Lets talk about Music, was it better back then?

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Some Facebook discussion made me do this thread ... god.

Being in discussion with some fella who said "they dont make music like they used to" while posting a Johnny Cash video.

Let me just say, im huge fan of Cash and the 60's(Stones, beatles etc) But however i do think they make some awesome music now and we still have great artists.

Problem is people only remember the awesome bands from the 60, 70, 80 and 90s, but there was alot of crap in between too.

40 years from now we'll only remember the great bands from now ... right?

So people, was music just so much better back then?
 
The only way I can describe it, without writing a boring thirty-paragraph post, is that music back then was more innocent. There wasn't a need for a musician to prove themselves. It was more from the heart.
 
The Complaint:

"Two words: 'Justin Bieber.' Turn on a classic rock station and you can listen for hours without hearing one bad song. Now turn on a Top 40 station and try not to gouge out your ears. Today's music is just a bland product mass-produced by corporations. Don't take my word for it -- ask any music critic. They'll tell you the stuff that sells today is generic garbage. Not the music back in the day, like Zeppelin, Elvis, The Beatles, Pink Floyd ... bands like that would never top the charts today."

The Reality:

There are two things that skew our cultural memory on things like music.

OK, three.

First of all, you have the fact that the crap from previous eras gets forgotten, leaving only the great stuff behind. Those songs on classic rock stations are obviously cherry-picked as the best and most indicative of an entire era; it's not a random sampling of all the music available at the time. Modern rock or pop stations, on the other hand, have to play whatever's come out in the past six months or so.

So there is a filter applied to the old stuff. Even most of the music in Mozart's day was bullshit. And because it was bullshit, nobody felt the need to keep copies. And what was preserved isn't played today. Because it's bullshit. So it's easy to look back at Mozart's era (or the 1960s, or whatever) and assume that because only the classics survive in our memory, everything made back then was a classic.

The other problem is we assume that what gets remembered over time is whatever was the most popular. Not true.

For instance, what survives from the Vietnam era (thanks mostly to Vietnam movies) are songs like the badass protest song "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. Both were released in 1969, after the war started going bad.

Now look at the Billboard year-end singles charts from 1946 to today. The top song in 1969? "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies. Let us quote the entire lyrics of that song:

Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you
(I just can't believe it's true)
I just can't believe the one to love this feeling to.
(I just can't believe it's true)
Ah sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Ah honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
When I kissed you, girl, I knew how sweet a kiss could be
(I know how sweet a kiss can be)
Like the summer sunshine pour your sweetness over me
(Pour your sweetness over me)
Sugar, pour a little sugar on it honey,
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it oh yeah
Pour a little sugar on it honey,
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it honey,
Ah sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Oh honey, honey, sugar sugar ..
You are my candy girl .

"Fortunate Son" got no higher than No. 14 on the charts. "Gimme Shelter"? It was never released as a single at all.

Go ahead, look down the list. There is some great music on there, but it's mixed in with a lot of stuff you've probably never even heard of. And do you know what you don't see on there? Queen, Led Zeppelin and a lot of other great musicians. Groups that are well-remembered now, when classic rock radio stations wouldn't be caught dead playing some of the shit that outsold them. Even Elvis and The Beatles are only on there twice, tying for the most No. 1 year-end singles with none other than George Michael.

And that's not even considering that, thanks to the Internet, we have far more access to all kinds of niche music genres and independent artists that we'd have never heard in the past.

And as for the critics, you have to keep in mind that there will always, always be critics who hate whatever the latest trend is. Rock music as a whole was blasted pretty harshly when it first got popular. Melody Maker called it "one of the most terrifying things to have ever happened to popular music." The Daily Mail decided to up the ante by mixing in some good old-fashioned racism: "[Rock music] is deplorable. It is tribal. And it is from America. It follows ragtime, blues, jazz, hot cha-cha and the boogie-woogie, which surely originated in the jungle. We sometimes wonder whether this is the negro's revenge."

Hell, even The Beatles weren't safe. The Daily Telegraph said that they were "something Hitler might find useful."

Why? Because it's easier to be negative. That part will never change.
Click to expand...
http://www.cracked.com/article_1898...dern-life-that-are-statistically-b.s._p2.html
 
I suppose you could make the argument that popular music these days is really, really bad compared to how it was in the past. However, there's great stuff coming out these days, you just need to know where to look.
 
Ezduo said:
http://www.cracked.com/article_1898...dern-life-that-are-statistically-b.s._p2.html
Click to expand...

Yup, it's so obvious and I don't get why people miss it.

Also, my biggest complaint about classic rock radio, or 80s radio, or whatever decade radio is that they do the exact same thing as the top 40 stations....they play 100 songs over and over again.

I wish the 80s station would actually play all the singles from the 80s, and not just the same ones over and over again. It's crap.
 
No.

Maybe if you're into a genre that was in its prime, back then.

Further, the large popularity of that genre, and time, has bred a large section of people who worship it and pass that worship onto others, so a large number of people think, say, 60s-70s rock and roll is god, and by definition, it's better in the 60s and 70s.

You also can't compare the rock and roll when it was fresh to the modern bands who play rock and roll. It's not a fresh genre, and most of the people who are involved stick to the rules of rock and roll rather than blaze a fresh new trail.

In the future when our kids/grandkids are worshipping another genre (I dunno.. let's say "dubstep" for the sake of argument), the 2000s is going to be their "holy land" of music.

It's think it's all social factors that make people think this... nothing to do with music, objectively.
 
80s was most absurdly unselfconscious, earnest, dramatic decade. Not good, but definitely an amazing snapshot of innocence. And the invention of the video and the ludicrous experiments in po-faced melodrama can never be repeated.
 
There's still plenty of great music nowadays, but one of the big differences is it's generally so detached from emotion and the world around us. Everything is ironic and almost completely devoid of emotion, which makes it more disposable than it would be otherwise. Bands pick a genre to perform in and then emulate that genre's sound and imagery very closely. How many artists sing about politics or social conditions now? Or if it's neither, at least create something unique?

Again, I'm not saying there is no good music now, or every artist is detached, but I think one of the main differences between music "back then" and now is it's gotten less socially relevant and has just become pure entertainment. Over time it seems like music has become less about the world around us and more about itself.
 
Most people remember music most fondly from when they were teenagers because that's when most people listen to most music. You're also absolutely correct when you say that people only remember the best music from that time. You can easily make an argument for some of the best and worst music imaginable coming from any given time period.

I'm fast approaching 30 and think that there is music being made right now that is as good if not better than my all time favorite records. Maybe the most popular music is mostly terrible, but that's always been the case and now it's easier than ever to completely ignore everything that's popular.
 
That Cracked article is very disingenuous. He's trying to make points based off a singles chart, when just about all the good artists back then were album oriented. He also writes, "'Fortunate Son' got no higher than No. 14 on the charts." Well, okay. Please point out the last time an anti-war song got up to #14 in the charts? How about top-100?
 
VALIS said:
That Cracked article is very disingenuous. He's trying to make points based off a singles chart, when just about all the good artists back then were album oriented. He also writes, "'Fortunate Son' got no higher than No. 14 on the charts." Well, okay. Please point out the last time an anti-war song got up to #14 in the charts? How about top-100?
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Not only that, back then charts were divided - Soul charts, Dance charts, Country, etc.
Casey Kasem's American Top 40 was just a small slice of what really was going on.
 
VALIS said:
That Cracked article is very disingenuous. He's trying to make points based off a singles chart, when just about all the good artists back then were album oriented. He also writes, "'Fortunate Son' got no higher than No. 14 on the charts." Well, okay. Please point out the last time an anti-war song got up to #14 in the charts? How about top-100?
Click to expand...
"Boom" by System of a Down maybe?
 
teruterubozu said:
Not only that, back then charts were divided - Soul charts, Dance charts, Country, etc.
Casey Kasem's American Top 40 was just a small slice of what really was going on.
Click to expand...


And the top sales today are just a small slice of what's going on. Much like any given week in any given year in any given decade, you'll find much more terrible music in all of those charts than you will good or great music.
 
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I am in agreement with you op people only remember the good songs from past eras, I will say though pop music today is not good imo. However there is still a lot of good music today to listen to, just have to look at local or obscure sources for it.
 
Well, it's certainly a matter of taste. Almost nobody makes even remotely decent music in my favorite genres (classical/romantic era music) so all I've got are the oldies. I'd imagine many fans of different genres feel the same way.
 
Archaix said:
And the top sales today are just a small slice of what's going on. Much like any given week in any given year in any given decade, you'll find much more terrible music in all of those charts than you will good or great music.
Click to expand...

Oh absolutely. But that's why in the 90s the awful term "Crossover Artist" came into being.
 
Nah. There was tons of shit music back then, but that stuff isn't remembered. It's filtered out of the collective consciousness.

Maybe the charts don't contain as much quality pop as they used to, but the musicscape is a lot bigger and broader today. There's good music in every genre today if you're willing to look for it, and there are countless great genres and sounds that didn't exist "back then".
 
There some good music now, nearly all of it though isn't popular mainstream stuff. Listening to the lyrics of 60s-80s though its just a league of its own compared to now. Personally the men in general were just more gritty and talented back then compared to metrosexual fluff beats of today.
 
disappeared said:
The only way I can describe it, without writing a boring thirty-paragraph post, is that music back then was more innocent. There wasn't a need for a musician to prove themselves. It was more from the heart.
Click to expand...

Actually there was. Strong competition boosted alot of quality recordings. Read up on Paul McCartney sweating over Brian Wilson's genius, which lead him to strive harder at songwriting. This kind of rivalry, cross-polination, and an environment that was more tolerant of best == success, helped make music back then very strong (espeically Pop).
 
BananaBomb said:
Well, it's certainly a matter of taste. Almost nobody makes even remotely decent music in my favorite genres (classical/romantic era music) so all I've got are the oldies. I'd imagine many fans of different genres feel the same way.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this kind of captures it. When you're very fond of music that's tied to a specific era, of course you're going to look at the past more favorably than at the present. It's the same with people weaned on 'classic' rock (most GAFfers' parents, I imagine) who are less apt to seek out new stuff via new media and are informed about modern music only by radio and TV. They end up with a lot of misconceptions, but that's not entirely their fault.
 
While my inner impulsive music snob is tempted to suggest that older music was indeed better, I think trying to directly compare music on some kind of linear, qualitative scale is a fool's game. If you're really anything approaching a music aficionado, I would think that it makes more sense to use chronology only for categorization purposes and treat music from different eras as simply having their own flavors to impart.
 
I actually feel that music is always "improving".. only in the sense that every musical genre seems to be a remix or fusion of previous genres.

That doesn't mean there isn't something to be appreciated about its many older incarnations (classic, rock n roll, jazz), but simply by virtue of the fact that music is always evolving, there will always be something inadequate about older music that will fail to satisfy the increasingly complex tastes of many future music listeners.

A rock n roll kid just didn't quite feel that strong about Mozart. Now, some dubstep kid just doesn't feel that strong about rock n roll. And so on...
 
I remember radio stations having more diversity (you'd hear pop, rock, country, disco, and folk on the same station) but I don't think the overall musical quality was higher. For every great track from the seventies you remember, there were four Pat Boone songs.

There was certainly less choice. You were limited to what the record stores in your area carried. I remember riding along with my mom and brother out of the city to find a record store that carried Pink Floyd's The Wall. We'd hear about bands that sounded cool, but be unable to procure a record. When cassettes hit, it got easier as people would trade cassettes around.

Now, of course. there's virtually no barrier between you and the music. Name a band and you can probably hear them free on the internet.
 
It's too multi-faceted and too subjective to say one era of music is better than another. Although I think genres go through ebbs and flows in quality. The past several years rock, for lack of a better all-encompassing term, IMO hasn't been as good and exciting, and just kinda boring for the most part, compared to other decades. That's one of my main complaints about 00's music.
 
Medalion said:
Music evolves, but not necessarily improves according to some people.
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Sure.

Sometimes "less is more". A folk tune might be somehow more appealing than drum n bass insanity.

But I feel that as time goes on, a great majority of people develop ever more complex musical needs, and the old genres just don't satisfy them.

Most people think the music of their grandparents is lame... with certain exceptional artists/generes, for certain exceptional people.

But for every kid who listens to 40s jazz, or 60s rock, hundreds of them of them listen to hip hop.
 
I think it's pretty reasonable to say that the quality of music in the past is at least little higher than today's music.
 
Nothing was better "back then". People just like to bitch about everything that's new.

People keep saying, for example, Punk is dead - well, obviously if anyone's going to just do the same shit they did in the late 70's, it's going to be silly, but they ideals are still alive, punk simply evolved.
Same with prog rock, for example, anyone going on with a 40 minute solo on a moog synth is going to come off as an idiot - but prog rock didn't "die", it evolved.
You can find many artists who claim both of these unrelated genres as inspiration, and that's amazing.

Everything you liked about old music is still alive today.
 
There will always be good music and there will always be bad music, you can't generalize an entire generation of something like that.

It's all about looking for it and discovering new artists. The people who say that music nowadays sucks are the people who are too lazy to search for music they like. Just because it's not thrown in your face doesn't mean it's not out there.

And I really disagree with people saying music contains less emotional today. The chances of becoming a big band now are much lower due to the fact that more and more people are becoming able to make music through new technological advances. So most bands are making music because they love to do it.
 
There is a lot more music out there with easier access to it than ever before. Yet people still just shrug it off, turn on the oldies channels, and grind on about how great things were. There's more than enough greatness out there that gives modern music a positive glow.
 
in my opinion, yes

Sol.. said:
There is a lot more music out there with easier access to it than ever before. Yet people still just shrug it off, turn on the oldies channels, and grind on about how great things were. There's more than enough greatness out there that gives modern music a positive glow.
Click to expand...

on the other hand that also means over saturation and more derivative material
 
Nick Drake. Unrecognized artist of his time, now he's a super star (a dead one).

If we're not aware of all the music available to us at this time we can't really call it crap. Radio is no way to accurately judge music quality, just music being played.

Music back then may seem better because it's already happened, we can go back and pick up the shiny stuff on top, still some awesome stuff down below "classic hits."
 
Honestly it's much more close than people think. Just don't turn on the radio these days. I blame people. People's tastes are so shit these days that the radio is just shit. Their is almost TOO much good music if u look in the right places.
 
brianjones said:
on the other hand that also means over saturation and more derivative material
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Hold on...

In a lack of musical choices, you should expect more derivation from a narrower spectrum of material.
 
I really miss the 80's synths and drums. :(

If I ever go "music isn't like it used to be", then it would be in reference to 80's music or 80's rap. However, I'm not too big on music in general, though.
 
Pop music has always been bad. I can't even listen to the radio it's so full of shit

Overall? Absolutely not.
 
Why would you do that? said:
I really miss the 80's synths and drums. :(

If I ever go "music isn't like it used to be", then it would be in reference to 80's music or 80's rap. However, I'm not too big on music in general, though.
Click to expand...
What? Just last year 80's retro was all the shit everywhere.
Seriously, there's a band that play any style today.

_Bro said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUatnbaNfEo&feature=related
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Man, I love this song/clip.
 
nope. nobody just remembers all the shitty music that came out back then.

same as 20 years from now no one will remember all the shitty music that comes out now.
 
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