Is Music Today Better or Worse Than Ever ?

theres always been crappy music about, but there seems to be less of the really great stuff today than ever before. and the shit sounds even worse than before.

I voted that it's the same. There's more good music overall now, but exponentially less per capita.

One of the main problems is that the apprenticeship/patron system has gone away. We don't have new Renaissance-level painters for the same reason we don't have any new bands on par with The Who, Beatles, or Black Sabbath.

Labels used to take these 18 year old kids and work them and pay them (and rob them) and fly them around the world. You get a lot better when making music is your job than you can when you're forced to squeeze it in between the cracks of holding down a separate job and practicing on the weekends... which is what 99% of bands these days have to do.

I think it's worse than it has ever been since the late 50s, but contemporary music still has that indefinable patina of freshness that makes me much prefer listening to almost-great 2007 songs to listening to great 1997/1987/1977 songs. Curiously enough, the exact opposite is true for films.

I think it's worse than it has ever been since the late 50s

*dismay*

"Labels used to take these 18 year old kids and work them and pay them (and rob them) and fly them around the world. You get a lot better when making music is your job than you can when you're forced to squeeze it in between the cracks of holding down a separate job and practicing on the weekends... which is what 99% of bands these days have to do.

-- Nate Carson"

i think that is exactly wrong. most bands don't get better as they go on, they get worse. it is their early records when they made music because they had the drive to do it that were the best. once they got paid for it, the quality almost always went down. this doesnt necessarily apply to jazz musicians, but in the rock world especially you can count the number of bands who get better as they go on quite easily.

pipecock you are a quartermaster of the highest order. mark my words, most bands get better before they get worse.

most bands with any real musical integrity, that is. bands who continually seek their own betterment. great bands. bands i like.

i think that is exactly wrong. most bands don't get better as they go on, they get worse. it is their early records when they made music because they had the drive to do it that were the best. once they got paid for it, the quality almost always went down. this doesnt necessarily apply to jazz musicians, but in the rock world especially you can count the number of bands who get better as they go on quite easily.

There's loads of never-bettered debut albums, but this is horseshit. I can think of five acts easily that improved with age, and it's all related to how much more skilled they got at recording and playing.

The point is not how good an artist's 7th album is. The point is that the Beatles and Sabbath were honing their skills in Hamburg for ten hours a day, seven nights a week, on tons of uppers.

Nobody gets to do that sort of apprenticeship anymore.

And both of those bands (arguably with Sabbath, inarguably with the Beatles) got better with age.

it was "better" when bands like Sabbath put out albums with six to eight new songs on them. Nobody has 80 minutes in them. Ot at least I don't have the patience for it.

Music was better last Tuesday. It always sucks on Monday. Weird rule.

the beatles definitely got better with time. radiohead is another one.

maybe it is solo artists who do actually get better, bob marley is one, miles davis and herbie hancock as well, stevie wonder.....

actual "bands" tend to get worse. the recording and skill level doesnt really mean shit to me in terms of the overall quality of the final product. if you release good music it doesnt matter how good the playing or recording are. if you release crap, the same applies.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"actual "bands" tend to get worse. the recording and skill level doesnt really mean shit to me in terms of the overall quality of the final product. if you release good music it doesnt matter how good the playing or recording are. if you release crap, the same applies."

Are you implying that bands get technically better, but their songcraft diminishes?

Obviously most bands don't improve beyond a point. But songwriting does develop/evolve too...

"Are you implying that bands get technically better, but their songcraft diminishes?

Obviously most bands don't improve beyond a point. But songwriting does develop/evolve too...

-- Nate Carson"

i feel like maybe when people have too much time to spend on nothing but writing songs (as would happen after a suddenly successful first album after years of toiling in brokeness/obscurity), they tend to overdo it to try to match previous efforts. same with the production values and even their instrumental ability. take Green Day for example, i dont think anyone would dispute that their songs are currently way more complex, well produced, and well played than their Lookout! stuff, but can you really say that the new material is better? i wouldn't. they are an extreme example, but a version of that same kind of trajectory seems to happen to almost everyone.

I would be curious to know what the people who voted "Better than ever" are listening to.

pipecock, you are oversimplifying things and making crass generalizations

It probably has been at least five or six years since I thought anything new that came out was fantastically, unabashedly great, up there with my favorite music, etc. That time also coincides with how long I've been out of college though.

"pipecock, you are oversimplifying things and making crass generalizations

-- Bo Jackson Overdrive"

if you say so.

"It probably has been at least five or six years since I thought anything new that came out was fantastically, unabashedly great, up there with my favorite music, etc. That time also coincides with how long I've been out of college though.

-- Hurting 2"

i had an album like that just last year, J Dilla "Donuts". in terms of singles, one of my favorite house/techno songs of all time came out this year Kevin Reynolds "Anonymous Room.....". it seems like a personal favorite comes out for me every couple years, which is about par for the course. not many tracks from the past reached those heights, either.

if you say so.

-- pipecock, Tuesday, November 27, 2007 10:47 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

there are few bands that I listen to in which their debut album is my favorite. There are some, sure, but that's a rarity...most of them have a quality 'arc'. But to posit that the majority of bands steadily get worse as they get older...I just don't get what you're basing that on.

"there are few bands that I listen to in which their debut album is my favorite. There are some, sure, but that's a rarity...most of them have a quality 'arc'. But to posit that the majority of bands steadily get worse as they get older...I just don't get what you're basing that on.

-- Bo Jackson Overdrive"

it doesnt even have to be the very first one, but at least the first two. i can honestly think of so few bands that dont peak in there. its impossible to start namomg them as its literally almost every band i can think of.

Here are some:

Metallica (peaked on Master, imo, their third album)
Slayer (peaked on Reign, imo, their third album)
Pain of Salvation (peaked on A Perfect element, imo, their third album)
Bad Religion (peaked on their third album, No Control, or maybe arguably 4th, Against the Grain)
Immolation (peaked on their 4th, imo, Close to a World Below)
Faith No More (peaked on Angel Dust, which was their 4th I believe)
Iron Maiden (my favorite is Powerslave which was their 5th or 6th I think)
Death (probably Individual Thought Patterns is my favorite. isn't within first two)
Led Zeppelin (I buck trends and pick Houses of the Holy)

I could go on....

It seems to me that pipecock is, quite simply, just a little (too?) in thrall with the mythos and romance of the 'indie band', that starts out pure and passionate and slowly gets jaded and cynical. In the case of a lot of (a certain type of) indie bands, this is true. In the case of almost every other kind of musician in existence, it isn't. When I was 18 I thought everyone's debut album was great and everything else tailed off afterwards; at 28 I've got much broader horizons and believe tat to be horseshit.

"Is today's music better or worse than Ezra?"

That's what I thought the thread title said at first...

I have a tendency to like first albums a lot too. But it usually has to do with personal taste more than objective quality or craft. A band's "best" record, and my "favorite" is quite often different.

NO SUCH THING AS OBJECTIVITY.

I generally like the first record I hear by a band/artist most, whether that be their first or their tenth.

I have heard 55 albums (and counting) with a 2007 release date that would have been good enough to make my year-end Top Twenty ten (or even twenty) years ago. That said, I agree with electricsound: "there is more good music but less amazing music".

Is that because, as 'experienced' or 'seasoned' or whatever listeners, we are less prone to being 'amazed' by music now than we were when we were younger?

^^this is probably more accurate

it's like computer games

I'm pretty certain I'm never going to listen to Andorra by Caribou with anywhere near the freakout frequency that I listened to The Stone Roses' debut album a dozen years ago, but I'm also pretty sure that, right now, if I were to play them back-to-back, I might prefer Andorra.

x-post; I never tire of the amazement when I score a great Pro Evo goal.

I never tire of the amazement when I score a great Pro Evo goal.

well i haven't seen you play but i'm sure you're not that bad at it.

xpost re getting older: Partly that, partly the continued absence of a damned good generational paradigm shift, but I'm of a generation that would say that, wouldn't I...

Is that because, as 'experienced' or 'seasoned' or whatever listeners, we are less prone to being 'amazed' by music now than we were when we were younger?

i'm sure it's that way for some, but i don't think that's necessarily always the case. although i do think for experienced listeners you do get to a point where you have heard "everything" in one sense or another.

Obviously most bands don't improve beyond a point. But songwriting does develop/evolve too...

My impression is rather the opposite. A band's playing usually gets better and better (the vocals may go the other way after a certain age is reached though). The songs, however, tend to be better early on and then gradually the good song ideas that used to exist in that band's songwriters heads have already been used.

"My impression is rather the opposite. A band's playing usually gets better and better (the vocals may go the other way after a certain age is reached though). The songs, however, tend to be better early on and then gradually the good song ideas that used to exist in that band's songwriters heads have already been used.

-- Geir Hongro"

haha, its funny that after people have compared me to you that we actually agree on something!

hey clown, where did you come from?

The songs, however, tend to be better early on and then gradually the good song ideas that used to exist in that band's songwriters heads have already been used.

This is the rationale for drilling for song ideas in the Alaskan Wetlands.

Exxon Valdez = RHCP

Braer = Dave Matthews Band

Sea Empress = Coldplay

sadly, worse

sadly

tragically

heart-rendingly

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40762000/jpg/_40762884_beslancrowd_ap203b.jpg

music fans, earlier today

music is sadder than it used to be

http://www.guyana.org/features/Funeral-6.jpg

can't believe music today is worse than it used to be, just when so many young forward-thinking fans were hoping to get into it

Chemist is underrated cos it's 3 20-minute tracks, but it's awesome.

Had a banging headache last night so lay down and listened to Aether very quietly.

cheers, i've never heard em

It seems quite amusing that the 20 minute mark of the tracks on Chemist is relatively their collection of short tunes, but that is what they do.

I love sides A (Athenaeum) and C (Quay) of the Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab live set more than any of their studio works.