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[Young]

The level of substance in music these days has declined drastically

a lot of melodies and singing/rapping styles are very samey as well; to where you can barely tell artists apart

artist development is no longer a thing anymore

I mean theres so many reasons why music isn't what it use to be

its very sad tbh

The worst thing, IMO, is the kids grow up inspired by the music of their youth.


The only thing inspiring today's youth are very minimally talented people, at best.


There are no musicians or bands.  Very few real vocalists.  Little melody.  Very few R&B classics.  Mostly overt sexual content.


This will make it worse and worse every few years because the next gen will only have what is out now as a standard.



My gen looked up to Whitney, Michael, Mariah, Prince, Janet, Stevie, 70's-80's soul stars.  That means they grew up with a high caliber for excellence.


Today's gen will make terrible music because that's what they grew up on. 

Felt every bit of this

[b7]

If they kept track of this or had streaming back in the day, im sure numbers would be similar. You're always going to listen to ole reliable before gravitating toward something NEW all the time.

[ATLien]

I'd say a big thing to consider is: how old is "catalog" in this study?

How narrowly are they defining that?

Is it "catalog" as in something released as early as  last month or "catalog" as in someone reaching back 5-10 years for a vibe because nothing newer is tickling their fancy?

That's very important to know before diving into this convo IMO. The line between "new release" and "catalog" could be very thin , as opposed to a huge gap. Based on what I see in this thread, I think many of us are assuming it's a huge gap ("today's music is trash and this proves it", etc)

record companies are only gonna push out what they feel will sell. Or in today's world , what will be streamed . We're seeing a lot of what we see because there's clearly a demand for it .

And I actually enjoy some of the new new stuff. Lol it's fun and sexy . Do I prefer it over my classics? Not really but I enjoy

[JCJ]

I'm tired of that rap cadence that's popular now that's taken over mainstream r&b

[JCJ]

Music producers these days are just not as creative. Everyone is running to a trap beat which literally any twelve year old can do in 1 minute after opening FL studio and selecting random drum kick patterns.

I promise you it's because they stopped music theory, teaching composition and real musicality.

I was watching a YouTube video about this.  I think it was the one talking about how vocalists aren't trained in the church or music education anymore (another problem).  The Black community was replete with musicians and vocalists who did NOTHING but learn and play and sing all the time.  But church and music education are no longer a huge part of our culture, sadly.

That's why 60's and 70's soul sounds the way it does.  There is just a lush, vibrant sound when you have real musicians and vocalists in a studio. 

Once we started getting away from that with pushing buttons on a machine instead, you gradually lose that soul and vibrance.  Sure, it took awhile.  The 90's relied on great samples from that era.  They still had the ear.  A lot of the super producers from then were still musicians who knew how to play instruments (Babyface, Darkchild, Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam  & Terry Lewis, The Neptunes, etc.). 

But now you have a few generations of people who can't play anything, have no musical ear, and this is what you get.  They simply don't know how to make anything but a few beeps and boops over a drum pattern.   

!!!

[𝖘𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖉]

I'd say a big thing to consider is: how old is "catalog" in this study?

How narrowly are they defining that?

Is it "catalog" as in something released as early as  last month or "catalog" as in someone reaching back 5-10 years for a vibe because nothing newer is tickling their fancy?

That's very important to know before diving into this convo IMO. The line between "new release" and "catalog" could be very thin , as opposed to a huge gap. Based on what I see in this thread, I think many of us are assuming it's a huge gap ("today's music is trash and this proves it", etc)

record companies are only gonna push out what they feel will sell. Or in today's world , what will be streamed . We're seeing a lot of what we see because there's clearly a demand for it .

And I actually enjoy some of the new new stuff. Lol it's fun and sexy . Do I prefer it over my classics? Not really but I enjoy

It's defined in the article

whereby 'catalog' reflects anything released over 18 months before a consumer made a purchase and/or pressed play

[ATLien]

That's really not a huge gap tbh

I think when a lot of people think "catalog" they're thinking throwbacks way older than a year  ... at least that's what I got from the thread title

Fnnfnfnfnfn

Tbh that make sense . People listening to music released as early as 18 months ago doesn't necessarily make this study proof that "today's music is trash".

But I can see why some feel that way about music of today  ...

[Lazarus]

Catalog>

Any day of the week.

[b7]

I'm tired of that rap cadence that's popular now that's taken over mainstream r&b

now THAT i can't stand

[Dr Naomi Campbell]

Ddhdhd we sound so OLD in here
Everything ain't gonna for us guys
Styles, trends and fashions always come full circle
I'd rather this era than that uninspired terrible generic dance-pop/b mess everyone was doing back then or that time everyone had their own generic version of that Rihanna-esque stargate island beat 

[Dr Naomi Campbell]

David Guetta and Stargate were Agents of chaos

[Gilgamesh.]

I'm tired of that rap cadence that's popular now that's taken over mainstream r&b

Now thissssss. It was cute for while but now the girls are really giving Migos on R&B songs and it's jarring