Nobody's excluding Urban's post DJ, I agree with his statement as well.

Conversation is collaborative?

I didn't say that everyone is excluding his post.

Re-read what I wrote.

I was saying that all of the other posts fit the description of feeling nostalgic about a better time in their past hence they feel like the top 40 music was better except for Urban's post.

He didn't say that.

My mistake then, I took it that you were suggesting some might be living in the past without the realization between the difference of yesterdays (60, 70s, & 80s) music industry in comparative to that of the modern day.

Is it that there is stuff nowadays just as good as 60's-80's stuff, but it's just ceased to be commercial and thus a lot of people don't regularly hear it? Or, as the "4 chords" video suggests, the whole genre of pop music might have some practical limits, and "there's no where else to go," so musicians are increasingly straining to come up with something new and different (and, perhaps, largely failing)?

Alright, I just sampled at least a dozen tunes on the Billboard Hot 100.

1. Pretty much everything sounds like something(s) else I've heard somewhere else. Or, they sound like other songs on the Hot 100. Some of them sound OK, but there's little point in listening to them when they just sound like something that's already been around for 20 or 30 years.
2. It has its place, but generally speaking, highly electronicized music kills the soul of music. It sounds so sterile. When even country music singers are using Autotune, you know something's wrong! Imagine Johnny Cash singing Folsom Prison with Autotune, and I think you might get my point. Some New Age and similar music is very successful with heavy-duty electronics (Enya comes to mind), but for some reason it just seems to ruin a lot of what would otherwise be halfway decent stuff.
3. Related to #2, I'm beginning to wonder if it was the 80's (and maybe even disco) which spelled the death knell of popular music. Techno-music and dance music seems to lack passion. Imagine Carry On done electronically, and I guarantee you 80% of the passion/emotion in the song would be lost.

/rant

I'm glad that you have become a member here at MB. I personally think that you add very much thought and common sense to your posts and replies before making a statement.

Your statement makes me want to express a thought, that I believe there are a lot of new bands currently out of Texas, that are bringing/experimenting with a new style of progressive metal that is more orientated toward a mainstream sound and style. I look for a new revolution of popular/mainstream progressive metal to hit the music scene within the next two or three years like we've never seen or heard before in style and metal innovation. (hoping for the best) :)

There is a void in Metal that I believe these bands are just recently realizing, that there is now an opportunity to bring Metal to the masses in a big way like never before seen or done.

Being a fan of "comparisons" ;) I'm going to do one right here to illustrate my point.

2013 - this thing almost sounds like a caricature of country music, combined with a caricature of contemporary electronic/rap music (I suppose I'm not surprised they've got country/rap crossover these days). This is currently in the top 10. I could imagine this being a MUCH better song, 1) slowed down and sung with more passion, and 2) dump the electronics


1974 - all I can say is, the comparison is laughable! THIS is geniune! There is passion, feeling, with the melody being the most important part of the song, not the electronic effects.

BTW, "Faithless Love" above is a great example exhibiting lots of what I call "musical drama" which I rarely hear in modern songs.

- There are pauses after each line, leading the listener to anticipate the next line.
- There are brief instrumental bridges between each verse which, on a larger scale than the pauses mentioned above, again lead the listener to anticipate the next verse. Transitions make a song much more interesting.
- Gorgeous bridge ("Well I guess I'm staaaanding ..."). If all you do is verse-refrain-verse-refrain it gets boring after a while. Nothing breaks up a song better than a nice bridge. I suppose some songs still have bridges nowadays but I don't think the electronic/dance intent of so many songs these days lends itself to having an element which interrupts the flow of the song
- Long pauses after the bridge and refrains ("Faithless looooo-oove ... (PAUSE!) ... like a river flows").

Stuff like that. Make the listener wait, and anticipate. Lead them into the next part of the song, don't just deliver it right away. Imagine Faithless Love without all those pauses, without making the listener anticipate, and it would be a MUCH lesser song.

There is a huge flaw in your comparison. Faithless love wasn't a top 40 hit.

It's easy to just compare two songs to fit your argument without a proper control.

Faithless Love did make the Top 10 Country songs via Glen Campbell's 1984 rendition.

Unfortunately there were no country songs in the overall Top 10 of 1974.

Unless you count Olivia-Newton John and John Denver as country (kinda-sorta) the highest-ranking Top 40 song in 1974 that was a country tune was Charlie Rich's "The Most Beautiful Girl" - which I would still gladly pair up against Florida Georgia Line above.

At any rate I'd be glad to hear a recent country tune - well-known or not - which can even remotely compete with Faithless Love.