we listen to from the 60s and 70s isn't representative of that music scene at all. Most of the stuff from those days are now more or less gone from the consciousness of most people, and only the "best" remain. Oh, and I think there has been vast amount of highly talented musicians in the last 10 years, perhaps more so than in any decade of the past.

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.

^^^ This.

For my own little peevish rant, I'm getting a little weary of the homogenization of the indie sound. It's gotten to the point where even the genre distinction implies that the purveyors of such music, at one point or another masturbated to a photo of Brian Wilson. Kids put your vinyl copy of Pet Sounds away and go play with some matches.

OK...my Craftmatic adjustable bed is calling me. It's time for Golden Girls.

As somebody who loves music from all times and genres, I also feel that things were more eclectic and interesting back in the late 60's through the 70's, but not because it was better, but rather in the sense that a lot of musicians back then were just better at melding technical prowess with good ideas than they are now. They also had the benefit of being among the first people to do some serious genre-melding (Ex: before the late 60's the idea of fusing rock and classical music wasn't really considered seriously).

Many people don't consider this relevant though, which is why the majority of people listen to music that is popular within their little generational friend circles; a good many of would-be musicians and established acts alike just seem to revel in whatever influences they list on their MySpace page and could care less about thinking outside the box.

Furthermore, I feel people no longer really recognize something that is both technically amazing whilst doing something intriguing musically, evidenced by how some people here on MusicBanter go nuts over every shoegaze-flavor of the month. Relativity is in full force while people who can actually explain why they like what they like get ignored.

It sort of annoys me, but kids around my brother's age today, especially those without a whole lot of experience or imagination, seem to let their emotional ties to The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and 90's alt. rock blind them to the fact that there's a hell of a lot more out there. They treat these bands and these eras like they are the pinnacle of songwriting and creative expression WHEN THEY FRIGGIN AREN'T.

Still, every circle of music out there today has something going for it, and maybe we'll live to see the day when something completely new rears its ugly head from the underground to change some people's perceptions about the derivative nature of music post-2000.

For people who say there's a lot of good modern music around, what bands would you say are great that have formed in the 00s?

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.

Here's some. A few of these were technically formed in the very late 90s but all their major work was released in the 00s:

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

^Pretty solid list! I have a bunch of favorites as well that are fairly exclusive to my personal taste within the realm of this forum

is it really the music that got big? or the continual decrease in costs involved in recording and broadcasting the music that made it easier to spread around?

is it really the music that 'freed' people in the 60s? or the fact that most of their families had been broken / were recovering from the effects of that big war that ended at the end of the 40s. what was it called again? the one with Hitler. the patriarchal authority figure was no longer such a dominant effect on family and in turn society 'freeing' the kids to do whatever they wanted and to point their dirty fingers to 'the man' when they didn't want to have to get jobs after high school.

was it really a ballsy move to fuzz out a piano? or just a screw up by some burnout who connected the cables incorrectly? John Lennon gets credited for creating the 'backwards' guitar solo, he credits weed for being so wasted he put the tape in wrong prior to playback.

Everyone bold I don't like, the others - I either haven't heard their music, or simply haven't heard of them.

A lot them bands mentioned are experimental, "art rock", rap, synth/electronic bands etc.

Either we have different tastes, or your music taste is more eclectic than mine, seems like these days people are trying to make experimental art rock crap, I just don't buy it all, but to be fair there are a few in your list I've never even heard of.

That's basically what I wrote ..

.. from the perspective of a sour cynic. :p:

So that means they can't be quality modern day bands and artists?

"Either we have different tastes, or your music taste is more eclectic than mine"

It's not what I'm into, I personally think all that art rock and synth/electro stuff, for the most part is shite, I'm sure there are some exceptions to that but there you go.

Music has not gotten worse over time
Mainstreem music has

So what DO you like?

Did you know that Pat Boone was one of the biggest American pop stars of the 50s and 60s? True story.

According to iTunes:

Rock
Alternative
Metal
Punk Rock
Indie
Folk
Blues Rock
Southern Rock
Hard Rock
Garage Rock

So from that list, I'd say rock music.

And you don't like the Hunches?!

I've not given them a proper full listen, so it wouldn't be fair for me to say they're awful, but I heard Static Disaster, Where I Am and another one and really wasn't impressed. (Gonna sound like an old person now..)

Just bloody noise noise.

Modern music :(

I believe music was slighty better back in the 70's. During early 80's it was still awesomely influence by what took placed in the 70's but starting with 1980 it went downhill gradually throughout the decade getting worse and worser so by the time you get to Grunge people thought it was greatest thing since slice bread, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, who knows. When Nirvana came along and there was little of UK bands ever heard on the radio until Oasis, but there was a small riff between US and UK musical taste that was slowly growing ever since 70's. During the 60's it seemed that the US and the UK were on the same page, a large part due to the British Invasion, which America was the recipient of the invading groups. It is a shame riff of musical taste happened because UK bands like The Jam or The Libertines or whoever are really like influential to most indie bands we hear now. I have to say it's the Post Grunge Era that was the halcyon days for Alternative Rock, music in general, probably the best music heard since the 70's.

Why the 70's were so awesome:
1. Analog recording, everything was done on tape.
2. The music scene in the UK was unbelievabley innovative in the 70's, with Progressive Rock, Pub Rock, Punk, Post-Punk & New Wave
3. Brian Eno, started out in the 70's one of the greatest producers of all time, with a mind blowing roster of bands he produced.
4. John Peel, a DJ with Midas touch
5. 70's UK bands:
Buzzcocks
The Clash
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Dave Edmunds
Peter Gabriel
Genesis
The Jam
Joy Division
Nick Lowe
Paul McCartney and The Wings
The Motors
Gary Neuman and The Tubeway Army
Graham Parker and The Rumours
Pink Floyd
The Rezillos
Rockpile
The Rumours
The Smirks
Squeeze

and of course bands that started in the 60's like
Led Zeppelin
The Rolling Stones
Traffic
Yes

UK turned out some great bands in the 80's too like
The Cure
Duran Duran
Def Leppard
The Fixx
New Order
The Psychedelic Furs
The Smiths

But it wasn't the same since the 70's. I know a lot of Bob Dylan and Lady Ga Ga fans are thinking "what are you talking about?" Music rules in the 60's/00's respectively, well that's just my opinion.

LOL. It's pretty straight up garage rock, I wouldn't call it noise. And for the record, based on your comments in another thread, I'm much more of an old person than you are, at least chronologically. ;)

Pretty much sums up my thoughts.

lots of old farts in this thread...

i was born in 78. perhaps this has something to do with the fact that i don't care for most music prior to about 1985. in fact, around half of my 150gb collection comes from the last decade. there is a tremendous amount of very good modern music out there.

modern jazz and funk, hip hop, trip hop, downbeat electronic, post rock... all infinitely better than the scream-in-your-ear uk garage punk garbage, or tripping balls love your neighbor 70s pop. and most especially that so called 'classic rock' which consists mostly of obnoxious chainsmokers grumbling about tequila and patriotism to the same guitar riffs over and over.

the variety of styles available today is absolutely astonishing. take some time and learn to appreciate something other than guitars with drums...

no The Mars Volta? :confused: