since no one reads the 49th post, also edited

Quote :

"i just think the songs the jimmy iovines of the world like are not in the interest of the male demographic, because according to theory that demographic stopped purchasing music and to the retards in this thread its not fucking misogynistic to point it out."

what is this theory that the male demographic stopped purchasing music? i don't understand how that could be remotely accurate. maybe it was mostly guys on napster 10-11 years ago or some shit, but i don't know how you'd determine which gender is purchasing most of the music on itunes, which has been killing the music industry in terms of record sales more so than illegal downloading.



[Edited on May 6, 2011 at 10:33 PM. Reason : .]

5/6/2011 10:32:09 PM

another comparison for theDuke866...is

or

more likely to be listened to by a girl?

5/6/2011 10:39:07 PM

Music is just evolving with the times i guess, my favorite tracks have been "thug love" by bone thugs n harmony and i know for a fact i will never hear a rap album as good as that for the rest of my life so i might as well get to liking lil wayne since everybody does, but he is legitimately a good rapper

5/6/2011 10:44:29 PM

Quote :

" "thug love" by bone thugs n harmony and i know for a fact i will never hear a rap album as good as that"

If you had any credibility before now, it's gone.

5/6/2011 10:46:55 PM

BTW I'll go ahead and say that although I am a fan of electronic dance music, I wish that big-beat were big again like the late '90s, and I think that crunkcore and dubstep suck terribly (but at least they're not mainstream in America either).

5/6/2011 10:49:14 PM

With regards to mostly rock: In my opinion its the quality of the music industry that is dying, not the industry as a whole...but I think people have already said that. I agree that music is being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and what becomes popular is damn PG and maybe PG-13 type of material.

I'd almost go as far to say that as far as being bland/inoffensive is more so a matter of the culture of this country today. In popular modern rock I've heard on the radio you're way more likely to hear a band moping about why a girl left them, how sad they are and other pussy bullshit, whereas in the 80's you'd hear songs telling the glory of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Songs about sending your woman to the liquor store to buy more booze when you wake up and about going through a downward spiral thanks to a heroin addiction. Yes you had power ballads about lost love, but those weren't whiny bullshit 'im going to kill myself if you don't come back please I'm begging you' and have a sound that make you pour a beer out in memory of the dude's long lost balls.

Does music have to be about sex and drugs to be good? No. But to me it is simply evidence that record labels will go for bands that can easily sell mild music to the largest market...teenagers. put out something safe and it has a better chance of being on the radio, if its catchy more people will demand it, leading to more formulaic and less innovative bands becoming mainstream. Yes, the 80's had extremely formulaic rock songs, but whatever.

I know I will get heat for this, but that is part of why I am a big fan of Lady Gaga. Yes she makes pop music that people love to hate, but her work is derived from innovation and her love of art. I would say a lot of her pop is bland filler music, but many of her songs it seems she put a lot of personal work into to make something special, which is reflected in her off the fucking wall videos. In a music world where you can't listen to the radio for more than 2 seconds without auto tune she brings in pretty cool ideas to incorporate in her music.

Granted these opinions are mostly about popular rock. My favorite current band is Gravedigger with their album "Ballads of the Hangman", though they are more German power metal than rock...but regardless, not shit you'll hear on the radio any time soon.

5/6/2011 11:35:41 PM

Quote :

"In popular modern rock I've heard on the radio you're way more likely to hear a band moping about why a girl left them, how sad they are and other pussy bullshit, whereas in the 80's you'd hear songs telling the glory of sex, drugs, and rock n roll."

I realize you're talking about hugely popular hair metal and Sabbath/Zeppelin-sourced stuff. Still, U2, R.E.M., and the Smiths were absolutely gigantic bands in the '80s, and were doing precisely the sort of stuff you're complaining about existing now versus then.

Like I said, pshoes already won the thread. The content of the music industry runs on ~15 year cycles and has done so since the '40s.

5/6/2011 11:41:54 PM

HAY GUISE WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE

5/7/2011 12:14:23 AM

We're talking about how music has sucked since the day Bonzo died, man.

5/7/2011 12:16:18 AM

shit, zep sold out when they made in through the out door anyway so bonzo was already did to me then

5/7/2011 12:34:14 AM

I have respect for gaga and her music despite having the complete opposite beliefs she does

Trust me her pop music is very good

5/7/2011 1:06:35 AM

I'm glad you can see past your hatred of homosexuals and appreciate her shitty music.

5/7/2011 1:24:01 AM

Quote :

"I know I will get heat for this, but that is part of why I am a big fan of Lady Gaga. Yes she makes pop music that people love to hate, but her work is derived from innovation and her love of art. "

wow to me her sound is just a combination of madonna and terrible europop, and her antics are increasingly annoying

5/7/2011 1:43:37 AM

never had any TWW credibility so im good

5/7/2011 2:36:02 AM

Quote :

"Hip-hop acts going soft to sell more records isn't any different than Pat Boone. "

I get your point but hip hop acts going soft is a little different from giving a white man a black song so it will sell better than the blacks singing the black song.

5/7/2011 2:45:01 AM

That's true, but you can make that argument with any kind of change that's made in the name of social acceptance; what's socially acceptable in 2011 is going to be much different than what was socially acceptable in 1955, no matter what you're talking about.

When we're talking about coming from an era when races had separate restrooms to today, comparing "get a white guy to sing this" to "stop saying 'fuck' so much" doesn't seem like much of a leap.

Also, there's an argument to be made in the specific case of Pat Boone/Little Richard that race didn't have nearly as much to do with the suppression of Little Richard as his flamboyant style did; at the same time, Chuck Berry was succeeding with mainstream white audiences by tempering his style with country influences.

5/7/2011 4:16:43 AM

ThePeter, if you think that decent material must necessarily offend your parents, you must be lacking in imagination.

5/7/2011 4:35:21 AM

Teenage angst has paid off well

Now I'm bored and old.

5/7/2011 8:49:17 AM

Quote :

"I wish that big-beat were big again like the late '90s, and I think that crunkcore and dubstep suck terribly"

agreed (although I have no idea what crunkcore is)

the latest Prodigy album was awesome.

5/8/2011 1:01:19 AM

This thread is completely inaccurate. First, the whole "download era" causation hypothesis is wrong because pop music has BEEN about women and teens long before that. This isn't anything new. Women are into hearing music so they can learn how to dance in sync with it at the club, thus attract more males.

Quote :

"no the music industry is not letting certain things get off the cutting room floor, the artists themselves have better material that the populace willl never hear"

BULLSHIT
The digital age has made it infinitely EASIER for anyone to have their voice heard. If I am a singer and can post a video on youtube right now and if people love it, it goes viral and I will likely be near the top of itunes and all over the talkshows within a week. It happens all of the time. For the first time ever, music that most people like is what gets to the top. There is no definition of "good music" whatever you like is good to you and the "best" is the stuff most people like.

Quote :

"hip hop has gone soft to sell"

Well the times have changed. Hip hop in the 90s was a product of the rough rough neighborhoods in nyc and other places but its not like there wasn't clubbing music in there. Biggies biggest hits were club songs for women. Things have not changed as much as those hoods have been cleaned up and you don't have as many dangerous hoods for artists to develop in. Now the low-class hip hop artist would likely develop in a suburban cookie cut neighborhood and the cities are moving back towards gentrification.

As for lyrics, people want lyrics that they can understand and relate to. Theres no longer a large amount of the population dealing drugs or living in an extremely dangerous hood. Also, most people would not even understand the complicated lyrics that you guys probably call "good lyrics" so pop music is usually going to have a simple message. This is also aided by the fact that american music is being exported at greater rates to places like china and india that continue to add millions of millions of english speakers to the population. These english speakers are into poppy american music.

5/8/2011 10:35:39 AM

pop music is more a product to be sold, and less "art"

5/8/2011 1:58:47 PM

Quote :

"Things have not changed as much as those hoods have been cleaned up and you don't have as many dangerous hoods for artists to develop in."

Quote :

"Theres no longer a large amount of the population dealing drugs or living in an extremely dangerous hood."

bitchass rappers in skinny jeans arent selling because the world is a better place

5/8/2011 2:09:27 PM

it's not dying, it's just changing shape.

if you're looking to bands in the top 40 to find great music right now, you're looking in the wrong place. you'll find a few, but the internet and social networking has allowed bands to put out their own music without the creative constraints that the bigger labels force on artists.

because many of those bands have chosen to go with smaller labels or self-releases, you won't find their music often listed in the top 40 ---- the sound-a-likes and shitty bands that are there, that are part of the same formulaic reproductions are placed there, and buoyed by, the financial support of their larger labels. it's like modern day payola.

personally, i think 2007 was the best year for music since 1994. (2010 has a good argument as well). that's about a 13 year cycle. there were some other good years in the middle..'97, 2000, for two.

.

[Edited on May 8, 2011 at 2:42 PM. Reason : .]

5/8/2011 2:39:56 PM

astral is some of your music still on web

5/8/2011 4:20:41 PM

eh


it's the same as it ever was.



like what you like and get on with it.

5/8/2011 5:28:42 PM

Youre now tuned into the weakest
Frequency of fear keep you locked right here
And hope you never leave this never be a leader
Think inside the box and follow all procedures
Never ever believe that you will never need this
Hit up all your friends and tell them to repeat this
Hi your (Higher) on the air now what you wanna hear
Well we aint got the truth but how about a remix
Different is never good, good is only what we pick
You aint got a hit unless it sounds like these did
Not too smart you will be a superstar
And if you dumb or something maybe you could be number one

Over again, and over again, and over again, and over again, and over again
And we know when, when we call in
And nothings free, sounds to me like
State run radio x8

5/10/2011 7:03:06 PM

Basically what has happened in music is eliminating the need for the old guard. In days past the music industry had enough power to turn someone into the next Elvis or Backstreet Boys. Now there is so much out there it doesn't have the same weight. The sustainable, for an artist, model involves lots of practice and building a reputation over time. There are infinite examples in the indie music world of people able to make a living in the music business. These people do not necessarily have the money to buy a Gulfstream V, but they can make a living. What that means is greater variety and a spreading of the wealth that would have been concentrated at the top.

Look at Lefsetz: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/10/17/money-vs-cool/ He's a music industry attorney and has lots of good insight.

Quote :

"There hasn’t been any love in the mainstream music business for quite a long time. It’s about relationships, not one night stands. It’s about music first, money second. It’s about the fan, not your pocketbook. And if you think otherwise, you’re not gonna make it, you’re certainly not going to have a career."

As a whole we now live in a society that can be artisanal again--you don't have to get a job at a factory to sustain yourself because you now have an access to the whole world via the interwebs. If people don't like your cheese, music, or hand made soap in a podunk small town you can sell it on Etsy. If you make a good product and hone your craft you can develop a following, all you have to be is remarkable and persistent.

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 7:54 PM. Reason : a]

5/10/2011 7:48:39 PM

It's simple really. Downloading music became mainstream and ripping off music is socially acceptable now (well, has been for some time). So sales have gone way downhill. Everyone wants to say it's because no one is making music worth a damn but people have been saying that since the beginning of mass-produced music. When people are able to get the music they like instantly for nothing, they generally do that.

Sales are down big time, you can argue why, but I've laid the real reason out there. Either way, faced with lower ROI, record companies are less likely to invest in acts that don't appeal to broad demographics. So you end up getting bland, unappealing, inoffensive music that plays it safe. As someone said, the industry is "going PG-13".

To counter that you've got the indie acts which to me have swung the pendulum WAY in the opposite direction. So indie music is like the "arthouse cinema" of the music world. A small amount of it is legitimately good music of the sort that mainstream record companies gambled with back in the 60s-90s, but a vast amount of it is just bizarre and intentionally off-putting. At least to me.

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 8:08 PM. Reason : ...]

5/10/2011 8:05:45 PM

I can think of very few artists I'd categorize as "intentionally off-putting."

5/10/2011 8:20:40 PM

^^

It isn't really that simple... You leave out that the record companies refused to have a viable alternative to getting music easily. When you can sit on the couch with your thumb up your ass and download music easier and have it more readily accessible than they were providing of course you'll steal it. Not to mention they were charging $17/CD for SHIT. You'd routinely have one good single on an entire CD, but since large companies owned the means of production you had no choice. Now the artists own it.

Now you have lots of smaller touring acts, that make plenty of money selling merchandise and touring with fewer douchebag executives skimming off the top. It's one example of the little guy winning for once... You have the right to try to make money, but not the right to make enough money to buy a Gulf Stream V

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 8:29 PM. Reason : a]

5/10/2011 8:28:10 PM

^ Yeah but there has ALWAYS been albums full of one or two good songs and a bunch of filler. That's been going on forever. It's not a new phenomenon. And albums have always cost a fair chunk of change, you could even argue CDs have become cheaper over time because the price has stayed roughly the same for twenty or so years.

I agree that the music industry should've embraced digital downloads earlier but the fact remains that for a lot of people, you just can't price downloads cheap enough.

Tracks for $1? "No way man, that's a fucking ripoff! $0.10 max!"

Tracks for $0.10? "Fuck you man, a penny max! It costs nothing to reproduce!!!"

For years people complained that "oh man, if only I could get digital music as easily as I could on Napster, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!". Well, we're there now. iTunes, Amazon MP3, take your pick. It's helped, but not a lot.

They can't compete with free, I don't care how convenient or cheap the tracks are. Once pandora's box opened and free, high quality rips became easy enough for a child to find and socially acceptable to boot, game over.

Like I said, you can argue about why people aren't buying music but the fact of the matter is people aren't buying music like they used to. Even back catalog stuff, which is supposed to be, you know, good music. Just like everything else in today's world, it's a race to the bottom, and with it you get dwindling profit margins and tons of risk-aversion, leading to very bland music that is broadly palatable.

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 8:41 PM. Reason : ...]

5/10/2011 8:39:27 PM

^^WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

5/10/2011 8:47:24 PM

^^

Touring and merchandising makes much more money than cd sales. Phish used to pull 75 million a year from touring alone.

The only people downloading hurts is the middle man.

5/10/2011 9:46:50 PM

agree/disagree. Touring and merchandising definitely makes more money than CD sales but downloading definitely still hurts small bands some. They tend to get a higher % of sales than larger bands per album sold and they also tend to be on smaller labels who put in a lot of hard work and who generally make most their money off of the sale of those CDs.

Don't get me wrong. The benefits of bands getting a fanbase online via streaming and downloads these days is definitely large. And, when those same people come out to a show and buy a shirt or whatever, it tends to pay for itself. But downloading does hurt smaller bands some. Mainly there isn't much of a "middle man" there.

Bottom Line: If you're going to download the majority of your albums illegally, at least buy a shirt from these bands.

5/10/2011 9:53:57 PM

Well once these bands start carrying XLT shirts, I'll start buying them.

It really sucks buying a shirt from a band, washing it, and then having that shit sit at your belly button.

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 10:23 PM. Reason : musicians hate tall people.]

5/10/2011 10:23:30 PM

^ Sounds like you need to step up your washing game.

5/10/2011 10:33:03 PM

The music industry aka record labels are dying because they are still mired in the dark ages and married to clumsy physical media a decade after that became obsolete.

They'd rather try to reach profitability by suing their customer base rather than transforming the business model into creating a product that people want to buy.

So far only iTunes has the business model that leverages current technology and social behavior to distribute music as well as the clout to be successful over the long term-- which they built from scratch.

The old-world labels could have done something similar a decade ago, but they're run by a bunch of fucking drug addicted moronic executives living in LA and far too short-sighted to change with the times. In another decade, most of them will be history. Good riddance.

5/10/2011 10:38:58 PM

How can an artist make money if they can't tour?

How can artists' families make money if the artist is dead?

I guess their only option is merchandising?

5/10/2011 10:51:05 PM

^^ The problem is that by abandoning all physical media, you risk alienating the music nerds; music nerds who buy a dozen physical releases for every download by the casual fan.

5/10/2011 11:13:49 PM

My band played with a band a couple weeks ago that had tapes for sale. cassette motherfucking tapes. I was totally amazed haha

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

5/10/2011 11:23:00 PM

^^^Copyright ought not to last nearly long enough for that to be a serious issue; you shouldn't get to live high on the hog because of one popular work for nearly forever.

[Edited on May 10, 2011 at 11:23 PM. Reason : whole other can o' worms

5/10/2011 11:23:13 PM

^^ at least a dozen semi-popular bands around here have tapes, and the local diggup label only does cassettes.

with people only caring about something in their hand and downloadable content, tapes are the cheapest thing to produce as far as a physical product + liner material goes. you can make a tape with full color liners and a download for less than one dollar, whereas you're looking at least $1.80 for a CD of the same thing. plus, tape hiss is fucking sexy.

5/11/2011 5:11:30 AM

It's really about economies of scale though

for the big labels, CDs cost pennies per piece

5/11/2011 6:30:57 AM

I can't say whether this is different from any other time period, but the difference between pop (which is bad) and non-pop (which isn't) is clear and measurable -- pop has boring, recycled melodies, simple rhythms, bad vocals (or autotune), boring words, and formulaic song structure.

It is technically opinion whether packaging up all those distasteful features into a song makes it bad or not, but the people who like this shit just don't know a lot about music and have never listened to a wide variety of it. It's like asking what someone thinks about food when they only ever eat at McDonalds. You don't give this person's opinion equal weight.

One other thing that should set an alarm bell off is that most pop artists are really young. When you are this young, your vocal and playing skills are most likely not going to be as good as someone with more experience. So, by focusing on image and youth, you already eliminate most of your talented musicians or singers.

5/11/2011 9:17:36 AM

I think the music industry dug it's own grave, BUT there is tons of good music out there for everybody what ever style they like. You just have to find it.

I'm old enough to remember the sixties. AM radio was the only thing you had in the car. You had LIVE DJ's. You had a handful of major labels and basically one mainstream method of distribution (records). Bands hoped for a contract so they could get booked into a studio and hope for a hit single (meaning 45 rpm). You were tops if you got a TV appearance.
The record companies made all of the money and the bands usually got fucked. That includes the biggest of them like the beatles and the stones.

Now just about anybody can equip a home studio and distribute their own music. Produce their own CD's or mp3 and sell it off a website. You have AM radio, FM radio, Sat. radio, internet radio, youtube, reverb nation, pandora etc etc etc. You can rip, burn, and download.

All of the stuff I have discovered in the past five years was by hunting the web then downloading from I-tunes or ordering from CD baby. I would never find any of this shit in the local record store, but I can sit at home, find it in five minutes and Bam I've got it. The only thing I miss is the album cover art and the liner notes (I wish you could get like a .pdf along with down loads- I kind of like knowing who played what, who wrote what, and even having the lyrics)
I'm sorry for the record store, the radio, network television and the major label recording companies, but that's just the way it is evolving. There will always be the top acts like GaGa, but a whole lot more "less mainstream" music is getting out there as well.

my .02

5/11/2011 9:24:42 AM

cool guys, some good shit in here

5/11/2011 12:48:03 PM

Quote :

"^^ The problem is that by abandoning all physical media, you risk alienating the music nerds; music nerds who buy a dozen physical releases for every download by the casual fan."

True, and I don't think you have to necessary abandon all physical media so much as embrace digital distribution as the primary model for the masses. The physical production costs are low enough that it's more than feasible to continue issuing vinyl, CDs, etc., but the fact that the music industry has mostly ignored digital distribution as a viable revenue stream is a potentially fatal mistake.

5/11/2011 12:59:26 PM

Quote :

"I can't say whether this is different from any other time period"

It's not.

Quote :

"One other thing that should set an alarm bell off is that most pop artists are really young. "

Once again, it's always been this way. Stevie Wonder had his first hit record when he was 13. Michael Jackson at 11. Elvis at 19.

5/11/2011 1:03:37 PM

I am the problem. Sorry.

I see no difference between bad music and good music. I can get down to a Katy Perry/Lady Gaga jam with the same enthusiasm as an REM/Sonic Youth tune. Sure, the latter takes more talent and has more depth, but I quit caring long ago. This, I think, is how most people feel.

5/11/2011 3:28:52 PM

You would have to ask a DJ or some level of producer to actually assess the argument of what bad music is and whether it has been trending towards more generally "bad" music or not

because DJs and producers listen to and use EVERYTHING from any genre, at least good ones do. I definitely do not consider myself as one who truly holds a broad appreciation for music

i think i am better than most, but my dabbling has been shallow, the general masses have their general shit they stick to and they really couldnt speak for the quality of music overall.

5/11/2011 3:35:41 PM