Modern "music" is shite

[eti]

As a societal barometer, it's not at all surprising to observe how the GOOD "taste" people once had in ACTUAL MUSIC, with tune, rhythm, passion and  depth, has all but eroded away to zero, when your Artificial Assistant misunderstands a basic commands, and tells you to "check out this popular music channel" instead of doing what you commanded it to do (set a timer, turn on the lights, etc) and proceeds to blare out some ridiculous (c)rap or hip-hop (the junk stuff, not the good stuff from the 70s or 80s)

If this TRASH is what's "popular" - IE - actual people have convinced themselves and their peers that it's worthy of their time, then that just proves the point - society is deeply lost.

And no, I'm not just "being a grumpy old man" (and I couldn't care less if I am, modern "music" is turd on steroids) - watch this and see that it's been scientifically researched:.

https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII

I (sincerely) sit and watch old repeats of 70s/80s episodes of "Sesame Street" and hear far better music, and it's actually very catchy most of the time.

[jeffheath]

As a societal barometer, it's not at all surprising to observe how the GOOD "taste" people once had in ACTUAL MUSIC, with tune, rhythm, passion and  depth, has all but eroded away to zero,

From this, I take it that you like music with tune, rhythm, passion, and depth. Congratulations! So does everyone else on earth.

proceeds to blare out some ridiculous (c)rap or hip-hop (the junk stuff, not the good stuff from the 70s or 80s)

If this TRASH is what's "popular" - IE - actual people have convinced themselves and their peers that it's worthy of their time, then that just proves the point - society is deeply lost.

I (sincerely) sit and watch old repeats of 70s/80s episodes of "Sesame Street" and hear far better music, and it's actually very catchy most of the time.

From this, I take it that you think that modern music does not have tune, rhythm, passion, or depth. This seems to be a recurring theme among people of the baby boomer generation, as well as younger people, sometimes. You called a thoughty2 video scientific research. I don't even know what to say to that. As far as sesame street is concerned, songs like "manamana" are very catchy, but I'm not really sure what that adds to the argument. You seem to generalize "modern music" as if everything made after a certain date is no good, as if it were a Zenith TV from the late 80's, after their decline. To me, this is a miserable way to look at something that can be so beautiful and creative. I'm not trying to convince anyone who thinks modern music is crap that it's not, (because that's impossible) I'm just pointing out some flaws in your argument.

[Dubbie]

There was a lot of crap music back in the 60's and 70's as well.
It's since been forgotten and only the really good stuff has survived.

Old grumpy codgers have been singing your lament ever since old grumpy codgers were first invented.

[james_s]

Could somebody remind me what this has to do with engineering? Or even with Covid since that seems to be the secondary topic of the forum these days? Isn't there a better place to rant about how the world sucks and yell at the kids to get off your lawn?

Most of the music from every generation is shite, they don't play the garbage on the oldies station, they play the popular stuff. Fortunately for you, you've got hundreds of years of music to choose from and it is more accessible today than ever before, so you don't have to care the slightest bit what music is being made today, you can listen to whatever you want. It's not like music wears out and becomes unavailable, Mozart sounds pretty much the same today as it sounded 200 years ago.

[chriva]

I'm not even a rap fan but listen to today's garbage and compare it against the stuff made in the 90's.
We had more crap music back then but at least the radio stations didn't play the worst shit over and over and over...

If you want a snowballs' chance in hell to listen to a new song that is actually decent, you're better off just finding a dj (or artist you like that is not a selfish prick) and listen to their live broadcasts / recorded sessions.

james_s: This is in "general chat"

[Psi]

It's important to understand that the reason person A finds a piece of music awesome can be exactly the same reason why person B thinks it's utter garbage.


Emotions don't make sense physically and cannot be quantified or analysed rationally.

[Cyberdragon]

Exactly, by his logic all "oldies" must be "goodies". So that means anything goes then? There was junk ever since recorded music was invented (pretty sure there is even bad/unpopular classical music).

I'll just leave you with this to think about what you've said...



Funny thing is for the longest time I though this song was a made-for-movie joke as a parody of "oldies"...until I found out it was real which means it had an audience (as also evidenced by some the comments that aren't movie references)...

[tggzzz]

...If this TRASH is what's "popular" ...

If your complaint is about some engineering aspect of the music, please make your point more clearly.

If it is just a general winge about the world, then better forums would be Farcebook or Twatter.

[Psi]

i'm gonna just leave this here

[Rascal]

As a teenager my Father would insist that i 'turn down', or preferably 'switch off' the 'crap' I was listening to

Now as a Father I insist that my kids ''turn down', or preferably 'switch off' the 'crap' they listen to.

And so it will continue.........

[GavinHemmings]

Yeah, I agree with you. That's why I prefer to listen to classical music, jazz, and soundtracks from good movies.

[free_electron]

I prefer "Symphony of two wooden sticks and two rocks banged together" by Neanderthalers Zog and Ugh.
It's very popular. Most hardrock and metal is basically rewashes of it. ( ok , i admit Zog and Ugh never developed the sound of a cat being milked using pliers. That came later )

[0xdeadbeef]

Even in ancient Egypt people complained about the younger generation. Part of the problem is that the older one gets, the less he/she usually wants to learn and adapt to new things. I don't exclude myself from that.
Regarding music, as for many others, my interest reached its maximum between teen age and young adulthood and declined towards my early 30s. Even though I recently bought a few new albums, I feel I'm stuck with certain hearing habits that I can't totally overcome anymore. I figure this is somewhat normal.

Another point is that there is just much more music produced nowadays than in the 70s or 80s. It's a similar problem with books and so on: there is just so much media produced that it would cost an immense amount of time to find out which of these offerings would actually appeal to me. When I was younger, the selection was way smaller, but indeed I invested a lot of time to find out what I liked and what I didn't. Now it's more like more of a coincidence when I stumble over a song I like and check out if I want to buy an album.

Anyway, it's undeniable that commercial interests have changed music especially when it was totally commercialized in the 90s. Good videos became more important than the music but even before that, radio stations wouldn't want to play songs that were too long or too short. Effects like that continue until today: I read somewhere that habit of quickly checking the first 10 seconds of a song to decide if it's good or not has changed the songwriting in the last decade or so. Long intros or instrumentals between two vocal songs are not popular anymore because of this. Also, obviously, the meaning of an album is devaluated if the songs are sold separately.

[KE5FX]

The guy make some good points, and backs most of them up with solid observations and justifications.  It was interesting to learn that a vast proportion of modern radio-friendly music was authored by one of two guys.

However, the example he uses to open his argument -- the Beatles -- is interesting only because it's such a rare exception to the rule.  Except for that period in music history, I don't think there's ever been a time when the best music could be found at the top of the pop charts.  It happened once, in the 1960s-1970s era, but it will never, ever happen again.  And plenty of people will argue that it didn't happen then, either.

At the same time, it's never been easier to find the good stuff.  Use the discovery tools that services like Spotify give you.  Listen to truly independent DJs at truly independent radio stations.  These days, everybody gets to maintain their own personal charts... which does take a little bit of extra work.

[coppice]

Whenever you think that music is worse than in the past remember that mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you just love that stuff to come back?

[engrguy42]

Could somebody remind me what this has to do with engineering?

I agree. What has this to do with engineering?? We should stick to the important engineering related topics like "what did you buy today??" and "what does your bench look like??" (each with about 1.5 million views here). Oh, and the all important "Post a cat picture".

Now THAT's engineeering. 

[engrguy42]

BTW, not sure if you guys are aware, but recently the International Institute for the Determination of Good Music (IIDGM) determined that, officially, "The Beatles and the Stones were the two most overrated rock bands in the history of the universe". They went on to say "The Beatles were good for nothing more than freakin' elevator music, and the Stones did only poor renditions of those with real soul".

Discuss among yourselves. 

BTW, anyone who wants to claim that the new millennial generation has even the slightest claim to music excellence first needs to explain "The Great Mumbler", Billie Eilish.   

[themadhippy]

Modern "music" is shite

Thats exactly what my great great great grandfather said about motzat

[Syntax Error]

Okay, back to electronics for a moment. Ask, how many of you guys here on the EEVBlog Forum, started your interest in electronics through synthesizers, drum machines, mixers, tape decks, midi controllers, samplers, electric organs, amplifiers, disco decks or electric guitars? Too name but a few. What none of you, some of you, or just about all of you?!

Modern music may not sound as raw or as innovative as it used to, but 99.9% of music from the last 50 years is thanks to the creativity of not just musicians, but ELECTRONIC ENGINEERS. From performing on stage on a Mellotron to raving online with a Midi Sequencer, music is as darn tech driven and *modern* as it gets.

Worried that you can't say E.D.M. without saying ELECTRONIC dance music? Then plug in your humbucker, turn your Marshall up to 11, step on the fuzz pedal and rock on!!

[temperance]

Could somebody remind me what this has to do with engineering?

I agree. What has this to do with engineering?? We should stick to the important engineering related topics like "what did you buy today??" and "what does your bench look like??" (each with about 1.5 million views here). Oh, and the all important "Post a cat picture".

Now THAT's engineeering. 

You forgot to mention the lab power supply topics.

What this has to do with Engineering. The next step.
Modern engineers suck as well. Their thesis's are rubbish and they only know how to program arduinos, slap stuff together with python an shit and pressing shields on top of what not. Does my statement convey the message that talented engineers do not exist to you? They do exist. On this forum as well. Young and old. "Which component smells the best when burning" or "how long are the legs of your workbench" topics are indeed more popular. The same goes for music. On the surface there is nothing really interesting to see.

About music: there is still good music out there. There are still people composing rock music, playing and reinventing jazz, composing and playing classical music. For every genre you can find, if you spent some time to investigate what's going on out there, you will find that every genre has grown over the years. This music is however not played on radio stations playing pop music.

Pop music has always been just popular music. For people making statements about modern music being crap: the music from your teenage years was crap as well. It had nothing to do with music at all. Just marketing. People liked it because they had a sense of belonging somewhere. Is it that what' you're missing?

[engrguy42]

So temperance, it sounds like you're saying there's good and bad engineers out there. And there's good and bad music out there.

Wow. Thanks for the insight. 

Anyway, I think the one thing that's never discussed in topics like this is a definition of what "good" is. For every person out there, there are 3 different definitions of what "good" is. Nobody defines "good". And most people tend to define "good" subconsciously as "I like it, therefore it's good". Which is ludicrous. Everything's good, and everything's crap, depending on whose opinion it is. And all those opinions are ultimately irrelevant and meaningless. Like saying "I like the color blue, therefore it's the best color".

Now if someone came up with a clearer definition (eg, good musicians = technical skill, innovation, popular with many people, etc.) then we could have a more meaningful discussion. Otherwise it's like most other discussions here...baseless, feeling-driven opinion.

[eti]

Could somebody remind me what this has to do with engineering? Or even with Covid since that seems to be the secondary topic of the forum these days? Isn't there a better place to rant about how the world sucks and yell at the kids to get off your lawn?

Most of the music from every generation is shite, they don't play the garbage on the oldies station, they play the popular stuff. Fortunately for you, you've got hundreds of years of music to choose from and it is more accessible today than ever before, so you don't have to care the slightest bit what music is being made today, you can listen to whatever you want. It's not like music wears out and becomes unavailable, Mozart sounds pretty much the same today as it sounded 200 years ago.

#1: This is "General chat", ergo "general" things we chat about, capiche?
#2: goto #1

[Cyberdragon]

You used a goto...how dare you use the forbidden instruction!

[james_s]

james_s: This is in "general chat"

True, and in most cases I wouldn't take any issue with it. If you hang around here for a while though you might notice that the OP rarely contributes anything related to engineering, almost every one of his posts is an angry rant filled with bitter vitriol. He gives the impression of being an extremely toxic person filled to the brim with contempt and hatred for the world and the people around him and frankly it's a drain. With all the negativity going on already I just don't see a lot of value in coming in here to piss on everyone. It's the same tired old rants over and over, the stereotypical angry old geezer lamenting the passing of his youth, ranting and raving about the world having gone to hell in a handbasket and everything sucks and get off my lawn.

The rants are old, tired and worn out, they've been around for as long as there have been old people. It depresses me to be getting steadily closer to the grave, still healthy but definitely past my peak I also look back fondly at my youth and wish sometimes that I could go back to those times. Despite this, (ignoring current events which are temporary) the world is not such a bad place these days and it could be worse, living through WWII which happened so soon after WWI must have made everything that has happened this year look like a stroll in the park. The current generation of kids will turn out just fine, there will be some good music produced in this era that people will look back fondly off while moaning about the crap being produced in 2070 or whatever, the cycle will repeat.

[free_electron]

Modern "music" is shite

Thats exactly what my great great great grandfather said about motzat

Mozart was the metallica of his time...