Watched the Grammys. Anyone else feel this?

Agree. Lacking depth. A couple bad words are sufficient these days.

I didn’t think the Kobe tributes were that great. I’m upset.. it’s the staples center!

sefgs wrote:

I watched the Grammys tonight. What I noticed, and this is true for most music the last two decades at least, is that the music seems like junk food. It sounds good with soaring vocals and such but there's no substance there like it was in the 80's, 70's 60's and before for that matter. I think the technology of today allows music to be created so easily that it's produced for quick listening. It doesn't stand the test of time like earlier music. Prior music had to be recorded in a studio and was very expensive so it had to be great. Right? Technology has done good things but it's also ruined music, as a whole. Does anyone else feel this way?

That's part of it. The fact that we are a throw-away society is part of it. Music executives since the 80s are part of it -- they want songs slated for hits to have I, IV, V, VI (ex. C, F, G, AM) chord structures (different order perhaps, but that's what they think people want).

If I never again hear that stupid Old Town Road song, it will be too soon.

Old people don’t understand the nuances of the song or tribal mentality of each genre .

They make all the songs sound the same because people like songs they’ve heard before.

They also digitally compress the dynamic range of songs to make them seem louder. This works and makes the songs seem louder, but it also takes out the depth of the songs.

It’s not your imagination songs today literally are worse, and they literally do all sound the same.

I'm a boomer too so agree with some of what you said, for a long time I stopped listening to music after the early 70s, it's natural to like music of the period you grew up in, will Millennials like the music of 2050?

Having said that, I'm really starting to enjoy contemporary music, it helps to know people of that generation and how the music reflects their period. Grew to like Courtney Barnett, love Billie Eilish, a more obscure artist (Fawn Segerson). Some of these are a little retro style, others rather cutting edge. Eilish is resetting the standard to a pretty high level, she is no Justin Beiber and is incredibly versatile.

You see a lot of contestants who are incredible on talent shows and then the work gets over produced, the rough edges filed away and all these embellishments are added.

Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, all terrible singers, Ringo was an average drummer. However they are extremely original in many ways, today a lot of the vocalists are technically great but the performances are formulaic. It's like there are a bunch of check boxes to fill:

Soaring vocals to demonstrate raw power

Vibrato to show your amazing control

Alternating between breathy lows and highs

Demonstrating your range

It's hard to figure out what is an honest performance, music in the 50's was manufactured as well with all the boy bands and boy crooners. Then in the 60's all the rules were broken, you didn't have to gyrate to get fans and it was much more focused on the music.

I remember hearing similar comments about music in 80s. 90s. 00s and 10s.

It might be hard for people above certain age to find the lyrics of Lorde, Alessia Cara or Billie Eilish (just to name a few examples) "relatable."

I am too young to remember most of the music criticism in 70s. but I know a bunch of homophobic guys got together in a baseball stadium to burn down many records because they thought disco music sucked so much.

sefgs wrote:

It sounds good with soaring vocals

No. There are no singers left, the art is nearly lost.

What passes for vocals now is autotuned and spans three notes. And it's mainly R & B! WTF? That genre completely cornholed itself within a decade.

Janis Joplin sounded like a drunk, screaming woman (she actually was) but the feeling was real. Demi Lovato has obviously talent but there's no feeling. That's the difference with modern pop music. I really don't think it can get any better than it was in the decades past. That's ok because there's a lot of it and can be listened to by anyone free of charge. Earlier today I listened to some The Who while I ran. Wow! What feeling. Todays music does not have that aspect.

It's all autotuned. Much of it is not close to real. Seeing people like Joplin or Bonnie Raitt when they were young would show the difference- ragged, but real.

Have you considered that you are old, narrow-minded, and out of touch?

I am not saying you are wrong, just offering something that you should consider about yourself.

IMO most music from the mid 70s to the late 80s was very annoying and bad. The rock and disco from that era (i.e. after the greats of the late 60s to early 70s) is significantly worse than music created now.

The Grammys aren't exactly a true reflection of modern music as a whole, only popular mainstream music. There has always been great music and bad music, most of the time the best and longest lasting music isn't the most popular at the time.

There was plenty of extremely bad pop in the 60s/70s/80s/90s. If you ever listen to radio which plays the charts from past eras a lot of the music is trash, but that stuff is forgotten about and people remember the classics.

greenliner wrote:

It's all autotuned. Much of it is not close to real. Seeing people like Joplin or Bonnie Raitt when they were young would show the difference- ragged, but real.

Don’t forget it’s all written by the same few guys as well, nowadays. So no wonder it lacks feeling

Pop music is, and always has been, a commodity. It makes perfect sense to produce this product as cheaply as possible, and now with modern recording techniques the only thing an entertainer needs is good looks. Can you name any ugly current pop stars?

Also, most music sucks anyway. The only reason music from earlier decades seems better is because you're only hearing the cream of the crop.

Adifan wrote:

The Grammys aren't exactly a true reflection of modern music as a whole, only popular mainstream music. There has always been great music and bad music, most of the time the best and longest lasting music isn't the most popular at the time.

There was plenty of extremely bad pop in the 60s/70s/80s/90s. If you ever listen to radio which plays the charts from past eras a lot of the music is trash, but that stuff is forgotten about and people remember the classics.

This. The one constant in music throughout the decades has been the presence of morons who hear radio pop and declare that "today's music sucks" on that basis.

There are 7.5 billion people in the world. I guess it's theoretically possible that there are simply no great musicians among those billions of people. It's also possible that the people declaring todays music to be terrible are just unaware of all the great music that is currently being made every damn day. The latter seems more likely to me.

And I guarantee that the musicians you revere from bygone decades by and large do not share your belief that today's music sucks. If you ask Paul McCartney what musicians from the past decade he really digs, I don't know what his answer would be, but I know it would NOT be "they all suck and no one is currently making good music. I tuned out in 2000 and no longer listen to anything new."

There has always been bad, manufactured poorly written music. It's just that time acts as a big filter so we only continue to hear the stuff that last (maybe because it was "good" maybe because it was catchy-but it lasts.)

As one example, you had the Archies in the 60's. How is that any worse than the boy band garbage, or K pop?

The Archies?! They were a cartoon band, bro. Plus who doesn't love "Sugar, Sugar"? No one will remember any boy band Kpop crap in 50 years.

Interesting psychology of all of this. I'm gen x and out of touch with today's music. I hate rap, so there's that.

Here's my take. As the decades pass, only the good stuff remains. We're not considering all of the total garbage music that was being produced in the 60s 70s 80s 90s. We only remember the cream, the best, which stands the test of time. I love 80s music, but there was a lot of 80s music that sucked. I'm not remembering that stuff.

I'm a huge fan of Zep and was listening to Zep in high school and college and beyond. But Zep was before my time back then. Same with the Doors, the Who, etc.

This is the true test. Will anyone be listening to songs 20 years from now that were created today? Which ones? Who?

Pop music of the 60s, 70s & 80s stands out because there was a lot of innovation going on. The Clash recorded "London Calling" in 1979. In the same year, you would have heard "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb and "YMCA" by the Village People on the radio just about every hour. If you look at the top 100 for years when bands like The Who, Led Zeppelin, etc. first made it, you will see how these groups blew people's minds just because they were so incredibly new. Today, everything is derivative and there is so little room to be innovative.

Also, the business is completely different. Back in the day, studio execs would invests millions in new bands. Producing an album was very expensive. Getting radio play was a huge deal. And lots of money was spent sending posters to record stores. The record sales had to be substantial to be able to pay back all the money invested. So, there was a big incentive to find the next big thing or the new sound that all the kids would go crazy over.

Today, producing an album is not cheap, but it costs a fraction of what it did in the pre-digital age. And it is possible for bands to self produce their own mass production ready albums. but thanks to digital streaming, the artists do not make any money off of a hit record anymore. The real revenues are in touring and commercializing the artist by getting your song on a Marvel comic movie soundtrack or used in a major ad campaign. Now, the game is really about making a product that is mass market ready instead of finding the next big thing. That is why so many pop artists sound so much alike.

I grew up listening to Prince and was from Minneapolis, which was the big music scene back in the day.

Usher's Prince mashup was painful to watch.