I was watching a documentary the other day called "Before the Music died" [you can watch it on youtube if your interrested] which explores how pop music controlls and ruined the music industry. Even though it was a really good documentary I felt really annoyed throughout the entire movie.

At some point I felt as though the people who were being interview were constantly wining about how pop music and modern day pop artists ruined everything in the music industry, and how music back in the days, like Jazz and blues etc. was so much better. While they supported their statements with some interresting arguments I couldn't stop thinking if it wasn't just a "generation issue"? Like the older we get the more we keep thinking "how things used to be better back in the days". It made me wonder if it's just not ANOTHER shift in the music industry, like so many before that, to which people have a hard time getting used to? I just wonder if it really "ruined" the music industry or in fact just "changed" the music industry, like for example soul or rock and roll used to do 40/50 years ago?

I wonder if you would pose the same question in say, 50 years from now and again make a documentary out of it you will get the same answers saying "how lady gaga used to be so much better than modern day pop stars"? What defines "going downhill", or "ruining" anyways in the first place, is the "15 minutes of fame" society that we live in nescesarily a bad thing, or is it just another step in how we are as a culture?

I'm unsure, all I listen to is Classic Rock and some of Slash's new stuff, so I am in a cave when it comes to most modern day music.


I would love to see Classic Rock come back though, sadly I was born at the wrong time

My problem is that natural music talent is on the decline. People mistake computer skills as musical talent when in fact it is not. Music to me is instruments and vocals. I'd love it for Big Band to make a return for a while.

lol actually it's quite funny that it's the opposite; you weren't. Especially nowadays it seems as though everything is about referencing to the past, taking something that already excists and putting that in a new context or at least making it look like it's something new while it's actually not. I think that everything goes nowadays if presented in the right way, whether that is Classic Rock or Madonna lol Actually most of the indie bands we used to see a lot a few years back reminded me a lot as a reference to classic rock, I think they are one of the most perfect examples of what I mean with referencing to what has happened before.

The problem is the decline in musical talents.

I was going to write a long paragraph, but then I remembered http://i.imgur.com/0EDU7.jpg.

You can compose beautiful music with a computer.

95% of the music I listen to; the composers have been dead for at least a century, so this really doesn't affect me.

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Shakira, and so on.

Do any of these ladies stand out from one another, as singers, aside from the fact that they are different individuals? They all have or had some sort of sixy image, and they all seem to be phased out at some point. The only one that seems relevant these days is Gaga, maybe Perry too. But sooner or later, someone else is going to be all the rage or whatever hell. Pop music is a use-and-dispose genre. Stars come and go.

Anyone who thinks that good music is dead just isn't paying attention. If the problems with the mainstream music industry have resulted in anything, it's an explosion in great underground music which is often on independent record labels or released entirely for free.

I know you can Ergin, but it's not the same as performing with an instrument. Crafting something on the computer or working at a thingermabob isn't the same as composing on an instrument. I'm not claiming it's easy to make music on a computer, I'm just saying it's not the same.

Lady Gaga is still relevant? I haven't heard anything about her lately.

You can't deny the fact that Beyonce is one of the greatest entertainers out there, if you look at the amount of passion she puts in every performance, she sings and dances at the same time, not always live but even when she does it sounds amazing, just because the music that she makes has poor lyrics and not so much creativity doesn't take away the fact that she was born to be on stage...Katy Perry on the other hand....

Same goes for Gaga, I think that she's a very passionate performer and even though the lyrics of her first album seem to be shallow I think that what she sings about is a perfect comment on our society that is obsessed with 15 minutes of fame and glamour. Which is why her first album is obviously called the fame, I think that a lot of people fail to "see through" this thought of her being shallow, also I think she knew exactely how to play the crowd at the right time and knows what's going on in our society very well which is a talent not everyone has...

Britney and Aguilera are to me just singers with an image. I think Aguilera has a great voice but that's about it, and you know Britney is just....poor britney.....

But Gaga did used to be better http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM

In my opinion, the internet has helped to counter pop music's domination of the music industry.

Instead of just being exposed to what's on the radio, at festivals, or what their friends are listening to, people now have much easier access to thousands of lesser known bands/artists... as well as styles of music that would normally be considered niche or underground.

I think you don't hear much from Lady Gaga anymore because she became her biggest obstacle for herself. She's been changing her image and shows at such a fast pace that I think nowadays people are getting used to the fact that Lady Gaga will always do something completely different tomorrow, which probably makes them indifferent for her. I think nowadays it becomes harder for herself to top herself, she even stated that her next album is going to lack maturity, which is fine, but actually to me shows that she's also fed up with always progressing and changing herself. I think she has earned her place as an entertainer however she still has to prove she can last another 50 years, which I'm quite sceptical about. However we've seen the same happening to Madonna's carreer, she was all about six at one point and people just got fed up with that.

See, I don't he the whole "pop ruined music" argument. There is a ton of music being produced that is both good and popular but not considered "pop". Plenty of artists are selling gold and platinum numbers yet are not in the genre that is pop. At most you can say pop has taken control of the radio but with Internet radio that doesn't even matter. Pop has ruined nothing. If you dont like it don't pay attention to it.


Like it or not these people have great musical talent, be it through their voices or their ability to play instruments. They do have talent and just evaluate you don't like their brand or style doesnt take away from that fact.

The music industry != pop industry. There are so many more ways of consuming and interacting with music today than before, when all you had was radio and record stores. Musicians who cater to different tastes no longer need to rely on radio to be heard and relevant, nor do they need to appear in billboard lists to make a living off what they do. Uber-commercialised pop has filled the void left by these people as they can sustain themselves elsewhere.

Now what has happened to modern pop is a different matter. This includes commercial Rock/pop, dance, hip hop and r'n'b that have had their elements fused together so much that it's getting hard to tell the difference between them anymore. http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120726/srep00521/full/srep00521.html Claiming that the stuff you hear on the radio all sounds the same these days isn't really just a case of rose-tinted glasses. They've all started to share the same instrumentation and harmonic structure, which wasn't always the case.

Pop music has always been bad, we just choose to remember what was good.

This is very true. You don't listen to the [censored] classic rock, you get the distilled down greatest hits version.

Back in what days, though? Jazz began around 1910-ish, the first publication of blues sheet music was 1912, and the first pop chart was compiled in 1952, which means "pop" has been around for 60 years, compared to the jazz/blues dominance which lasted only 40 years. It's not like jazz and blues are dead, but pop has enjoyed the longest stretch of popularity. Sure, there are many types of pop - but there are also many types of jazz.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvR-reh8NJc
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjosrs_foetus-the-need-machine_music


Wait, what? You could say the same about the complete history of rock - Jim Morrison, Robert Plant, David Bowie all have some sort of sixy image. Britney has been famous for 20 years, so has Christina. Beyonce formed Destiny's Child 22 years ago. I wouldn't call them fleeting.

Do they stand out from one another? Let's recap, shall we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PstrAfoMKlc,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8SrlbpJ5A,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5-pLGXvyjk,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBzA7gf8F6E

Those are some of the finest compositions and performances (in any genre) I have ever heard.

And, yes, nostalgia simply filters out the dross. I mean, how many composers from the 1750s do we routinely listen to? Everything is ephemeral: only the very best survives, and there'll be a handful of pop songs that will still be widely enjoyed 300 years from now.

I'm not sure; it seems to have its ups and downs. Personally I think that the late '80s was its worst period, what with over-commercialisation, formulaic songwriting and what seemed to be a distillation of everything bad about pop music. Not sure others will agree, but for me that was a real nadir, what went before being generally better and more varied and a gradual but progressive increase in quality since those dark years too.

To be honest, I don't feel that any of the names are relevant at the moment. Just brought up the more recent names I could think of.

Hell, I always miss 80-90's music, but that doesn't make today's music "worse." While I personally don't like it too much, it's all a matter of different opinions/tastes.

Well then it wouldn't be classic anymore.

What I meant is more like....idk like your grandparents used to say like "back in the day we used to play outside instead of talking to people on a computer and playing video games all day long" -kind of back in the day lol...

Comparing some of today's worst to some of the 80's best is unfair. Why don't we compare Queen to a more suitable band like Poets of the Fall? Likewise, you can compare Justin Beiber to any number of failed bands from the 70's or 80's, and trust me when I say there's more than enough.

There's not a lack of good music these days. There's a distinct hatred for anything popular and an overwhelming sense of apathy in today's youth. Just because you're not finding the music you like doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it simply means you're not looking for it.