Today's music

[Freestyler]

Well he's completely and utterly fucking wrong there. Either that or he's not being as specific as he needs to be.

That was 2010 that quote, he's mostly right to be honest.

The charts are an embarrassment these days.

Imagine the music industry is an iceberg. The charts are what you see, but under the surface there's so much good stuff there. Ignore the charts, the radio and suddenly music gets a lot better.

That's exactly what i do anyway.

 

[MCFC BOB]

I know you do, mate. It just appears that Noel doesn't.

 

[Freestyler]

I think he's just talking in terms of the charts itself.

Like you say, if you dig deep enough you'll find the good music out there.

 

[nomorethaksintimes]

Solution - Go to Metacritic and sort albums by year and critic rating and then give stuff a go from there.

I agree that chart music has got worse over the decades but if anything I think music as a whole has improved - you just have to dig a little deeper.

 

[woodieMCFC]

+

= Pure fucking shite!

Fair play to Cowell for cashing in on idiots but still, I'd rather do without thanks!

 

[urban genie]

If anything musical genres are expanding and emerging all the time since the early 20th century with advances in tech music has evolved and expanded tie this in with the mass migrations and mixing of cultures after WW2 and more musical sub cultures have been produced. From the 50's when you would hear mainly classical, jazz, blues, swing and rock you haves so many off shoots for example, from R&B alone has emerged
Contemporary R&B, Doo wop, Funk, Deep Funk, Disco, Boogie, New jack swing, Soul,
Hip hop soul, Northern soul, Neo soul. if you look at rock and it's offshoots is massive.

The problem with the charts is that it has now become a cash cow for the major music companies so churning out mass appeal tat is expected, this is why their major acts will command airplay on the mainstream radio/music TV.

Another example that music is in a healthy state but good bands are ignored in the main stream is django Django or Tame Impala, 2 fantastic bands that will get no airplay on R1 or even XFM

Thank god there is 6Music

 

[Andy Dale]

I gave up on music after Stock , Aitken , Waterman ruined it with the same tune with different words .

 

[stonerblue]

An argument for the lazy.

Dig deeper.

True.
I wonder where the OP goes for new music? If they rely on BBC telly and radio 1 for groundbreaking original stuff then they're gonna be disappointed.

 

[stonerblue]

I'd say current Western popular music is saying less purely because there's less to say.

In the early 1970's there was an American culture and society waiting for something like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, and in the mid 1970's there was a British culture and society waiting for the Sex Pistols. Even as late as the 1990's black Americans still felt the need to speak out about their lives to gain a foothold (see: Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet and Goodie Mob's Soul Food).

Now advances in society, partly down to some of these records and political movements that grew alongside them, mean that we're generally more accepting of other people, and apathetic about our own problems as a society, resulting in people having less to moan about. You get the odd band trying to be clever by criticising the government with tired metaphors (see Enter Shikari's 'Arguing with Thermometers'), but when the only political things to write about are the current economic climate and horse meat being used in Tesco's food it's not exactly anything to get the creative juices going.

This means that artists have to look within themselves, or their past, for concepts and ideas to build an album around. Frank Ocean's Channel Orange from last year sort of touches on the struggles he had to face when he came out as gay, and Kendrick Lamar's good kid, M.A.A.D. city from last year too was a concept album about his family and his life growing up, but he doesn't really touch on politics. Like I said earlier, the young generation are too apathetic and are more interested in dancefloors and bright lights than what goes on in the House of Commons. This is why the charts are currently saturated with dance music, and dance music hasn't ever really been "about" rebelling.

Hard-Fi are a current band that tried to battle the government lyrically, but they ended up having ideas above their station and ran out of fresh material. The same thing happened to The Enemy, only they looked to condescending metaphors about working class people to get their message across. I'll just go back to my first point; artists are currently saying less because there's less to say. The music market and the world has changed. People are now interested in catchy singles they can dance to, which is fine. But it has resulted in a lack of deep lyrical thought and ideological expression through music.

Some of the best 'protest' music from the UK came out in the 80's and contained themes that. sadly, are all to relevant today (think Clash, Bragg, Jam, Specials, Springsteen et al).

We still have wars, poverty, hopelessness and inequality for writers and bands to have a go at, and some of them do - Ian Browns' 'Illegal Attacks' springs too mind - .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_9pKiTt4m8[/youtube]

 

[Stuuuuuu]

The harsh reality is that the vast majority of people are as thick as pigshit, and are quite happy to accept whatever is thrown at them by the powers that be. Nobody can be bothered to stand up and rally against shit food, shit education, shit politics, shit TV or shit music. So those in a position to churn out the same crap from the production line, will continue to do so.

I agree though, that there will always be great stuff out there; it just gets harder to find. In fact, there's probably more decent music being made now, than at any point in history. But this is part of the problem - there's so much stuff available (especially in the digital age) that it's just impossible to know where to start.

PS: I'd love to hear some recommendations!