How Do You Feel About Modern Music?

I'm interested in honest opinions on what you think of the music and music industry of today. I'm tired of seeing those comments on Youtube of comparing everyone to Justin Bieber, even when you really can't even make a comparison between him and another artist. So, that being said do you think music has gotten better over the years or has just become complete garbage?


Now onto my opinion. I think it's alright. It's not as good as it used to be and it's not completely garbage either. I mainly listen to Hip-hop, but I do try to expand my taste and listen to other types. The only thing that really brings down my thoughts of the hip-hop industry is how much Gang Related things and sometimes other illegal acts make it into songs. I don't know about you, but it cause quite an impact on the Middle and Elementary school kids. Having less of all those violent lyrics would do good for the community but I think taking it out would take out some of the spirit of the music. But that's just me.

I mainly focused on hip-hop, but you can talk about Rock, Metal, R%B or whatever your in to.

My god!! It's appalling.

I absolutely hate it, especially the mainstream music you hear on the radio. Honest opinion LMFAO ruined the image of music especially "hip-hop"
On the otherhand you can get one good song out of about 100. "The A-team" is a good song and i don't mind "Stereo Hearts"

Music these days does not require musical talent at all, if you have a cute face or a modern image that people find stylish you are classified as a musician. No music talent, it's all computer.

That reason alone is why i listen to heavy metal and rock because they actually use talent instead of pressing buttons to make there tunes. i also listen to aussie hip hop because it's not violent it's more about the world's problems and depression and how to deal with it.

To me, certain types of genres have improved, while other are just worse. These days, i feel that most people rely on technology itself to improve their "quality". Back then, music was made the old fashion way, by pure vocals and good beats.

I don't think it's fair to compare modern popular bands and things like AC/DC... There was plenty of horrible music back in the 80s as well. The reason we only know about amazingly good bands from that period of time is that some artists were good enough that people continued liking it, while other's faded off into obscurity.

This is true for right now, and this has always been true. The stuff a lot of people like right now may not necessarily be my favorite genres but there is plenty of modern music that I genuinely enjoy. There are bands that, no doubt, people will like 20 years from now too.

Music in general is better than it has ever been right now. If you just look past the radio you can see music has developed significantly from previous decades in almost every single genre. Electronic music in particular is far better now than what it used to be.
There have always been **** musicians, you just don't hear about crap music from the 80s or 90s because people would rather forget about them.

You only hear about the talentless hacks 24/7 due to:
A) mass media viral marketing
B) radio
C) idiotic fans
D) people complaining about them 24/7!

@OP: Gangsta rap has been around since the 90s, nothing new. Still plenty of good rappers, MCs, producers and everyone else you need for a decent bit of hipsterhop.

There was an insane uproar when jazz started replacing classical as the mainstream, and then when rock replaced jazz; look where those genres stand now.

Criticizing the "fact" that music sucks these days only leads me to believe that you're ignorant. Finding good music requires taking the time to look for good music. The fact that good music is looked over compared to those with considerably less talent is what bothers me. These days, in order to find commercial success, most artists feel they have have to cause people to talk and create controversy and I find that sickening, especially when used to sacrifice the talent they do have to find success commercially.

I don't like a lot of it but every now and then I find someone and I get really into them (ie Lady Gaga), but I like a lot of old music too. I don't care if it was released in 2012 in 1912 as long as it's good music.

Music in general is at it's best. Thanks to modern technology, major strides have been made, and so many genres have developed thanks to it.

It's so bad now that I don't listen to any of the music from the last 2-3 years. I mostly listen to rock, and most bands that try to sound like rock back in the 70's/early 00's, just suck so much. I'm sorry, but music in general has deteriorated for me. :/

Music is not as good as it used to be. Artist today seems to just throw together random club beats and autotuned vocals and call it a song. The music of the 60s,70s,80 and 90s actually had meaning in their lyrics while today lyrics are uncreative. Music is over-sexualized today and it's rare to find an artist who has clean music. That's why I like Owl City so much. He actually produces and write his songs himself and his lyrics are both clean and meaningful and he still manages to be popular.So I think they are still a few artist today who actually produce quality music.

AWsquared said:

Music is not as good as it used to be. Artist today seems to just throw together random club beats and autotuned vocals and call it a song. The music of the 60s,70s,80 and 90s actually had meaning in their lyrics while today lyrics are uncreative. Music is over-sexualized today and it's rare to find an artist who has clean music. That's why I like Owl City so much. He actually produces and write his songs himself and his lyrics are both clean and meaningful and he still manages to be popular.So I think they are still a few artist today who actually produce quality music.

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Sounds like you primarily listen to mainstream radio, which is a poor representation of the music industry today, despite it finding the most success.

AWsquared said:

Music is not as good as it used to be. Artist today seems to just throw together random club beats and autotuned vocals and call it a song. The music of the 60s,70s,80 and 90s actually had meaning in their lyrics while today lyrics are uncreative. Music is over-sexualized today and it's rare to find an artist who has clean music. That's why I like Owl City so much. He actually produces and write his songs himself and his lyrics are both clean and meaningful and he still manages to be popular.So I think they are still a few artist today who actually produce quality music.

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I think you're talking about very mainstream Pop. And that doesn't even apply for all Pop.
Actually, the 60's and 70 were pretty boring. Most of it was just a lot of Elemental Rock that really isn't good at all. The 70's were only good for the birth of Punk and the birth of early Ambient. The 80's were a hell of a lot cooler because you had so many New Wave elements being pumped into Pop. It was great.
There's TONS of bands with clean and meaningful lyrics. They just aren't as prevalent.
Modern Music is so good because there's tons of musicians that are pushing the boundaries of what is and isn't music, and breaking those boundaries means whole new frontiers of sound.

Airbourne Bubblun said:

It's so bad now that I don't listen to any of the music from the last 2-3 years. I mostly listen to rock, and most bands that try to sound like rock back in the 70's/early 00's, just suck so much. I'm sorry, but music in general has deteriorated for me. :/

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But you can't really say that, because you haven't listened to all kinds of music to come to that conclusion.
Lots of Rock these days are great. But almost all of it isn't mainstream. Call me a hipster, but it's true: Almost all modern Rock acts that are worth anything aren't prevalent on the charts.

TRIFORCE89 said:

I don't like that music better suited for clubs have seeped into the greater realm of popular culture. I'm tired of autotune and digitized instruments and beats.

I want to hear talent. Singer-songwriters. Actually instruments. A band working together.

I think that's why Adele really caught on this year. It was a breath of fresh air in a sea of genericness.

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There's tons of music that aren't made with live instruments. And just because a song is created with live instruments doesn't make it a good song.
Adele is not the first of her kind. There are tons of acts like her. She just became popular because of her 'Chasing Pavements' hit back in '09, and then she landed a contract with Alt. mogul XL Records.

Patchisou Yutohru said:

Sounds like you primarily listen to mainstream radio, which is a poor representation of the music industry today, despite it finding the most success.

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Actually I listen to mainly Alternative/Rock and Christian radio, which is not exactly mainstream. Unless you consider mainstream radio anything that's not an online radio. Owl City would be one of the only "mainstream" artists that I listen to and can enjoy. I use to listen to mainly pop/mainstream stuff but then I realized how redundant sounding it is.

Rekky said:

It's downright ludicrous to claim we're not living in the greatest musical era of all time. Think about it for a second: with computers and laptops, any aspiring musician can create a recording studio for himself by just downloading some software, getting a few connection leads and a microphone. And then it ain't too hard to either create a demo disc (assuming he actually has material to accord of course) and send it out to the nearest radio station or music blog or just post up his music on Soundcloud or something like that. Now, instead of people discovering gems from the sixties that were thought to be lost forever because they were recorded on tape recorders that were then lost, music can be immortalised easily. You could not do that before the digital age took over. Before that, you needed an actual recording studio to record in. While this leads to many a mediocre recording, it also leads to a lot of artists who wouldn't be heard otherwise getting some recognition due to the vast amount of music sharing sites that exist. What we're looking at here is the epitome of music composition and being able to get that music out for other ears to listen to.

Most top forty stuff is terrible. Occasionally there's a great song or two but mostly it's pretty useless. Anyone who says music these days is a lot worse than it used to be needs to realise they have all the tools to find better music than they're exposed to on the radio, they just need to utilise them. You yourself need to find the good music, you have to dig down for it and hope that the record your friends would never listen to is for you when you hit up a positive music review of it.

Most of the music I listen to is from the last decade or the nineties. Then it's the sixties. I enjoy stuff like The Arcade Fire; Radiohead; The Dismemberment Plan; The Olivia Tremor Control; Neutral Milk Hotel; Kanye West; The National; Joanna Newsom; James Blake; Bon Iver; The Antlers; The Beatles and The Beach Boys. You've probably heard most of these, some of them are the most recognised acts in the world even in this contemporary age... but you'd probably rarely hear an expansive sample of their discography on the radio. All you'd hear is their few (this is excluding The Beatles) number one singles from time to time. Finding good music is tough; most albums these days are created to be listened through from start to end, you just have to take the leap and commit to it.

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I completely agree.
And I love Neutral Milk Hotel, haha.

I think it's better than ever. Of course, I'm not counting most mainstream music. I listen to a lot of underground hip hop, indie rock and pop and (underground) metal, and in my opinion these genres have never been stronger and these bands and artists are putting out such great work.