Is modern music worse or better than music 20 - 30 years ago?

I kinda laugh at this question... bcuase the idea of people cashing in on something, is far from new, I am sure there had some godawful acts, but it's not like that stuff would of surfaced, like it does now.

We remember the good stuff, b/c it stands the test of time, the music now, will have it's run, and be forgotten in like 10 years, except that random time, when you hear and you tell your friend, parent, kid, wife, husband, "Oh I remember that song..."

The cream, in the end, will rise to the top.

I really like modern music, sorry guys.

This is one long lasting troll post.

This is one long lasting troll post.

I have a theory regarding why people seem to have it up their butt with modern music. Before, back in the "heyday", a person was only ever exposed to a part of the bad music compared to what they listened to on the radio and such.

Now with the advent of the internet and because we love spreading around how much we hate something on this big ol' web, they're exposed to ALL the bad music.

Anyone who ever complains about how bad modern music is is someone who doesn't give a shit about music enough to find the almost endless amounts of good music the internet has brought right to where you live.

Modern music can be okay at times, same applies to music from 30 years back. It's personal preference really. But as far as lyrics go, I prefer the oldies.

@Cretaceous_Bob said:

Anyone who ever complains about how bad modern music is is someone who doesn't give a shit about music enough to find the almost endless amounts of good music the internet has brought right to where you live.

That's right. The people that usually bemoan about the lack of quality, are those that are only listen to mainstream radio.

Fuck no.

20 years ago we had the Chronic and Metallica.

now we got some piece of Shit Drake rapping like he is hood, but he is just from the canadian suburbs. And Linkin Park is still a thing to some people so fuck no.

I have to disagree with the majority. There is a ton of fantastic, innovative artists out there. You're just not going to hear them on top 40 radio. Every once in a while, something new and exciting bubbles up to the mainstream, but for every "Smells Like Teen Spirit", there's a dozen "Pour Some Sugar On Me's" (sorry to use the Nirvana and hair metal analogy, but that's a well known example).

@robot4me said:

yes! lil Wayne, lady gaga, Rebecka Black, maroon 5, and nickleback are all I need to prove modern music is shit.

Because all modern music sounds like those acts.

@TheHumanDove said:

Nothing has changed really. People like to pretend there wasn't a lot of shitty mainstream music back in the day.

This.

There has always been garbage out there, even in the past. The only difference is that it's much easier to find the garbage that's out there today than it was 20 years ago.

You know what I decided to change my answer there it is

Democratisation of music through the internet and easier means to record have meant more music available.

However people look back on things with too much nostalgia and the music has to be good or memorable to stay in the minds while the dreck gets left behind. There are a shit ton of mediocre and terrible bands from the 70s and 80s and once they are not contemporary enough they disappear from radio playlists. Going to a vintage record store or an oldies music station skews the representation of the past having a higher proportion of good music.

Edit: Unfortunately for some of us (me too when I'm not trying hard enough) we give up on looking for new music that excites us and that's when you revert into a cocoon of the things we know and start saying "In my day we didn't have shit like Bieber" when we forget we had people like The Cartoons and Aqua.

Today's music is absolutely rubbish. This generation is polluted with awful, horrible tunes that dare to label itself as music. The mainstream music, which consists of dubstep and "clubbing" music, is absolutely atrocious and I don't understand why it's so popular. The songs lack soul, melody, tunes and meaning. Everything's digitized, autotuned and recycled from existing songs that today's music becomes less organic and original. I bet majority of them can't play real instruments.

Now you're probably thinking that I hate techno/ dance music. That's not true. I'm a universal listener and I dig bands like Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method and Daft Punk. Unlike Skrillex or any other douchebags of this era, these bands have melody in their songs and have live instruments incorporated in them. I also find today's alternative, rock and pop bands like Fun, Adele and Katy Perry to be really disappointing as well. The music quality is really poor and the vocalists tend to wail a lot - not sing, and it sounds awful. I don't know how else to describe it but their singing and music for the most part lack soul, control and grace.

It saddens me to see that some of my favorite artists like KoRn, Linkin Park, Maroon 5, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera, Black Eyed Peas, P!nk and the Offspring (just to name a few) have gone to the dark side as well. They went from being hero to zero in my opinion.

I stopped listening to the radio years ago and have since been digging music from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even earlier than that. I used to make fun of boy bands of the 90s but after seeing what today's music has to offer, it made me wish for 90s boy bands to come back.

There is always good music and there is always bad music. You can always find something to love.

Worse. Way fucking worse.

Hate to sound like a hipster but it is just the mainstream that has got worse. Use to be some great bands and artists in the charts (admittedly surrounded by shit) but now there really isn't anything.

It's either the same or better now.

I regularly expand my LP collection with random shit, and it is just the same as ever.
 
The difference is that all kinds of music both good and bad is all up in one's face now.
 
This one certain album of disco mixes from 1976 has some tracks are so bad that I want to blank them out of the plate.

"Music was originally discreet, seemly, simple, masculine, and of good morals. Have not the moderns rendered it lascivious beyond measure?" - Jacob of Liege, 1425

Different

Well, even though 1980 would have to be my favourite year in terms of albums I love being released, the notion of years being better or worse in something as subjective as music is pretty silly. Again, it all depends on what you're looking for and how hard you're looking. It's been said before, but there's a ton of great, original music being pumped out today, but obviously you're not going to hear it on the radio. When did you ever?

Music is better now, all we're hearing from 20-30 years ago are the hits, we're getting the highlight reel, we don't have that now, so that's why people think music was better back then.

@SharkEthic: Sure there was shit music in the past, but it seems like a lot more shit music gets radio time and t.v. exposure in the now and present compared to the past.

It's relative to how old you are, what tastes you have and when you grew up. 
 
No music is objectively better than any other, and if you think it is, you're probably being pretentious. Or like, that's just your opinion, man.

Serious answer: Michael Jackson is dead. So of course current music can never measure up to what it was when he was alive.

There seems to be less talented individuals in the mainstream music scene these days. Fucking throw on a dumb mask push some buttons and you're huge. Or dress as strange as you possibly can and poorly sing club songs and you're the shit. Luckily there is still some good stuff out there if you wade through the trash.

It's exactly the same as it has always been, but with the ease of communication vs 200 years ago (or earlier) you just get a lot more of it. In the 1700's you had to physically show up to a theater or opera or whatever to show your support and hence increase the composer's popularity, or you had to receive a commission by some wealthy noble. Now the metric for success is much easier to achieve (just press that button to grab it on iTunes!) even though the market is more crowded, and that allows for more musicians to support themselves.

I guess there are more good acts and bad ones, but the bad ones have a tendency to bombard you a lot more often then in years past. In the Renaissance, you'd never hear a song if you didn't seek it out. Now you can't avoid them.

There's always more garbage, but time tends to separate the wheat from the chaff and make the past look better.

That said, it's still worse now, at least in the mainstream, because where music used to be mostly populated with people primarily interested in making great music, today it's dominated by people looking for money and fame who are more interested in their look or marketing than the quality of their music. That's not to say there aren't still a lot of incredible bands.

@BraveToaster said:

There's more garbage than there is good shit.

Or maybe there's a sampling bias at play. Perhaps you don't remember the garbage as well, so you subconsciously discount its existence.

Wait, this thread is two years old. Is modern music better or worse than music 2-3 years ago?

@robot4me: In my limited experience (I'm only 26 years old), radio has always been shit - no more now than when I was a kid. What I was pointing out though, is how you used Lil Wayne and Lady Gaga as "proof" that all modern music is shit, which is like saying Pink Floyd sucked because The Beach Boys got airtime too back in the 60's.

@SharkEthic said:

@robot4me: In my limited experience (I'm only 26 years old), radio has always been shit - no more now than when I was a kid. What I was pointing out though, is how you used Lil Wayne and Lady Gaga as "proof" that all modern music is shit, which is like saying Pink Floyd sucked because The Beach Boys got airtime too back in the 60's.

Did you just shit talk the Beach Boys, the creators of one of the most influential albums of all time in Pet Sounds? Beach Boys got good after they dropped the surfer gimmick.

I am sad. :(.

"Music these days is so much better!" - Literally no one ever.

@Melvargh: I sat around for 2 minutes trying to think of a shit 60's band, then finally just said fuck it and went with Beach Boys. Any really bad 60's band you can think of?

It is shit. I blame Clear Channel and it's right wing leanings.

Worse! And there are kids on my lawn. My social security check is late! Young people use curse words!

The patina of nostalgia will always color your perception of anything that was "better way-back-when."

I would say that modern, independent music is at least as good, if not better, than stuff from 20-30 years ago. 30 years ago it was 1982. The 80's saw so many horrible, horrible acts, as did the 90's. One could argue that 40-50 years ago we hit a "peak" in music... That stuff is still relevant today.

But today, with social media, we have more choice. I NEVER listen to mainstream music. I've never heard "Call Me Maybe." I have no reference to Justin Bieber's music, or Lady Gaga. I live in San Francisco, so it's not like I'm in the boonies or anything. I avoid nightclubs, prefer dingy and dark bars that play punk and metal, and don't drive a car; and even if I did I have a phone with 3000 songs on it that I like. Mainstream music may be worse, but, who really cares? I listen to good music. My friends listen to good music. When we discover something we like, we share it with each other, and thus build new interests.

The Murder City Devils were not around 30 years ago. Neither was Radiohead, or Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Murder by Death, TOOL, High on Fire, Neurosis. Hell, I even like a lot of electronic music, and none of the good shit was around that long ago. The 80's had far fewer good bands. There are only about 20 stand-outs from that era, and they're all arguably "one hit wonders." They paved the way for the awesome shit we have today. And the 90's? Fuck. Does anybody remember Dishwalla? Or 4 Non-Blondes? Yeah, they're great novelty acts, but it isn't good music. Our tastes have evolved.

Edit: @depecheload brings up a ton of good points that I hadn't even considered. I won't edit out my original statements, because a lot of it is still true. There were just as many terrible bands then as there are now, and just as many amazing ones. What can we take away from this? Most people have horrible taste in music. If taste determines popularity, it behooves music fans to always look for what's good, whether than dwell on what's bad.

Nostalgia is fun.

There's good and bad on both sides

I think the decrease in record sales and the democratization of distribution have had a huge impact. Not long ago, the radio and to some extent, MTV, were almost the only way you were introduced to new music. These channels had gigantic audiences, so record companies and radio executives could afford to push some more "daring" stuff every now and then. Hence, better mainstream music. Now, anyone interested in edgier stuff find their music elsewhere. The only ones listening to the radio are chumps who don't give a fuck,who don't want different, interesting stuff. So the stuff on the radio turns into a lot of dumb, toothless stuff designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The radio doesn't at all set trends any more, it just follows them, very, very slowly. So the "mainstream", an ever shrinking pool of music, gets worse. "Underground", more specialized stuff is now enjoyed by far more people than it used to be, and that stuff is still great.

The sad thing about the modern world is we ALLOW musicians, artists, and athletes to be millionaires. The world was a much better place when musicians artist and athletes were merely upper middle class. Wealth is as dangerous as a loaded gun, it should not be put in just anyone's hands. That is the issue with modern music.... the idiots doing it BELIEVE they should become rich doing it.

The only real difference (besides the obvious changes in genres) to me is that when I hear the stuff that was popular in the 90s and before nowadays, a lot of it is kinda fun to listen to. It's not "good" music, but it's kind of corny and poppy in a harmless way. But over the last 5-10 years or so, a lot of the popular music I've heard is really self serious and soulless. I don't listen to the radio though, and in outside of that I don't think music has changed much.

Mainstream pop is probably worse than ever in my eyes. The formula that's used in most modern pop is now so refined, and so good at what it does (which is essentially turn your brain into fucking jelly, which is why they use it in Supermarkets... To make you zone out and buy things you don't particularly need or want,) that there's zero need to change it. That and the message of most modern pop is to fuck a lot of people, to have silly relationships built on ridiculous principles that won't last and end horribly, to take a lot of drugs and get drunk all the time and to desire material wealth and high social status above all other things. To me, modern pop is actually quite evil and sickening. And when I say modern pop I'm referring to your Carly Rae Jepsens, your Justin Biebers, your Lady Gagas and your Katy Perrys. When it comes to Modern Pop Rock, I think the only crime it's really guilty of is being boring, mediocre music.

However, modern music on the whole isn't any better or worse than it was. There's still plenty of ground-breaking, powerful music, and plenty of music that's exploring uncharted realms of sound such as Merzbow, Otomo Yoshihide's sine wave and turntable music, bands like Cleric, Behold the Arctopus... Etc. Due to the internet music like that is easier to find than ever, but it's balanced out by the internet giving a voice to every schmuck who thinks they have something to say that's worth hearing, so there's just more crap to sift through, which leads people to think that modern music is somehow quantifiably worse than the music of the past. There's always been a lot of shit, it's just that everyone took enough acid to actually allow abstract, explorative music to rise to fame and fortune as well as the namby-pamby crap like The Monkees.

@Selftest said:

The patina of nostalgia will always color your perception of anything that was "better way-back-when."

I would say that modern, independent music is at least as good, if not better, than stuff from 20-30 years ago. 30 years ago it was 1982. The 80's saw so many horrible, horrible acts, as did the 90's. One could argue that 40-50 years ago we hit a "peak" in music... That stuff is still relevant today.

But today, with social media, we have more choice. I NEVER listen to mainstream music. I've never heard "Call Me Maybe." I have no reference to Justin Bieber's music, or Lady Gaga. I live in San Francisco, so it's not like I'm in the boonies or anything. I avoid nightclubs, prefer dingy and dark bars that play punk and metal, and don't drive a car; and even if I did I have a phone with 3000 songs on it that I like. Mainstream music may be worse, but, who really cares? I listen to good music. My friends listen to good music. When we discover something we like, we share it with each other, and thus build new interests.

The Murder City Devils were not around 30 years ago. Neither was Radiohead, or Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Murder by Death, TOOL, High on Fire, Neurosis. Hell, I even like a lot of electronic music, and none of the good shit was around that long ago. The 80's had far fewer good bands. There are only about 20 stand-outs from that era, and they're all arguably "one hit wonders." They paved the way for the awesome shit we have today. And the 90's? Fuck. Does anybody remember Dishwalla? Or 4 Non-Blondes? Yeah, they're great novelty acts, but it isn't good music. Our tastes have evolved.

Only 20 or so stand outs from the 80s?

Ahem..

New Order

Bad Brains

Big Audio Dynamite

Echo & The Bunnymen

The Dead Kennedys

Def Leppard

Depche Mode

GNR

Janet Jackson

Michael Jackson

Lving Colour

Madness

Metallica

Mudhoney

OMD

Pet Shop Boys

REM

Slayer

The Smiths

Megadeth

Midnight Oil

The Go Gos

The Cult

The Pixies

Devo

Prince

Tears For Fears

Ozzy's solo career

Run DMC

LL Cool J

Kate Bush

The The

Pantera

The Eurythmics

TSOL

Talk Talk

The Art Of Noise

Duran Duran

The Human League

Erasure

Big Country

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Cyndi Lauper

INXS

Gary Numan

Madonna

The Pretenders

The Psychedelic Furs

Public Image Ltd.

Siouxsie And the Banshees

XTC

Violent Femmes

Sonic Youth

The Replacements

None of those acts are one-hit wonders (even someone like Gary Numan has more than one hit, while others like TSOL are cult bands who maintained popularity from the 80s to today).

And "none of the good shit" in electronic music is that old? What about Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Goldie, 808 State, KLF, Orb and Orbital? Just to name a few. Electronic music fans seems to be notorious with their memory loss.

I could do a list twice as long for the 90s. And if we started talking about the 80s/90s equivalents to acts like the ones you seem to favor (off-mainstream, lesser-known cult bands with larger than average followings during their peak) I'd be here all day with acts like The Comsat Angels, Game Theory, Polyrock, Faith No More, Jill Sobule, The Eels, ATR, and many (oh so many) more.

The cream rises in every decade. People don't remember shit like Leif Garrett, Pretty Poison or The Verve Pipe anymore, so I doubt in 10 years well be talking about Imagine Dragons, Seether or of that modern rock bullshit that pollutes the airwaves today.

Regardless, to make a broad statement and say that music of the 80s and 90s was all one hit wonders or not relevant today is pretty ignorant.

It is slightly worse, but honestly, horrendous, soulless, and annoying repetitive music has been made for ages. 

Worse. My favorite genre it metal, but I hate saying that since I really do hate almost all modern metal. Or rather, metal from bands that were formed in the last 10 years.

I really can't imagine anyone listening to the majority of music that has come out recently 20-30 years from now and thinking how great music used to be.

Pop seems like it's a bit better now, but other than that there aren't really any major bands making music now that inspire loyal lifelong fans the way that Nirvana, Beastie Boys or any other really big band did back then.

Technically, music from the 60s is a total joke compared to the best classical music made over the past 300 years, so yeah that too. Also the early 60s were pretty rough besides jazz and stuff from Phil Spector. And honestly, even stuff from the 70s I think is painfully overrated (Tommy and The Wall specifically), and at the same time the same bands have done great things, so really not that different from nowadays with bands that make great stuff (Kanye's Dark Fantasy) and a ton of fluff/garbage/annoying crap/etc. (almost every song Kanye has done since that album). Also blah blah blah opinions.