Quote:
Originally Posted by TweakHead
There's tons of very competent people doing music today! And tons of interesting music to, if you know where to look! There's tons of huge generalisations in this post of yours mate! Chances are, you're trying to rationalise the lost of the times you felt more identified and inside the circle of what's happening? That's a natural occurrence with the coming of age.
Cheers
|
I know there are tons of generalizations. It saddens me that they are true.
I'm all too aware of the "nostalgia" effect. I'm not the type to hold onto the past just because its the past. On the contrary -- I love hearing something new and different as long as it's not a substandard knock-off of something that was done previously.
I'm not saying that SOME great music is not still being created, I'm just saying that when I listen to the sources that should be exposing me to good content (satellite radio, Pandora, Youtube, etc), I have to come to the conclusion that most newer music just plain sucks. It could be that I'm not going far enough underground to dig up the real treasures, but that's part of my point -- 30 years ago I could turn on MTV on a Sunday night and that was as far as I had to dig to hear some great new music. It wasn't all great, of course. There was plenty of crap back then too, but the crap did not outnumber the good music 10000:1. I didn't have to spend every waking hour looking for something new and decent.
I'm all too aware of the syndrome of the old man telling kids to get off his lawn. Believe me when I say I have put way more thought into this subject than that.
Being a technologist by profession I am all to aware of what happens (not just to music, but to anything) whenever a technology goes more mainstream, becomes easier to use and more approachable by the masses. That is exactly what has happened to music production over the last 10-15 years. Things like the ability to produce an entire track from a single laptop, vocal pitch correction technology, etc. have made music production so available that there's no stopping the flood of bad music anymore.
It doesn't necessarily mean that no good music is being produced, it just means the signal to noise ratio is no longer in favor of finding the good stuff without a lot of time wading through the bad.
The phenomenon I'm discussing here is not exclusive to music. It happens in many industries over time as an industry matures. Technological advances make certain elements of production easier, resulting in faster production at the expense of quality.
In my first post in thread I used home construction as an example. You sometimes hear people say "they don't make _________" like they used to (insert homes, cars, etc.), and unfortunately most of the time the statement is true. It's not said simply because some old man is waxing nostalgic, it's because there are valid, provable reasons why the quality of build has declined over time. With music of course, we don't have the same level of tangibility, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what has changed unless you're lucky enough (or unlucky enough I should say) to have the ear to be able to recognize things that have already been done a decade or decades before only better.
So, while I understand you don't agree, you have tempted me that there is this oasis of fantastic music that I just haven't found yet... I will only ask that you point me there so I can experience this for myself. I'd like to believe all these great artists are actually there, and they just aren't trying hard enough to reach me, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Links please?
