What happened to music after THE INTERNET!

[dave38x]

JoeDJ - I think that accusation can be leveled against chart music, but in many not so mainstream genres (progressive metal, dubstep, drum & bass being my three favourite three) we are seeing a whole range of experimental styles emerging, while the two electronic genres have basic guidelines that they must *nearly always* conform to, beyond that basic principle nearly anything goes.

Hell, without the internet my mate's death metal band wouldnt be getting gigs and touring the UK, without the internet I wouldnt be able to share mixes i've recorded and tracks that i'm trying to produce with any of my friends! I wouldnt even have the software necessary to produce tunes. So from my view the internet is a blessing to the music industry.

As for a lot of mainstream being boring and predictable, a lot of pop music back through the ages was just as banal, we only remember the classics, or at least those of us born within the last 30 years only remember the classics.

A friend of mine who takes complex music far too seriously once said that the reason modern pop music is so boring is because young people these days are not musically educated enough to comprehend more complex forms such as classical music, or prog rock. I think to some extent he has a point.

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by JoeDJ

Shure, we now have new an often very talented artists and groups.
However one essential part seems to be missing for the most part........ good songs with a real melody and interesting chord pattern.
Now, it seems we often just have a boaring, predictable beat with a monotone vocal drone over a single chord that subs for a melody!
I suspect that it's mainly due to giving the "people" what they want instead of being creative.

This is one reason that I listen to a lot of the newer County and Western groups. They write their stuff (often - but not always) can sing it live and can actually play more than four chords.

The internet is a great thing for music and the artist. The 1st time I went bust was from getting shafted by record companies and recording studio's. Someone in or around the performer still needs to know how to run the business end of things - but by going direct to the listeners and customers it cuts out a lot of the money sharks that are between the two. I was always surprised by how many performers were paid crap but the managers and record companies racked it in from their talent and labors.

[autopoiesis]

Audio/visual technology has evolved to the point where the creation of any conceivable (or otherwise) visual or sonic impression is within reach of millions. Television, advertisements, games, music, film - all have increased in pace enormously, and with this (IMHO), 'consumers' of 'content' have had their boredom thresholds and attention spans altered.

The earliest computer games had one 'event' every second or few (Pong, Pacman, Space Invaders); now even the most basic console game has multi-variable, continuously-changing on-screen status, with 3-D visual and auditory input vying for attention. Television programmes used to have infrequent 'technical edits' (shot changes, cutaways, etc); now, 'serious' documentaries have incessant edits, irrelevant, dramatic background music and visual effects. Even news programming has continuous ticker info on screen, etc.

In music, it would clearly be absurd to compare Sibelius to dubstep, but the question is: why would music with abrupt and disjointed changes in rhythm, pace, tonality, texture, etc - be of interest to anyone? Dupstep isn't really a pet hate, I just can't imagine what state my mind would have to be in to enjoy it.

(Incidentally, I don't see dubstep as an extension of the rhythmic, trance-inducing dance music that found a new voice with the emergence of cheap audio tech and the rise of MIDI in the 80s and 90s (1992 was a great year for progressive house). House and related forms picked up where Funk left off, and continued the ages-old tradition of dancing in a trance-like state with one's community until sun-up, dubstep seems only to be explicable as a sonic analogue of the discombobulated, hectic babble its adherents are used to experiencing in other media.)

Well, it's easy to 'create' - Beardyman explains Dubstep. (A fairly amusing three minutes, during which, ponder: is this the creation of art; the generation of sound; or the mere actuation of noise?)

"Everyone has a book inside them, and for most people that's where it should stay." Widely-attributed, oft quoted, and applicable to music, too. I suspect that much of what I would consider musical dross has been 'created' by those whose talents really lie elsewhere. Before music could be recorded, no composer would have been able to persuade any assembly of musicians to play their work if it wasn't possessed of at least some commonly-appreciated merit. Now, with the virtual orchestras and printing presses at our disposal, there is more 'content' than ever, but the audio and print industries are in crisis. If - collectively - we were creating material of long-lasting value, would this be the case?

On a train recently, I had no choice but to overhear the music a girl two rows away from me was listening to. I'm pretty sure that during the 45min trip, she didn't complete a single track before zapping to another - typical 'youth' behaviour (as was the cochlear-wasting level). Why spend time and resources on good recording, production and mastering, if most of the target audience won't listen to half the work, and half of them can't hear most of it?

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's album was "Recorded at the Penguin Cafe between 1977-1980." It's a superb recording of unorthodox, curious music; a gem with timeless appeal. I have no idea how and by whom the recording was financed; but who would wait more than three years for an album now?

So, artists are having to get up and perform to make money nowadays? Fancy that! And if they aren't making the same relative amounts as Led Zep when they had a Boeing 720, what does this imply? What is encouraging is the clear appreciation for authentic voices. There's an interview with the excellent Seasick Steve somewhere, where he comments on the inability of some current performers to entertain. His own path - many years as a street performer - gave him an ability not only to perform, but to connect with and entertain his audience. Highly recommended, by the way.

Live music certainly isn't dead, but what has gone wrong with live sound? I used to live in a city with an annual, 10-day, free music and arts festival, with the main stage about fifty feet from my window. There would be everything from funk to folk via reggae and classical. Until ~2003, they used Turbosound Floodlight, and the sound was very variable, and highly dependent on the engineer. The good ones really got it singing, but the bad ones (or bad bands) sounded bad. Then they began using line arrays - AKA 'dangling turds' - and the sound has been uniformly mediocre ever since.

Line arrays have become a meme; everyone is using them, but no-one is listening to them (maybe they're too busy looking at the specs). Even the Montreux Jazz Festival. Turds everywhere, gnueurch! Mediocre is the best they can do, and I've yet to hear an exception. Sheep-like, marketing droid-based behaviour of the PA companies, many now bought out and congealed into a mush, with only the brand names still visible?

Things have also changed enormously in the organisation and promotion of live music. Sure, the internet is available to all for self-promotion, but public spaces are still accessible to those with cash. Companies like Clear Channel appear to be monopolising radio, advertising, and promotional space, and allegedly denying access/airplay to competitors or artists signed with competitors. Who remembers the Hammersmith Odeon? Hammy O, then Labbatt's Apollo, and now it's the HMV Hammersmith Apollo (and maybe some other stuff in between). What exactly is the London cinema/Canadian beer connection..?

Music festivals are suffering too, stymied by increasingly ridiculous policing and noise control policies, and forced to do sponsorship deals to have a hope of breaking even. Glastonbury Festival is now festooned with corporate logos, and equipped with ATMs and such. Getting a bunch of people together in a field with a genny and a few local bands seems to be impossible nowadays, at least in the UK.

Finally, what's with the record companies' failure to embrace new media? I signed up to hdtracks.com, only to be told at first login: "For the time being, HDtracks only sells to U.S. Residents"! WTF?! Record companies claim hardship; I sign up with the intention of spending my money, and am pushed away? Cretins!

Still, on the plus side, cost is now much less of a barrier to upcoming artists having access to creative tools and equipment; people are objecting to the loudness war (both for music, and for broadcast, see: Loudness Wars/EBU R128); the possibility exists for really high quality audio to become broadly available, and for many unheard, authentic voices to be appreciated.

This wasn't intended to be such a rant, and I hope I don't sound too curmudgeonly. Actually, I think we're in a trough at present, and hope we will look back at the last 10-20 years as a partially lost opportunity from which lessons were learned... As long as the big corps aren't allowed to take over, the future could be pretty good.

[Pano]

Most posts here (not the one above) seem to be talking about music distribution since the Internet, not MUSIC. There is a difference, you know.

Pop music has always been simple and banal. That's what makes it pop. The only change is that it seems to get louder and more raucous as time goes by. Shootz, I never cared for "Classic Rock" when it was new - only with the passing of time has it become tolerable. Mainstream music has been rubbish for decades, and that's not about to change.

[scott wurcer]

Originally Posted by Quenepas

I was checking the thread 'What happened to music after 1992?' and decided to make another more comteporary thread for a couple reasons:


It happened a lot within my type of music, Punk Rock, when the most evil corporation that kills music, MTV, wanted a piece of the pie as well changing a lot of my favorite bands back then into commertial products..

My watershed year is 1981. I find it surprising how many LP's I like from around that time including hardcore punk and harsh industrial. Independent labels were thriving in a real DIY record atmosphere. Ah, for those CRASS LP's all folded up in their political spew.

I think the culture has transformed as much as the music.

[tubelab.com]

As I was growing up in Miami there were two to three rock music stations. As the radio waves were all acquired by the mega corps the music began to die. Now there are ZERO rock music stations receivable in the south Florida area. There is absoultely NOTHING on the radio that I want to hear. So where do I go to look for new music, or cool videos of the stuff that I grew up with.....DUH the internet. Rock concerts in South Florida? Not many any more. I went to a Lollapalooza concert here in 1996, last year Lollapalooza was streamed live right into my flat screen TV via the internet. I wrote down what I liked and bought the CD's from Amazon. I never would have found that stuff without the internet since the radio doesen't play it anymore.

[Emerson Prado]

Originally Posted by dave38x

A friend of mine who takes complex music far too seriously once said that the reason modern pop music is so boring is because young people these days are not musically educated enough to comprehend more complex forms such as classical music, or prog rock.

I wouldn't say "musically educated", but overall educated. I see newer people as "anything goes" constant consumers. They don't demand their gear to be good, the mastering to retain dynamics, nor the local newspaper to be fair, nor their schools to teach. So not demanding good music is just a part of it all.
Here in Brasil we face a decade-and-a-half long educational crisis, and the ultimate popular music style ("batidão" or "pancadão) consists on someone shouting nonsense over a repetitive 50~55Hz beat and sometimes a couple effects. Harmony? Melody? No, there aren't instruments with notes, just endlessly looped beats and annoying shouts. That fits people's nowaday quality demands, just like stupid soap operas and well-advertised politicians.
If people were curious and critic, music would be better.
OK, end ranting. There are and always will be good artists. But this is how I see the process.
Best regards,
Emerson

[Quenepas]

Originally Posted by JoeDJ

Shure, we now have new an often very talented artists and groups.
However one essential part seems to be missing for the most part........ good songs with a real mellody and interesting chord pattern.
Now, it seems we often just have a boaring, predictable beat with a monotone vocal drone over a single chord that subs for a melody!
I suspect that it's mainly due to giving the "people" what they want instead of being creative.

I completely disagree.

I advise to create an account with Pandora will get you to listen similar music based on the music genome project, simply put any band you like in Pandora and it will find great music super fast. THere are other services like Last.FM but Pandora is better.

Another point to take into consideration is musical education. Comparing the past to present day, many musicians were self taught with little or no musical education. Yes, it is arguable that a degree in music will get you to make or not great music but it will definitively help in you music creation process. History of music, classical music composition, music production, etc are some classes that will get you to learn and get music in a whole different way. The proliferation of musical schools, educational aid, ease to communication and where to get stuff cheap with the internet in sure to make some interesting collaborations and productions. There are simply more tools and better communication to create awesome music.

Just use the tools the internet have and prepare to be amazed of what you will find

[JoeDJ]

I guess I'm bit anoyed that the internet now seems to be the answer for everthing!
If the internet goes down, society comes to a pause.

Don't get me wrong...I got my first computer back in the '70s (C-64) but it's not the center of my existance nor should it hold the sole collection of good msuic!

[TMHutson]

Is it possible to skype a drum circle?