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I feel a Brit Pop Revival coming just round the corner, since the Gallagher brothers announced their reunion tour for next year. #definatelymaybe #oasis #noelamdliam #britpop 🇬🇧
I owned a nightclub that played popular music from 2015-2017, and one thing I noticed was that despite the crowd being almost entirely in their early 20's (making them born in the early 1990s), that there was a "lopsided bell curve" of music we played by year. The peak was around 1998, with a pretty long shelf going backward to the early-70's. But on the opposite side, there was much less. Modern R&B like Beyonce and Rihanna, Modern Rap like Drake/Future/Migos, and some "hipster" stuff like LCD Soundsystem/Grimes got played, but it was an extremely clear trend: despite the audience being very "young" for bar goers, the only songs that could reliably fill a dancefloor were ones that came out when they were still infants or toddlers. Whenever I walk past a bar with dancing in any American city, I notice a lot of the exact same music being played and "working". It's like there's an "American Dancing Songbook" with a few hundred songs in it, and those are the ones that apparently "everybody" wants to dance to.
The Internet came out when I was in grad school. My first reaction to early versions of it was that this might have some good implications, but overall may have a negative impact. Lived my childhood up through undergrad without any Internet, and I don't think we're any better having it.
Can't agree more. I remember when I was a kid in the 90s, the music that you listened to was a huge part of your personality and who you were, as well as the type of friends you had and circles you were in. The internet has played a big part in this change, but also a music industry that doesn't take risks on new bands anymore due to promotional costs and just sits with the same music type over and over since its safe.
Thanks for joining the discussion. I miss the sharing of music with friends in the old way too. You’re bang on about new bands and labels not taking risks. It’s like Groundhog Day these days. Happy listening 🎶
Young people don't care for sex either, among other things (as self-reported in polls, showing a big decline in frequency of sex and even relationships, and a huge hit on loneliness). They have lost any drive...
Sex can be done alone usually better, and romantic relationships are the most stressful waste of time that people let themselves get socially pressured into thinking they should seek, partly by capitalist marketing forces that profit from everybody mistakenly assuming romance is something everyone needs to be either happy or "not a loser". Screw social norms, romance being important is just a sacred cow from the societ that needs to be challenged. It is a vast improvement that gen z and alpha do worthwhile things like creative projects, getting better at passions that fill them with joy instead of the proven misery causers that romantic partnerships are, getting involved in politics or activism, attending LIVE music which is how musicians make money now and NOT drinking alcohol as much as previous generations. Gen Z feed their kids so much better than my poisoned generation was fed, too, the boycotting of ultra processed fake versions of bread full of toxins and "ready meals" is amazing to see. I love Gen z and alpha so much more than I liked my peers when we were their age, they have the best sense of humour too, and groups of mainstream kids will approach extreme alt dressed and extreme gothic dressed people with respectful appreciation and curiosity instead of verbal abuse and physical abuse. Vast improvement. For example, the Mother Mother fanbase and live tours got even better after they blew up on TikTok and suddenly most of the non-Canadian fans were half the band's age. Young people are the best music fans, they support their favourite bands without buying CDs. Effective support of your favourite bands is now about concerts, merchandise, morale-boosting fanart and words of affirmation directly to them on social media, buying vinyl and helping your beloved artists trend on social media. They also make their own music in higher numbers than any previous generation so I don't understand the "they don't value music" perspective, it seems you haven't actually spent much time with young music fans. Everyone has installed Musescore these days.
I’m an average 70 yr old guy. I love technology. I love TH-cam streaming. I remember when I would fork out a few hard earned bucks to buy records that I would be very disappointed in when I finally got home and listened to them. Now I just click on TH-cam and can listen to absolutely anything. Very easy and convenient.
I'm 31 and I record mixtapes for myself on a Technics deck. I like carrying a Walkman on my belt, pulling out a tape and hitting the play button. Much more fun than scrolling down a touchscreen to find a playlist Type 2 ("Chrome/High") tapes can sound pretty damn good if you dial in the bias adjustment correctly, too
The point you made about immediate access really resonated. If you wanted to hear a song in the pre-internet streaming days, you either had to go to the shop and buy the album (or the single!) otherwise phone the radio and request they play the song. You had to wait. Not just for music, but for pretty much everything, movies, TV shows, speaking to friends, there was a period of waiting that you couldn't get around. Our relationship to most things has changed a lot because the time between wanting to have something and the moment you can access it has been drastically reduced. So it's not surprising that music doesn't hold the same value it did in the pre-streaming days.
The reason music is crap now is because in the late 90s they started producing most of the music on an assembly line. And they’ve been producing it on an assembly line at least within the top 40, ever since.
While I agree with you, certainly from the digital age of streaming onwards especially, you can go back to the very early days of the 1950s when Sun Studios and 1960s motown/stax were a production line with performers coming in and cutting a record (literally lol) with the house band, then hawking around the local radio stations or the studio themselves would do the promoting and pay the artists a pittance until they became huge and had bargaining power. It's nothing new but, how likely are we to see the revolution again when bands like the Beatles come along and say "No we write the songs and own the songs" and completely change the landscape? Not sure we will ever see those days sadly, but i may be wrong. Certainly hope I am anyway :)
In the 80s, we had the "Hit Factory" Stock-Aitken-Waterman. That was also music from the assembly line, and 100 times better than anything in the mainstream post 2000. 😁
You need to broaden your lens a bit, this change is touching every creative industry; cinema suffers from streaming just as much as music, graphic design is slowly being being made redundant by AI, etc...pretty much every creative endeavour has lost "market" value. On the plus side, its easier than ever before to find the perfect niche for you, there probably is more music being created now than there ever was in history, its even overwhelming to even try to keep up.
@@soundmatters The creative arts have always been at the mercy of needing patronage of some sort so that artists can both survive and afford the means to create their art. With music - and similar will apply to other fields - in the distant past it was the aristocracy that supported composers/orchestras; then it was publlishing with people buying sheet music to play at home. With recorded music, all of a sudden both composers and performers were able to make a new income stream from record sales and this remained the norm for decades until the late 2000s when the arrival of streaming pretty much destroyed the traditional record deal dead. So... we're heading back to a world where performing live to an audience is at the heart of the artists lives. Not much money there until you build an audience, so YT and the internet has to be used to build that audience. Merch sales of T-shirts and high quality, high priced vinyl albums at those shows or directly from the artist's web store. I'm 58 and worked in the industry as a label manager and band manager for 20 years in the 90s and 00s and, weirdly, I am very optimistic about the future of music. I see it becoming more grassroots and inclusive. There is less of a desire to make music just because it;s commercial by new, young artists, as they are no longer dreaming of "that record deal" that makes them stars overnight, because it's near impossible. Instead they are making music they want to make and playing small shows and struggling BUT they have control over their music and haven't sold all their rights away. From this bedrock of new talent will emerge artists that - with a good lawyer and manager - will be able to license their work to the major publishing and recording corporations, and thereby gets international exposure and hopefully some will become the next Glastonbury headliners. While I'm too old for the business these days, I remain hopeful and optimistic for the future of music, even if I have to agree that as a social binding force within society. It has so much more to compete with now and may never be as big a deal in teenagers lives especially, but there will be more music from more amazing musicians out there to discover, as music is inherent in our experience of being human (well as far as I am concerned anyway) 😎
@@martin-1965Great summary. I also see a bright future ahead when it comes to the music industry. Being an indie artist is very popular nowadays. Some folks are leveraging this really well without needing a record label.
I agree that the music “industry” is significantly weaker than it was pre-2000. The internet basically broke popular culture because the number of options means there is almost never a critical mass of anyone listening to a type of music,thus causing others to mimic the sound and then create or really popularize (or re-popularize) a musical genre. Yes, it’s easier than ever to become an independent artist, but it’s much more difficult to become a true global rock or pop star.
@@jasonswitzer1748 no more huge stars - or rather less - is not a bad thing at all IMO, the internet kind of broke the conformism that stemmed from the traditional media as we all consumed the same content via TV or radio. It's just harder to get to the good stuff nowadays, but it's there, and I think we will see a return of the radio DJs of the past in some form, the ones who curate the best of the best of their genre of predilection, it ties in just right with the current podcast/Spotify playlist culture, just keep your eyes (or ears) peeled!
I would say programmes like Britain's Got Talent didn't help either. They made a lot of people sing only one way and led to technicality being more important than soul or feeling.
Britain's got talent: 100%: the naughties had not identity as we'd fully transitioned to celebrity-driven culture with shows like that. Things would never be the same again.
Radio is not listened to on a daily basis anymore where every genre played their top 40 and everyone knew them all. Me, I hardly ever listen to the radio in the car. So it is that simple.
My partner recently went on a work trip with some gen zrs, she selected some CDs for the road per usual. Upon departure, her gen z crew had all put ear things in. How sad
I think a factor is streaming music (audio and video) in general is low enough quality that it doesn’t give the same dopamine hit - so it gets passed by. I had streaming radio on in the gym the other day and a favorite song came on and I realized it was doing nothing for me. This struck me as odd so I put the same song on a high res service and it was suddenly “alive” and motivating. Music is no longer how kids define themselves because of social media. It was our main way of interacting with culture when out and about. We had our walkmen and discmen and it was the main way we could take our identities with us. It’s a different world.
Video games are the big thing now. People even listen to video game soundtracks when they aren’t playing the actual games. Music doesn’t stand on its own anymore….it is now simply the soundtrack to a game, Marvel movie, or TikTok video.
Growing up in the 80s entertainment was something special. When you got to watch a good movie it was an event. I used to read the TV guide to plan out what was going to be watched on TV/Cable. Now we have a flood of entertainment and we are over stimulated by it. Music is something you listen to in the car or on a walk, no one listens to music at home on a good stereo.
You'd also be surprised with these other generations, if you interact with them. That is the beauty of being a teacher, work at a university, or being a parent (which i am not, but had the experience in a couple relationships, but had the teacher/university experience). I continually have found that in those situations not only did I have a chance to share my experiences, teach, or "educate", but also found I learned a lot too from them.
In general, I agree. I think it’s stretched a little longer than the 90s though. For example, I remember some very distinctive and good music being made in the early 2000s. But after 2005 or so, it was like a wasteland.
There is still amazing music being made. The average technical level of young musicians is way beyond that of their equivalents in the 60s, 70s and 80s (the internet is pretty good at learning how to play your instrument, if you're moderately motivated). And there are probably more musical geniuses around than at any time in human history. The thing is, nobody cares. Not really. Apart from 'long tail', and passionate but relatively small online communities, music is wallpaper. Almost none of the really good stuff bothers what we have as the equivalent of charts, because algorithms can only look backwards, or at best, predict a pastiche or retro phase. I've thought about this a lot and there is a clear golden era. I pick 1966-1996 as the bookends, and we can argue a year or two either way at the fringes but by the late 90s, popular music as a cultural force, as the defining element of youth culture was gone. That doesn't mean amazing, creative and original music wasn't made. I love the synthesis of 60s and 80s we call big beat. This synthesis was new because the technology allowed new sound to be created, and if you look back at the golden era, technology often led the creativity. First, multitracking, then synthesis, then sampling then microcomputers that could be owned by an individual. But since the late 90s, nothing new. If you go to a Fatboy Slim DJ set these days, you see a bunch of gen-x'ers and their children. The children are there, sure but it's just another part of the huge smorgasbord of things to enjoy they now have. You can easily argue that the grunge music of the early 90s was the last real music-based youth 'movement', but it can be argued that grunge wasn't particularly novel anyway. Not compared to what had come just before. And then we come to what I think is the crux of all this, genre-ification. Until the late 90s, the only people who spoke of genre without trying to be insulting were bad music journalists and record company A&R people. Musicians and the people who followed them spoke of style and influences. It seems a little thing but it's both illustrative and I believe, important. People would have preferences for a particular style but style was never as defined as genre has become. If you asked a musician what genre they played, chances are they'd tell you to piss off - 'I don't play genre music, I play my music'. I watch people talking about music, technique and music equipment here on the 'tubes and it's striking how much people appear straightjacketed by the idea of genre. 'This guitar is good for such and such a genre', or 'how do I mix my kick drum for a particular genre?' It wasn't like this in the past at all.
@@splashfreelance2376 they may play better but they are not good musicians or have very bad taste in music and do everything with computers instead of composing with a piano and real orchestra and taking notes
Problem is not the kids but the parents... they were the mp3 generation, they had a harddisk full of music but their harddisk is probably dead after all those years. Most of them have no (half)decent hifi, no collection on cd or vinyl. Their kids have never learned the value of music. I think kids that grew up in a family surrounded by music in the house will still care more about music. Many songs still remind me of being together with my parents, friends, girlfriend, pets,... beautiful memories, sad memories,... were always attached to songs. It's the soundtrack of my life! For the current generation it will be background noise and 5 sec tiktok snippets. Music was my therapy, maybe because of the lack of music in their lives that so many have mental issues nowadays. We were listening to music when feeling bad or sad, nowadays they buy (il)legal substances in stead of an LP / CD.
I remember going to other peoples houses as a kid and being surprised that music wasn't as important as it was in my household. So there's something in that, for sure. Instant gratification culture has a part to play too, as you allude to. Thanks for joining the discussion
@@soundmatters I hear this comment a lot on Twitter, though it's obvious that it's from people who have not heard either 'Everyday Life' or 'Ghost Stories', usually because the person has already decided that they don't like Coldplay and therefore are absolutely sure that they won't enjoy any album after the debut or second one. 'Everyday Life' is absolutely not the pop-fest that some people think it might be.
As a big Coldplay fan, it always irks me when people don’t actually listen to their music post “A Rush Of Blood to the Head” because they think it’s generic radio Pop stuff when that couldn’t be further from the truth. “X & Y”, “Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends” and “Everyday Life” are so much more sophisticated and vibrant than a lot of people realize and they have so much diversity and passion. Even albums like “Ghost Stories”, “Mylo Xyloto” and “A Head Full of Dreams” have strong musicianship and class especially in the songwriting. Now I totally get if people just don’t care for them after giving them some listens then that’s just personal taste and they just don’t connect with them and that’s fine. But to those who actually haven’t listened to them and say negative things based off of other people or assumptions then that’s really stupid and ridiculous. I mean why would you give your take on a song or an album when you actually haven’t given it a real listen in the first place? That seems pretty obvious to anyone talking about anything but I see people do it all the time and it’s so frustrating. Coldplay has always been one of those misunderstood bands even though they have gone into more generic Pop territory these days, they don’t deserve most of the hate that they get in my opinion.
The way us young people consume music has changed drastically with the advent of streaming. Nowadays if you want to find a certain genre or sound you can find plenty of niches which fill that void. Whereas before the 2010’s, what you listened to was what was given to you by major labels and radio stations or what you could buy in a record store. The old way of making and distributing music has become obsolete with the technological shift. Artists and consumers are not confined to the Major Labels anymore.
There’s a term in Economics called “diminishing marginal utility”, better known by the expression: “when you have a lot of something, it’s worth less”. Tech advances since the 1970’s have made it much easier to MAKE music, and much easier to DISTRIBUTE music. We now have a WHOLE LOT of music. So it’s worth less.
At the same time, three global media groups control 80+% of the music released commercially. They control what the majority of people listen to, and what they seem to favour is music which is both ephemeral and easy to produce without any actual musicians (or at most, well-establised session players) involved. The irony is that said media groups rely increasingly on their back-catalogues for any commercial return, because people in general are buying less new music.
You're absolutely right. Growing up in the '90s, in a place where internet wasn't common yet, music just meant so much more. I remember calling in to request songs, going to buy cassettes and CDs, and MTV playing music instead of "reality" TV. Even in the early 2000s, when internet became more common where I lived and we all started burning CDs, there was still a kind of magic. We didn't have algorithms everywhere yet forcing sponsored content, we had each other and whatever we stumbled across. I wouldn't have even known about Flogging Molly if it wasn't for a friend sharing music with me. I like that it's more accessible for creators nowadays to create and get their stuff out into the world, but it's not completely good. I don't even hate to sound like a stereotypical hipster here in saying that most of the good stuff (up to personal preference, you do you!) isn't mainstream. That combined with a lot of them seemingly treating music as money and formulas to get that money, rather than trying to create true art, has definitely changed music.
If you look at it, I'd say distinct decade identities apply a lot earlier than the 1950's, something which can easily be seen just by glancing at old photos. In addition to the 1950's to the 1990's, the 1890's, 1900's, 1910's, 1920's, 1930's and 1940's all were distinct decades, and before this we seem to have roughly 20 year slots for a while. What we see here with the distinct decade phenomenon is something that I'd simply describe as the pinnacle of modernity (the "modern" here being thought of as something began with the "early modern" in roughly the 1500's). So the fact that we now live in a "postmodern" era where decades have lost their distinctiveness, where history is slowing down (beginning with the 90's seamlessly blending into the 00's, and then nothing happens) seems to have much greater ramifications than previously hitherto thought of, and of course, does not apply only to the sphere of popular music.
Could be wrong but things seem less precious when they are more abundant. Having said that, music meant the most to teens and early 20 somethings in my days and I'm far from that so it's worth asking that age group.
The idea that "it was better back in the day", probably used since the language exists, just means "I'm stuck in my time, I wasn't able to adapt (yet)". Everything always changes, and the more something goes in one way, the more the counterpart goes in the other, so as you said there is always some kind of balancing. Yes, internet was a very big and sudden change and everything is of course very different, but different doesn't mean less good. The values, what build a personality, a purpose, an identity, are always changing, shifting, evolving. What I can at least say after 52 years of life is that, if mainstream music has always been mainly crap (there are some exceptions of course), the "less commercial" (for lack of a better term, especially since English is not my first language, sorry...) music coming from the new generation has always been and keep getting more and more exiting and creative every day. How people of their generation receive it? I don't know, but I'm sure very happy about it :D
I don't think owning music has anything to do with it, in the old times, we just listened to the radio and recorded our favorite songs on tape. It's not just music, pretty much everything has become less specific to the age. There have always been different styles. In the 90s Grunge and Rave were very prominent, but a lot of other subcultures have been around a long time, Gothic comes to mind. Today you may have more styles, yes, and I think those who follow a specific style are still passionate about it. The difference is that the mainstream - of everything incl. music, movies, art, fashion - has just become one unified broth that is ultimately exchangeable and bland. Sign of the times
Same 100% agree, taped practically everything in the 1980's and early to mid 90's owned very few albums etc. However still absolutely love music, today you just have to like things outside of the mainstream commercial artists boosted by the music industry, some wonderful music from the 2010's -23 but not what the majority consider cool and trendy.
I was excited by the possibilities of MP3 files back in the 90s, but now it seems there is too much music out there to focus on any one band. Most folks listen to music on tiny gadgets now, which can't convey the power of good music. We need a speaker cabinet revolution amongst many others.
I agree with that. But we live in a smaller more compact world, or a lot of us do and our big speaker cabinet will be thrown out with us when we violate our crappy apartment leases agreements and or when neighbors complain.
I make electronic music. Many of the comments I get are relating the music to video games. Since MTV, the concept of music being a stand alone art form has dwindled.
I still play vinyl, but I only buy CDs now, as I like the fact you can play a whole album on one side. Keep up the good work. I always enjoy watching your posts.
I think we dodged a bullet that nobody ever thought to make 2 cd sets a single double sided CD like you often saw with DVDs early on when one side was wide screen and the other was cropped.
music has been devalued due to its over abundance. In the past, you might have had only 1 radio station...now you have 500 local stations & you can stream pretty much any station in the world. Add to that, every time you walk into the supermarket, shop or even public transport - music is everywhere! Not only that, but you can have thousands of songs on a small ipod & access pretty much any song on youtube!
Born in 72 and agree completely with Noel’s statement. I’m so grateful that I got to grow up in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Music isn’t the only thing that has changed. The whole world has changed, and not necessarily for the better.
Maybe because I grew up listening to LPs I still tend to play whole albums, whether they’re on CD or streamed. Playlists appealed in the early iPod days but that’s over 20 years ago, I rarely use them now and can’t be bothered to compile my own!
@@andygilbert1877That’s so lazy of you can’t you imagine compiling all your own favorite music on an iPod/MP3 player? Rip them from your CDs or your paid downloads or MP3 file shares online, it’s so easy or convert a TH-cam video using the Real Player app Real Convertor, Then all the music you like on one device masses of songs just take it anywhere no need for a mobile or internet connection everything is there on it all your favorites to keep not to be taken away by a streaming platform by an artist who doesn’t want their music on a streaming platform.
Competition for our attention, yes, that's a definite factor. Also, the reduced prominence of music & its needed technology in our lives. In the past, we had record shops in every shopping center & an electronics section in every department store. Here in California, Sears doesn't even exist & Macy's has no stereo dept. Money that was spent on a modest stereo system in 1986 might go to an espresso machine or a nice mobile phone today. We forget that only a few of us continued to love music beyond our school years just as only a few of us became avid readers. That niche group is still large enough to support a lot of artists.
I think the same happened/is happening to films and series. Now you just download an album and if you don't like the first 10 seconds skip it, move onto the next one. If you have to leave home to purchase physical media you have higher standards and value it more.
Also gen Z kids don't have the money or care about working towards buying proper equipment to play physical music the correct way. Direct Drive turntable, good cartridge, pre amp, receiver, speakers etc. Me on the other hand, I'm old Gen Z, 1998 but I own everything from Pro-sumer reel to reel, Technics Sl-5100, LP's, cassettes, 78s, edison cylinder's, vintage headphones. I only buy old vinyl from the 70s and 60s since all music was recorded to tape then cut to vinyl. You can listen to music and collect records or whatever but you got to be committed to buying the proper gear. 17 years of collecting this stuff. I'm not part of no trend for this stuff. I got into as a hobby way before it became popular and I was always called old and weird. Now look at me. I will always buy old gear. It's better made, easier to service and will last forever! I listen to everything from Jack Hylton, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw from the 1930s to Les Baxter, Enoch light, Martin Denny from the 1960s. Space Pop is my current focus right now. I wanna buy all the really far out sounding records of the time.
I think you have a point. I am Gen X and in my youth, every kid had at least a better boom box to play music. Most Gen Z and Alpha only listen to music on their cellphones, if at all. I sold my old equipment and vinyl when I immigrated, but sorely miss it. I salute you, Teac4010. Happy to hear some in Gen Z still know the good stuff!
I think music is not anymore a subculture, it’s just music. There are micro trends and celebrities that have sort of tribal consistency and make people feel some „belonging“. Putting a good set of headphones on or listening on a great system Ian’s just listening to music without „doing“ anything else, is a very foreign concept for a lot of people nowadays. But once you do listen to music onna good system, you „get it“ when the emotions hit you hard…..
I had a vinyl collection growing up. I even had a really nice Technics turntable and a pair of Heil Air Motion Transformer cabinets back in my 20s. I ditched all my vinyl once I had a good number of them replaced by Compact Discs back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I could never go back to the efforts required to keep records clean and the noise inherent in the medium, however pleasing the subtle distortions might be. I can recreate those same distortions when I mix songs if I want to. Now I listen to things mostly on my Mackie HR824 reference monitors and 16/44.1 is all I need for mind-bending audio, albeit not compressed all to hell; 256 kbit AAC is just fine.
My kids 9/12 don’t care about music they only like TH-cam and games 🤷♂️. Back in the 90’s you came home put on MTV watch some weird music videos and the social thing on the schoolyard was the music you saw and the crazy shows like Beavis and Butthead/Daria/C Deathmatch/ Pimp my ride and The Osbournes. And when the Internet started everybody was using Napster. After 22:00 The uncensored music videos started 😜 Cradle of filth 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
I think part of the reason music isn't as big is the Drop in Quality of music Playback devices that are in range of the Average Joe or Jane, I sell Old Second hand Stereos and Home Theaters, and i is WILD the reactions I get when I play them at my local market and some of thes things are 10, 20, 30, or even 40/50 years old and people are BLOWN away by how good they sound some of the people walking by start bopping or nodding tobthe beat as they go by and they SELL even with no Bluetooth or Internet connectivity often only having Turntable, CD, DVD or BluRay player as source because average peopel are STARVED for GOOD AUDIO us Enthusiasts are used to it but THEY AREN'T!!! I remember my last Girlfriend's reaction the first time I Played my HiFi system for her and she was like "OMG it sound REAL" and she didn't think music COULD sound that good and that was part of our age gapbi was born in the 80's she was born in the 90's
I’m not so sure about that. I started listening to music aged about 12 in 1970 and it was 1981 before I had a decent hi-fi. It didn’t stop me discovering (to name just a few 70s acts) Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, Genesis, Yes, Queen, Sex Pistols, The Clash etc. These were played on a cheap mono record player, followed by cheap mono cassette player which I’d say pale in comparison to a modern phone & a cheapish set of headphones.
@andygilbert1877 But that was a EPIC time to be alive Musically Zepplin is AMAZING no matter where you hear but most modern band that the Average GenZ'er listens to is NOT! When you live in a time where most popular releases ALL sound the Same and use the same Notes/chords it is not exciting and Apathy sets in but having a JAMMING music player can make music exciting again as well as good music on an Average or Poor playback device can also be exciting, but fore real most of GenZ use Crappy Mono Bluetooth speakers that BUZZ, RATTLE, and DISTORTY with only mediocre Volume levels and i am will to bet money your crappy childhood Mono Suitcae players and Cassette deck will STILL sound better than what they are using now, One of my local Ztards had bound a BT speaker at the dollar store that sounded WORSE that a Phone Boomboxing and was quieter and I had to do a side by side to show them it was a waste of time AND money and then showed them what you could buy at Goodwill and they were BLOWN AWAY
On one hand I totally agree with you. Putting on a very good set of headphones or listening from a good system makes some people cry when they got hit by the raw emotions of the voice and singer hitting them. But on the other hand, every iPhone and android came (some still come) with a decent sounding headphone that sound better than a lot we had back in the days. Really good sounding headphones are cheaper than ever, audiophile grade dac/amps and headphones too…. It’s both true, lot of people listen on a monoluetooth speaker compressed to death, and a lot of people listen with pretty decent headphones.
On one hand I totally agree with you. Putting on a very good set of headphones or listening from a good system makes some people cry when they got hit by the raw emotions of the voice and singer hitting them. But on the other hand, every iPhone and android came (some still come) with a decent sounding headphone that sound better than a lot we had back in the days. Really good sounding headphones are cheaper than ever, audiophile grade dac/amps and headphones too…. It’s both true, lot of people listen on a monoluetooth speaker compressed to death, and a lot of people listen with pretty decent headphones.
@koolpep yeah I agree that a good setup of headphones is nice but nothing beats FEELING the music in your body not to mention Bluetooth headphones are what most people use, and even my Sony MX3's sound WAY better with a wired connection and most GenZ ONLY use Bluetooth and most time it is DREADFULLY inferior, and even at it's best it is okay. Once again most people have let their standards go if they ever HAD them! otherwise they would have been as mad as us Audio Enthusiasts when all the Phone manufacturers removed the 3.5mm jack. In most cases though the lack of enthusiasm makes for less people wanting to spend the Audiophile levels of cash you need for good Audio, and the Quality of Audio that is most people's home has gone DOWN THE DRAIN! even back in the mid 90's and early 2000's EVERYONE i new had a mini Hifi that would STOMP on pretty much ANY BT speaker and NOW some people just listen to music on their TV, sometimes without even a crappy sound bar and TV speaker are WORSE than ever on Average because of the Thinness wars. when you look up most purchased sound bar on Amazon, all the TH-cam reviews will say it is CRAP but still sounds better than the TV itself and that is where Audio is in 2020
Music's become "content". It's generated by a few people, repeatedly using the same few sampled sounds, and endlessly repeating a sequence of four chords with a barely distinguishable chorus, so we've moved from a singer-songwriter era to a singer-nonsongwriter era. (How's that different from the days of Ella and the Velvet Fog and Ol' Blue Eyes? They were extremely talented specialists. Now you just need someone attractive, autotune can take care of the rest.) Experimentation? No--once you've found a working schema, run it into the ground. AI generated music is more creative than pop music today.
it's obvious. there is binding at each sub genre level, but not across genres, which produced a collective experience. when music was only accessible through radio, MTV and a trip to your local record store, our youth had national collective experiences. music required effort to find and enjoy. popular music traversed multiple genres which brought cultures together. the traditional music "industry" is all but dead and pop music is it's own narrowly programmed sub genre. streaming services give millions of choices, music is divided into genre specific stations, and we all just go our own way.
Also the Beatles had 20 no.1 from 1964-1970,also had critically acclaimed albums like revolver,sgt pepper, the white album,and abbey road etc, Taylor swift hasn't produced any sort of type of album
I think it's money. If you have to use your small amount of money on something you choose, and some of it is music, you're going to listen to what you chose over and over. Now you've also spent a bunch of time with it, and it's part of your life. It works better if the songs are in the same order every time because the end of this song leads into the beginning of the next song. This is the soundtrack to your life. A play list with a bunch of songs you like that play in random order doesn't do the same thing.
Are we talking here about accessing music or music itself being less of a priority for the current (2024) generation? Music touches everyone and we could not live without it; whether we realise it or not.
Before the Internet you had AM/FM radio and if you wanted a copy of a song you bought a tape recorder. There's even a song dedicated to recording off the air, British band Bow Wow Wow and their hit 'C30, C60, C90 Go!". The thing the Internet did bring was on demand streaming and exact digital copies of music via Napster. As far as Oasis being the last defining band/musician, I disagree, you've had huge performers influencing the culture like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. What I think has made music less important in people's lives is big business using a handful of songwriters who in turn basically take a hit song, twist it around a bit to make another hit song. Luckily we still have excellent singer/songwriters like Sierra Ferrell, Andrew Martin of Watchhouse/Mandolin Orange and Gregory Alan Isakov . You just have to look a little harder to find them. The other negative effect is earbuds and people listening to music in the background as they go about their lives. In that case music becomes more like elevator music. Few people listen to music critically anymore. They don't appreciate it since it's always there.
Some great points added there. Thanks for joining the discussion. Do you remember those posters about how taping off the radio was “killing the music industry” 😂🎶
@@soundmatters I'm in my 70's I remember a lot. I hope I can keep remembering all that great music and the culture around it. I was recently explaining to someone in their early 20's about record stores like Licorice Pizza, back in the hippie days, where they always were burning incense, had concert posters (now collectibles) all over their walls, staff all had long hair, beards and wore sandals. LP's were under $5, guys like me were buying PS Audio's first product (Phono Preamp that still sounds amazing today) and to rub it in, gas was $0.23 a gallon.
True but not. People don't purchase music as much but buy tickets to shows and band merch. People seem less focused nowadays on particular artists and more focused on genres as a whole. Thus the rise of genre music festivals with tons of artists instead of one show for one band with tons of people. And yes there are big music moments such as dubstep and the general EDM wave of 2009-2012ish that influenced the entire music world. I feel like it was more live driven though.
"True but not. People don't purchase music as much but buy tickets to shows and band merch." those are either hardcore music fans (a small minority of young people) or people just going to someplace like Coachella or a Taylor Swift concert to be seen. Young people don't care for music in any way as much as past generations up to the 90s did. Music is just one more background thing, social media, gaming, streaming are more important. Music in other words doesn't define a teeanger (what you listen to) as it did before.
This is just my impression, I have no facts to back this up. When I was in high school, a big part of people's identities were attached to the type of music they liked. Not always, but often, it played a part in the scene you were involved in, or the social circles you hung out with. But when I think of my friends now, very few of them would say music plays a central part in their lives. My parents were the same in the 80's; music was incidental. Nowadays, kids form their social connections differently (like you mention, video games are a great example). But I work with people in their early 20's, and there's always a proportion who very much loves music. I would say a similar proportion to older folks like me who still do obsess over music, and are still inspired by musical curiousity. So I would say the proportion of people who put that sort of value into music is roughly the same as it ever was, it just has less relation to one's image (I have noticed young people being less concerned with genre loyalty), and more to do with the genuine love of the art.
I notice you skipped from glam rock, which peaked around 1973, straight to britpop - a gap of around 25 years. And what you missed out was metal, punk, the mod revival, the ska/bluebeat revival, 80s 'falklands' pop, rap, acid house - and all the subgenres of (most of) these. Music probably stopped 'defining a generation' around 1980 (at the latest). Oasis were just a quaint throwback to more innocent times. You're right on the button about music failing nowadays, though. As a massive consumer of music, in the last month, I've discovered two bands for the first time that I'm (probably) going to have a lengthy relationship with. When I spotted the first (a post on Reddit led me to their Spotify, where I fell in love with their latest LP, to their BandCamp, where I bought it.) A couple of weeks later, I bought a remix LP of the same LP (it's unrecognisable from the original!) I'd mentioned to a couple of people that I'd discovered a new band with a unique sound - and that it was the first time I'd felt this enthusiastic about a discovery since the turn of the century. Ten days later, I discovered another 'new to me' band. Not as unique as the first, but pleasantly reminiscent of a band I'd loved since the 90s -with a savage modern twist. You wait over twenty years for some decent new music to come along - and then two come along at once!
Technology and economics. Everything you’re talking about was the consequence of recording technology, which created the music industry of the 20th century. It was a novelty. Computers and the internet changed everything. Recorded music is now extremely cheap to make and distribute, and no one will pay much for it. It has been devalued. Anyone can do it, so it isn’t special. It has been democratized, but it also isn’t worth anything. Before recording technology, it was common for many households have instruments, and for almost everyone to play them to some degree. People used to gather around a piano to sing together. Or sit around a campfire with acoustic instruments. There were traveling minstrels who would scrape by somehow. The only place large numbers of people would gather to listen to music was a symphony, in a facility that also included opera and theater. That was the only place that composers or musicians became “famous”. And there were very few. Now there is the opportunity for musicians to form small followings from around the world, which creates a different dynamic. No one has really cracked it yet, and all that exists is manufactured disposable trash pop from the legacy media with big money behind it. Which nobody cares about. Except the teenage girls it’s aimed at, who are influenced by it.
All you have to do in order to recognize the dysfunction in the industry is ask, who owns it? Pretty self-explanatory why things are corrupt and brutal on the artists and fans
I don't know. I think Taylor Swift as a phenomenon is not too dissimilar to beatlemania. Her eras tour has been the talk of towns across the world. Caused inflation in some places. I still think gen Z cares about music. I just think they Orient themselves differently to it. They are the curators of their own music creating playlists. Albums are no longer the fundamental unit of music. This has definitely hurt the chances of a decade type identity to music. Instead of just rock, pop, classical and jazz, there are hundreds even thousands of subdivisions of rock genres.
Thanks for commenting. Taylor Swift is huge, no doubt. Perhaps the difference is that she’s not part of a wider scene or movement, she’s just one person: hence celebrity-driven culture. For sure, music still features, but things are definitely more fragmented. Like you say, they’re curating their own playlists; they’re lucky in that they’ve got access to everything on tap from any genre or era. Pros and cons. One thing is for sure. The internet has changed everything. It will never be quite the same again in terms of how generations consume music and how they value it.
@@soundmatters I agree, people tend to underestimate how important it is to hear a song at the right time for it to become part of your life in a meaningful way. For a lot of people my age, Closing Time by Semisonic was overplayed to the point where they don't have any interest in hearing it again. Personally, I was in the back country most of that summer and I only heard it once on the van ride home. It was more or less the perfect song for the moment. Similarly, Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz was everywhere the summer that it came out, but I will always associate it with a black jeep that I saw blasting it while driving by as I went to get a burger. These days, I don't even know how anybody would have an equivalent experience to that due to the fragmentation. Also, the fact that so much of the popular music sounds the same isn't helping things. Back in the '60s there was a massive variety of music being produced and sent over the airwaves, enough to help encourage subcultures.
Yes! I agree 100%! Frankly, I‘m growing a bit weary of this nostalgic „things were better back then“ make-(enter noun)-great-again mentality. Yes, things do change and yes, some stuff is for the better and some is not so great BUT don‘t say things were „better“ back then b/c the truth is … they weren‘t. For example, with streaming, I have access to an entire universe of music. I can broaden my horizon even more. I‘m actually amazed by which songs kids know nowadays. I think it‘s awfully bigot of us to say anything along the lines of „the newer generations don‘t appreciate … as much“ … these are exactly the same arguments I heard older generations say when I was younger! Pfffft! Sony Walkman? Boy, you don‘t know what it‘s like to really sit down with others and enjoy music … you just pop those earphones on and let the world slip you by, „hanging out“ and up to no good!
@@scottborenstein8291 Crazy? First of all that's not an appropriate way to argue. Second, look at her number one hits and theirs. She is different yes. She's sustained her career much longer while increasing her popularity. And I guess you haven't gone to one of her concerts. Where they have thousands of people in parking lots all dressed up and singing along.
Nu Metal really shaped the 90s and early 2000s and made it being remembered in the grand scheme of music, while music right now has no culture, no mindset and practically no identity, it's barely even political or anti society anymore, which it always was. Why? Because its rather for shaping an obedient reality and less about speaking on behalf's as an individual.
But if there were any good music being made in the present day, people would still want to own it regardless of the format. The recording industry is imploding because of its insistence on an absolute stranglehold: no outside influence, no variables, everything written and produced by the same handful of hacks. People don't respond to music in the same way that past generations did because the music is terrible. We've been hearing this same sort of mass-produced pop awfulness since the late '90s (i.e., when Britney Spears and the associated wave of boy bands first emerged), so one could argue that the industry's long-term strategy was *always* to make music a disposable medium. Whether or not some other medium will fill the hole remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that the industry has killed bands and songwriting and essentially everything recognizable in pop music. The human touch has been entirely eradicated, and will remain so for as long as the bald Swedes/Norwegians maintain a death-grip on the recording industry.
Eh, I like Beato, but he often runs down some thought trains that are extremely generalized to his own perspective. I don't agree at all that music has become worthless or that you have to save up to buy records in order for music to be meaningful. In fact, I'd say that's probably the least contributing factor to why music means anything to anyone. I'm middle aged. The music I listened to growing up was either on the radio or on the albums I owned. Music meant a lot to me, especially in my adolescence. But I would guess the majority of the albums I owned I didn't pay for myself. I didn't get my first job until after high school. So everything I 'owned" was either a gift, something my parents bought me, or something I bought with an allowance. That didn't change the fact that music was a big part of my life and was something I built my identity around in a lot of ways, as most adolescents do. So I have trouble believing that the current youth aren't having similar experience just because they can stream most of the music they listen to for free or virtually free. I'm sure whatever music they're into still means a lot to them and I'm sure they're still using it as identity signifiers for themselves. I think the actual difference is homogenization as you talked about in this video. The internet has vastly widened the market, opened up avenues for people to get music to a wide audience without going through a record label etc. And so you probably have larger range of smaller groups of audiences that are listening to a wide range of artists and musical groups/bands. And sure, for as long as this environment lasts, you probably won't get the same amount of cultural phenoms as you did in the past. But that doesn't mean music is worthless or it doesn't mean the same to people. The value and meaning is still there, its just spread out over a wider range of subgroups. Although even in this environment, you do still wind up with some massively popular artists. I mean is there anyone living in a first world country who doesn't know who someone like Taylor Swift is? Or to point to newer artists, Billie Eilish, or Sabrina Carpenter? End of the day, just because the market environment changed, doesn't mean the meaning isn't there for people. And I'm sure the current youth and future generations will still wind up having their cultural landmarks to look back on in a few decades. They might just not be as analogous to our cultural landmarks as ours were to the generation before us.
Yeah i agree that music and movies and tv and video and pc games have all gone downhill in quality. is it the content creators or the higher ups and executives making decisions or both? Is does seem like less creative effort is being put into the content and i also think this began in the late 90s like others say
Great points, I agree with your views here. One thing I'd like to add in line with your thinking, and in particular the comment about video games: I notice with my kids (both under 10) that they are incredibly visually-oriented. Yes, they listen to music and podcasts, but often want to see any images (moving or not) that are associated with the audio. Even, for example, on Spotify, they desperately want to see the little video loop on many songs. They often prefer to watch a music video rather than simply listen. Of course, regarding videos, we "wanted our MTV" too, but as a Gen X'er (and same goes for all but the youngest millenials) I was and still am perfectly happy having an audio-only experience. For the younger gens, it seems that these distinct experiences are difficult to separate from one another.
The Internet has changed the world, not just the music world. The music world changed with pop/rock radio and before that recorded music, the whole world changed with electricity or steam. These are seismic changes that not unsurprisingly change things for ever, creating a new world which some love and others not so much. Who knows where things will go as far as the music world goes but lets not also not forget this push has been predominantly orchestrated by the music industry as another way of making more money for them (f@*k the musicians).... But nothing new there eh!
I hope you’re talking about just mainstream music because music as a whole has been truly excellent, and there’s more music being made than ever before so therefore a lot of awesome music gets unheard and untouched. There’s SO much more music out there that most of it doesn’t reach the masses and they don’t know it even exists. The great music is out there and has been out there forever, you just have to find it like I did. There’s never been a better time to be a music fan than now but so many people are just stuck listening to the same old same old and all the popular music and that’s all they think music has to offer. It’s truly sad and I get really frustrated when people say ridiculous things like there’s no good music anymore when in reality it’s just they haven’t explored beyond their comfort zone and the mainstream. It’s out there and there’s music for everyone, you just have to find it if you really want to.
I always thought it was idiotic to allow yourself to be in some sense 'defined' by the music you listened to, and I hated that constant, inane - and yet apparently vital - question, "What music do you like?". A good song is a good song.
I hate this generation. Every decade since the 50s had a look and sound. An exploration of both. Taken to their logical conclusions and bookended at the start of the next 10 years. Explore a whole new set of sounds and look. Exploring parameters. Theres beautiful expression while working in that. Its focused. This generation.. doesnt care?. Generational baton passing canceled. Boring. Rather celebrate celebrity instead.
You don't own anything, and never have...you are the POSSESSOR of the particular sound recording that you have...you bought an exclusive use LICENSE that allows you to control who can or can't use that particular sound recording until you sell/gift it to someone else transferring the license to them
Not sure why all the pining for an era that's not ever ever coming back is worthwhile. Also, keep waiting for anyone in this conversation to ask some folks from the generation that we keep telling what they are thinking about music, what they think about music. lol
Yeah, it's the same "we're getting old, we're going to die and everything we love will be forgotten" realisation. I bet jazz aficionados from the 1930s felt the same when beatlemania hit.
It could come back. Just look how many people hang out on TicToc and other social media sites. It may not be quite the same, but it never was the same in the past either. The worst bits of it definitely would change fairly quickly if copyright law got fixed and the labels were broken up into something that more appropriately allowed for the sort of competition that there was in the '70s and '80s for listeners to buy the albums.
Blues & Rock N Roll was stolen from American Black people and lost it's soul like every other genre. Low vibrational artists and terrible music industry elites only care about money.
Not here to yuck any yums but this Is quite the echo chamber. I think everyone is making the mistake of “because they don’t value music in the same way I do they must not value music.” The premise that the 90s was the last great generation of music is nonsense. As a millennial, I have bonded with so many millennials from different backgrounds who all shared a love of punk and emo of the 2000s. Whoever makes the playlists at my gym must have also been in college around the same time as me because it’s nothing but indie and synth pop from the early 2010s. What I think is true is that the album has gone away as the dominant form of music distribution. Singles were more popular before the rise of the album. Now they’re back. I’m sure the album will have a resurgence in time. I’m not disagreeing with your observations about the internet both breaking down regional barriers and also encouraging niches of interest. But generally speaking I think this is a great thing for art.
The way music is bought today is different and there are very solid economical reasons. To say, though, that music does not count anymore is wrong and inaccurate. There must be no room for nostalgia for something that is still produced everyday and everyday is the best ever, and I mean now, today. Stop crying for those very defined generational boundaries, those incredible '80s, those creepy 1970's supergroups, combat rock and Co., and the very very miserable thing that Oasis was and is. Music today is the best that it has ever been.
Film is available in the cinema or pay per view before being available to stream. I don't understand why music isn't available to buy a few weeks before you can stream it on Spotify. If people love it, they will buy it. Spotify shouldn't have the music on the day of release. Return to buying, enriching musicians, and motivating people to invest in making great music.
Maybe another way of viewing this subject is not ‘why do the young people not value to music’ but why did the grown ups decide to screw up the business?
@@soundmatters It's primarily the business model. I'm sure there's still a ton of great music out there, you're just not likely to randomly stumble on it while listening to the radio. I remember years ago stumbling on "weed share. It was a great idea, the files were DRMed to only play a couple times if you didn't pay for them, but you could share the files as much as you liked so that people could hear the music with little to no advertising budget. I still love some of CDs I wound up buying by those artists. Jack Tripper, The Fading Collection and Greg Bartlett aren't exactly artists that I'd expect anybody reading this to know, but they were great and I would never have found out about them if not for those files with permission to trade them.
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I feel a Brit Pop Revival coming just round the corner, since the Gallagher brothers announced their reunion tour for next year. #definatelymaybe #oasis #noelamdliam #britpop 🇬🇧
@@tudormiller887 I hope so!
I owned a nightclub that played popular music from 2015-2017, and one thing I noticed was that despite the crowd being almost entirely in their early 20's (making them born in the early 1990s), that there was a "lopsided bell curve" of music we played by year. The peak was around 1998, with a pretty long shelf going backward to the early-70's. But on the opposite side, there was much less.
Modern R&B like Beyonce and Rihanna, Modern Rap like Drake/Future/Migos, and some "hipster" stuff like LCD Soundsystem/Grimes got played, but it was an extremely clear trend: despite the audience being very "young" for bar goers, the only songs that could reliably fill a dancefloor were ones that came out when they were still infants or toddlers.
Whenever I walk past a bar with dancing in any American city, I notice a lot of the exact same music being played and "working". It's like there's an "American Dancing Songbook" with a few hundred songs in it, and those are the ones that apparently "everybody" wants to dance to.
The Internet came out when I was in grad school. My first reaction to early versions of it was that this might have some good implications, but overall may have a negative impact. Lived my childhood up through undergrad without any Internet, and I don't think we're any better having it.
Can't agree more. I remember when I was a kid in the 90s, the music that you listened to was a huge part of your personality and who you were, as well as the type of friends you had and circles you were in. The internet has played a big part in this change, but also a music industry that doesn't take risks on new bands anymore due to promotional costs and just sits with the same music type over and over since its safe.
Thanks for joining the discussion. I miss the sharing of music with friends in the old way too. You’re bang on about new bands and labels not taking risks. It’s like Groundhog Day these days. Happy listening 🎶
Young people don't care for sex either, among other things (as self-reported in polls, showing a big decline in frequency of sex and even relationships, and a huge hit on loneliness). They have lost any drive...
A lot of that is the literal and figurative toxic environment.
Sex can be done alone usually better, and romantic relationships are the most stressful waste of time that people let themselves get socially pressured into thinking they should seek, partly by capitalist marketing forces that profit from everybody mistakenly assuming romance is something everyone needs to be either happy or "not a loser". Screw social norms, romance being important is just a sacred cow from the societ that needs to be challenged.
It is a vast improvement that gen z and alpha do worthwhile things like creative projects, getting better at passions that fill them with joy instead of the proven misery causers that romantic partnerships are, getting involved in politics or activism, attending LIVE music which is how musicians make money now and NOT drinking alcohol as much as previous generations.
Gen Z feed their kids so much better than my poisoned generation was fed, too, the boycotting of ultra processed fake versions of bread full of toxins and "ready meals" is amazing to see. I love Gen z and alpha so much more than I liked my peers when we were their age, they have the best sense of humour too, and groups of mainstream kids will approach extreme alt dressed and extreme gothic dressed people with respectful appreciation and curiosity instead of verbal abuse and physical abuse. Vast improvement.
For example, the Mother Mother fanbase and live tours got even better after they blew up on TikTok and suddenly most of the non-Canadian fans were half the band's age. Young people are the best music fans, they support their favourite bands without buying CDs. Effective support of your favourite bands is now about concerts, merchandise, morale-boosting fanart and words of affirmation directly to them on social media, buying vinyl and helping your beloved artists trend on social media.
They also make their own music in higher numbers than any previous generation so I don't understand the "they don't value music" perspective, it seems you haven't actually spent much time with young music fans. Everyone has installed Musescore these days.
I’m an average 70 yr old guy. I love technology.
I love TH-cam streaming. I remember when I would fork out a few hard earned bucks to buy records that I would be very disappointed in when I finally got home and listened to them. Now I just click on TH-cam and can listen to absolutely anything. Very easy and convenient.
I'm 31 and I record mixtapes for myself on a Technics deck. I like carrying a Walkman on my belt, pulling out a tape and hitting the play button. Much more fun than scrolling down a touchscreen to find a playlist
Type 2 ("Chrome/High") tapes can sound pretty damn good if you dial in the bias adjustment correctly, too
The point you made about immediate access really resonated. If you wanted to hear a song in the pre-internet streaming days, you either had to go to the shop and buy the album (or the single!) otherwise phone the radio and request they play the song. You had to wait. Not just for music, but for pretty much everything, movies, TV shows, speaking to friends, there was a period of waiting that you couldn't get around. Our relationship to most things has changed a lot because the time between wanting to have something and the moment you can access it has been drastically reduced. So it's not surprising that music doesn't hold the same value it did in the pre-streaming days.
The anticipation. Definitely. Thanks for joining the conversation.
The reason music is crap now is because in the late 90s they started producing most of the music on an assembly line. And they’ve been producing it on an assembly line at least within the top 40, ever since.
While I agree with you, certainly from the digital age of streaming onwards especially, you can go back to the very early days of the 1950s when Sun Studios and 1960s motown/stax were a production line with performers coming in and cutting a record (literally lol) with the house band, then hawking around the local radio stations or the studio themselves would do the promoting and pay the artists a pittance until they became huge and had bargaining power. It's nothing new but, how likely are we to see the revolution again when bands like the Beatles come along and say "No we write the songs and own the songs" and completely change the landscape? Not sure we will ever see those days sadly, but i may be wrong. Certainly hope I am anyway :)
In the 80s, we had the "Hit Factory" Stock-Aitken-Waterman. That was also music from the assembly line, and 100 times better than anything in the mainstream post 2000. 😁
You need to broaden your lens a bit, this change is touching every creative industry; cinema suffers from streaming just as much as music, graphic design is slowly being being made redundant by AI, etc...pretty much every creative endeavour has lost "market" value. On the plus side, its easier than ever before to find the perfect niche for you, there probably is more music being created now than there ever was in history, its even overwhelming to even try to keep up.
Good points well added. You’re right about the broader creative industries; the rise of AI terrifies me to be honest 😬🎶
@@soundmatters The creative arts have always been at the mercy of needing patronage of some sort so that artists can both survive and afford the means to create their art. With music - and similar will apply to other fields - in the distant past it was the aristocracy that supported composers/orchestras; then it was publlishing with people buying sheet music to play at home. With recorded music, all of a sudden both composers and performers were able to make a new income stream from record sales and this remained the norm for decades until the late 2000s when the arrival of streaming pretty much destroyed the traditional record deal dead. So... we're heading back to a world where performing live to an audience is at the heart of the artists lives. Not much money there until you build an audience, so YT and the internet has to be used to build that audience. Merch sales of T-shirts and high quality, high priced vinyl albums at those shows or directly from the artist's web store. I'm 58 and worked in the industry as a label manager and band manager for 20 years in the 90s and 00s and, weirdly, I am very optimistic about the future of music. I see it becoming more grassroots and inclusive. There is less of a desire to make music just because it;s commercial by new, young artists, as they are no longer dreaming of "that record deal" that makes them stars overnight, because it's near impossible. Instead they are making music they want to make and playing small shows and struggling BUT they have control over their music and haven't sold all their rights away. From this bedrock of new talent will emerge artists that - with a good lawyer and manager - will be able to license their work to the major publishing and recording corporations, and thereby gets international exposure and hopefully some will become the next Glastonbury headliners. While I'm too old for the business these days, I remain hopeful and optimistic for the future of music, even if I have to agree that as a social binding force within society. It has so much more to compete with now and may never be as big a deal in teenagers lives especially, but there will be more music from more amazing musicians out there to discover, as music is inherent in our experience of being human (well as far as I am concerned anyway) 😎
@@martin-1965Great summary. I also see a bright future ahead when it comes to the music industry. Being an indie artist is very popular nowadays. Some folks are leveraging this really well without needing a record label.
I agree that the music “industry” is significantly weaker than it was pre-2000. The internet basically broke popular culture because the number of options means there is almost never a critical mass of anyone listening to a type of music,thus causing others to mimic the sound and then create or really popularize (or re-popularize) a musical genre. Yes, it’s easier than ever to become an independent artist, but it’s much more difficult to become a true global rock or pop star.
@@jasonswitzer1748 no more huge stars - or rather less - is not a bad thing at all IMO, the internet kind of broke the conformism that stemmed from the traditional media as we all consumed the same content via TV or radio. It's just harder to get to the good stuff nowadays, but it's there, and I think we will see a return of the radio DJs of the past in some form, the ones who curate the best of the best of their genre of predilection, it ties in just right with the current podcast/Spotify playlist culture, just keep your eyes (or ears) peeled!
3:57 I bought the VHS tapes It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Back 2 The Future yesterday.
My VHS collection is now at TWO tapes!
I would say programmes like Britain's Got Talent didn't help either. They made a lot of people sing only one way and led to technicality being more important than soul or feeling.
Britain's got talent: 100%: the naughties had not identity as we'd fully transitioned to celebrity-driven culture with shows like that. Things would never be the same again.
Absolutely right. We can see it in today's music, where many of the references come from past decades, especially the 70s through the 90s.
Radio is not listened to on a daily basis anymore where every genre played their top 40 and everyone knew them all. Me, I hardly ever listen to the radio in the car. So it is that simple.
My partner recently went on a work trip with some gen zrs, she selected some CDs for the road per usual. Upon departure, her gen z crew had all put ear things in. How sad
And how narrow minded!
I remember grabbing as much physical media as I could from MVC, HMV etc cos it was all dirt cheap! they could see the writing on the wall
I think a factor is streaming music (audio and video) in general is low enough quality that it doesn’t give the same dopamine hit - so it gets passed by. I had streaming radio on in the gym the other day and a favorite song came on and I realized it was doing nothing for me. This struck me as odd so I put the same song on a high res service and it was suddenly “alive” and motivating. Music is no longer how kids define themselves because of social media. It was our main way of interacting with culture when out and about. We had our walkmen and discmen and it was the main way we could take our identities with us. It’s a different world.
Hmmm, unlikely, in the 80s I had about 20 albums and played them to death on a rubbish stereo.
Video games are the big thing now. People even listen to video game soundtracks when they aren’t playing the actual games. Music doesn’t stand on its own anymore….it is now simply the soundtrack to a game, Marvel movie, or TikTok video.
That's really pathetic!
Growing up in the 80s entertainment was something special. When you got to watch a good movie it was an event. I used to read the TV guide to plan out what was going to be watched on TV/Cable. Now we have a flood of entertainment and we are over stimulated by it. Music is something you listen to in the car or on a walk, no one listens to music at home on a good stereo.
In the age of quick mass consumption,it really doesn’t really work with music.
You'd also be surprised with these other generations, if you interact with them. That is the beauty of being a teacher, work at a university, or being a parent (which i am not, but had the experience in a couple relationships, but had the teacher/university experience). I continually have found that in those situations not only did I have a chance to share my experiences, teach, or "educate", but also found I learned a lot too from them.
In general, I agree. I think it’s stretched a little longer than the 90s though. For example, I remember some very distinctive and good music being made in the early 2000s. But after 2005 or so, it was like a wasteland.
There is still amazing music being made. The average technical level of young musicians is way beyond that of their equivalents in the 60s, 70s and 80s (the internet is pretty good at learning how to play your instrument, if you're moderately motivated). And there are probably more musical geniuses around than at any time in human history. The thing is, nobody cares. Not really. Apart from 'long tail', and passionate but relatively small online communities, music is wallpaper. Almost none of the really good stuff bothers what we have as the equivalent of charts, because algorithms can only look backwards, or at best, predict a pastiche or retro phase.
I've thought about this a lot and there is a clear golden era. I pick 1966-1996 as the bookends, and we can argue a year or two either way at the fringes but by the late 90s, popular music as a cultural force, as the defining element of youth culture was gone. That doesn't mean amazing, creative and original music wasn't made. I love the synthesis of 60s and 80s we call big beat. This synthesis was new because the technology allowed new sound to be created, and if you look back at the golden era, technology often led the creativity. First, multitracking, then synthesis, then sampling then microcomputers that could be owned by an individual. But since the late 90s, nothing new. If you go to a Fatboy Slim DJ set these days, you see a bunch of gen-x'ers and their children. The children are there, sure but it's just another part of the huge smorgasbord of things to enjoy they now have.
You can easily argue that the grunge music of the early 90s was the last real music-based youth 'movement', but it can be argued that grunge wasn't particularly novel anyway. Not compared to what had come just before.
And then we come to what I think is the crux of all this, genre-ification. Until the late 90s, the only people who spoke of genre without trying to be insulting were bad music journalists and record company A&R people. Musicians and the people who followed them spoke of style and influences. It seems a little thing but it's both illustrative and I believe, important. People would have preferences for a particular style but style was never as defined as genre has become. If you asked a musician what genre they played, chances are they'd tell you to piss off - 'I don't play genre music, I play my music'.
I watch people talking about music, technique and music equipment here on the 'tubes and it's striking how much people appear straightjacketed by the idea of genre. 'This guitar is good for such and such a genre', or 'how do I mix my kick drum for a particular genre?' It wasn't like this in the past at all.
@@splashfreelance2376 they may play better but they are not good musicians or have very bad taste in music and do everything with computers instead of composing with a piano and real orchestra and taking notes
The internet certainly isn’t the wonderful thing I thought it would be 24 years ago.
It's brought us convenience and superficial variety, at the cost of long-term commitment (in so many areas of life).
Problem is not the kids but the parents... they were the mp3 generation, they had a harddisk full of music but their harddisk is probably dead after all those years. Most of them have no (half)decent hifi, no collection on cd or vinyl. Their kids have never learned the value of music. I think kids that grew up in a family surrounded by music in the house will still care more about music. Many songs still remind me of being together with my parents, friends, girlfriend, pets,... beautiful memories, sad memories,... were always attached to songs. It's the soundtrack of my life! For the current generation it will be background noise and 5 sec tiktok snippets. Music was my therapy, maybe because of the lack of music in their lives that so many have mental issues nowadays. We were listening to music when feeling bad or sad, nowadays they buy (il)legal substances in stead of an LP / CD.
I remember going to other peoples houses as a kid and being surprised that music wasn't as important as it was in my household. So there's something in that, for sure. Instant gratification culture has a part to play too, as you allude to. Thanks for joining the discussion
You can blame the likes of Coldplay for music being boring! That and auto tune :(
I liked Coldplay’s first album. The rest I agree is blandsville 🙂🎶
First two Coldplay albums were great. They were followed by one of the worst downturns in music history.
@@soundmatters I hear this comment a lot on Twitter, though it's obvious that it's from people who have not heard either 'Everyday Life' or 'Ghost Stories', usually because the person has already decided that they don't like Coldplay and therefore are absolutely sure that they won't enjoy any album after the debut or second one.
'Everyday Life' is absolutely not the pop-fest that some people think it might be.
I saw Coldplay in a large Boston rock club on the Parachutes tour (their debut album) and they were absolutely a legit band back then. Great show
As a big Coldplay fan, it always irks me when people don’t actually listen to their music post “A Rush Of Blood to the Head” because they think it’s generic radio Pop stuff when that couldn’t be further from the truth. “X & Y”, “Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends” and “Everyday Life” are so much more sophisticated and vibrant than a lot of people realize and they have so much diversity and passion. Even albums like “Ghost Stories”, “Mylo Xyloto” and “A Head Full of Dreams” have strong musicianship and class especially in the songwriting. Now I totally get if people just don’t care for them after giving them some listens then that’s just personal taste and they just don’t connect with them and that’s fine. But to those who actually haven’t listened to them and say negative things based off of other people or assumptions then that’s really stupid and ridiculous. I mean why would you give your take on a song or an album when you actually haven’t given it a real listen in the first place? That seems pretty obvious to anyone talking about anything but I see people do it all the time and it’s so frustrating. Coldplay has always been one of those misunderstood bands even though they have gone into more generic Pop territory these days, they don’t deserve most of the hate that they get in my opinion.
The loss of album cover art with the advent of CDs was bad was the first big loss of that experience.
Popular Music peaked decades ago.
The way us young people consume music has changed drastically with the advent of streaming. Nowadays if you want to find a certain genre or sound you can find plenty of niches which fill that void. Whereas before the 2010’s, what you listened to was what was given to you by major labels and radio stations or what you could buy in a record store. The old way of making and distributing music has become obsolete with the technological shift. Artists and consumers are not confined to the Major Labels anymore.
There’s a term in Economics called “diminishing marginal utility”, better known by the expression: “when you have a lot of something, it’s worth less”.
Tech advances since the 1970’s have made it much easier to MAKE music, and much easier to DISTRIBUTE music. We now have a WHOLE LOT of music. So it’s worth less.
At the same time, three global media groups control 80+% of the music released commercially. They control what the majority of people listen to, and what they seem to favour is music which is both ephemeral and easy to produce without any actual musicians (or at most, well-establised session players) involved.
The irony is that said media groups rely increasingly on their back-catalogues for any commercial return, because people in general are buying less new music.
I remember when i was a kid you could send off your Postal order and join their fan club for a year. No idea if that is a thing anymore.
You're absolutely right. Growing up in the '90s, in a place where internet wasn't common yet, music just meant so much more.
I remember calling in to request songs, going to buy cassettes and CDs, and MTV playing music instead of "reality" TV.
Even in the early 2000s, when internet became more common where I lived and we all started burning CDs, there was still a kind of magic. We didn't have algorithms everywhere yet forcing sponsored content, we had each other and whatever we stumbled across.
I wouldn't have even known about Flogging Molly if it wasn't for a friend sharing music with me.
I like that it's more accessible for creators nowadays to create and get their stuff out into the world, but it's not completely good. I don't even hate to sound like a stereotypical hipster here in saying that most of the good stuff (up to personal preference, you do you!) isn't mainstream.
That combined with a lot of them seemingly treating music as money and formulas to get that money, rather than trying to create true art, has definitely changed music.
Thanks for joining the discussion. MTV (MUSIC Television), playing music! - get out of town! :)
If you look at it, I'd say distinct decade identities apply a lot earlier than the 1950's, something which can easily be seen just by glancing at old photos. In addition to the 1950's to the 1990's, the 1890's, 1900's, 1910's, 1920's, 1930's and 1940's all were distinct decades, and before this we seem to have roughly 20 year slots for a while.
What we see here with the distinct decade phenomenon is something that I'd simply describe as the pinnacle of modernity (the "modern" here being thought of as something began with the "early modern" in roughly the 1500's). So the fact that we now live in a "postmodern" era where decades have lost their distinctiveness, where history is slowing down (beginning with the 90's seamlessly blending into the 00's, and then nothing happens) seems to have much greater ramifications than previously hitherto thought of, and of course, does not apply only to the sphere of popular music.
My middle school kids listen to a lot of music but it's almost exclusively through video games, movies, and TV shows, never for its own sake.
There is just too much value put on comfort and convenience.
When less value is attributed to those elements, everything will change.
1989-2001 was peak humanity
Ha! I'm inclined to agree, sadly.
The years between the fall of communism in Europe and the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.
Could be wrong but things seem less precious when they are more abundant. Having said that, music meant the most to teens and early 20 somethings in my days and I'm far from that so it's worth asking that age group.
The idea that "it was better back in the day", probably used since the language exists, just means "I'm stuck in my time, I wasn't able to adapt (yet)". Everything always changes, and the more something goes in one way, the more the counterpart goes in the other, so as you said there is always some kind of balancing. Yes, internet was a very big and sudden change and everything is of course very different, but different doesn't mean less good. The values, what build a personality, a purpose, an identity, are always changing, shifting, evolving.
What I can at least say after 52 years of life is that, if mainstream music has always been mainly crap (there are some exceptions of course), the "less commercial" (for lack of a better term, especially since English is not my first language, sorry...) music coming from the new generation has always been and keep getting more and more exiting and creative every day. How people of their generation receive it? I don't know, but I'm sure very happy about it :D
I don't think owning music has anything to do with it, in the old times, we just listened to the radio and recorded our favorite songs on tape.
It's not just music, pretty much everything has become less specific to the age. There have always been different styles. In the 90s Grunge and Rave were very prominent, but a lot of other subcultures have been around a long time, Gothic comes to mind.
Today you may have more styles, yes, and I think those who follow a specific style are still passionate about it. The difference is that the mainstream - of everything incl. music, movies, art, fashion - has just become one unified broth that is ultimately exchangeable and bland.
Sign of the times
Same 100% agree, taped practically everything in the 1980's and early to mid 90's owned very few albums etc. However still absolutely love music, today you just have to like things outside of the mainstream commercial artists boosted by the music industry, some wonderful music from the 2010's -23 but not what the majority consider cool and trendy.
A+ video!
LOVE IT! Awesome points!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I was excited by the possibilities of MP3 files back in the 90s, but now it seems there is too much music out there to focus on any one band. Most folks listen to music on tiny gadgets now, which can't convey the power of good music. We need a speaker cabinet revolution amongst many others.
I agree with that. But we live in a smaller more compact world, or a lot of us do and our big speaker cabinet will be thrown out with us when we violate our crappy apartment leases agreements and or when neighbors complain.
I make electronic music. Many of the comments I get are relating the music to video games. Since MTV, the concept of music being a stand alone art form has dwindled.
I still play vinyl, but I only buy CDs now, as I like the fact you can play a whole album on one side. Keep up the good work. I always enjoy watching your posts.
I think we dodged a bullet that nobody ever thought to make 2 cd sets a single double sided CD like you often saw with DVDs early on when one side was wide screen and the other was cropped.
Just another symptom of a shattered culture and a disappearing society.
music has been devalued due to its over abundance. In the past, you might have had only 1 radio station...now you have 500 local stations & you can stream pretty much any station in the world. Add to that, every time you walk into the supermarket, shop or even public transport - music is everywhere! Not only that, but you can have thousands of songs on a small ipod & access pretty much any song on youtube!
Inwas born in '73 & I'm completely on the same page as you. 💯
Thanks for tuning in. It’s sad to think we’ll never see music take the same significance as it once did, ay?
Born in 72 and agree completely with Noel’s statement. I’m so grateful that I got to grow up in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Music isn’t the only thing that has changed. The whole world has changed, and not necessarily for the better.
CD sort of started it as you, could easily pick the songs you wanted to play instead of playing a whole vinyl record
But you can easily pick the song you want on a record too? If anything, CD makes it much easier listening to a full album in one go.
Nice point: it was the beginning of the end for the album as an art form 🎶
Maybe because I grew up listening to LPs I still tend to play whole albums, whether they’re on CD or streamed. Playlists appealed in the early iPod days but that’s over 20 years ago, I rarely use them now and can’t be bothered to compile my own!
@@andygilbert1877That’s so lazy of you can’t you imagine compiling all your own favorite music on an iPod/MP3 player? Rip them from your CDs or your paid downloads or MP3 file shares online, it’s so easy or convert a TH-cam video using the Real Player app Real Convertor, Then all the music you like on one device masses of songs just take it anywhere no need for a mobile or internet connection everything is there on it all your favorites to keep not to be taken away by a streaming platform by an artist who doesn’t want their music on a streaming platform.
@@andygilbert1877 I still have my iPods and keep them as museum pieces of an age when they were necessary.
Competition for our attention, yes, that's a definite factor. Also, the reduced prominence of music & its needed technology in our lives. In the past, we had record shops in every shopping center & an electronics section in every department store. Here in California, Sears doesn't even exist & Macy's has no stereo dept. Money that was spent on a modest stereo system in 1986 might go to an espresso machine or a nice mobile phone today. We forget that only a few of us continued to love music beyond our school years just as only a few of us became avid readers. That niche group is still large enough to support a lot of artists.
I've always said this that after the 90's there hasn't been a decade defining music as music today is just absolutely shit and generic.
Digitalisation of any creative industry always destroys the artists and eventually the companies involved.
The really sad thing? The 2010s & 2020s will not be remembered for any particular sound or style.
No new genres. No new scenes. No new Youth Tribes.
Ah the days of paying 15 bucks for an album. I miss the 90s. My whole life was based around my heavy metal.
Heavy metal was better in the 80s than the 90s. The 90s were more thrash and industrial
@@hipidipi20157max i agree I never listened to 90s metal. Slayer, early Metallica, testament, or music from the 70s. Zeppelin, Skynyrd, BOC
Actually rap took over the 1990s 😅
I think the same happened/is happening to films and series. Now you just download an album and if you don't like the first 10 seconds skip it, move onto the next one.
If you have to leave home to purchase physical media you have higher standards and value it more.
Also gen Z kids don't have the money or care about working towards buying proper equipment to play physical music the correct way. Direct Drive turntable, good cartridge, pre amp, receiver, speakers etc. Me on the other hand, I'm old Gen Z, 1998 but I own everything from Pro-sumer reel to reel, Technics Sl-5100, LP's, cassettes, 78s, edison cylinder's, vintage headphones. I only buy old vinyl from the 70s and 60s since all music was recorded to tape then cut to vinyl. You can listen to music and collect records or whatever but you got to be committed to buying the proper gear. 17 years of collecting this stuff. I'm not part of no trend for this stuff. I got into as a hobby way before it became popular and I was always called old and weird. Now look at me. I will always buy old gear. It's better made, easier to service and will last forever! I listen to everything from Jack Hylton, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw from the 1930s to Les Baxter, Enoch light, Martin Denny from the 1960s. Space Pop is my current focus right now. I wanna buy all the really far out sounding records of the time.
I don't think quality equipment was really relevant to many young people into music though.
I think you have a point. I am Gen X and in my youth, every kid had at least a better boom box to play music. Most Gen Z and Alpha only listen to music on their cellphones, if at all.
I sold my old equipment and vinyl when I immigrated, but sorely miss it.
I salute you, Teac4010. Happy to hear some in Gen Z still know the good stuff!
Records it’s too complicated to handle I’m good with cds 💿 smaller and cheaper and I have a lot of cd 💿 players in my room 😅😅💿💿💿🙏🙏🖖🖖🖖🖖🖖📀📀💿💿💽💽🗜️
I think that “Dial Up Internet Handshaking” song could rocket up the charts.
Haha. Missing a trick.
@@soundmatters Definitely a cheap one. Everybody I knew had that track.
I think music is not anymore a subculture, it’s just music. There are micro trends and celebrities that have sort of tribal consistency and make people feel some „belonging“. Putting a good set of headphones on or listening on a great system Ian’s just listening to music without „doing“ anything else, is a very foreign concept for a lot of people nowadays. But once you do listen to music onna good system, you „get it“ when the emotions hit you hard…..
I had a vinyl collection growing up. I even had a really nice Technics turntable and a pair of Heil Air Motion Transformer cabinets back in my 20s. I ditched all my vinyl once I had a good number of them replaced by Compact Discs back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I could never go back to the efforts required to keep records clean and the noise inherent in the medium, however pleasing the subtle distortions might be. I can recreate those same distortions when I mix songs if I want to. Now I listen to things mostly on my Mackie HR824 reference monitors and 16/44.1 is all I need for mind-bending audio, albeit not compressed all to hell; 256 kbit AAC is just fine.
I miss the days when music wasn't even recorded.
My kids 9/12 don’t care about music they only like TH-cam and games 🤷♂️. Back in the 90’s you came home put on MTV watch some weird music videos and the social thing on the schoolyard was the music you saw and the crazy shows like Beavis and Butthead/Daria/C Deathmatch/ Pimp my ride and The Osbournes. And when the Internet started everybody was using Napster.
After 22:00 The uncensored music videos started 😜 Cradle of filth 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
i think the celebrity culture changed it, not really internet, it came a bit later
I think part of the reason music isn't as big is the Drop in Quality of music Playback devices that are in range of the Average Joe or Jane, I sell Old Second hand Stereos and Home Theaters, and i is WILD the reactions I get when I play them at my local market and some of thes things are 10, 20, 30, or even 40/50 years old and people are BLOWN away by how good they sound some of the people walking by start bopping or nodding tobthe beat as they go by and they SELL even with no Bluetooth or Internet connectivity often only having Turntable, CD, DVD or BluRay player as source because average peopel are STARVED for GOOD AUDIO us Enthusiasts are used to it but THEY AREN'T!!! I remember my last Girlfriend's reaction the first time I Played my HiFi system for her and she was like "OMG it sound REAL" and she didn't think music COULD sound that good and that was part of our age gapbi was born in the 80's she was born in the 90's
I’m not so sure about that. I started listening to music aged about 12 in 1970 and it was 1981 before I had a decent hi-fi. It didn’t stop me discovering (to name just a few 70s acts) Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, Genesis, Yes, Queen, Sex Pistols, The Clash etc. These were played on a cheap mono record player, followed by cheap mono cassette player which I’d say pale in comparison to a modern phone & a cheapish set of headphones.
@andygilbert1877 But that was a EPIC time to be alive Musically Zepplin is AMAZING no matter where you hear but most modern band that the Average GenZ'er listens to is NOT! When you live in a time where most popular releases ALL sound the Same and use the same Notes/chords it is not exciting and Apathy sets in but having a JAMMING music player can make music exciting again as well as good music on an Average or Poor playback device can also be exciting, but fore real most of GenZ use Crappy Mono Bluetooth speakers that BUZZ, RATTLE, and DISTORTY with only mediocre Volume levels and i am will to bet money your crappy childhood Mono Suitcae players and Cassette deck will STILL sound better than what they are using now, One of my local Ztards had bound a BT speaker at the dollar store that sounded WORSE that a Phone Boomboxing and was quieter and I had to do a side by side to show them it was a waste of time AND money and then showed them what you could buy at Goodwill and they were BLOWN AWAY
On one hand I totally agree with you. Putting on a very good set of headphones or listening from a good system makes some people cry when they got hit by the raw emotions of the voice and singer hitting them. But on the other hand, every iPhone and android came (some still come) with a decent sounding headphone that sound better than a lot we had back in the days. Really good sounding headphones are cheaper than ever, audiophile grade dac/amps and headphones too…. It’s both true, lot of people listen on a monoluetooth speaker compressed to death, and a lot of people listen with pretty decent headphones.
On one hand I totally agree with you. Putting on a very good set of headphones or listening from a good system makes some people cry when they got hit by the raw emotions of the voice and singer hitting them. But on the other hand, every iPhone and android came (some still come) with a decent sounding headphone that sound better than a lot we had back in the days. Really good sounding headphones are cheaper than ever, audiophile grade dac/amps and headphones too…. It’s both true, lot of people listen on a monoluetooth speaker compressed to death, and a lot of people listen with pretty decent headphones.
@koolpep yeah I agree that a good setup of headphones is nice but nothing beats FEELING the music in your body not to mention Bluetooth headphones are what most people use, and even my Sony MX3's sound WAY better with a wired connection and most GenZ ONLY use Bluetooth and most time it is DREADFULLY inferior, and even at it's best it is okay. Once again most people have let their standards go if they ever HAD them! otherwise they would have been as mad as us Audio Enthusiasts when all the Phone manufacturers removed the 3.5mm jack. In most cases though the lack of enthusiasm makes for less people wanting to spend the Audiophile levels of cash you need for good Audio, and the Quality of Audio that is most people's home has gone DOWN THE DRAIN! even back in the mid 90's and early 2000's EVERYONE i new had a mini Hifi that would STOMP on pretty much ANY BT speaker and NOW some people just listen to music on their TV, sometimes without even a crappy sound bar and TV speaker are WORSE than ever on Average because of the Thinness wars. when you look up most purchased sound bar on Amazon, all the TH-cam reviews will say it is CRAP but still sounds better than the TV itself and that is where Audio is in 2020
Music's become "content". It's generated by a few people, repeatedly using the same few sampled sounds, and endlessly repeating a sequence of four chords with a barely distinguishable chorus, so we've moved from a singer-songwriter era to a singer-nonsongwriter era. (How's that different from the days of Ella and the Velvet Fog and Ol' Blue Eyes? They were extremely talented specialists. Now you just need someone attractive, autotune can take care of the rest.) Experimentation? No--once you've found a working schema, run it into the ground. AI generated music is more creative than pop music today.
it's obvious. there is binding at each sub genre level, but not across genres, which produced a collective experience. when music was only accessible through radio, MTV and a trip to your local record store, our youth had national collective experiences. music required effort to find and enjoy. popular music traversed multiple genres which brought cultures together. the traditional music "industry" is all but dead and pop music is it's own narrowly programmed sub genre. streaming services give millions of choices, music is divided into genre specific stations, and we all just go our own way.
Quite dystopian, in a way, but it's true.
Also the Beatles had 20 no.1 from 1964-1970,also had critically acclaimed albums like revolver,sgt pepper, the white album,and abbey road etc, Taylor swift hasn't produced any sort of type of album
I think it's money. If you have to use your small amount of money on something you choose, and some of it is music, you're going to listen to what you chose over and over. Now you've also spent a bunch of time with it, and it's part of your life. It works better if the songs are in the same order every time because the end of this song leads into the beginning of the next song. This is the soundtrack to your life.
A play list with a bunch of songs you like that play in random order doesn't do the same thing.
That’s what garbage 🗑️ streaming is a random playlist 😅😅😅 cds 💿 are like 📕 u listen from beginning to end 📀📀💿
Are we talking here about accessing music or music itself being less of a priority for the current (2024) generation? Music touches everyone and we could not live without it; whether we realise it or not.
Before the Internet you had AM/FM radio and if you wanted a copy of a song you bought a tape recorder. There's even a song dedicated to recording off the air, British band Bow Wow Wow and their hit 'C30, C60, C90 Go!". The thing the Internet did bring was on demand streaming and exact digital copies of music via Napster.
As far as Oasis being the last defining band/musician, I disagree, you've had huge performers influencing the culture like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
What I think has made music less important in people's lives is big business using a handful of songwriters who in turn basically take a hit song, twist it around a bit to make another hit song. Luckily we still have excellent singer/songwriters like Sierra Ferrell, Andrew Martin of Watchhouse/Mandolin Orange and Gregory Alan Isakov . You just have to look a little harder to find them.
The other negative effect is earbuds and people listening to music in the background as they go about their lives. In that case music becomes more like elevator music. Few people listen to music critically anymore. They don't appreciate it since it's always there.
Some great points added there. Thanks for joining the discussion. Do you remember those posters about how taping off the radio was “killing the music industry” 😂🎶
even five years later, linkin park was tearing up the music world on a broadly similar scale
@@soundmatters I'm in my 70's I remember a lot. I hope I can keep remembering all that great music and the culture around it. I was recently explaining to someone in their early 20's about record stores like Licorice Pizza, back in the hippie days, where they always were burning incense, had concert posters (now collectibles) all over their walls, staff all had long hair, beards and wore sandals. LP's were under $5, guys like me were buying PS Audio's first product (Phono Preamp that still sounds amazing today) and to rub it in, gas was $0.23 a gallon.
That's because they spend all their time on social media, and Taylor Swift is a created person, not talented created image
True but not. People don't purchase music as much but buy tickets to shows and band merch. People seem less focused nowadays on particular artists and more focused on genres as a whole. Thus the rise of genre music festivals with tons of artists instead of one show for one band with tons of people.
And yes there are big music moments such as dubstep and the general EDM wave of 2009-2012ish that influenced the entire music world. I feel like it was more live driven though.
"True but not. People don't purchase music as much but buy tickets to shows and band merch." those are either hardcore music fans (a small minority of young people) or people just going to someplace like Coachella or a Taylor Swift concert to be seen. Young people don't care for music in any way as much as past generations up to the 90s did. Music is just one more background thing, social media, gaming, streaming are more important. Music in other words doesn't define a teeanger (what you listen to) as it did before.
This is just my impression, I have no facts to back this up. When I was in high school, a big part of people's identities were attached to the type of music they liked. Not always, but often, it played a part in the scene you were involved in, or the social circles you hung out with. But when I think of my friends now, very few of them would say music plays a central part in their lives. My parents were the same in the 80's; music was incidental.
Nowadays, kids form their social connections differently (like you mention, video games are a great example). But I work with people in their early 20's, and there's always a proportion who very much loves music. I would say a similar proportion to older folks like me who still do obsess over music, and are still inspired by musical curiousity.
So I would say the proportion of people who put that sort of value into music is roughly the same as it ever was, it just has less relation to one's image (I have noticed young people being less concerned with genre loyalty), and more to do with the genuine love of the art.
I notice you skipped from glam rock, which peaked around 1973, straight to britpop - a gap of around 25 years. And what you missed out was metal, punk, the mod revival, the ska/bluebeat revival, 80s 'falklands' pop, rap, acid house - and all the subgenres of (most of) these. Music probably stopped 'defining a generation' around 1980 (at the latest). Oasis were just a quaint throwback to more innocent times.
You're right on the button about music failing nowadays, though. As a massive consumer of music, in the last month, I've discovered two bands for the first time that I'm (probably) going to have a lengthy relationship with. When I spotted the first (a post on Reddit led me to their Spotify, where I fell in love with their latest LP, to their BandCamp, where I bought it.) A couple of weeks later, I bought a remix LP of the same LP (it's unrecognisable from the original!)
I'd mentioned to a couple of people that I'd discovered a new band with a unique sound - and that it was the first time I'd felt this enthusiastic about a discovery since the turn of the century.
Ten days later, I discovered another 'new to me' band. Not as unique as the first, but pleasantly reminiscent of a band I'd loved since the 90s -with a savage modern twist.
You wait over twenty years for some decent new music to come along - and then two come along at once!
Technology and economics. Everything you’re talking about was the consequence of recording technology, which created the music industry of the 20th century. It was a novelty. Computers and the internet changed everything. Recorded music is now extremely cheap to make and distribute, and no one will pay much for it. It has been devalued. Anyone can do it, so it isn’t special. It has been democratized, but it also isn’t worth anything.
Before recording technology, it was common for many households have instruments, and for almost everyone to play them to some degree. People used to gather around a piano to sing together. Or sit around a campfire with acoustic instruments. There were traveling minstrels who would scrape by somehow. The only place large numbers of people would gather to listen to music was a symphony, in a facility that also included opera and theater. That was the only place that composers or musicians became “famous”. And there were very few. Now there is the opportunity for musicians to form small followings from around the world, which creates a different dynamic. No one has really cracked it yet, and all that exists is manufactured disposable trash pop from the legacy media with big money behind it. Which nobody cares about. Except the teenage girls it’s aimed at, who are influenced by it.
All you have to do in order to recognize the dysfunction in the industry is ask, who owns it?
Pretty self-explanatory why things are corrupt and brutal on the artists and fans
I don't know. I think Taylor Swift as a phenomenon is not too dissimilar to beatlemania. Her eras tour has been the talk of towns across the world. Caused inflation in some places. I still think gen Z cares about music. I just think they Orient themselves differently to it. They are the curators of their own music creating playlists. Albums are no longer the fundamental unit of music. This has definitely hurt the chances of a decade type identity to music. Instead of just rock, pop, classical and jazz, there are hundreds even thousands of subdivisions of rock genres.
Thanks for commenting. Taylor Swift is huge, no doubt. Perhaps the difference is that she’s not part of a wider scene or movement, she’s just one person: hence celebrity-driven culture.
For sure, music still features, but things are definitely more fragmented. Like you say, they’re curating their own playlists; they’re lucky in that they’ve got access to everything on tap from any genre or era. Pros and cons.
One thing is for sure. The internet has changed everything. It will never be quite the same again in terms of how generations consume music and how they value it.
@@soundmatters I agree, people tend to underestimate how important it is to hear a song at the right time for it to become part of your life in a meaningful way. For a lot of people my age, Closing Time by Semisonic was overplayed to the point where they don't have any interest in hearing it again. Personally, I was in the back country most of that summer and I only heard it once on the van ride home. It was more or less the perfect song for the moment. Similarly, Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz was everywhere the summer that it came out, but I will always associate it with a black jeep that I saw blasting it while driving by as I went to get a burger.
These days, I don't even know how anybody would have an equivalent experience to that due to the fragmentation. Also, the fact that so much of the popular music sounds the same isn't helping things. Back in the '60s there was a massive variety of music being produced and sent over the airwaves, enough to help encourage subcultures.
Yes! I agree 100%! Frankly, I‘m growing a bit weary of this nostalgic „things were better back then“ make-(enter noun)-great-again mentality.
Yes, things do change and yes, some stuff is for the better and some is not so great BUT don‘t say things were „better“ back then b/c the truth is … they weren‘t.
For example, with streaming, I have access to an entire universe of music. I can broaden my horizon even more. I‘m actually amazed by which songs kids know nowadays.
I think it‘s awfully bigot of us to say anything along the lines of „the newer generations don‘t appreciate … as much“ … these are exactly the same arguments I heard older generations say when I was younger!
Pfffft! Sony Walkman? Boy, you don‘t know what it‘s like to really sit down with others and enjoy music … you just pop those earphones on and let the world slip you by, „hanging out“ and up to no good!
Your crazy, Taylor Swift, as popular as she is, really isn’t in the same galaxy as the Beatles, it’s not comparable in any way.
@@scottborenstein8291 Crazy? First of all that's not an appropriate way to argue. Second, look at her number one hits and theirs. She is different yes. She's sustained her career much longer while increasing her popularity. And I guess you haven't gone to one of her concerts. Where they have thousands of people in parking lots all dressed up and singing along.
Nu Metal really shaped the 90s and early 2000s and made it being remembered in the grand scheme of music, while music right now has no culture, no mindset and practically no identity, it's barely even political or anti society anymore, which it always was. Why? Because its rather for shaping an obedient reality and less about speaking on behalf's as an individual.
Wow…Nailed It…
Thanks for watching. Enjoy the music 🎶
I forgot how awful sounding dial up was 😂
😂 you’re welcome 🎶
I love that sound. Very alien and weird. The sound of electronic connection.
you gotta wonder what's important anymore
But if there were any good music being made in the present day, people would still want to own it regardless of the format. The recording industry is imploding because of its insistence on an absolute stranglehold: no outside influence, no variables, everything written and produced by the same handful of hacks. People don't respond to music in the same way that past generations did because the music is terrible. We've been hearing this same sort of mass-produced pop awfulness since the late '90s (i.e., when Britney Spears and the associated wave of boy bands first emerged), so one could argue that the industry's long-term strategy was *always* to make music a disposable medium. Whether or not some other medium will fill the hole remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that the industry has killed bands and songwriting and essentially everything recognizable in pop music. The human touch has been entirely eradicated, and will remain so for as long as the bald Swedes/Norwegians maintain a death-grip on the recording industry.
Eh, I like Beato, but he often runs down some thought trains that are extremely generalized to his own perspective. I don't agree at all that music has become worthless or that you have to save up to buy records in order for music to be meaningful. In fact, I'd say that's probably the least contributing factor to why music means anything to anyone.
I'm middle aged. The music I listened to growing up was either on the radio or on the albums I owned. Music meant a lot to me, especially in my adolescence. But I would guess the majority of the albums I owned I didn't pay for myself. I didn't get my first job until after high school. So everything I 'owned" was either a gift, something my parents bought me, or something I bought with an allowance. That didn't change the fact that music was a big part of my life and was something I built my identity around in a lot of ways, as most adolescents do. So I have trouble believing that the current youth aren't having similar experience just because they can stream most of the music they listen to for free or virtually free. I'm sure whatever music they're into still means a lot to them and I'm sure they're still using it as identity signifiers for themselves.
I think the actual difference is homogenization as you talked about in this video. The internet has vastly widened the market, opened up avenues for people to get music to a wide audience without going through a record label etc. And so you probably have larger range of smaller groups of audiences that are listening to a wide range of artists and musical groups/bands. And sure, for as long as this environment lasts, you probably won't get the same amount of cultural phenoms as you did in the past. But that doesn't mean music is worthless or it doesn't mean the same to people. The value and meaning is still there, its just spread out over a wider range of subgroups.
Although even in this environment, you do still wind up with some massively popular artists. I mean is there anyone living in a first world country who doesn't know who someone like Taylor Swift is? Or to point to newer artists, Billie Eilish, or Sabrina Carpenter?
End of the day, just because the market environment changed, doesn't mean the meaning isn't there for people. And I'm sure the current youth and future generations will still wind up having their cultural landmarks to look back on in a few decades. They might just not be as analogous to our cultural landmarks as ours were to the generation before us.
Yeah i agree that music and movies and tv and video and pc games have all gone downhill in quality. is it the content creators or the higher ups and executives making decisions or both? Is does seem like less creative effort is being put into the content and i also think this began in the late 90s like others say
Great points, I agree with your views here. One thing I'd like to add in line with your thinking, and in particular the comment about video games: I notice with my kids (both under 10) that they are incredibly visually-oriented. Yes, they listen to music and podcasts, but often want to see any images (moving or not) that are associated with the audio. Even, for example, on Spotify, they desperately want to see the little video loop on many songs. They often prefer to watch a music video rather than simply listen. Of course, regarding videos, we "wanted our MTV" too, but as a Gen X'er (and same goes for all but the youngest millenials) I was and still am perfectly happy having an audio-only experience. For the younger gens, it seems that these distinct experiences are difficult to separate from one another.
The Internet has changed the world, not just the music world. The music world changed with pop/rock radio and before that recorded music, the whole world changed with electricity or steam.
These are seismic changes that not unsurprisingly change things for ever, creating a new world which some love and others not so much. Who knows where things will go as far as the music world goes but lets not also not forget this push has been predominantly orchestrated by the music industry as another way of making more money for them (f@*k the musicians).... But nothing new there eh!
The reason is that music is very generic and soulless for the last 15 years or so
the last 25+ years
I hope you’re talking about just mainstream music because music as a whole has been truly excellent, and there’s more music being made than ever before so therefore a lot of awesome music gets unheard and untouched. There’s SO much more music out there that most of it doesn’t reach the masses and they don’t know it even exists. The great music is out there and has been out there forever, you just have to find it like I did. There’s never been a better time to be a music fan than now but so many people are just stuck listening to the same old same old and all the popular music and that’s all they think music has to offer. It’s truly sad and I get really frustrated when people say ridiculous things like there’s no good music anymore when in reality it’s just they haven’t explored beyond their comfort zone and the mainstream. It’s out there and there’s music for everyone, you just have to find it if you really want to.
@@shadowsoul1695 ya right, name 1 moderm pink floyd or zeppln, or doors or nirvana or black sabbath
I always thought it was idiotic to allow yourself to be in some sense 'defined' by the music you listened to, and I hated that constant, inane - and yet apparently vital - question, "What music do you like?". A good song is a good song.
That extended modem sound segment was obnoxious AF
Some 90s/early 2000s nostalgia for you 🙂
I hate this generation. Every decade since the 50s had a look and sound. An exploration of both. Taken to their logical conclusions and bookended at the start of the next 10 years. Explore a whole new set of sounds and look. Exploring parameters. Theres beautiful expression while working in that. Its focused.
This generation.. doesnt care?. Generational baton passing canceled. Boring. Rather celebrate celebrity instead.
It was only more popular cos there was no other entertainment alternative, as you say!!!.. now we've got the internet , simple as!!
People don’t dance in clubs like they use to 😐
Bring back the robot
The reason young people don’t value music is because it’s shit.
Where are all the bands, ay?
You don't own anything, and never have...you are the POSSESSOR of the particular sound recording that you have...you bought an exclusive use LICENSE that allows you to control who can or can't use that particular sound recording until you sell/gift it to someone else transferring the license to them
Not sure why all the pining for an era that's not ever ever coming back is worthwhile. Also, keep waiting for anyone in this conversation to ask some folks from the generation that we keep telling what they are thinking about music, what they think about music. lol
Spoken like a true idiot.
Yeah, it's the same "we're getting old, we're going to die and everything we love will be forgotten" realisation. I bet jazz aficionados from the 1930s felt the same when beatlemania hit.
It could come back. Just look how many people hang out on TicToc and other social media sites. It may not be quite the same, but it never was the same in the past either. The worst bits of it definitely would change fairly quickly if copyright law got fixed and the labels were broken up into something that more appropriately allowed for the sort of competition that there was in the '70s and '80s for listeners to buy the albums.
The best music was 1977 until 1986 more or less, at 1988 it was dying. The 90s mostly sucked but today it is absolute crap
Kids these days with their lack of rock and roll 🙃😋
Blues & Rock N Roll was stolen from American Black people and lost it's soul like every other genre. Low vibrational artists and terrible music industry elites only care about money.
Not here to yuck any yums but this Is quite the echo chamber. I think everyone is making the mistake of “because they don’t value music in the same way I do they must not value music.”
The premise that the 90s was the last great generation of music is nonsense. As a millennial, I have bonded with so many millennials from different backgrounds who all shared a love of punk and emo of the 2000s. Whoever makes the playlists at my gym must have also been in college around the same time as me because it’s nothing but indie and synth pop from the early 2010s.
What I think is true is that the album has gone away as the dominant form of music distribution. Singles were more popular before the rise of the album. Now they’re back. I’m sure the album will have a resurgence in time.
I’m not disagreeing with your observations about the internet both breaking down regional barriers and also encouraging niches of interest. But generally speaking I think this is a great thing for art.
The way music is bought today is different and there are very solid economical reasons. To say, though, that music does not count anymore is wrong and inaccurate. There must be no room for nostalgia for something that is still produced everyday and everyday is the best ever, and I mean now, today. Stop crying for those very defined generational boundaries, those incredible '80s, those creepy 1970's supergroups, combat rock and Co., and the very very miserable thing that Oasis was and is. Music today is the best that it has ever been.
Film is available in the cinema or pay per view before being available to stream. I don't understand why music isn't available to buy a few weeks before you can stream it on Spotify. If people love it, they will buy it. Spotify shouldn't have the music on the day of release. Return to buying, enriching musicians, and motivating people to invest in making great music.
Music no longer leads the revolution for young people. (And they cannot create music) so maybe there's a correlation.
Maybe another way of viewing this subject is not ‘why do the young people not value to music’ but why did the grown ups decide to screw up the business?
The business is broken, for sure. Nobody is signing bands or willing to take a risk. Thanks for adding to the topic 🙂🎶
@@soundmatters It's primarily the business model. I'm sure there's still a ton of great music out there, you're just not likely to randomly stumble on it while listening to the radio. I remember years ago stumbling on "weed share. It was a great idea, the files were DRMed to only play a couple times if you didn't pay for them, but you could share the files as much as you liked so that people could hear the music with little to no advertising budget. I still love some of CDs I wound up buying by those artists. Jack Tripper, The Fading Collection and Greg Bartlett aren't exactly artists that I'd expect anybody reading this to know, but they were great and I would never have found out about them if not for those files with permission to trade them.
Streaming ruined music. That's the answer
never heard of the Oasis, i missed out
Nah, not really….
What about Taylor Swift?
A huge artist, no doubt, but one artist alone does not make a wider cultural movement. Hence "celebrity driven culture".