Where has the good music gone?

[The United City-States]

I think it is saddening that music has gone the way that it has gone. In the golden days, we had the Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, etc, etc. Today, it's Justin Beiber, Lil' Wayne, people like that. Is it just me, but has music REALLY gone downhill?

[Cosumar]

Dude if you really want good music you can search a bit deeper than the Top 40 charts, for crying out loud! Yeah most of the mainstream music today is lousy, but fantastic music has been, is, and always will be in abundant supply for those who look for it.

[Great Malema]

Yes it has. From about the late 1990's onwards, it crashed. There will be nothing like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, The Eagles etc ever again.

[Meryuma]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

[Tarahnuri]

I think that every generation has a ton of bad music. The music we remember from older times is good music that survived. The bad music died out.

Also, musical taste is incredibly subjective. The question "Where has the good music gone?" is almost irrelevant.

[Great Malema]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Yes, but they're not famous. The musicians who make the Top 40 these days are the trashy ones who sing about literally nothing and have appalling voices.

And what you just showed me, those groups in my opinion have nothing on The Doors, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple or whatever.

[Milks Empire]

I think that every generation has a ton of bad music. The music we remember from older times is good music that survived. The bad music died out.

Also, musical taste is incredibly subjective. The question "Where has the good music gone?" is almost irrelevant.

[Lancaster of Wessex]

It left at the close of the 18th century.

(In all seriousness...it's all a matter of taste, and as much as I dislike much of current "popular culture" and music, there's still gotta be some good stuff out there.)

[Northwest Slobovia]

I think that every generation has a ton of bad music. The music we remember from older times is good music that survived. The bad music died out.

Also, musical taste is incredibly subjective. The question "Where has the good music gone?" is almost irrelevant.

An unusually perceptive post. It's not hard to find examples of people lamenting the death of "good music" all the way back to the middle of the Baroque.

[United World Order]

Wheres Good music gone? Up Justin Beibers bum...

[Idealismania]

The 90's did have it's collection of terrible chart music though. There were all the boy bands plus Hanson and others. We just tend to forget about them. I agree there is some terrible crap on the charts today; it's very rare that I like anything on them, but there is some great music. It just takes a little more research to find. Amazon and youtube help a lot!

Not to self promote or troll or anything like that, but if you're looking for some music I look a lot up and list as my favorites on youtube. My profile there is endrake2 (I even had a conversation with someone there about NationStates lol). I have some rock, Indie, and club music listed as favorites that you might like but have never heard of.

[The Floridian Coast]

There was this great Cracked article which I can't find (I searched for it a few days ago to bring up in a similar thread here) that was basically like, the mainstream has always been bullshit, and then a thing like "Did you know that in the year Beatles/Zep/Floyd/some respectable classic band recorded their hit song "song name" the number one song on Billboard was not that song but *Some artist you've never heard of* with shitty lyrics like *shitty lyrics* Bop-shop-boo-bee-da-da.

[Olthar]

I think that every generation has a ton of bad music. The music we remember from older times is good music that survived. The bad music died out.

Also, musical taste is incredibly subjective. The question "Where has the good music gone?" is almost irrelevant.

I couldn't have said it better myself. This is all just deluded nostalgia goggles talking. Music from the 70s and 80s is not intrinsically better than the music from the 90s or 00s. It's just that all the shit was forgotten and buried in the sands of time. In another 20 years, when all the shit from now is forgotten, you'll all look back and see that there was, in fact, plenty of good stuff, too, and then you'll complain about how everything from 2030 is shit and that the music from the 00s was much better.

[Pauper Kings]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Tom Petty and the Eagles were pretty damn good. Alice Cooper was so-so.

[Northwest Slobovia]

It left at the close of the 18th century.

Bah. It lasted until 1913, when The Rite of Spring killed it.

as much as I dislike much of current "popular culture" and music, there's still gotta be some good stuff out there.

Sure. I mean, I could listen to Vivaldi all day, but I manage to find a little modern stuff worth listening to.

[Great Malema]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Tom Petty and the Eagles were pretty damn good. Alice Cooper was so-so.

Alice's ballads were so-so. However, all his rock stuff were damn good like No More Mr. Nice Guy, School's Out, Poison, Hey Stoopid etc etc.

[Lancaster of Wessex]

It left at the close of the 18th century.

Bah. It lasted until 1913, when The Rite of Spring killed it.

as much as I dislike much of current "popular culture" and music, there's still gotta be some good stuff out there.

Sure. I mean, I could listen to Vivaldi all day, but I manage to find a little modern stuff worth listening to.

Oh I know, me too. That's why when people query me about my favourite band, genre, etc., I give them vague answers, and pertaining to today's stuff, I answer more specifically, "I like certain songs, not certain bands."

[Pauper Kings]

Tom Petty and the Eagles were pretty damn good. Alice Cooper was so-so.

Alice's ballads were so-so. However, all his rock stuff were damn good like No More Mr. Nice Guy, School's Out, Poison, Hey Stoopid etc etc.

No More Mr. Nice Guy is good. He had one that was called Eighteen, I think, I've heard it and liked it.

[Meryuma]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Yes, but they're not famous. The musicians who make the Top 40 these days are the trashy ones who sing about literally nothing and have appalling voices.

And what you just showed me, those groups in my opinion have nothing on The Doors, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple or whatever.

Radiohead are famous, so are Modest Mouse.

Deep Purple weren't all that great. They weren't even original, ask Wied about it sometime.

Eric Clapton is overrated. Cream were pretty good but I've never heard a truly amazing song by him.

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Tom Petty and the Eagles were pretty damn good. Alice Cooper was so-so.

Tom Petty is uninteresting. The Eagles were sometimes annoying, sometimes good, and sometimes boring.

[Svobada]

Well, Bach died in 1750 Josquin in 1521, so methinks technically good music has been dead for quite some time. Schönberg was close, but no banana.

Unless you mean affectively good music, in which case we'll never have the likes of Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy or anything like that again. My personal favourite is Hacıbəyov, but he died in Azerbaijan's Soviet era.

Art music has no true venue. That's the problem. It was close under the feudal epoch, but everything that wasn't limited to religion was greatly at the mercy of their commisioner's tastes.


Contemporary music - especially popular music- is a commodity. It all sucks because it's cheapened to be bought and sold. Folk music has never truly been captured - the closest is, say, the Folkloric music of the Soviet Union, which itself was nightmare on own, and gave rise to the Fakeloric music of today.

Art music is relegated to the minds of the artists, unfortunately. So pretty much the only places you'll find good music is on those rare outposts of the Internet offering creative commons music. But even that's mostly corporatized to death and back. Everything hearable is really just bourgeoise Music anyways. So, failing that, well...


My suggestion? Write your own. Wikipedia's not the best, but it can educate you theoretically if you know what you're doing. My suggestion, get a music dictionary and go through articles chronologically. Then, using programs like Musescore and Hydrogen, along with the best of soundfonts, you'll create neat things. Shitty at first, but awesome later. If you learn yourself how to play, there's also plenty of programs like Audacity that can record your playing. With enough exposure, not only will you broaden your scope but you'll be able to fine tune your music to include the perfect blends of tonality, form, rhythm, or whatever for your feelings.

Course, that said, I fail to see how your artists are "good". There voices really are shitty too, it's just that now contemporary popular music has a better appreciation for recitative and Sprechgesang than early contemporary.

[Cameroi]

underground. where it always has been. the main stream has no taste and never will.
this is not to say the good don't every get popular, just that its the rare exception when they do.
this isn't a new or recent phenomonon either. pretty much how its always been.
and i don't just mean back to the renesance, (let alone the 60s, 40s whatever either) nor back the greek empire, i mean as long as anyone's been making anything resembling music at all.

[Idaho Conservatives]

Top 40 music from any decade is usually shit. There's always been talentless hacks, "boy-bands" (per se), vapid lyrics, sellouts, and so on. But as you've noticed, time acts as a great filter to screen that crap out.

[Floreria]

x

[Belvadaire]

faded away, just vanquished, then hells army music moved and never left.

[The REAL Glasers]

Oh look, it's Radiohead.

Plus, Alcest.

Wear headphones, it's GY!BE.

Also, Modest Mouse.

You were saying?

BTW, the Eagles, Tom Petty and Alice Cooper all weren't all that great. They're just seen that way because they're old rock musicians, basically, and a lot of current music is significantly better.

Yes, but they're not famous. The musicians who make the Top 40 these days are the trashy ones who sing about literally nothing and have appalling voices.

And what you just showed me, those groups in my opinion have nothing on The Doors, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple or whatever.

Oh, I get it, you're one of those guys that wants everything to sound like 70s Hard Rock and doesn't want music to progress at all.