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Why music is getting worse. It's only 12 minutes, it's worth the time.

Dingman said:
EDIT: Changed the title
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Not seeing Beato's name in the title, and neither seeing the key talking points, which are (1) music is too easy to make, and (2) music is too easy to consume, I created my own thread only to be point to this one. Seriously, "It's only 12 minutes, it's worth the time" does nothing for me.

Anyway, as someone who could not simply go to a music store, pay money and buy a record that I liked when I was a kid - and it was not about the money! - I do not agree with his second point, "music too easy to consume, and this is bad". Yes, it is easy, and this is great for me as a consumer. It is also great for labels, who, after a slump in the late 2010s are getting their, erm, hard earned billions back, about as much as in the heyday of CDs. I suppose the only one who suffer are artists, but if they are able to tour, then they should be able to be compensated well enough considering ticket prices (no more Ticketmaster for me). And if they are not able to tour, I hope they collected enough money in their prior artistic career to live decent life instead of splurging on girls, ferraris and coke.

With streaming, I can build playlists that I can re-listen, I can find new music either by explicit search or through automatic suggestions. There have been no better time to listen to music, and luckily, with the few streaming platforms that are available, each of them has almost all music ever made, unlike streaming video platforms who stash their own videos in their own dark corners. So I am really grateful that I can listen to all the music ever created not even for 10.99, but for free, with some ads. As for all this crap that has been created in the last twenty years (don't get me wrong, there is some good stuff too), I just don't bother with it. I don't listen to it, and I don't blindly skip to the next song because I don't listen to automatic playlists or "stations", I make my own.
 
There is a HUGE! difference between an electric guitar or a electronic keyboard in the hands of a real musician and a computer full of samples and pro tools. Here is an example of a person who admits they cant play an instrument or write a score that uses a computer to write a song. Its not a great or a bad tune but it wouldnt surprise me if it shows up in the top 40 next week compared to the other songs in the top 40 this week.
If he were to make the same song using real instruments and no auto tune it wouldnt even be recognizable as a song, and that is the issue because folks lacking real talent are getting airplay instead of those that deserve it.

 
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Like I said no beauty for me in rock . I detested Elvis rock music, but loved his Christian and laid back Blues albums. Remember he started in the days before all the Technical wizardry. If the source wasn't originlly analog and not manipulated to death; I, am not interested. Love acoustc string guitars. But rock guitars are an abomination. Just like Hammond organs and Electric Rolls or Yamaha pianos. If its not an unaltered 10 ft Steinway I am not interested.
 
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petes'picks said:
There is a HUGE! difference between an electric guitar or a electronic keyboard in the hands of a real musician and a computer full of samples and pro tools. Here is an example of a person who admits they cant play an instrument or write a score that uses a computer to write a song. Its not a great or a bad tune but it wouldnt surprise me if it shows up in the top 40 next week compared to the other songs in the top 40 this week.
If he were to make the same song using real instruments and no auto tune it wouldnt even be recognizable as a song, and that is the issue because folks lacking real talent are getting airplay instead of those that deserve it.

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Kudos to him for having a vision and making it happen while having fun. No, not the best in the world. It's derivative and I wouldn't seek it out. But I couldn't do it and I sometimes mess around with synths and DAWs. Though I have my opinions, I am not qualified to say who has real talent. I think that airplay (commercial) is determined by a whole host of algorithms based on the music, demographics, looks, hooks, and a whole host of other metrics.
 
Algorithms dictating what people are expossed to is the biggest deciding factor it seems. A computer with the right programs, a nice basement, a bag of weed and some cheetos and the possibilities are endless. The same investors own the largest portions of stock in our news media, radio, news papers, music companies..... they also own the largest shares in the companies writing the algorithms. Nothing occurs organically anymore its all controlled by the oligarchs.
 
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petes'picks said:
Algorithms dictating what people are expossed to is the biggest deciding factor it seems. A computer with the right programs, a nice basement, a bag of weed and some cheetos and the possibilities are endless.
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Only if you use the suggestions. I can probably count the times I have used a service generated playlist on one hand the 6 yrs I have been streaming.

It's a tool like any other, it's up to the individual how they use it.
 
Dswankey said:
Who is Rick Beato?

Also in before the ...

:lurk:
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I had to look him up, also.
Apparently, a talented guy:

"Richard John Beato is an American YouTube personality, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and educator. Since the early 1980s, he has worked variously as a musician, songwriter, audio engineer, and record producer; he has lectured on music at several universities."
 
I feel like in terms of the technology used to make and record music, that it's really a kind of double edged sword. On the one hand all of that tech in a creative person's hands translates to more possibilities and therefore likely a more interesting result. Conversely, in lazier, less creative hands it can be a shortcut that leads to a more formulaic, less personal seeming, more cliche result.

I think that this is basically what's being said in the video, not that technology is necessarily bad for music, just that too often it's being used as a shortcut...
 
Mr Boochie said:
There were AM and FM radios back in the dinosaur days. Pretty accessible.

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Obviously, however broadcast radio tends to play the same handful of songs over and over again. And don't get me started on the ads!
 
GChief said:
Only if you use the suggestions. I can probably count the times I have used a service generated playlist on one hand the 6 yrs I have been streaming.

It's a tool like any other, it's up to the individual how they use it.
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I usually pick what I want to listen to- it's not hard to build a pretty comprehensive playlist- but I do, occasionally, just let Tidal or Qobuz just "riff off of" what I listened to. I've been sometimes rewarded with some very enjoyable stuff I would likely not heard otherwise.

OTOH- if it goes off on a tangent I don't care for- it's easy enough to stop it, and just load up another playlist.

There's nothing that these streaming sites can do to FORCE you to listen to something you don't want to. Just take a little initiative, and pick what you like!

Regards,
Gordon.
 
GordonW said:
I usually pick what I want to listen to- it's not hard to build a pretty comprehensive playlist- but I do, occasionally, just let Tidal or Qobuz just "riff off of" what I listened to. I've been sometimes rewarded with some very enjoyable stuff I would likely not heard otherwise.

OTOH- if it goes off on a tangent I don't care for- it's easy enough to stop it, and just load up another playlist.

There's nothing that these streaming sites can do to FORCE you to listen to something you don't want to. Just take a little initiative, and pick what you like!

Regards,
Gordon.
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I'm sure that things have gotten far better, though I wouldn't really know because I don't engage with this stuff on anything like a regular basis, but I remember some years ago, when this tech was new and I was using Pandora a bit, that I used to joke that "everything is one step removed from Elton John," as it seemed that any artist that I chose, no matter how weird, edgy, obscure, exotic, etc that in a few songs the algorithm would follow it with something by Elton John...
 
How long did disco music last? How long did the Beatles last? How long did heavy metal last? How long did smooth rock last? Grunge music? Jazz music? How long did Motown last? Soul music? Blues music? All of these different genres of music that fit under the banner of popular music or rock and roll music had a shelf life of a few years or even perhaps up to a decade, but they all inevitably faded away, and got replaced by a new sound. Not only do individual songs chart on the billboard hot 100, but styles of music do as well. AOR music from the late '70s/early '80s covered the Hot 100 for quite a while. Then it's time came to an end. Progressive rock's heyday was in the '70s. Disco lasted about five years and then it disappeared without a trace. Punk music lasted not long at all before it morphed into new wave and post-punk. Alternative music started out life in the '80s before it succumbed to grunge music of the '90s. '80s pop music like Michael Jackson was big, and then poof! It wasn't. It happens fast. It can happen slowly and change into something else before that thing dies and gets replaced by something new.

But the thing about pop music today, is that it all sounds exactly the same, and whatever era of music we are in now, it has been around for an agonizingly long time, at least 15 years now, and it does not seem to be going away anytime soon. It's the same tick-tick-tick-tick electronic beats, the same stupid lyrics, the same exact stupid Adele-inspired whiny-voice singing. The fake sounding synthetic drum beats. The same boring bass rhythms. I assume it takes about 15 minutes to produce this stuff, and in all honesty, I would not pay a dime to own any of it.
 
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Modern music re-hashes 1960s-1990s stuff, while some 1990s music re-hashes 1970s-1980s stuff. There is little innovation, lots of homage at best or remixes and downright borrowing at worst. There are no new instruments. Two major innovations that Rick also mentioned are rigid beat structure and autotune, although cheap synthesizers made rigid tempo possible in the early 1980s. So, just autotune, which I hate with a passion. We have platoed, which is not necessarily a bad thing, I think there is more than enough great music that can be listened to and reused, better lyrics can be written for old songs, like:

You know my name
Look up the number
You know my name
Look up the number
You, you know, you know my name
You, you know, you know my name

Everywhere you go you hear 1980s hits, so I'd say this period survived the longest so far.

P.S. Prog rock has died, but disco lives on. Incidentally, PBS has a doco about disco which is free to watch now.
 
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