What Happened to Music?
| July 29, 2012 | Posted by wpadmin under Uncategorized |
Music has become incredibly accessible over the years. Younger readers will probably not understand how ridiculous it was to listen to an 8-track, what 33 or 45 RPM means, how the first Sony Walkman so completely revolutionized music listening, or how hilarious it was to see someone at the gym with a CD player on their belt. They will not likely know what it means to have your favorite audio cassette melt in your car or have a vinyl record warp and skip. Even these crazy inventions I grew up with were a huge improvement over listening options of my parents’ generation. I can hardly imagine trying to explain to my younger self that I will one day plug headphones into a portable phone the size of a Kit-Kat bar and play music locally stored on the phone or stream music wirelessly from one of several music services that choose songs based on my musical taste. My 8-year old self would not understand and, due to severe ADD, would simple tune me out and go eat a Kit-Kat bar or three. I would not have been able to comprehend this much less the 10,000 other magical innovations that the iPhone can now perform.
Aside from just the radically different delivery of music, the music itself has changed in ways that I do not fully understand. One of my favorite contemporary bands, Cake, recently said they would likely exit the music business soon. In fact, an estimated 16% of musicians have left the business in the last year. Basically, the money is drying up and it is very difficult to make a good living. This will likely mean that the quality of music will continue to wane. I suppose you could argue that in the “good old days,” most bands didn’t make much money anyways. Presumably, “tournament theory,” the possibility of hitting it big, kept them in the game but today there is very little chance of hitting it big. Today, you pretty much have to be Adele to hit it big. Not to be a 60s and 70s snob, but the amount of important music being created then was staggering – The Yardbirds, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Who, AC/DC, Styx, Earth Wind & Fire, Willie Nelson, John Denver, Frankie Valli, Elton John, ABBA, The Clash, The Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton, just to name a few. It is hard to imagine that much of today’s music could be described as “important” – bands seem to be a bizarre blend of gangsta rap, synthesizers, and autotuning. I would ask the question, “Is this really music?” but then I would sound exactly like my father asking me the same question when hearing “Houses of the Holy” by Led Zeppelin for the first time. I guess the good news is that technology has allowed a lot of hobbyists to make and release music which increases the pool of artists. This still doesn’t guarantee quality but I still manage to find enough good music to keep me happy. I just feel bad that the bands I’m listening to are either starving or doing some other job by day. I guess music is just too powerful and compelling a medium to disappear, no matter what it pays. So I guess I’m grateful that music endures, fueled by human creativity and forever nurturing the human spirit.
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Man, we are in sync re: our topics. I was talking to my daughter today about what I want to write about for next week and I said, “I want to do a blog post on how bad music is today.” She loves hip hop and I tease her relentlessly about how trashy the lyrics are. I grew up in the 70s so I can completely relate to what you said here. I still find music I love, but it’s a different world.
Haha…our music is better!
I am in complete agreement with you about too much of today’s new “music.” I just don’t get auto-tuning. If you can’t sing on key, don’t try to make your living as a singer. Sing in the shower. Sing at a karaoke bar. But don’t sing on my radio!
Technology, for better or worse, really has changes all of the dynamics and economics of the music industry. One of the big pluses in my opinion is the opportunity to discover new music, mainstream and otherwise. I know services like Pandora and Slacker have certainly broadened what I listen to well beyond what you find on the FM dial, and I can’t imagine not having those resources available.
Rock on!
I totally agree. The consumer has certainly won in the short term and I’m hoping it lasts and musicians find away to win.
I have to disagree. In the same sense that my parents could not understand the music I chose to listen to growing up, I too will favor my generations music over my children’s. It is less a matter of music becoming better or worse and more a reflection of changing tastes and perception. Contemporary music has changed from more instrumental driven to more computer driven. While I agree that playing an instrument is a learned craft that is less and less applied today, you need to look at music through a wider scope. Music has always been two things, subjective and universal. A popular definition reads, Def: Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. If we consider that no where in that definition does the word instrument come into play, than we are allowed to understand that music is more or less about sound. It doesn’t matter if the sound is generated from a computer or an instrument.
My parents loved the Beatles and Chuck Berry, but their parents couldn’t understand why they didn’t like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. I loved the Beastie Boys and Radiohead growing up, but my parents couldn’t understand why. Arguments could be made that each one of those groups was innovative and great in their own way, just as much of the music today is. I certainly understand your perspective, however am compelled to disagree. Artist are making more money from live touring and licesning to commercials and movies and less on album sales. There are millions of Justin Bieber and Katy Perry fans who would argue their music is far better than our generations just as we would have said about our generations music. Music plays the biggest role in our lives during our first twenty five years and then we spend the next 50+ wishing they still made music like that. It’s transformative and takes us back to places we recall with fondness growing up. Although I am less a fan of today’s music, I can certainly understand that this is how the next generation chooses to express itself and will look back fondly at its artists 20 years down the road.
Valid points! I wasn’t making real comparisons. I just enjoy making fun of today’s music but, in fact, below the cotton candy pop is actually a lot of good music being made today…and I agree that “good” is a matter of taste.
I am probably one of those that is in the “younger generation” that you talk about and to be honest I do have to agree with you. I NEVER listen to the radio because it is full of ridiculousness that people call “music” I tend to listen to music that are by artists that are either came out before I was born or half the band has died. So I guess I am one of those who doesn’t have much insight on what has happened to music in the recent years.
The amazing thing is that “Good” music no matter what era it came from is timeless and some of those bands that you listed will still be listened to for the next 20 years, and the stuff that is being made today will only be played for a short period of time and then fade away.
I agree with you. Good music is always being made. I guess what I’m reacting to is the same thing you are: that the crummy pop music hogs up all the air waves and attention. Good music seems to be “underground” and you have to dig to find it. Who are some of your favorite artists?
I also have to say that I am a part of this younger generation, and although I am definitely a fan of electronic music in which most people think does not require any musical talent, it really does. My brother has started to DJ in the past couple pf years and the amount of skill it takes to count beats from two different songs at the same time amazes me.
The way I see it, my grandparents probably didn’t understand my parents music, my parents don’t understand my music, and when I have kids, I won’t understand their music. It’s all apart of an ever changing world!
Thanks for your comments. I totally agree that all music takes talent. I just enjoy making fun of the differences between older and newer music. It’s also true that most airplay back then wasn’t very good either. We tend to only remember the good music from back then since it endured. I actually like a lot of music being made today but still feel that the best stuff doesn’t get much airplay.