[Aslan123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuseboxx /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not that I'm championing illegal downloading, but one major upside that music sharing has is that it gave exposure to A LOT of obscure musicians and abrasive styles of music, which ultimately accounts for much of the exciting diversity we've had in music this decade. If not for the widespread sharing and discussions about music on the internet, most of these artists would have only been known in and around the locality they come from and the scene where they belong to. Not only that... but most of what we'd be able to listen to are the uninspired drivel now polluting the mainstream music scene.

Thanks to file sharing, I've been buying more music than I ever did before. Of course, it would probably still annoy the big record companies as I hardly buy anything 'mainstream'.

 

[virometal]

I'll say the 90's. I loved a lot of music from the decade but was never was too high on the hair bands, then grunge, new jack pop, and the radio rap like Death Row. On the plus side, there were some great, great electronic albums released during the decade.

 

[Scriptor Carpe Diem]

Quote:

mgrewe Finally people with my same opinions. Unfortunately for me, i just got to college and hear it wherever i go.

That's (little more complicated) partially why I (19 male) dropped out and became a traveler. That and the world to be seen will be gone or not allowed soon.

 

[catachresis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif Funny, I saw the thread title and immediately thought of how bad things are today. Not only is there an extreme lack of talent, but the Loudness Wars have demolished good recording practices and illegal downloading (among a few other factors) cut Big Music's profits. The outfall of that is that Big Music no longer has the budget to support niche bands and genres, like jazz and classical. Instead, they focus on high sales volume, highly compressed crap. Times are good, however, for indie groups flying under the radar. I'm not surprised to see the 80s take a few hits here. However, do not dismiss the decade based on the mainstream music. The 1980s were a terrific decade if you know where to look. There was terrific punk, the New Wave/alternative movement had some great music and you got the beginnings of alt.country. All are niche and somewhat forgotten today, however, there's a lot there to like. I'll take a lightweight - and tuneful -synthpop song over heavily sampled hip-hop with trite, boring and predictable gangsta lyrics. Another huge plus for the 1980s is that you had good CDs. I've been slowly working my way back into my New Wave youth and have been surprised at the quality of the recordings. You had engineers with solid analog backgrounds applying good recording techniques to digital. There's no compression and all the computerized tricks were a decade off. Also, it seems that the New Wave has fallen largely into obscurity today - used discs are dead cheap. Oh, and because the 1980s transitioned from analog to CD, you can usually get all the music on both vinyl and pre-Loudness War CDs. What's not to like?

Agreed. Even the most horrible synthpop of the 80s is tuneful. It was also the last decade in Western popular music when there was some ambiguity in mainstream love songs about whether 'love' was just a euphemism for wanting to hook-up. Post-90s, even teeny-pop anthems don't go to the trouble of being cagey. Tweens gotta have it! Come-on Barbie--Let's go party!

I think it was the first decade in which even mainstream musicians were aware that they were explicitly drawing upon traditions and references from previous pop-decades. The 80s had the first vastly ironic generations of musicians and a self-reflexive audience. People worried about who was playing Sun City. Frat Boys and Bronx Punks didn't mind sharing a passion for the Dead Kennedies--even if they hated sharing anything else. Everybody thought everybody was just selling out--like the Baby Boomers--and it all seemed so inevitable, and everybody just felt so jaded and cynical. After dancing to Tracy Chapman's "Talkin about a Revolution" for the seventieth time, it suddenly felt improbably utopian. Billy Bragg still had to remind us that the Institution that we all participated in would be the death of us --as hopeless as getting married or going to church.

Nobody could ever imagine the arrival of the noughties and our perfect obliviousness to any distinction between irony and honesty, or infamy and fame, or celebrity and worthless self-promotion. In the 80s, Glam was a wry media game; now it's the only game in town.

Billy Bragg stopped reading Marx and started reading Blake. He got married and, last I heard, was stopping in to talk with the Vicar. I don't know what Tracy Chapman is doing, but I can rest easy at night knowing that Lady Gaga is selling headphones this week as part of her post-post-pop exhibition that she can sell anything.

Then again, the last time I recall thinking that the 80s were the worst decade for music was in the 80s.

 

[Meliboeus]

The present day it's the worst by far...iPods have altered the way people relate with music...it has become only a background for any other activity = the less attention the listener pays to the music, the more likely he'll appreciate terrible music ;

With services like myspace even the most talentless bands have the possibility to write a couple of tunes and become famous for some months until they are discarded by the labels and public.

Most people i know don't even own a cd, neither a full illegally downloaded album, they know nothing even about the "artists" they like, nor they are interested...the process is like Listening to the radio or on MTV > wow it sounds cool > Download it and put it on portable player > forget about it a few months later.

Music is becoming more and more alike to a full blown industry ( perhaps it has always been to same extent )...what's worse than a form of art becoming an industrial product ?

 

[Scriptor Carpe Diem]

This~

Quote:

The present day it's the worst by far...iPods have altered the way people relate with music...it has become only a background for any other activity = the less attention the listener pays to the music, the more likely he'll appreciate terrible music ;

Quote:

Music is becoming more and more alike to a full blown industry ( perhaps it has always been to same extent )...what's worse than a form of art becoming an industrial product ?

People it seems are moving so incredibly fast without ever a stop or a turn that they just squash everything together and don't take or appreciate anything for what it is, they just try to rush everything and have it all. Ipods suck because they just ruined what listening to music was all about, in some ways like modern guitarists learn from tabs on the net instead of by ear. Imagine where we would be if Jimi or Frusciante, or Dylan, Radiohead, you get my point, anyone found how to play music through tabs instead of by ear, it's why I think so many of modern guitarists are rubbish, that and some other reasons of course.
If I were actually asked by someone what are you gonna do, "listen to music", "what do you mean?", "that's gay/lame/stupid" Moderns imho have just lost how to approach the arts or music in this example.
And like meliboeus said,. people don't even know anything about the supposed bands they like, "OMG I love this song!!!!!" then you ask him or her questions, and you couldn't even begin to have an actual conversation about the band or their music, or any tangent off from it.
I said it before, Miley Cyrus said Radiohead was her favorite band by far, she didn't know what Hail to the Theif or Exit Music (for a film) was.

Steadily and waningly everyday I lose hope in my fellow man for the outcome of culture and the arts~

 

[fixedcan218]

This thread has made me realize that I lost touch with mainstream music back when Billy Joel was saying that it was still rock n roll to him - but it wasn't to me. I feel old. There have always been plastic people and they will have will have their plastic culture. Those who care to do so, will peek under the hood and let the ponies free.

 

[Stanislaus]

Mainstream. This one for sure. The 80's for as odd as they were at least had a extremely odd originality.

 

[juneper]

The 90's for sure. Mainly because there's no music that really defines that decade. It was a very bland decade for music. The 60's gave us British pop, the 70's, disco (yes it was gay!), but it was original. The 80's, new wave and hair metal. The 90's???

 

[chud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by juneper /img/forum/go_quote.gif The 90's for sure. Mainly because there's no music that really defines that decade. It was a very bland decade for music. The 60's gave us British pop, the 70's, disco (yes it was gay!), but it was original. The 80's, new wave and hair metal. The 90's???

Are you being serious about the 90's?

Also, what would you say defines this decade? Autotune?

 

[LFF]

Another vote for "now".

 

[Happy Camper]

Now. Gangsta

 

[muxenle]

I'll also have to vote for now, but I do have a rather limited perspective...

I'm relatively new to the music scene in general(only started to really get intersted in music a few years ago) and I'm even newer to the loudness wars, SQ, older music(which I really don't listen to much). In fact just recently I really started to just listen to music and not do anything(expect for looking up lyrics, and the occsional f5 of some websites). though I still do use it as background noise a lot too.

But I have to vote now simply because I can't stand the main-steam genres, and the artists(lady gaga...really?) though in passing I have found some older artists/songs that I can listen to in those genres in passing.

I know this does have partially to do with opinion, but I mean it seems that most of this stuff doesn't even sound good(and I'll still think that something sounds good, even if I i'm not that big of a fan of it, such as jazz, classic rock, etc)

 

[niemion]

If you don't like "now" for it's musical qualities then turn of the radio and listen to the music you like. "Now" has plenty to offer, just like "then" is going to have and "back then" had. I don't care for most of the mainstream music coming out, that's probably why I don't know who Lil Wayne is and so it doesn't really bother me if it's no good.

Come on, mention a century without any crappy music? Now mention a century without any good music? I wouldn't be without any of them, that's for sure.

 

[bakercj93]

I agree that this decade is probably the worst for mainstream music, but who cares? There is so much great underground music out there, and the internet has made it so accessible now that mainstream music is basically obsolete.