Why a lot of modern electronic (and other genre) music sucks

[mitchiemasha]

I hadn't read post 25 yet. My comment was to the earlier comments.

I totally understand you are saying taste has nothing to do with it. BUT you can't see that it is. I couldn't give a f about FWM or how many other people like them as I don't, apart from poss 2 or 3 songs, that is my taste!

Again i will bring up labels benching acts... Those big studios churning out hit after hit, this WAS easily controlled by the labels. If Sound Cloud existed in the 80's and 90's, band like FWM, Oasis etc, might never ever of reached the stardom they did. There's more to a big act, band than musical skill. Marketing is majour. Their sound dominated then, it was hard for others to get a look in, even underground bands were crafted carefully to appeal to the target audience. Many had the skill but weren't pushed as it would distract from the sales of who ever they were pushing. Do you see the big sales thing now!!!!

I came fresh outta the rave scene, we liked noise crafted in peoples bed rooms. The stuff these big names were making we despised. SOFT ROCK my arse, it sounds like shit to me. MUSIC IS TASTE. If every one liked Shit we would eat it. If every one like the noise you don't it is your taste that makes you think it is shit, not that it is actually shit.

If I was in charge of the world I could buy all music creators and make it so only a few bands which i controlled had market share. Those bands would now sell the most. Every one would see that sound as the sound of there youth and have an attachment to it. I'm using way out there similies now to try paint the picture.

We can't have this debate with out taste being a factor, as there is no science to what is good music, more dynamics, less dynamics, repetition, no repetition. If every one starts dancing and loving a mad porta tone sine wave while Fred bangs a bin lid, that will be what music is. YES, your right, Fred and his bin lid might never have as big a following and sell as many records because, there is Dave, Jack, John, Simon and every fucker else with their bin lids getting equal opportunities at exposure. These artists arn't getting benched. If they were benched Fred might easily rack up the numbers. MARKET SHARE!!!

I bet hundreds of musicians could have made just as good tunes as FWM back in their day if given the right team and studio to work in. Today, we don't need that.

[mitchiemasha]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Pretty much everyone who cared about whether music sounded good, because that was the only way to know the difference.

Are you for real... People couldn't afford these things!!! OPEN UP i dare you!!!

My quote here really amplifies the situation. What you are saying is right, yeah people who care bought better systems, that is obvious but you don't see the other side. Most people couldn't afford them, were they still music lovers? most likely. could they still appreciate talent when they heard it? YES!!!!!!!!!

I'll go on to say again... MUSIC is subjective, the rules are determined by the listener. Dynamic v's less dynamic... Could be argued exactly the same as saturation, distortion on an analog desk etc.

The question lies in does it sound better now than it did before. I think yes... More people can now do what only a few could. More people are technologically talented than ever before. If you can't see or hear this talent, i feel for you!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

If Sound Cloud existed in the 80's and 90's, band like FWM, Oasis etc, might never ever of reached the stardom they did. There's more to a big act, band than musical skill. Marketing is majour. Their sound dominated then, it was hard for others to get a look in, even underground bands were crafted carefully to appeal to the target audience..

This paragraph starts to approach things that are more aligned to what I was trying to discuss. For example, the idea that Sound Cloud (along with Internet music distribution on the whole) might be either contributing to the dearth of talent, or at least covering it up by making bad music more obtainable and thus removing focus from the good music? If I have to wade through tons of half-baked crap on SC to find true talent, then wasn't it better in the old days when record labels vetted out the garbage for me, making my life more efficient?

One of the ideas I was hoping to explore is that its very possible (since the world is a more crowded place these days than it was say, 30 years or so ago) that there are actually far more talented musical artists on the planet, but perhaps they are harder to come by because the availability of Internet technologies has made it too easy for the less talented people to flood the "airwaves" (intentional use of retro terminology), thus making it harder to find the diamonds in the rough? Maybe there are a lot of talented artists who feel it is too hard to make a living because of the same issue, thus find other ways to feed themselves or their family?

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

I came fresh outta the rave scene, we liked noise crafted in peoples bed rooms. The stuff these big names were making we despised. SOFT ROCK my arse, it sounds like shit to me. MUSIC IS TASTE. If every one liked Shit we would eat it. If every one like the noise you don't it is your taste that makes you think it is shit, not that it is actually shit..

But the fact you don't like soft rock is completely irrelevant. You're trying so hard to make it a discussion about musical taste, while simultaneously telling me what the thread is really about (despite the fact I'm the one who created it). The fact is that you want to believe that's what it's about, because it's the angle you want to debate it from, but no matter of wishing is going to change the fact that I started the thread with a particular intent, and you're not going to be successful in re-inventing that intent with all the wishing in the world.

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

If I was in charge of the world I could buy all music creators and make it so only a few bands which i controlled had market share. Those bands would now sell the most. Every one would see that sound as the sound of there youth and have an attachment to it. I'm using way out there similies now to try paint the picture.

But that only supports the idea that both today and yesterday, lots of bands who had talent never got played because of marketing tricksters. That problem exists in every industry, it always has, and is not news. We can only focus on what fans are saying they like... they can only like what they hear. Unfortunately there may be other influences that affect what is available for us to hear, and maybe that's an interesting discussion in itself, but I don't it speaks to the decline of musical quality because it has remained constant over time.

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

I bet hundreds of musicians could have made just as good tunes as FWM back in their day if given the right team and studio to work in.

Yes, and that is exactly one of my points - THEY DID, BACK IN THE DAY. Finding good tunes these days gets a lot harder though.

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

Today, we don't need that.

I think that sentiment probably summarize the real root of the problem. Nobody cares if the band is the right team or not. As long as their bubblegum is fed to them over their little ipods, they will spend big money for headphones as a fashion accessory without caring one bit about what's actually being fed through them.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

Are you for real... People couldn't afford these things!!! OPEN UP i dare you!!!

Umm.. when were you born? I knew guys that washed dishes part time and still spent a wad on good audio gear because it was a priority to them at the time.

[mitchiemasha]

I guess what i'm trying to say is there will always be and always has been this problem. It's not new and the next generation will do exactly the same.

One could argue that their talent lies in Googling. Yes with out it they'd fail but with it, better than average Joe, some people are rubbish at googling lol! The same as a guitarist or drummer, the song writer or the mix engineer, take away their tool and boom.

So we could now have a debate over what talent actually is. Stumbling on to realise that your talent might be in debating.

For me I guess it's us, we apply the belief of talent on someone. They could have all the talent in the world but if we don't see it, to us they are talentless.

Anyone who can load a PC, record and mix an entire song from start to finish, with no actual mistakes (although that's a hard one to pin down), technically has talent, yet so many can do that now as we are so connected we see that as not talent.

Oh and i'm 35...

[mitchiemasha]

Originally Posted by MBTC

As long as their bubblegum is fed to them over their little ipods, they will spend big money for headphones as a fashion accessory without caring one bit about what's actually being fed through them.

If you honestly believe that the people of today, the youth don't care about their music, you are very deluded!

in future i should learn to avoid all threads that star, why this or that sucks! Total waste of life!!!!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

I guess what i'm trying to say is there will always be and always has been this problem. It's not new and the next generation will do exactly the same.

One could argue that their talent lies in Googling. Yes with out it they'd fail but with it, better than average Joe, some people are rubbish at googling lol! The same as a guitarist or drummer, the song writer or the mix engineer, take away their tool and boom.

So we could now have a debate over what talent actually is. Stumbling on to realise that your talent might be in debating.

For me I guess it's us, we apply the belief of talent on someone. They could have all the talent in the world but if we don't see it, to us they are talentless.

Anyone who can load a PC, record and mix an entire song from start to finish, with no actual mistakes (although that's a hard one to pin down), technically has talent, yet so many can do that now as we are so connected we see that as not talent.

Oh and i'm 35...

If only I charged money for each time I repeated what this thread was about, I could start sending out enough invoices to finance some bling-headphones for some poor millennial who has yet to discover good music

Not here to debate what talent is. Once again, looking for a causality discussion about symptoms and issues that have been described. Debating definitions of talent might indeed be a worthy discussion, why don't you create a thread about it? Hopefully it won't get beaten to death by folks unable to stay focused on your fundamental goals.

Sitting down and creating a song by yourself on a PC is a VERY different definition of "talent" than coordinating all musical efforts among bandmates, dealing with complex human dynamics and interpersonal relationships in the process, and still producing great music that you are able to play live pretty much flawlessly at any point in time. The latter was the caliber of band I was talking about. Doing anything by yourself is always a thousand times easier, and the net result is always a thousand times less rewarding. Consistently producing good music decade after decade with other bandmates is something very few modern "artists" will ever be able to dream about in their wildest fantasies, as they sit down to their own PC in their own little world of self-taught and self-proclaimed genius, falling back on Google searches whenever they can't figure something out.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

If you honestly believe that the people of today, the youth don't care about their music, you are very deluded!

in future i should learn to avoid all threads that star, why this or that sucks! Total waste of life!!!!

In your last sentence, you seem to be arriving at what I've been saying for many posts now. Invoking debates about all sorts of tangential side discussions that aren't even what the thread is about is a complete waste of time and I'm sure its been done elsewhere by those more passionate.

I was looking for a discussion about a particular issue, detailed meticulously multiple times here.

Why anyone felt it would be a productive use of time to argue all sorts of semi-related points, especially after I went to so much effort to pull things back on track, is beyond me.

[mitchiemasha]

Why a lot of modern forum threads suck!!!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

Why a lot of modern forum threads suck!!!

Well hindsight is 20/20, and honestly? If I had to do it over again? Probably not.