Post a controversial music opinion

I think “dated” is by definition pejorative

It strongly implies “out of fashion”, whereas “timeless” (it could have been made today/its sound is still in fashion) or “classic” (it evokes positive associations of a specific era) do not

i think all music can sound dated or not depending on the time, how it strikes you....also like i dunno what's more dated sounding than the byrds, which i was just listening to and loving, you practically see super 8 home movies on command when you hear it

i could totally see a new jack swing revival, everything comes back around, but i think it's a little bit, how to put it...four on the four pumping...maybe for kids who were raised on post-atlanta trap stuff with super hi hat and kick/snare syncopation with more gauzy textures over the time like post metro boomin stuff or whatever (generalizing here) like an extreme example would be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5GqbCtxbM

vs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avFq9errZCk

I could see how to someone raised on the former how this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n9HhmX36Gk

might hit better than the janet song

not trying to make value judgments about what's best just get at how maybe a younger listener might find it harder to listen to

shit raised on the latter, i hate when i fuck that up

also like i dunno what's more dated sounding than the byrd

This is the point I raise often to piss people off. A certain Rickenbacker sound from 1965 is never dated but syndrums always are.

...but that doesn't stop me from loving "Feels Like I'm In Love by Kelly Marie. Pew! Pew!

Every decade has it's dated shit, but the '80s always get hit hardest.

the best music i've heard in the last month is also the most dated. got The Equalizer dvd boxed set and all that stewart copeland shit is so 80s you can almost figure out the WEEK he recorded it but man do i love it a lot. (you might know the theme but the incidental stuff is where its at.)

It's the tyranny of that overly loud gated THWOCK that puts people off Jam & Lewis/new jack swing, I reckon. Gated is dated!

I think there is a wide semantic difference between “dated” and “of an era”

i'm more interested in how rhythmic language changes over time, like why it might not hit for people used to a certain rhythmic language, not really value judgment either way...i mean i love the classic post run-dmc def jam stark drum machine sound but it's probably kind of primitive to someone who wasn't raised on it

like kids raised on post trap stuff are used to way more complex rhythms than a lot of stuff i was raised on

Every decade has it's dated shit, but the '80s always get hit hardest.

This is because the parameters of The Discourse were set by Sixties People. Reject the aesthetics of the retirement home!

A certain Rickenbacker sound from 1965 is never dated but syndrums always are.

True, McGuinn barely played 12-string on the Byrds 1973 reunion album.

I think there is a wide semantic difference between “dated” and “of an era”

― the new drip king (DJP),

Surely this sound was dated in 1976

Just in time for both Tom Petty and The Jam to bring it back into style!

all those 70s powerpoppers kept playing them.

...and wondering why they weren't getting played on the radio like they would have in 1965.

then the syndrums came

Every decade has it's dated shit, but the '80s always get hit hardest.

This is because the parameters of The Discourse were set by Sixties People. Reject the aesthetics of the retirement home!

There's a technological reason too, I think. The eighties got the flood of affordable digital gadgets, and it took a while to sort out how to use them most effectively. And 70s records are the zenith of electrical analog recording, a culmination of engineering starting forty years before, with multitrack recording finally accessible down the food chain. So the 80s are kinda like the 20/30s, you give the recordings a bit of leeway sometimes, and the tone can sound comical to those who haven't acclimatized.

Pour one out for the 80s - maybe some day that sound will come back.

"...and wondering why they weren't getting played on the radio like they would have in 1965."

they were played on the radio a lot in the u.s. badfinger, raspberries, tons of bands. all the way to the knack. and just in time for the 80s and an entire decade of people who wanted to sound like the byrds.

Big Star certainly weren't, and I always had the impression that both Badfinger and the Raspberries were regarded as commercial disappointments. By the time of "American Girl", though, the sound was coming in-vogue again.

badfinger were huge. not every power pop band is big star. abba were not big star. but they were big. stars.

Anyway, my point is just to counter the idea that rock fans never considered any kind, style or sound of rock dated.

i refuse to go along with this revisionism that says that people weren't successful in the 70s by ripping off the beatles just because big star were on a label with no money. people totally were. you should talk to Bread about all the fat checks they cashed in the 70s.

(i mean i don't know what guitars everyone used in the 70s but glam rock alone...The Sweet were a massively successful power pop band who were in love with the beatles. most glam is just beatles with funnier shoes.)

(and when i say beatles i do kinda mean the byrds by extension. byrds by proxy? you know what i mean...)

DJP's taxonomy of classic/timeless/dated is absolutely spot-on, and clarifies a murky realm.

I am henceforth incorporating this taxonomy into my brain. If I ever use this in public I will try to ensure proper credit.

Fwiw I deeply love some music that is unambiguously dated. As dated as a neon-colored cotton Forenza sweater over acid-washed jeans. Or a Yamaha DX7. I regret nothing.

Interesting convo as I listened to Rhythm Nation for the first time since I was a kid just the other day. I was actually struck by how fresh & banging it sounds in 2023 (well, not the ballads), like it reminded me more of Bomb Squad or something than I was expecting.

I'm not going to speculate about what the kids are into these days, but I could see that sound coming back but maybe more in the form of like a Stereolab/Broadcast (meaning how they treated "dated" 60s sounds) spin on it? Like I'd be surprised to hear it in mainstream pop, but I wouldn't be surprised if more leftfield artists did something with it. It's an exhilarating sound even with the archaic tech.

That said, I think the lyrics on RN might be a sticking point for any kind of revival, more than the sound even

I do think the question of why some styles come back and others don't is interesting. I don't think it's about quality or about feeling more clearly "of their time" at all, in fact the retroness/datedness is so often part of the reason ppl get into them. And going by the usual revival cycles New Jack Swing's moment would have been like ten years ago, it's weird that it didn't happen. All the iconic 80's styles were already being very heavily revived in the 00's after all. So ums' speculations about ppl's rhythmic language skills are interesting to me.

the younger you are, the less baggage/nostalgia you have when it comes to 80s sounds or any decades sounds obviously. i mean it feels like we are on our 3rd or 4th generation of people who are looting the 90s and 80s and they all find something in those times that are not what we might find to use. us old folks.

I lack the technical knowledge to describe this but I think there's a very identifiable compression and clipping you hear in a lot of 80's digital drums and synths, same sort of thing that makes NES/SNES/Genesis VGM sound so unique. but yea "Rhythm Nation" very much the exception, though it's very much of its era I think the sound is incredible and real dynamic.

and the sound *has* come back, if not necessarily in the pop realm. its cool how many very identifiably 80's sounding productions - particularly those from the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono - suddenly sound very modern again

badfinger were huge. not every power pop band is big star. abba were not big star. but they were big. stars.

Funny you should mention ABBA and Rickenbackers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnm6d9vd7sg

I always think of New Jack Swing as a 90's sound tho I realise it bridges the two decades. Realise my post makes no sense if you think of it as an 80's thing.

i feel like Boyz II Men helped usher the clanky nujak of 80s janet into the 90s. dallas austin? and whoever did Funky Divas. i am terrible when it comes to remembering who did what in nujak land. i just listen to it. i listened to the first Shai album the other day! there are some really pretty ballads on that album.

no that makes sense imo, not everything stops on a dime when a decade turns

(i'm more of a so so def kinda person when it comes to that era. throw a little bass into my battle jeep r&b. make mine Dupri. Totally Krossed Out holds up WAY more than you might think!)

kpop has had a pretty permanent new jack swing revival in the background, it's never been the dominant trend but it's a major influence in general and more explicitly revivalist stuff pops up regularly enough

in western pop all i can really think of though in the past decade is bruno mars' "finesse"

just need mariah and beyonce and janet to start a nujak supergroup. i feel like whenever i hear a beyonce song it always has one foot in that early 90s world of mariah and tribal house and generic eurodisco. but not a lot of clanking or abandoned factory jackhammer beats. that i can remember. obviously marching band trap is a nod to the cacophony of any L.A. and Babyface remix from 1993. they could get those guys to produce. or even better get Bell Biv & Devoe to produce. i still play my BBD remix CD. it's so fucking loud. get hype williams to do a steampunk motorboat chase video and voila you are breaking worldwide tour records for the next 5 years.

I don't consider Rhythm Nation 1814 new jack at all.

its the song "rhythm nation" itself that serves as a bridge to future nujack luminaries. i could play "rhythm nation" into "humpin around" into paula abdul's "rock house" down at the club and nobody would blink.

not that i would. or maybe i would...

i just really want to have a freestyle night. thinking about asking the local club if i can do it.

scott seward I would happily listen to your proposed supergroup

I don't consider Rhythm Nation 1814 new jack at all.

It 100% is and it’s wildly revisionist to say it isn’t

the song or the album? the song definitely is, though as mentioned it's held up way better than most of the New Jack Swing of the era. the album itself not so much if I remember

OK, I'll clarify. The album's NJ-adjacent but it's moving too fast and too densely arranged for Guy, Keith Sweat, etc. DJP, you and I on previous threads have said RN and, say, Meat Beat Manifesto have more in common. Let's say it's NJ-adjacent industrial.

that's definitely something that someone could type on the computer if they wanted to

The Rhythm Nation album was New Jack Swing refracted through the Minneapolis Sound. My comparisons to industrial are more about the sonic similarities of the outputs than attempting to give them a common lineage, basically my lifelong crusade to identify the through lines in the music that I like from varying disparate sources.

Giving rise to ever-more-novel hyphenates.