Music "New Music These Days Sucks"

[Fool's Requiem]

No doubt you've heard some old man say this shit. "The 80s was the last time good music was made."

No doubt you've been turned off by some modern popular stuff.

However, tastes change, and/or new songs stop being new overplayed songs and they grew on you.

What songs did you dislike when they were new because of whatever reason that grew on you or what new [popular] songs did you actually enjoy when they came out?

When I was younger, I had heavy disdain for the boy bands and Britney Spears... but man, Toxic from Britney Spears is a really good song and Larger than Life from Backstreet Boys is quite an entertaining song.
Backstreet Boys especially gained a certain amount of cool by appearing in This is the End. It was like Tom Cruise appearing in Tropic Thunder after the dumb shit he did in 2005 and all the Scientology stuff came out.

Lady Gaga and Katy Perry took a while to grow on me, too. Both having pretty solid shows in the Super Bowl (Gaga, Perry) definitely went a long way.
I still don't really like many of Gaga's songs, but Bad Romance and Applause are pretty solid crowd pleasing songs, and Katy Perry's Firework worked EXTREMELY well in Madagascar 3.

As for songs that I never really disliked, Shakira's Whenever, Wherever is one of my all time favorite songs despite likely being heavily overplayed in my senior year in High School.

Many of Green Day's songs from American Idiot were heavily overplayed, but I still really like that album. Wake Me When September Ends can fuck right off, tho.

Capital Cities' Safe and Sound is a rare instance of me getting the enjoyment of a one-hit-wonder when it was released as opposed to years/decades after it released. Another personal favorite song. I have never listened to another song from them, and I'm okay with that.

While not a song that hits the top 40 radio stations, White Reaper's Pages hit the alt-rock stations and got a lot of play. I quite liked it right off the bat. It's a little short, but it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

 

[Mark]

I can’t really say that I listened to anything that I did or didn’t like back then that I do or don’t now. If anything, my tastes have grown to appreciate older stuff more, whether it’s an old Sabbath track I glanced over before, or a Soundgarden B-side I discovered online. There are a LOT of bands that I used to listen to that I no longer follow because they lost what appealed to me initially, changed their sound to fit the times, or just plain sold out. You know the bands… they hit that sophomore slump and never come out of it, or end up just becoming a mainstream monster that doesn’t even remotely sound like they used to with no actual evolution in-between.

I get that all music is subjective, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out when a songwriter is casting a huge net with their lyrics to pull in as many listeners as possible. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I feel it lacks a personal identity when the lyrics are vague, or the riff is basic, or the drum line sounds like it was produced with a kiddie kit. A lot of music today seems to lack that soul… it’s too “safe” sounding, or overproduced, or technology is at the forefront of it. As a fan of industrial bands like Ministry, NIN, and Static-X, I feel bad saying this… but musicians have gotten lazy and use computers to do too much of the work for them. There’s nothing wrong with using them to layer sounds like Trent Reznor does, or modulate your voice like Uncle Al from Ministry does, but when you can’t play a show because your laptop took a shit… come on.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

I feel like people that say new music sucks are that stereotypical middle aged guy that only listens to the classic rock station and compares all music to Zeppelin or the Eagles. Won't search for music that he might like and loudly tells everyone who has diverse musical tastes that no one plays instruments anymore.

I went through that phase as a teenager but quickly dropped that. With kids now I hear all sorts of things, some bad, some good. I still prefer my wheelhouse of metal, punk, and prog, but I can jam out to Olivia Rodrigo and Imagine Dragons because my kids play them all the time.

The only band I can remember hating just because were Nickelback and 311. I still find Nickelback to be hollow, but 311 can go pound sand. They suck.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

311 can go pound sand

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

How dare you

 

[Fool's Requiem]

 

[Spiner202]

I'm going to rant on the title of the thread a bit rather than what I think your question in the OP is, because I've thought about this a lot over the years.

To some extent, I think two things are true: (1) there is a lot of great new music coming out these days, and (2) old music was better (depending on the style of music).

The first point is obvious: there's a near-unlimited amount of music coming out. It's pretty hard to imagine someone not finding a single record they like. Especially if you like old music, because music is so granular now that there are bands whose entire career is ripping off an older band.

As for the second point, there are a few reasons this appears true (whether or not it actually is). Firstly, the barrier to entry is a lot lower now. In the old days, you had to be good enough to get a record deal, otherwise it was too costly to record and produce an album. Even if you did pull this off by yourself, your distribution was smaller, so fewer people would hear it. Nowadays, if you can afford a computer, you can record yourself and release your music in a way that anyone can hear it. We probably missed a few great bands who never got signed and therefore couldn't release a record, but I can say confidently that we missed tons of awful bands.

A lot of bad music also gets forgotten over time. It's easy to say that Black Sabbath is better than Enforcer, but how many people are saying Sir Lord Baltimore is better than Enforcer (not trying to say SLB is bad, just making a point that 50 years down the road, we remember the cream of the crop, rather than any band out there). One of the best books I've ever read is by a writer that's really into music (here's the link) and it's basically looking at a series of thought experiments over history. One of the points he makes is that our view of history narrows as we get further away from the original time period. Music is one of his examples, and he basically says that nowadays, we might think of 100 different bands when talking about rock music, but it's conceivable that in 50+ years, we might only think about The Beatles, Elvis, and a few others. He compares it to classical music and how there are only a handful of composers that most people could name nowadays. Once again, the point is that we remember the good bands and forget the bad ones, whereas nowadays, we're exposed to all of them at the same time.

The last reason I sort of believe old music was better is because a lot of people listen to similar styles of music throughout their lives, and most styles of music that are more interesting in their infancy. A lot of earlier bands didn't try to directly copy their influences (or when they did, they messed up and came up with their own sound). Metallica is basically taking early Maiden/Priest/Diamond Head and fusing it with punk. By comparison, even a few years later, you could say that hundreds of bands had Metallica as a reference point. And now, 30-40 years later, there have been so many thrash bands to copy, that everybody sounds like some combination of Exodus, Kreator, and Slayer. It's not a bad thing, but the reason the original bands were so great was because they were trying to do something unique instead of copying their influences.

Ironically, when bands do try to be original these days, they end up as castoffs in genres that aren't appreciated by people who like older music. Sometimes I watch this guy on YouTube named Finn McKenty* - he's more of a punk guy but dabbles in metal, and he always talks about how trap metal/rappers who play metal are the future of the genre. In a way, he's totally right. They're probably doing the most interesting things the genre has seen since metalcore and nu-metal. It should be no surprise that most people who are into metal have almost universally rejected these genres. So it's a tricky line to walk, but essentially, if you believe old music is better, you probably are comparing bands within the same genres, rather than trying out more innovative styles.

*This dude definitely has some bad takes, but this is an area where I think he's way ahead of the curve.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

The quotes in the title are there for a reason. I do not believe that new music is inherently bad and you could have probably heard similar phrases used back in the 80s where parents would call the popular music in that era as "noise". 80s music is obviously not noise, and not all bands and songs in 2023 are going to be bad. You're going to have shit songs and artists in every era. Good example is something like The Final Countdown by Europe. It's iconic for being a bad song, and there are LOADS of cheesy songs from the 70s and 80s. In the 90s, You Get What You Give by New Radicals was a popular song, but the rest of their album was utter trash. Steal my Sunshine by Len and Two Princes by Spin Doctors also have similar issues where they're the only remarkable songs on the albums they're on. The album Mambo No 5 by Lou Bega was on was just Mambo No 5 over and over again, just with different lyrics. It was awful.

 

[Spiner202]

The Final Countdown is both an amazing song and an amazing album! Not a single bad track on there! I was even listening to it earlier this week.

That said, if you've never heard either of the first two Europe albums, they're worth seeking out as well because they're quite different (and also very good).

 

[Mark]

I'm going to rant on the title of the thread a bit rather than what I think your question in the OP is, because I've thought about this a lot over the years.

To some extent, I think two things are true: (1) there is a lot of great new music coming out these days, and (2) old music was better (depending on the style of music).

The first point is obvious: there's a near-unlimited amount of music coming out. It's pretty hard to imagine someone not finding a single record they like. Especially if you like old music, because music is so granular now that there are bands whose entire career is ripping off an older band.

As for the second point, there are a few reasons this appears true (whether or not it actually is). Firstly, the barrier to entry is a lot lower now. In the old days, you had to be good enough to get a record deal, otherwise it was too costly to record and produce an album. Even if you did pull this off by yourself, your distribution was smaller, so fewer people would hear it. Nowadays, if you can afford a computer, you can record yourself and release your music in a way that anyone can hear it. We probably missed a few great bands who never got signed and therefore couldn't release a record, but I can say confidently that we missed tons of awful bands.

A lot of bad music also gets forgotten over time. It's easy to say that Black Sabbath is better than Enforcer, but how many people are saying Sir Lord Baltimore is better than Enforcer (not trying to say SLB is bad, just making a point that 50 years down the road, we remember the cream of the crop, rather than any band out there). One of the best books I've ever read is by a writer that's really into music (here's the link) and it's basically looking at a series of thought experiments over history. One of the points he makes is that our view of history narrows as we get further away from the original time period. Music is one of his examples, and he basically says that nowadays, we might think of 100 different bands when talking about rock music, but it's conceivable that in 50+ years, we might only think about The Beatles, Elvis, and a few others. He compares it to classical music and how there are only a handful of composers that most people could name nowadays. Once again, the point is that we remember the good bands and forget the bad ones, whereas nowadays, we're exposed to all of them at the same time.

The last reason I sort of believe old music was better is because a lot of people listen to similar styles of music throughout their lives, and most styles of music that are more interesting in their infancy. A lot of earlier bands didn't try to directly copy their influences (or when they did, they messed up and came up with their own sound). Metallica is basically taking early Maiden/Priest/Diamond Head and fusing it with punk. By comparison, even a few years later, you could say that hundreds of bands had Metallica as a reference point. And now, 30-40 years later, there have been so many thrash bands to copy, that everybody sounds like some combination of Exodus, Kreator, and Slayer. It's not a bad thing, but the reason the original bands were so great was because they were trying to do something unique instead of copying their influences.

Ironically, when bands do try to be original these days, they end up as castoffs in genres that aren't appreciated by people who like older music. Sometimes I watch this guy on YouTube named Finn McKenty* - he's more of a punk guy but dabbles in metal, and he always talks about how trap metal/rappers who play metal are the future of the genre. In a way, he's totally right. They're probably doing the most interesting things the genre has seen since metalcore and nu-metal. It should be no surprise that most people who are into metal have almost universally rejected these genres. So it's a tricky line to walk, but essentially, if you believe old music is better, you probably are comparing bands within the same genres, rather than trying out more innovative styles.

*This dude definitely has some bad takes, but this is an area where I think he's way ahead of the curve.

You make a lot of good and valid points, but, the only thing I disagree with is artist reach. Sure, it might have been a lot harder to get your music out there back in the day… but these days? Man… there’s SO much music out there that so many people get lost in the shuffle. There are bands that are established that have been putting out material for decades that have released music recently and I wouldn’t have heard of it had I not went to their pages specifically considering how quickly stuff gets buried in the news feed.

The quotes in the title are there for a reason. I do not believe that new music is inherently bad and you could have probably heard similar phrases used back in the 80s where parents would call the popular music in that era as "noise". 80s music is obviously not noise, and not all bands and songs in 2023 are going to be bad. You're going to have shit songs and artists in every era. Good example is something like The Final Countdown by Europe. It's iconic for being a bad song, and there are LOADS of cheesy songs from the 70s and 80s. In the 90s, You Get What You Give by New Radicals was a popular song, but the rest of their album was utter trash. Steal my Sunshine by Len and Two Princes by Spin Doctors also have similar issues where they're the only remarkable songs on the albums they're on. The album Mambo No 5 by Lou Bega was on was just Mambo No 5 over and over again, just with different lyrics. It was awful.

I love the fact that you includes both Len and New Radicals together because, man… that was an awkward period in music history only surpassed by Tom Green’s “The Bum Bum Song” charting at number one on TRL.