Is modern music getting worse? Thank God for MLT

[Howard]

Excellent Jung. Thanks for finding and  sharing. Haven’t been able to listen to contemporary music for at least a decade (and a lot longer actually). Now I have some good scientific evidence to support my decision and explain to people it’s got nothing to do with my age or biases. Also makes me appreciate and love MLT all the more for what they are doing for us.

[Michael Rife]

The short answer is a resounding “Yes”!!  Today’s music is very formulaic as implied by the video and musicians do not want to stray far from the formula.  We were blessed to be around at the time of music in the 1960s and early 1970s.  The Beatles basically took the US RnR and R & B music and put their own spin to it.  When you compare their covers of some of the US R & B to the original, the Beatles cover is richer and louder and a little more complex.  From there when they did their own music they experimented heavily with George Martin giving them advice on some of the instruments.  After that musicians came out of the woodwork to perform music and their was an exchange of ideas on music, e.g., Beach Boys and Beatles rivalry, Dylan influenced part of Help and Rubber Soul, Byrds and Beatles using a 12 string Rick. After that when the Beatles quit and Simon and Garfunkle split music transitioned over to individual singer-songwriters, e.g. James Taylor, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot.  These individuals were around prior to 1970 but became more prominent during this time.  Still they played good music and experimented some.  After that came Disco and that’s where music lost me.

For the longest time I thought we (the generation from the 1960s and 1970s) were becoming like our parents.  They said that their music was the best, i.e., Sinatra, et al, and that our music was basically noise.  We are saying our music was the best and what followed was/is inferior. But, when you look at the sheet music of some of the songs from the 1960s and early 1970s, it is extremely complex and is as complex as music from the true Classical era (Beethoven, etc.) So, I’m not so sure it is a generational thing like what has occurred previously.  Today’s music appears to be simpler and there is heavy use of “autotone” which forces the voice to be in key.  The musicians of the 1960s/70s would likely not even consider using autotone.  So…..yes our music is better and modern music is worse.  Mike

[Howard]

“Music transitioned over to individual singer songwriters”. Not quite Mike. When the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel split, the Hollies and the Who didn’t and the Rolling Stones were just on their fourth musical transition (from rythm and blues cover band, original pop rock band, psychedelia, hard rock).

Then don’t forget about the following 70s bands.

Led Zepplin, CCR, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Little Feat, Yes, Queen, The Allman Brothers Band, Genesis, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Frank Zappa and the Mother’s of Invention, Grateful Dead, Kraftwork, the Stooges, Santana, Supertramp, Roxy Music, Queen and many more. And that’s before we even get to the punk and new wave bands from the mid sixties. We could go on and on!

[Michael Rife]

OK.…..fair enough.  You forgot about Eagles, too.  But, the individual singer-songwriter became more important after the 1970 dividing line than before it.  Throw in Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon going solo with the ones I mentioned above and there are some major record sales going on.  To me the solo acts were a major force in music after the 1970s than before.  I have a book that discusses this transition…….I forget the title right now….but it makes a case for the growth in the individual acts.  Mike.

[Jacki Hopper]

There are very limited few of todays  music that I actually enjoy…even in genres I normally would enjoy…The majority music landscape for me has become like a factory of manufactured crap…Mixing genres together and pass it off as a certain genre….Focus on vanity (looks-etc ) and dancing …lack of originality and distinction….Overall in my thoughts…I find music prior to 1990s in general to have originality / distinctiveness…you pretty much could recognize who was singing and the focus on the creativity of the musicianship was more relevant and/or priority…The video concepts were not too shabby either……

With that said…it is such a refreshing breath of musical air to have MLT emerge into being…to remind what genuine well crafted music should be about….Thankyou to MLT for coming into all our lives snd to give Thanks to all MLTBuzzGroovies who had an open mind and discovered what MLT music can do for the Human Good????????????❤️☮️✌️????????????????????????????

[Claude Biarritz]

The game is changing, we’re just having  hard time adjusting to it.

[Daniel Smith]

Well, first of all, “worse” is a subjective and relative term.  As mentioned somewhere else in these forums, what is “better” or “worse” in music or anything else is really just the reviewer’s personal preferences.  When I was young, most adults considered rock and roll to be lousy music, and possibly even Satanic.  Now my generation, which is now the parents and grandparents of the current teenagers , are bemoaning the fate of popular music, which usually just means that they can’t relate to it so it must be bad.

I have found that there are some independent music labels that produce some fine music by many young artists.  In fact, my personal favorite currently is one of those young artists (and of course, the MLT are another).  The artist I am currently obsessed with seems like a young female Bob Dylan to me and happens to be from my former home state of Minnesota (as was Dylan).  Since this is a Mona Lisa Twins site, however, I won’t mention her name.  My point being is that there is still good music out there, regardless of one’s tastes.

[Jung Roe]

There is definately good music out there, and musical trends and tastes evolve over time, so what is considered good music change from generation to generation, but the problem I see is  that the major music labels today are more interested in minimizing their risk, and investing in artists that fit a certain mold that they feel will sell.  To them whether it is good music or not is irrelevant as long as it will sell.   So for the consumers of music today, what is offered by the big music labels is music that is already filtered and molded into something the record labels feel is worth listening to.   We have to look hard and find the good music out there, usually from the smaller independent music labels like Woolgoose.

[Larry Reed]

Well said, Jung!