THE MUSIC IS GOING WRONG?

[Goias]

Also, in relation to the central idea that the mainstream is going crap:

Yeah, I have a few ideas I could add to that. First of all, the production of mainstream pop and rap is simply minimalist shit now. It's just synths and a drum machine, as if every pop producer ever decided to delude themselves into thinking the formulaic, synth-heavy 80s crap was actually good, and it only needed a massive dose of Kraftwerk at its most boring. Pop music production has basically regressed into single-digit IQ, content to churn out singles that are extraordinarily simplistic and repetitive. Hell, I hate 90% of pop as much as the next guy, but I have to admit that even in previous eras pop could boast good production values. Now, even that's gone. Can you imagine something like "Drop It Like It's Hot" (vocals + drums) being a hit single in previous decades? Hell no, it'd be laughed right out of the charts.

Secondly, Simon Reynolds absolutely hit the nail on the head with this column: thanks to various factors including the Internetz and the breakdown of the music industry, there is TOO MUCH music being released and listened to. We split into more and more niches that are isolated from each other and the mainstream shrinks accordingly. So, in a panic, the record labels decide to stop taking risks and only promote mainstream shittiness, which makes people hate the mainstream even more and it just becomes a vicious circle. Plus, the sheer quantity and quality of music makes great stuff even harder to find out.

The Smiths said it best:

Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life

[Brandenburg-Altmark]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

[Eirros]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

I look at all the lonely people. Pleased to meet you! Hope you guess my name.

[Eirros]

Really? Sorry, double post.

EDIT: Somehow, my posts were 7 minutes apart. How??

[Mephras]

Pop will be pop, it's not supposed to be super deep. Although are the Jonas Brothers that popular outside of tweens? I don't think they've had a number one single. And some pop acts do write and perform their own music, and almost all of them work quite hard. For example, people dis Lady Gaga all the time, but she has a decent voice, plays the piano, and writes many of her songs. Yes, she chooses to make catchy electropop, but so what? Who says electropop can't be a viable medium for expression, depth, or so called "good" music?

[Goias]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

[Wikipedia and Universe]

Wouldn't it be funny if all the teens who liked Jonas Bros, Cyrus, Efron, Twilight, and all that trash were forced to listen to a different kind of trash?

[Brandenburg-Altmark]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

[Revoltaire]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

[Brandenburg-Altmark]

I don't listen to any "pop" music, though.

[Urzamalandi]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Talk about generalizing... There's some truely exceptional music coming out still, just rarely in the Top 40.

[The Kropotkinite Union]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Bullshit. There is SO much more good experimental and indie/underground music being made now than there was then!

[Eirros]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Horrible musicianship? Dude, you have no understanding of music. And you're probably thinking of the Beatles immediately after walking off the boat.

Bullshit. There is SO much more good experimental and indie/underground music being made now than there was then!

That's also because there were less band back then. And less genres of music. It's like comparing the number of gun related deaths now and back to 1436.

[Czardas]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

A few of their songs are. The vast majority are more or less indistinguishable from the rest of the songs of their era -- and this era, too, apart from some minor modifications in sound, instrumentation, and the subdivision of the 4/4 beat by the backing percussion.

Also, I'd assume that the best music coming out right now is all experimental or independent, simply because there's no longer really a "classical" tradition to speak of and the popular tradition is overdue for a modernist revolution.

[Maurepas]

Mainstream music from any decade of the last century sucked. What many people now consider the best artists of the last century didn't even top the charts at the time. Hell, Pet Sounds only charted at number 10 in the US.

Uh, Beatlemania? The Rolling Stones? Led Zep's string of #1 albums? Radiohead managing to get Kid A to #1 (possibly the weirdest, most paranoid and creepy/scary album to ever get to #1 in the USA and UK)?

But only Led Zeppelin is any good out of all of those.

You fail music forever, you kicking squealing gucci little piggy.

lol, have fun listening to the world's first boy band with it's impersonal songwriting and horrible musicianship, you beatles fanboy.

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

A few of their songs are. The vast majority are more or less indistinguishable from the rest of the songs of their era -- and this era, too, apart from some minor modifications in sound, instrumentation, and the subdivision of the 4/4 beat by the backing percussion.

Also, I'd assume that the best music coming out right now is all experimental or independent, simply because there's no longer really a "classical" tradition to speak of and the popular tradition is overdue for a modernist revolution.

I have to agree, a few Beatles songs are generally good like "Come Together" and "Revolution", but too many seem to consist of the generic 60's,"Yellow Submarine" style sound which is just utterly boring to me...

[Goias]

I have to agree, a few Beatles songs are generally good like "Come Together" and "Revolution", but too many seem to consist of the generic 60's,"Yellow Submarine" style sound which is just utterly boring to me...

Now, see, this is how one disagrees on the subject of the Beatles quality. NOT by going around and calling them a boyband, thus showing lack of musical intelligence...

[Rejistania]

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Nah! The Beatles had some really bad songs and mostly were only reworking stereotypes (mostly The Power of Love). I would love to see how music developed without them, since they are overhyped and underquality. Comparing them to The Headroom Project or the TenGooz is like comparing a 4 year old to Da Vinci.

The Beatles had only a few songs which did not have lyrics full of naive or stupid things which made me always wonder if they realized what they sung. The Rolling Stones had Ruby Tuesday, which is one of the most meaningfull songs to me, the Beatles had Yellow Submarine and the horrible gender stereotypes in All the lonely people.

[Revoltaire]

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Nah! The Beatles had some really bad songs and mostly were only reworking stereotypes (mostly The Power of Love). I would love to see how music developed without them, since they are overhyped and underquality. Comparing them to The Headroom Project or the TenGooz is like comparing a 4 year old to Da Vinci.

The Beatles had only a few songs which did not have lyrics full of naive or stupid things which made me always wonder if they realized what they sung. The Rolling Stones had Ruby Tuesday, which is one of the most meaningfull songs to me, the Beatles had Yellow Submarine and the horrible gender stereotypes in All the lonely people.

Without the Beatles music as you know it today would not exist, most likely. They are the bridge between the Rock & Roll of the 50's and early 60's and almost all Rock music after 1965. They also pioneered the concept of Album Oriented Rock with Sgt. Pepper's. Without the Beatles any band that you mention would simply not exist.

And the love song is the basic and most essential aspect of popular music - it goes back to the 10's and 20's with the earliest recorded records. It goes back to almost every folk song and ballad before that. Without the love song, almost any musical genius of the past century that you can name would have been nothing. Call it a stereotype if you want, but its a damn important one, as far as popular music goes.

Focusing on songs like Yellow Submarine is a mistake and doesn't really represent the full body of their work. Sure they had childish and naive songs like that. But they also have songs like Revolution, All You Need is Love, Strawberry Fields, and pretty much all of Abbey Road. Its easy to characterize them as the same old stuff, but only if you focus on their early hits. They quickly grew out of that phase.

[Czardas]

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Nah! The Beatles had some really bad songs and mostly were only reworking stereotypes (mostly The Power of Love). I would love to see how music developed without them, since they are overhyped and underquality. Comparing them to The Headroom Project or the TenGooz is like comparing a 4 year old to Da Vinci. :twisted:

The Beatles had only a few songs which did not have lyrics full of naive or stupid things which made me always wonder if they realized what they sung. The Rolling Stones had Ruby Tuesday, which is one of the most meaningfull songs to me, the Beatles had Yellow Submarine and the horrible gender stereotypes in All the lonely people. :roll:

Without the Beatles music as you know it today would not exist, most likely. They are the bridge between the Rock & Roll of the 50's and early 60's and almost all Rock music after 1965. They also pioneered the concept of Album Oriented Rock with Sgt. Pepper's. Without the Beatles any band that you mention would simply not exist.

.... Not really. The Beatles were just capitalizing on recent trends in American popular music, and were successful at first mainly due to marketing. They were basically a "boy band" at first -- consider their first American tours, when they were all in their early 20s or so, appealed mainly to an audience of teenage girls, performed songs that were basically fluff ("arranged" by their producer, since none of them could actually read music). Stuff like Sgt Pepper's (which is itself not a particularly great album, although it opened up the concept of album-oriented rock for later bands to follow) only came about due to their increasing interest in and awareness of the experimental classical music of the time. That's why the Beatles are the only band to make it into histories of classical music; their influence on it was fairly important. Still, they were far from the only band to do so; only the most famous one. Without the Beatles, the blurring of lines still would've happened simply because there was a societal trend towards that kind of integration already.

And the love song is the basic and most essential aspect of popular music - it goes back to the 10's and 20's with the earliest recorded records. It goes back to almost every folk song and ballad before that. Without the love song, almost any musical genius of the past century that you can name would have been nothing. Call it a stereotype if you want, but its a damn important one, as far as popular music goes.

Focusing on songs like Yellow Submarine is a mistake and doesn't really represent the full body of their work. Sure they had childish and naive songs like that. But they also have songs like Revolution, All You Need is Love, Strawberry Fields, and pretty much all of Abbey Road. Its easy to characterize them as the same old stuff, but only if you focus on their early hits. They quickly grew out of that phase.

Not really. Think about it; it's only their last few albums, and moreover, only a few songs on each of those albums (or even simply the basic concept of that particular album), that actually have that kind of influence. A sufficiently major one that it's often overstated, obviously, but those few songs make up a very small minority of their total output, and weren't necessarily among their most popular ones either.

[Tauntoga]

It's why I stick mostly to classic rock and other such material from the 60's and 70's, sometimes up untill the 80's but that falls apart for me.

Although I have dabbled a bit in artists not in the public eyes. Although well known or famous in their respective genres they're not bands or artists you'll hear about on MTV or a news station like CNN, Fox, ABC, or so on. It gives me some kind of satisfaction that I don't listen to the Disney sponsered artists or Lady Gaga.

[Moss Mountain]

Pop music has always been terrible. It's just become much more obvious because non-mainstream music is much more accessible. But even bands like the Beatles were pretty garbage (IMO).

However, I would much rather listen to Lady GaGa than the cookie cutter metal and scene bands around today.

[The Kropotkinite Union]

Even if this is true (I don't feel like arguing on this one right now) the Beatles are stil 10000% better than anything thats coming out today

Nah! The Beatles had some really bad songs and mostly were only reworking stereotypes (mostly The Power of Love). I would love to see how music developed without them, since they are overhyped and underquality. Comparing them to The Headroom Project or the TenGooz is like comparing a 4 year old to Da Vinci.

The Beatles had only a few songs which did not have lyrics full of naive or stupid things which made me always wonder if they realized what they sung. The Rolling Stones had Ruby Tuesday, which is one of the most meaningfull songs to me, the Beatles had Yellow Submarine and the horrible gender stereotypes in All the lonely people.

Without the Beatles music as you know it today would not exist, most likely. They are the bridge between the Rock & Roll of the 50's and early 60's and almost all Rock music after 1965. They also pioneered the concept of Album Oriented Rock with Sgt. Pepper's. Without the Beatles any band that you mention would simply not exist.

And the love song is the basic and most essential aspect of popular music - it goes back to the 10's and 20's with the earliest recorded records. It goes back to almost every folk song and ballad before that. Without the love song, almost any musical genius of the past century that you can name would have been nothing. Call it a stereotype if you want, but its a damn important one, as far as popular music goes.

Focusing on songs like Yellow Submarine is a mistake and doesn't really represent the full body of their work. Sure they had childish and naive songs like that. But they also have songs like Revolution, All You Need is Love, Strawberry Fields, and pretty much all of Abbey Road. Its easy to characterize them as the same old stuff, but only if you focus on their early hits. They quickly grew out of that phase.

The Beatles rode a number of trends and propelled many of them further than they would have gone otherwise, but they hardly invented any of the genres they produced music in. I think that it's a bit overstating things to say that the Beatles shaped music as we know it today. Same goes for most other supposedly legendary or pivotal rock bands, really, although Led Zep did actually invent a number of important musical techniques. The Who... well, they invented swinging one's arm in a circle.

My point is that sea changes in music are a social phenomenon that happens by cumulative stylistic changes from band to band, and are rarely really the result of one legendary band taking a new direction or trying something experimental. The truly experimental bands - such as Suicide, the legendary minimal synth duo who were the first band to call themselves "punk," way back in 1971 - are rarely paid any attention to by anyone but musicians and serious music collectors, and they never make it really big.

[Former Principalities]

At least the mainstream music its full of rap and pop, and a lot of fags like the Jonas Brothers, i simply hate the mainstream music of today.
what is your position on this topic?

To put it simply, I agree.

[Eradium]

The only 'mainstream' music I listen to is La Roux, but I'm not sure how known the duo are stateside (I don't tend to like much British music really). Most of the music I like comes out of the Vancouver 'indie/folk/rock' scene, but then again I like a lot of types of music (not much fussed about metal, it's alright and I can enjoy it while listening in mild bemusement, I just don't choose listen to it really. I quite like Motorhead, but they're hard rock and I'll happily listen to Metallica for a little while).

I also listen to a fair bit of classical, Jazz, a lot of the popular music from the 1920-50s as well as the stuff my parents brought me up with like the Who, Joan Baez (who I saw in concert recently) and, of course, Leonard Cohen. Who will remain my favourite alongside the more modern Tegan and Sara (who I gather are also massive LC fans, hell, they made their last album in tribute to him).

[Goias]

Well, I'm glad to see the thread's gotten back on track after the jack back there over whether the Beatles are good or not.