Why Modern Music Sucks

So I came across this video the other day, it's pretty interesting. TL;DR version:
Bands don't experiment enough.

Studios don't take as many risks.

Studios prefer marketable bands.

Studios prefer similar sounding bands.

Studios pluck from places like The Micky Mouse Club.

Modern Songs are written by a few song writers that the actual artists don't write and the artists don't write a lot of their own music.

There's just not a lot of creativity anymore.

The 60s were full of diversity.

The last great bands came out of the Seattle bands, most notably Nirvana.

Sound engineering has become lazy.

Corporate bullshit.

MTV no longer is about Music Television.

etc, etc...

Thoughts?
I forgot to include the video.

Its because you are old

"Studios" or "labels"? There's a difference.

With few exceptions mainstream music has sucked for a very long time.

I listen almost exclusively to independent artists across a number of different genres.

Sorry, yes, labels and I think in particular studio executives. They aren't sending people to local clubs like say the Cavern Club to seek out talent. Also you don't have bands sending demos to Capital Records for example. Now it's all about people like Ron Pearlnan creating groups. I'm sure there are bands that send demos, but often times unless you already have an agent or something, they ignore them.

No it's because the music industry as we know it is dying.

Think of it like Star Wars,Disney bought SW, but they aren't willing to take risks so they rehash the OT because they know it sells rather than making original content.

I'm old but disagree with the thread premise. There is plenty of good modern music, just maybe not in the format we grew up with. The internet gives us an unlimited opportunity to hear music we would never hear otherwise.

There's actually a software program which the labels use in determining what artists to pick, and how best to promote their music. No shit. They run the song through the software, it gives them an estimation of how many copies they can expect it to sell, as well as generates a playlist for them to give to the radio stations with the track. The playlist suggests which songs to put on either side of the new single, to boost it's appeal.

I'd agree with all those thoughts except the Seattle/Nirvana line, with the understanding that some things have always been the case, and we get great music sometimes in spite of studios just wanting something that will make a profit rather than something that is good art.

And the radio stations are part of the problem when they let the studios/corporate tell them what to do.

And I don't blame the labels one bit - that's the business they are in, and nobody's in business to lose money last time I checked. But there is plenty of non-"commercial" music when we don't want to hear the "same old same old".

The radio stations are giving the people what they seem to want. To twist an old phrase, "we get the music we deserve." If there wasn't a demand for it, the supply would go away. I will admit radio will never be about art over commerce, so I hope nobody expects to hear great music on the radio. Thank goodness for Amazon - I can buy any type of music that's ever been recorded, much of it never having been or will be played on the radio, and that's fine with me.

Part of the problem is how the survey companies hired by the stations determine what songs are played. This is especially true of classic rock stations. Ever notice that despite bands like the Beatles having a catalog of hundreds of songs, you only ever hear a dozen (or less) of them on the radio? The reason for this is that when they play selections to testing groups, they only play the first 5 to 15 seconds of a song. If people don't respond with, "Oh, I know this song!" or "I like this song." in that period of time, it doesn't get added to the playlist. This creates a feedback loop where people only hear certain songs on the radio, so they only recognize certain songs, so those are the ones which get played. Meanwhile, the rest of the artists' catalog goes unheard, even if it contains much better songs (and I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place if Stairway to Heaven was played far less often than other Led Zeppelin songs).

Holy shit the old guy knows he can use the internet to hear more music than is pushed by the big media corporations and the fetus sounds like a grandpa bitching that all new stuff sucks.

Sometimes cool shit does happen on the internet.

Where is that video of the South Park characters stiffing their own farts?

Tererun I can run fucking circles around you in musical knowledge! I may not remember where I put my keys but I have an unlimited capacity for trivia & knowledge in areas that I have a "feel" for and my brain is wired for. Music, porn, deer hunting/outdoor knowledge in general and I'm all over it!

True though about lamestream radio barely dipping a finger into all the great music by bands that have HUNDREDS of great songs!
Okay, if you only want to play one Tommy Tutone song I guess it will be "867-5309" because he doesn't have a deep well to draw from. I get that.
But when you only play a handful of songs by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, AC/DC, Bad Company, etc.etc. it's pretty obvious you are phoning it in.
Example the other day I have on BOB FM on the way to the gym because my wife likes it so it's a radio preset: Eddie Money's "Two Tickets To Paradise".
No big deal, pretty typical. I leave the gym later going to work. I turn on another channel to listen to "John Boy and Billy Big Show" and what do I hear?
TWO MOTHERFUCKING TICKETS TO PARADISE! I had to take a deep breath before my pulse rate started climbing back up.

There's plenty of good music out there if you're willing to look for it.

And there's always been a place for pop/bubblegum music. Teenyboppers have to have something to listen to. Nothing wrong with it. Not everything has to be pretentious SJW twaddle with a serious "message" to be good music.

St. Louis used to have a proper rock 'n' roll station, clear into the aughts.

Modern music doesn't suck.

If your only method of accessing music is pressing the button on the radio for chart hits, then theres your problem right there.

They're letting software choose? That's about as bad as it gets.

Maybe music sucked just as bad in the past. It only seems better because we only keep listening to the good stuff and forget the bad.

They've been doing it for about a decade now.

Keith Richards (he's definitely qualified to give an opinion!) said 90 percent of all music is substandard with 10 percent being great. That's about right I think. That ratio pretty much applies to almost anything really.

"90% of everything is crud." Ted Sturgeon

In the 60's you had dozens of music companies but they kept consolidating down and down and down. In the 90's they were down to just a half dozen major labels with three true giants with most of the marketing budgets. The internet has opened a crack for independent artists but it is still an uphill struggle.

The reality is the big record companies have already spent big money promoting established bands so they want to just keep riding those old investments instead of investing in something new or risky. It all comes down to the market is not functioning efficiently because we have a few extremely big players who dominate the industry so they do not feel much pressure from outside while if an independent really does catch on they can always outbid and sign them because they are the ones with the deep pockets.

This is why the few big labels concentrate on rent seeking instead of innovating.

First, music industry executives are cut from the same cloth as network television executives: they're complete idiots.

Second, here's how pop music works: a band or artist comes out of obscurity, has a sound that people like but is different from "mainstream" pop, and becomes successful. A major label signs them. All the other labels begin looking for new artists who sound like this newly popular one. They find a bunch, promote them, the new sound becomes the In Thing, lather rinse repeat.

Oh, and modern pop music does indeed suck. Just last night I was looking for "the song of the summer" online and of the sixteen or twenty candidates, I hadn't heard any of them. When I did listen, I found overproduced and formulaic crap.

In terms of pop music and sales/airplay then i imagine bieber probably has song of the summer locked up with des-pasito. Or however its spelled. Note im basing this on how big it was, not on my opinion of it.

In terms of a good pop tune, (still not my style) i doubt there was much better than Lorde's Green Light this year!

If you want to go into real music categories then there are plenty of examples to choose from.

Despacito was the one most of the lists said was the "song of the summer," yes.

It's a hungry girl, and my dick tastes like pizza.