Is the music industry now based more on pageantry than raw talent?

Reply to Benj96 Quoting Benj96

With the amount of data being provided by apps like Spotify and iTunes, along with the development of auto tune, it seems these days that song writing has become ever more of a formula/algorithm and singers are more often selected based on their physical attraction/charm or social standing rather than their raw singing ability. Is musical originality dying? Artists certainly are not as rare as they used to be.

If it is, I don’t think that formulaic songwriting is the cause so much as a symptom of a decline in originality. If you want to see originality in popular music, you have to find it in the culture more generally. Exciting new trends in the arts are made possible by the fact that a segment of culture has come upon a fork in the road and stumbled on a new world, and then writes or sings or paints about it. Everyone seems to be stuck on the same old path at the moment. It’s fashionable to blame capitalism for this stagnation but this misses the point.

Quoting Benj96

s musical originality dying? Artists certainly are not as rare as they used to be.

Maybe consider this. I heard your argument being presented in similar terms 40 years ago; 30 years ago; 20 years ago...

Reply to Tom Storm Quoting Tom Storm

Maybe consider this. I heard your argument being presented in similar terms 40 years ago; 30 years ago; 20 years ago...

Maybe they were right, and the phenomenon has gotten progressively worse. If you google cultural
stagnation, you will find dozens of articles on how the sciences are not producing new breakthroughs like they used to, and 1970 is cited as a key demarcation point. Some focus on quantum physics and the decline in innovation the field. Much is being written about how the digital revolution pales in comparison with the industrial revolution in its contribution to increase in standard
of living. Even those in silicon valley , such as Peter Thiel, agree with this assessment. Others have noticed the same trend in philosophy , literature and poetry.

“Hollywood movies are boring. Television is boring. Pop music is boring. The art world is boring. Broadway is boring. Books from big publishing are boring,”(W.David Marx)

Writing and making music overlaps with but is not the same thing as entertainment. There may be original music we have never heard because it lacks what is regarded as entertainment value. Making music and listening to or purchasing music are not the same.

The demand for originality is a questionable value. Authenticity can suffer from the desire for originality.

Reply to Joshs Could be right. I have never engaged with pop, not even when young. I listened to classical, later blues and jazz. The aesthetics of rock don’t interest me. I thought the shitness of most things was my lack of interest and my age. I remember my Dad complaining that music went off in the 1950’s.

Reply to Benj96,

It just depends on where you go for your music. If you restrict yourself to Spotify you get what you deserve. Instead, go down to the shops and listen to the local live music or go get online and find some independent stuff.

Your music will only become "a formula/algorithm" if you are a lazy sponge.

"Original" stuff is just stuff you haven't heard before. There's plenty of bad music you haven't heard. Originality is not quality. Nor is what is original the same as what is pleasant.

Now, more than ever, what you listen to is down to you. If you are listening to shit, you are doing it wrong.

Reply to Tom Storm Listen to The Music Show.

Reply to Benj96

In a way, yes. I made a thread awhile back about the gestation periods of art forms. I'm of the position that music has peaked and is on the decline. Kind of depressing, but I think it's the reality. In terms of talent taking a back seat to someone's looks, or the mass produced nature of modern music, I always have to remind myself that the music industry is an industry; it exists to make money like any other industry.

Musical artistry can exist independently from the music industry. Musical artists like myself who still have day jobs can still create authentic music and share it with a few people.

I've come to the sad conclusion that there's far too much popular music. I recall seeing, about 20 years ago, auditions for one of those TV talent shows - Voice, or something - with people literaly lined around the block to audition. A lot of them couldn't sing for shit, they were complete no-talents, but they were convinced they were Going To Be A Star. There are literally billions of these people. Probably, some thousands of them are actually talented, and some smaller number again are exceptional, but there's so much content, so much noise, that they're almost impossible to discern.

I actually write songs myself (see here) at one stage I thought they might have commercial potential, but long ago came to the realisation that it was not to be. But in the process, I learned to use LogicPro, which is the Apple music production platform, and it's utterly phenomenal. You can create any kind of ensemble, any kind of instrumentation, anything from a small band to a symphony orchestra - it has millions of loops of pre-made riffs and sounds and all manner of instruments. Utterly incredible. But there are probably tens of millions, and maybe hundreds of millions, of people with these tools now, all vying for attention and trying to find an audience.

Sometimes, I imagine what life would be like for performing musicians if there were no recorded or digitally-produced music. You as a listener could only hear music if you went to a venue and listened. It would be a vastly different world. Instead now it's being thrown at you from speakers in all the stores, we're literally drowning in it. All that said, still love music, but I'm a grand-dad now, and feel much the same about music today as my grand-dad did when I was a teen.

Reply to Fooloso4 Quoting Fooloso4

Writing and making music overlaps with but is not the same thing as entertainment. There may be original music we have never heard because it lacks what is regarded as entertainment value. Making music and listening to or purchasing music are not the same.

This prompts the question, why does an art form fail to speak to an audience? It can do so if it is lacking in originality, if it is considered boringly predictable and familiar. But why does an original work fail to connect? We assume this is becausethe public isn’t ready for it , they can’t relate to the ideas and feelings it expresses. But the interconnectedness of society makes it impossible for an individual’s outlook to be positioned completely outside of the rest of culture. This is why audiences eventually come around to music they considered unrelatable initially. But why was it artists from Bach and Mozart , to Ellington , Coltrane , Hendrix and Dylan connected immediately with an audience of some size? Where they not original enough?

Quoting Wayfarer

I learned to use LogicPro

I use Logic as well. Quite a powerful program. I've been using it for over 10 years and am still learning it. It's a bit of an endless rabbit hole.

Reply to Noble Dust Quoting Noble Dust

Musical artistry can exist independently from the music industry. Musical artists like myself who still have day jobs can still create authentic music and share it with a few people.

If your authentic music is great music, you don’t think it can find its way to a large audience? I do. I think we dont hear great breakthrough music on the order of the first ragtime , swing, bebop, rocknroll,psychedelia, punk or hip hop not because of the ‘industry’ but because it isn't being written. The industry isnt the bad guy here. We all are. Revolutionary thoughts and feelings simply aren’t in the air these days. Too many old people living longer and too few births leads to creative stagnation in the culture.

I recall reading that one of the things that drove Coltrane to his early death from heart attack was the requirement to keep creating something entirely new. Jazz at the time was in a period of frenetic evolution, with a handful of supremely talented individuals constantly trying to come up with the next big thing. Maybe the quest for novelty is one of the faces of the 'creative destruction' that characterises modern culture.

Reply to Wayfarer Quoting Wayfarer

I recall reading that one of the things that drove Coltrane to his early death from heart attack was the requirement to keep creating something entirely new. Jazz at the time was in a period of frenetic evolution, with a handful of supremely talented individuals constantly trying to come up with the next big thing. Maybe the quest for novelty is one of the faces of the 'creative destruction' that characterises modern culture.

Many pop artists fight against the opposite pressure. The public expects endless regurgitation of the old product and style , while the artist is hell-bent on leaving their recent success behind them and following their muse into new territory. The music industry’s idea of the ‘next big thing’ is what stays within the formula of the previous big thing and they recoil in horror at true originality.

I guess so. I wrote in another thread that I recently re-discovered David Crosby, who died just the other day, of Crosby Still and Nash fame. He had long periods of quiescence, but in his last ten years made a number of albums with various collaborators, across a diverse range of styles and sounds. I don't like all the songs, but I'm impressed with how he kept coming up with new ideas instead of simply falling back on his greatest hits and tried-and-true techniques.

I've no talent and very little skill, but I play anyway. There's a friggin' madness pervading talk of music that wraps it with talent, authenticity, originality and commercial success. That's all bullshit.

Anyone can make music , and should. Treating it as a specialisation is a perversion. Even the juxtaposition evident in this thread between performer and audience has a corrupting influence. Music is a basic human faculty.

If you don't like the music you are listening to, listen to something else. If you don't like what you are playing, play something different.

“…. One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity…”
(Rush, Permanent Waves, 1980)

Reply to Banno :up:

I don't buy the idea that music and the arts in general are stagnating because everything has already been done, or we're not coming up with revolutionary worldviews The idea that there must be a continual evolution of new forms in art and music grows out of a simplistic view of quality in the arts being a matter of originality. Authenticity is more to the point; meaning finding your own voice or vision rather than imitating or comparing yourself with others. There is not endless scope for formal originality, but there is endless scope for authenticity.

Look at the history of Chinese or Japanese painting for example; little formal innovation, but centuries of great work nonetheless.

Reply to Mww This is the dilemma for artists; success often comes with a market that demands what it has become accustomed to. One of the best bands around today, in my view, Radiohead, resist this and are constantly reinventing themselves.

Quoting Janus

I don't buy the idea that music and the arts in general are stagnating because everything has already been done,

And first nations Australians dance the same dance they have done for the last forty thousand years!

Long live stagnation!

Reply to Banno Good example!

Quoting Wayfarer

Maybe the quest for novelty is one of the faces of the 'creative destruction' that characterises modern culture.

:up: An authentic voice or vision will always be new, even if not formally innovative. Seeking novelty for its own sake paves the road to mediocrity.

Quoting Janus

Seeking novelty for its own sake paves the road to mediocrity.

It's worse than that. It's a tool of commerce, inventing the need to purchase novelty. but more, in not having a base, it fails to embed itself in the world, becoming the ultimate superficiality.

But an undue emphasis on "authenticity" will do exactly the same thing.

Quoting Banno

. Even the juxtaposition evident in this thread between performer and audience has a corrupting influence.

Performer and audience typically occupy different positions, separated by a stage, and subject to rules of etiquette that vary with musical style. In some cases audience participation is encouraged but in others frowned upon.

A recording, especially a studio recording, separates performer from audience. In both cases they are at a distance, but some musicians feed off the energy of the audience.

I would not go so far as to say it is a perversion, but agree with the point that the division is not essential to music, and that something is lost when the practice of music making is left to specialists. On the other hand, only specialists are capable of playing some music. With few exceptions years of dedicated study and practice are necessary to play this music competently.

Quoting Banno

But an undue emphasis on "authenticity" will do exactly the same thing.

All it means is not imitating others for effect or seeking to appear original. If you don't do those things and work simply to improve you will find your own voice or vision. That's all I mean by authenticity.

Reply to Janus Quoting Janus

I don't buy the idea that music and the arts in general are stagnating because everything has already been done, or we're not coming up with revolutionary worldviews The idea that there must be a continual evolution of new forms in art and music grows out of a simplistic view of quality in the arts being a matter of originality. Authenticity is more to the point; meaning finding your own voice or vision rather than imitating or comparing yourself with others. There is not endless scope for formal originality, but there is endless scope for authenticity.

I dont think authenticity and originality can be separated. One doesn't have the urge to create unless what one is conjuring expresses something new for them, something they have not already experienced elsewhere. I think Heidegger had it right. Authenticity is tapping into the source of innovation rather than relying on the conventionally determined. Great art takes you someplace new , allows you to feel things in a fresh way, offers a new aesthetic vocabulary. Not just in relation to what came before , but within the bounds of its own essence.

A great piece of music introduces you to a landscape , and then takes you on an adventure where this landscape constantly changes. Looking at a history of art book not only allows you to appreciate each creation in isolation , but tells a story of exciting innovations of seeing and feeling from one period to the next. An essential element of the power of Renaissance or Romantic or Modernist art is the energy, confidence and sense of elation you are invited to share with the artist over their discovery of a way of depicting feeling that their predecessors couldn’t grasp. The freshness of the discovery is embedded within the art itself. This is why the endless recycling of a style of painting produces increasingly weary, played-out emotions. The works become more and more mannered, self-conscious, calculated.

Quoting Banno

I don't buy the idea that music and the arts in general are stagnating because everything has already been done,
— Janus

And first nations Australians dance the same dance they have done for the last forty thousand years!

Long live stagnation!

The pace of cultural change is an accelerative curve. If one lives in a culture which belongs to the slower changing portion of that trajectory it is not as if there is no change at all taking place. One creates to express, and expression always innovates. We in the 21st century belong to a much faster moving period of that curve. One doesn't produce art in a calculated fashion to ‘keep up’ with some externally defined criterion of innovation, one keeps up with oneself, that is , one’s personal shifts in outlook and feeling. If one happens to live in a time and place ( such as San Francisco in 1967) and happens to be a pop musician, one’s personal outlook as reflected in the music one writes may very well capture a revolution in progress, simultaneously in one’s own head and in the insanely speeding-up world around one. It just so happened that a particular drug, LSD, helped to catalyze a profound reorientation toward almost every aspect of the world, and one can hear this in the music of that era. For those who are Beatles fans, you are hearing explosive change in every note of the songs on Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sergeant Pepper , the White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be, as well as in the musical transformations from one album to the next.

Now we are in a slower moving time for music. You can hear this in the songs. They are less ecstatic , less confident , less intense, less explosive, less viola art , less purely experimental. For a public that is not in a revolutionary mood , this music may sound just fine, and feel perfectly fitting. The older music may appear naive, utopian. And yet it is now considered classic by younger as well as older generations. That because music that comes out of the midst of social revolution packs so much into every note. This gives it a staying power that music from our more staid times will not have.

Reply to Joshs

I think our perception of originality in music (or whatever art form) is often just a projection unto the external world of our own experience of being exposed to new music. As we age, new music or art seems less original because it doesn't match our past seminal experiences of newness. We tend to chase that first "hit" of a perception-altering musical or artistic experience in the same way an addict chases that first high. This leads to this sense of disillusionment that characterizes your commentary, I think.

I think pageantry has always been an important part of musical performance. You'll find that it pervades and persists throughout time, from the liturgical dramas of Gregorian chant, to Opera, and the theatrics of classic rock concerts. The form of pageantry employed is always changing, just like the music itself, that's the result of the desire to be original.

I'm just curious about a fact that's obvious given but a moment's reflection - why are there no aesthetically-challenged female singers?

Reply to Benj96 No. The overall decline in the music industry predates digital formats, auto-tune, low bitrate streaming services, ubiquitious high quality ease-of-use recording tech, etc. In (Western) popular music (e.g. rock-n-roll, blues, folk, country, soul/R&B/funk, ska/reggae) the decline was precipitous by the mid-1970-80s. In (Western) classical music & jazz, the decline probably happened decades earlier. Well, so my own vinyl-free CD/DVD library (that c95% consists of pre-1980 recordings) seems to tells me. :smirk:

Why is this so (if it is)? My guess, for what it's worth, is the hyper-monetized demand for new "novelity" content has over the decades progressively outstripped the demand for new quality content as the accessibility to old quality content has grown along with the on-demand distribution capacity for delivering trendy "novelty" shit has exploded. And "live music" venues, where most people used to learn how to listen and dance, are maybe 5% as numerous as they were in the 1970s as arena concerts and mass festivals became econony-of-scale money-grabs too irresistable for established "stars" and promoters to resist. Blah blah blah ...

Anyway, I stopped going to "big shows" (except for rare occasions) over two decades ago after being an avid concert-goer for the previous two decades. Decadent commerce kills culture eventually. Nietzsche is right. Albert Murray is right too.

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I feel that most of y'all are perpetuating and embodying the point I made above:

Quoting Noble Dust

I think our perception of originality in music (or whatever art form) is often just a projection unto the external world of our own experience of being exposed to new music. As we age, new music or art seems less original because it doesn't match our past seminal experiences of newness. We tend to chase that first "hit" of a perception-altering musical or artistic experience in the same way an addict chases that first high.

The mistake made is that one's own perception of a sort of musical "pantheon" is just exactly that; one's own perception. The fallacy is that one's own perception of some pantheon represents some sort of objective reality, which it does not.

Reply to Noble Dust That sounds right. What's funny to me at the moment is we have a some younger people at work - the 28 year-olds are laughing at the 22 year-old's musical taste, muttering about how music isn't what it used to be. I didn't know such a slender interval of time could provide such a drastic demarcation. To me it all sounds shit. It's also interesting to me that most people's taste in music, film, clothing seems to ossify at a particular point in time. And everyone always says they are open to and appreciate the new stuff...

Quoting Tom Storm

t's also interesting to me that most people's taste in music, film, clothing seems to ossify at a particular point in time.

YES, that's exactly what I'm trying to illustrate. Myself included, the only difference being that I'm (hopefully) aware of the phenomenon happening to me.

Quoting Tom Storm

the 28 year-olds are laughing at the 22 year-old's musical taste, muttering about how music isn't what it used to be.

Haha, my work experience is similar, but with different ages. I hadn't realized how "weird" my taste in music was until this 24 (?) year old guy got hired and my other co-worker informed me that my musical choices "gave him anxiety".

Quoting Noble Dust

YES, that's exactly what I'm trying to illustrate. Myself included, the only difference being that I'm (hopefully) aware of the phenomenon happening to me.

Yes, I have gone with that too. I rarely wear anything but black so I kind of opted out of fashion 25 years ago.

Quoting Noble Dust

24 (?) year old guy got hired and my other co-worker informed me that my musical choices "gave him anxiety".

I hope it was something profoundly unsettling, but I'm worried you're going to say Steely Dan... :wink:

Quoting Tom Storm

but I'm worried you're going to say Steely Dan... :wink:

I don't remember exactly, but it was probably something along the lines of Massive Attack or Portishead.

To answer the OP, pageantry was always part of the act; it just wasn't as spectacular as it's now. I believe it's called presentation, in this case the musical counterpart of rhetoric. The reason why music concerts are sold out events is that it's full-options car that every family dreams of. There's talent and it comes with bells 'n' whistles. It must come as a relief though, to music aficionados, that the glitz is secondary to talent. If you simply can't carry a tune, you're not gonna please the crowd no matter how you present yourself. A monkey is a monkey even if you dress it up in a Tux.

Reply to Tom Storm That's fair. You're probably right. I'm sure music will be very different in 100 years

Quoting Banno

Your music will only become "a formula/algorithm" if you are a lazy sponge.

That's true Banno. Can't expect unique products if I go to the most mainstream marketplace

Reply to Benj96 What music do you enjoy out of interest?

Reply to Tom Storm hard to pinpoint any one specific genre to be honest. Music is often functional for me depending on my activities: if I'm out with friends at a dance venue or doing work, meditating or at the gym. The rhythm and pace needs to be appropriate: calm, classical, emotive for contemplation or upbeat, powerful, with a nice drop if out partying.

I have mostly mainstream pop, alternative, 80s and 90s, rock, classical, a few from different cultures: spanish and French mostly, and even a lot of scores from films. Jazz and metal are the only genres I haven't really resonated with and so only have 2 or three songs that could be categorised as such and even then they would be "light jazz" or the mildest of metal, or fusions with other genres.

What about you?

Reply to Benj96 :up: Mainly classical, jazz and old school blues. By blues I mean Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Memphis Slim, Lighting Hopkins.

Quoting Janus

a market that demands what it has become accustomed to

Gotta admit to that myself. Band comes along, love their music for three or four albums….then they change style.

For re-inventing, probably can’t top the Beatles. Drippy girly AM pop in ‘63 to FM album Sgt Pepper in ‘67….massive musical offset.

Quoting Agent Smith

I'm just curious about a fact that's obvious given but a moment's reflection - why are there no aesthetically-challenged female singers?

No challenge is too great for the cosmetic industry, so there is no such thing as "aesthetically-challenged".

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

No challenge is too great for the cosmetic industry, so there is no such thing as "aesthetically-challenged"

How true! I've seen some pretty ugly male singers though. I guess males have other things on their mind, like e.g. pretty women.

Reply to Agent Smith
It's not really a matter of what's on the mind of the singer, but more the image that they want to conjure up in the minds of the audience. So you might consider Kiss, Alice Cooper, Ozzy, etc.. On the female side, there seems to be pressure from the machine (industry leaders), to present the women as desirable in some way, and this does not really exist on the male side.

As a musician, whenever I am lulled into feelings that I was "born in the wrong era" or some such belief that things really used to be better and they really are worse now, I just remember some words of wisdom from my avatar, Orson Welles, in the form of a mantra:

[i]Nothing has ever been too good for the public.
Nothing has ever been good enough for the public.[/i]

Reply to Noble Dust Quoting Noble Dust

think our perception of originality in music (or whatever art form) is often just a projection unto the external world of our own experience of being exposed to new music. As we age, new music or art seems less original because it doesn't match our past seminal experiences of newness. We tend to chase that first "hit" of a perception-altering musical or artistic experience in the same way an addict chases that first high. This leads to this sense of disillusionment that characterizes your commentary, I think.

This is certainly true, but let me make some arguments in favor of something else at work these days as well. In my own case , I keep coming back to music that was written between 1965 and 1973. Is this because this is what I was listening to during that key period of my adolescence? Yes and no. At age 18, when all my peers were playing disco, punk or proto-New Wave, I was starting to go back in time to the heart of the folk-rock and psychedelic eras. This was music I couldn’t tolerate when it first came out. I was too young and it was too strange for me. 90% of the music from that period I discovered for the first time decades after it was recorded, and half of that in the last few years thanks to the Psychedelic Jukebox online station.

I have plenty of favorites in rock, and some hip hop, from the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s,( Radiohead, Modest Mouse, Amy Winehouse, Neutral Milk Motel) but to my ears they haven’t departed radically enough from the music that created the rock genre in the 60’s.
( I knew we were in trouble when Nirvana released their cover of ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ in 1994, which I initially assumed they wrote, and then heard how close it was to David Bowie’s original version from 1970, 24 years earlier. Know any 1970 rock songs that duplicate the sounds of 1946?)

This is the opposite complaint about new music than what one typically hears from people that can’t relate to it. My parents were a perfect example. They never got rock music, not from Elvis up through the Beatles and beyond. To them it was all noise , as prominent critics of their generation would say ( like comedian Steve Allen). They literally couldn’t hear any structure , melody or complexity in any of it. It was like a foreign language they couldn’t translate. Critics of hip hop also claim it ‘isn’t real music.’( Keith Richards said that, and he should know better).

It’s obvious that the rock music of 1969 , especially the most edgy and challenging, when compared to music from 20 years earlier, is strikingly different. And compared with music from 50 years earlier, it sounds like from a different planet. But let’s compare the edgiest music from 1969 with 2019, 50 years later. I wager that I can find some relatively obscure rock from 1969 that a young listener today may think was written in 2019( the music of the art band The United States of America comes to mind).

How many of the multiple comments on youtube 1960’s songs saying they wish they were alive in that era, that the music was much better then, come from people younger than 30? An awful lot I think. Can you imagine any teens in 1969 pining for the music of 1919, or even 1949? Maybe a tiny handful of eccentrics.

Can you imagine a movie like Yesterday being made in 1969? What band from 1919 would the main character be able to channel that would create a sensation in 1969, as the Beatles did in that movie? Why could
Ed Sheehan’s character so easily admit the superiority of that music over his own, 50 years later? Its not that the Beatles were some freakish anomaly that only comes along once a century. Those of us who know the music of that era can come up with a dozen bands equally as good as the Beatles. It was not the Beatles that were great, it was the era, the environment of frenetic experimentation, that produced greatness.

I have 2 nieces in their teens and both of them told me that a lot of their favorite music is from the 1970’s and ‘80’s ( Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel. Yech), and they are far from alone in their generation.

No, something else is going on here beside the rootedness of old-timers to what they grew up with.

I probably should have used the word 'innovation' instead of 'originality'. What I was trying to highlight is the difference between finding your own vision or voice and being formally innovative. The 20th Century enjoyed a tremendous flurry of formal innovation in the arts. Compare this with the history of Chinese or Japanese art, for example. The lack of great formal innovation in the latter does nothing to diminish the quality and vision of the work.

Every time I write a poem or draw or paint a landscape I experience seeing and feeling something new; something I "have not already experienced elsewhere". Every moment I experience something I have not already experienced elsewhere unless I am drowning in an internal dialogue that constantly regurgitates common cliches That is authenticity, and it is of course, in the particular, if not the general sense, innovative.

Quoting Joshs

This is why the endless recycling of a style of painting produces increasingly weary, played-out emotions. The works become more and more mannered, self-conscious, calculated.

It depends on what you mean by "style". If you mean 'genre' then I disagree. Landscape and figure as genres, for example, despite their prior formal evolution into the so-called "abstract" are still alive and full of potential as ever. Works become "mannered" when the signature styles of well-known artists are slavishly imitated.

Know any 1970 rock songs that duplicate the sounds of 1946?

Crawling King Snake first recorded in 1941 by Big Joe Williams in 1941, and by the Doors in 1971. I believe many other examples can be found. I think you are over-simplifying and ignoring the revolution in innovative possibilities brought about by the electrification of instruments and the invention of the synthesizer.

Quoting Mww

Gotta admit to that myself. Band comes along, love their music for three or four albums….then they change style.

For re-inventing, probably can’t top the Beatles. Drippy girly AM pop in ‘63 to FM album Sgt Pepper in ‘67….massive musical offset.

Yes, sometimes changes are not for the better. I know people who can't stand the post OK Computer Radiohead (a band I think have been at least as innovative as the Beatles). For me, though, the quality of music is not measured in units of innovation. As it is said, there's no accounting for taste.

Quoting Noble Dust

I think our perception of originality in music (or whatever art form) is often just a projection unto the external world of our own experience of being exposed to new music. As we age, new music or art seems less original because it doesn't match our past seminal experiences of newness. We tend to chase that first "hit" of a perception-altering musical or artistic experience in the same way an addict chases that first high. This leads to this sense of disillusionment that characterizes your commentary, I think.

:100:

Quoting Janus

As it is said, there's no accounting for taste.

And yet, all there ever is, with respect to quality, is aesthetic judgements. Which reduces to…..there’s no accounting for each other’s tastes. Which is probably what you meant.

Reply to Mww
Yea, aesthetic judgement...which raises an interesting question: could novelty, a novelty inherent in the object itself, ever be considered to be a coherent aspect of aesthetic judgement. The beautiful mountain, for example: it's been there for millions of years, so there is no inherent novelty there, but perhaps to see its beauty is to see it anew each time; the singularity of each aesthetic experience.

Reply to Janus Quoting Janus

“Know any 1970 rock songs that duplicate the sounds
of 1946?”

Crawling King Snake first recorded in 1941 by Big Joe Williams in 1941, and by the Doors in 1971. I believe many other examples can be found. I think you are over-simplifying and ignoring the revolution in innovative possibilities brought about by the electrification of instruments and the invention of the synthesizer.

Good point . Early 20th century Delta blues is an important influence for much late 60’s rock(Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Mayall’s Blues Breakers, Electric Flag, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, 10 Years After), so they did plenty of covers of old blues songs. But the blues is just one influence in rock, alongside jazz, folk , country , gospel, Indian raga and classical.
What made this era of rock music so innovative was the way it synthesized all these elements together. The result was something quite new, even when the music was unplugged.One can hear all these influences swirling around an unelectrified Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan song. On the same Doors album with Crawling King Snake was the song L.A. woman. How many styles of music can you recognize squeezed into this tune, and how unlike anything from the 40’s or 50’s?

Quoting Janus

Yes, sometimes changes are not for the better. I know people who can't stand the post OK Computer Radiohead (a band I think have been at least as innovative as the Beatles).

You think there was as much change in song structure over the course of Radiohead’s career as there was from Love Me Do to I Am The Walrus? Alrighty.

Quoting Joshs

How many of the multiple comments on youtube 1960’s songs saying they wish they were alive in that era, that the music was much better then, come from people younger than 30?

How would you or I know? Youtube has been around for over 14 years; it's used by people of all ages.

Quoting Joshs

It was not the Beatles that were great, it was the era, the environment of frenetic experimentation, that produced greatness.

I will acquiesce to this.

Quoting Joshs

I have 2 nieces in their teens and both of them told me that a lot of their favorite music is from the 1970’s and ‘80’s ( Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel. Yech), and they are far from alone in their generation.

No, something else is going on here beside the rootedness of old-timers to what they grew up with.

I'm a millennial, but the sense I have is that Gen Z is obsessed with the 90's. Grunge is back, 90's clothes are back. To me that smacks of my assessment of different art forms having arcs that eventually come to an end; specifically, if the 90's are now retro, music truly is on the decline.

If anything, maybe we're kind of in agreement here; just that my idea of art form arcs doesn't seem to have taken hold with you or others (maybe it's crap, or maybe others haven't seen it yet).

Quoting Benj96

With the amount of data being provided by apps like Spotify and iTunes, along with the development of auto tune, it seems these days that song writing has become ever more of a formula/algorithm and singers are more often selected based on their physical attraction/charm or social standing rather than their raw singing ability.

Does this erode the natural basis for musical talent and authenticity? If anyone can now sing like a professional die to technology, and highly likeable songs are being mass produced like a high volume factory output, do we not see a diminishing impact for those that write songs from the soul, and sing because it's what they were born to do?

Is musical originality dying? Artists certainly are not as rare as they used to be.

To me the problem here is that "raw singing ability" is overvalued, such that the unique voices of people who are technically not very good singers become less acceptable to the mainstream. The technology reinforces this. I'm thinking Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed.

So there's more to being a good singer than being a good singer. On top of that, there's more to music than the mainstream. I've noticed that when people say music isn't as good as it used to be (including knowledgeable curmudgeons like Rick Beato), they often mean the music in the pop charts. But as @Banno and @Noble Dust implied, music is more than the music industry. The industry, starting with recordings, was built on three-minute songs and, in the seventies and eighties, on albums. That's all more or less moribund, but music will continue. It doesn't make much sense to me to say that music in general gets better or worse.

That said, having been born in the early seventies I sympathize with those who lament the album's decline. Vinyl albums, along with the lore and the mystery (because no internet) were special and wonderful things, and they stimulated many great creative achievements.

But I don't know if we ought to want to get that back again. Things like YouTube seem to have enabled the growth or re-growth of musical community, where there is less distance between performer and audience. In that context, it's good that artists are not as rare as they used to be. So long as they're not slaves to industry, the more musicians the better.

How all these musicians can dedicate themselves to music and still make a living, and whether they should expect to, is another matter.

Quoting Noble Dust

How many of the multiple comments on youtube 1960’s songs saying they wish they were alive in that era, that the music was much better then, come from people younger than 30?
— Joshs

How would you or I know? Youtube has been around for over 14 years; it's used by people of all ages.

I read a lot of Youtube comments and this is a popular observation, but not just about music, it touches everything - sitcoms, tonight shows, buildings, any shit from the 50's to the 80's. "I'm 20 but I wish I was around when Bewitched was on TV every night. Imagine how cool to watch it live on the air. Nothing today comes close.' and other gems.

For all the recent slandering of "boomers", Youtube is abounds with young folk filled with reverence to the boomer past, in almost every way, from cars to presidents. I think this is just a trope probably absorbed through all those nostalgia movies (like the recent Elvis) which fetishises the past as an era of golden greatness and 'when it was done first'.

Quoting Jamal

I'm thinking Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed.

Probably Bowie, Tom Waits and Nick Cave too. With such characterful voices, it is obvious they would not make it on American Idol...

Slickness has become a value that supersedes the art - movies are the same, thanks to CGI. Almost everything looks a certain way (perfect lighting and colour) and must contain visual hyperbole/stunts to make it in the market place.

Quoting Tom Storm

Probably Bowie, Tom Waits and Nick Cave too

Indubitably.

Quoting Janus

could novelty, a novelty inherent in the object itself, ever be considered to be a coherent aspect of aesthetic judgement

Whoa! That’s Ken Kesey/ Merry Pransters kinda heavy, right there, insofar as both pro and con are in the same query: con…novelty isn’t in the object at all; pro….novelty is certainly an object of judgement. Boys and girls woulda had a blast with that one, methinks, trippin’ down the highway.

Still, things change. The hippies then for the rights of free spirit, the woke dipshits now for the pathologically stupid over-sensitivity regarding Ms. Green M&M’s wearin’ thigh-high boots.

(Sigh)

Reply to Mww

Quoting Mww

Still, things change. The hippies then for the rights of free spirit, the woke dipshits now for the pathologically stupid over-sensitivity regarding Ms. Green M&M’s wearin’ thigh-high boots.

Further!

Reply to Joshs

Not to be confused with, “…c’mon baby take a chance with us, meet me at the back of the blue bus…”

Ahhhh….those were the days.

Reply to Joshs Of course there was the influence of the psychedelic era, which also had its beginnings, along with a culture of other illicit drug use, in the late forties and fifties. The radical shift in the Beatles music (and many others) was arguably due to their encounter with LSD and TM. Of course these influences can be found also in acoustic music, but the very existence of electronic enhancement of instruments was already at work in both electric and acoustic music. .

The Beatles music and rock and pop music generally was not, and still is not, all that innovative harmonically speaking and most of the songs remain in the four to five minute format. Jazz is far more innovative harmonically as is Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy for a few examples, not to mention Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Bartok, Ives, and many others.

Whether the Beatles were, over their career, more innovative than Radiohead is hard to measure. What metric would you suggest?

The Doors first eponymous album was released earlier in 67 than Sgt Peppers, and so was Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. Sure, Rubber Soul and Revolver were earlier still, but I think the greatness of the Beatles lies in their songwriting (which is also arguably in large part down to the "fifth Beatle": George Martin.

Quoting Mww

Whoa! That’s Ken Kesey/ Merry Pransters kinda heavy, right there, insofar as both pro and con are in the same query: con…novelty isn’t in the object at all; pro….novelty is certainly an object of judgement.Boys and girls woulda had a blast with that one, methinks, trippin’ down the highway.

Still, things change. The hippies then for the rights of free spirit, the woke dipshits now for the pathologically stupid over-sensitivity regarding Ms. Green M&M’s wearin’ thigh-high boots.

(Sigh)

LOL, good point!

Reply to Noble Dust Quoting Noble Dust

If anything, maybe we're kind of in agreement here; just that my idea of art form arcs doesn't seem to have taken hold with you or others (maybe it's crap, or maybe others haven't seen it yet).

I do agree with you about art form arcs. Classical music’s arc can arguably be said to have ended with the experiments of Schoenberg and Cage, and Jazz’s dissolution may have been symbolized by Miles Davis’s embrace of Jame Brown and his move into jazz-rock fusion. The art critic Arthur Danto famously declared that after Warhol’s Brillo box exhibit philosophically interesting art was no longer possible.

Reply to Joshs I find the idea that classical music or Jazz have "ended" or that philosophically interesting art is no longer possible simple-minded, presumptuous and absurd.

Music is the relationship between vibrations at different frequencies, some create tension while others resolve nicely. However, it’s not just notes, it’s also rhythm. The urge to dance is something most children feel at a young age! Some like simple tunes while others like complex jazz, there is no accounting for taste. The dance never dies, only the dancer.

Quoting Joshs

The art critic Arthur Danto famously declared that after Warhol’s Brillo box exhibit philosophically interesting art was no longer possible.

I always liked this quote attributed to Cézanne - “The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” .