Hey everyone, Im a new member as you all can see, my first post is a question I pose to you all.

Music has recently taken a dive in my opinion, the focus went from actual musical and instrumental talent combined with vocals, to simple vocals, synthesizers, and mixers. For example, if you listen to the music of the 70's and 80's you will hear your share of instrumental solo's whether guitar and drums (70's) or keyboard and guitar (80's), but if you listen to anything today its simple rifts and chords being played to back up a fixed up voice.

Im not saying that every musician today is not talented, but what ever happened to the old way of making music? It seems to be appealing more to peoples visual sences than their auditory senses, this can be seen in the rise of dancers backing up a performer (this basically sprouted out of the introduction of music videos).

Having touched on the lack of talented instrumental backup (which I think we all can agree has been replaced by dancers) I now want to ask you about peoples actual voices. I was watching the BET awards a few years ago and Lil Kim performed TERRIBLY, she in live performance sounds NOTHING like she does on CD. I began to then listen to many various musicians live and found this was a commonground.

Do you honestly think that Paris Hilton sounds the way she does on CD in real life concert? I tend to think not. Another example is Brooke Hogan (daughter of the Hulk), who has recently endeavored on a musican oddyssey. One would then think because she was signed that she had a decent voice right? WRONG, this is yet another example of how people generally sound terrible live due to the fact they fix up their voice to the point of perfection electrically.

Im not saying that every older band sounds amazing live, but I mean what happened to bands who used to thrive in live performances-say Grateful Dead for example. Why has music become so "fake"?

I ask you, what ever happened to the good ole days? What happened to acoustic music from say, Woodstock for example, where true talent was showed off through guitar, drums, AND vocals? How long has it been since a new guitar god came out? I mean Ill even take a step further to ask when the last person who could sing and play an instrument well came out? Was Prince the last?

You may think Im just some old school music fan with no musical knowledge-or taht Im bashing anyone who listens to modern music, but in fact I do listen to some contemporary music so there!

No but in all seriousness I just want your opinions on what Ive talked about, have you noticed this too? Do you maybe know of any artists I may not know of that have the aspects I feel have simply died out with the introduction of MTV?

Thanks for listening guys, hope to get some feedback.
Kyle

Oh btw Nick just mentioned Alicia Keys so for all you Alicia Keys fans, I approve of her, I didnt think of her, but still even if you can name a person or two my overall point is still proved or atleast it is in my opinion that the focus has changed from instrumental talent in a band to focusing on one person/dancing

Welcome Friend. It's good to finally see someone on the forum with an intellectual perspective on today's music. Unfortunately, there are not many people on this forum that feel the same way. I guess they will figure it out with age.

I agree with everything you stated 100%. I know for a fact that Paris and Brooke don't sound anything near to their enhanced album sound. One of the reasons the Pop genre has failed to be taken seriously by more prestigious organizations is the lack of real talent from the singers/"artists". Performances should be renamed to simply "appearances" since they don't actually do anything but sing a couple of words and let the back up track do the rest. Kevin Federline actually had the nerve to back up his back up track at the Teen Choice Awards LOL

I still play many of the 80's Era music today and it sounds far better than anything i'm hearing on the radio lately.

First, yes, I completely agree with your opinion.
My opinion is because music is dynamic, its changed a lot and changing and will change into the new direction.

For today's music, most of musicians (can i say all?) just trying to get "peak/success", which totally for now, you don't have to be talented or whatsoever. Look at music/songs these days, most of them are just begging on its beat. Yes, I could say, the beat is good, then it will go to the top of charts.

Because, today, people judge it on the beat, I mean, the talent and the meaning of the songs have nothing to do with the success, lets say, you LIKE the songs, you will but it.
NO ONE will buy it because the singer is talented, its because of the song.
So people now try to get catchier on music to get more sells.

Plus, about old days music, there is no really high tech on those days, which we could mix our voice on record, but nowadays, we can, thats why its like EVERYONE can record albums.

I'll be frankly honest: Music has not declined at all.

Okay, if you're talking about mainstream music, then i'd have to say that, yes, it has declined. But music in general is just as good as it has ever been.

I also listen to mostly older music because most of the current day mainstream music just doesn't cut it. But artists like TV On The Radio, Mastodon(who are getting a little more mainstream, but still...), Rammstein, Motorhead, Lacuna Coil, Slayer(yeah, I know, top ten debut with their latest album, but they're mainstream? Right.), Orgy and Deadsy are still putting out good music, and artists like Muse, Lupe Fiasco, Stone Sour, Gnarls Barkley, Army Of Anyone, Tool and Pearl Jam are putting out solid mainstream music. Hell, even though he's dead, Johnny Cash has albums coming out that are better than anything played on the radio right now.

While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I just don't think music as a whole has declined when you look at the big picture.

Oh definitely yes on Mainstream music....but as music in general, definitely not. Mainstream these days is ruled by people who have had numerous hits before and are not talented anymore IMO (Fergie, Justin, Christina, Eminem, Akon) (we need to mix it up)

This is why I check out music from non-mainstream people because it relaxes me. If you've seen my chart and my playlist, you'll know what I mean

Although mainstream music has declined, actual decent music still exists.
The issue is that the decent singers and bands that have real vocal talent matched with songwriting talent may be signed, but end up completely ignored by mainstream radio and the charts.
Somewhere in the early 90's it seems that the decent singers and bands began to 'disapear.' That idea is completely wrong. What simply happened is that the music industry became a complete business where music and artists are just products. The real music became held back and quashed, as they couldn't make enough money out of it.
I believe this is why illegal downloading became so popular; simply because people were fed up with the lack of choice in their record stores. People knew that real talent existed, so they searched further onto the internet (which is where other music places come in like myspace.) Illegal downloading also became hugly popular because although people may have liked some mainstream music, they knew it was simply dressed up computer music; so not willing to pay for it, they just got it for free.

I understand my ideas are kinda hard to follow, but to sum it up:
music has become an ordinary product like shampoo, it has to be pretty, shiny, and easily dispensable.

^You took the words out of my mouth

I'm glad I found Myspace. I got to hear music I never thought I would hear because of that.

Yeah i totally agree with you guys and i'm only 14. And since i'm only 14 years old i dont know everything about the music back then, but i can say that basically Christina Aguilera and Kelly Clarkson are the voices of our generation. And hopefully we will have more people like them to change the sound of mainstream radio. I'm not saying all the music sucks...but most of them do and it's usually just pointless. Cant wait until 2007.

BTW welcome to the board!

Talent hasn't declined, the quality has declined.

Many artists who have had good stuff in the past, change their style too much and end up releasing something not good at all. Blink-182 were great, I hate both Angels & Airwaves and +44. Most rappers are going for the money, grills, girls, and cars rapping now and it sucks (with the exception of Smack That). Quality is what counts, not talent. A band with a lot of talent can release an album that sucks and I won't like it. But a band with little talent can release a great album and I would like it. So it's not talent that's the problem now, it's quality.

I don't pay much attention to mainstream music, but the type of **** that's doing great on CHR/Pop is a true disgrace to talent--because there usually is none involved, when you're Fergie or Nickelback or some cheap-ass atypical rapper with bling and 40's in their music videos. And I suppose there are a lot of artists that change their sound, but what people don't understand is that it's to stay relevant and show diversity. I don't want to hear the same album twice from my favorite bands, everyone should know that by now.
I agree with most of what people have said [besides Shade and his hatred for artists who want to evolve.] The bottom line is, if people like Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline can put out full-length albums, then something's wrong.

I stick to whatever sounds good. That's all.

Good first post. The music today in my opinion sucks. Dont get me wrong i like some of todays artist and all but a lot of the **** is the same crap. Even rocks bands that try to come out and be original still sound the same. it sucks that they hand out record deals like candy these days. The state of music has decline quite a bit and that is pretty sad.

Music hasn't "taken a dive" so much as evolved. And with it, advances in the media and technology (the internet, specifically) have afforded individuals the tools with which to seek out these lesser-known and, perhaps, more talented bands and musicians you speak of. The music business has changed a lot more than music itself has. Today's market is much more cutthroat, dominated by only a few major record labels. For all intents and purposes, they control what hits the masses by both legitimate and illegitimate means.

Taste is highly subjective. It's en vogue to voice displeasure with modern music, but this vocal minority is not representative of the population as a whole--after all, someone out there is buying "FutureSex/LoveSounds" and, with the advent of digital downloads, record sales are up. If it's all so distasteful to listen to, I urge you to go out, be proactive, and make your own. Offer up something that you seem to think the public is so desperately deprived of.

i agree that kelly clarkson and christin are the voices of our generation

You call Christina and Eminem untalented, and then have the nerve to have a VANESSA HUDGENS avatar???

Like most others have already said, most of what they play on mainstream radio is garbage (though there's always artists like Christina, Eminem, Lupe Fiasco, Jay-Z, Nas, Alicia Keys, John Legend, The Fray, etc. that actually are talented). But, if you look in the right places, you can still find good music.

Mostly respectable opinions in this thread even though some of you are starting to sound like Christian/Conservative middle-aged Manilow-ga-ga parents.

Yes mainstream music has gone down-somewhat in quality for me but mostly in the Lyrics category. (But then again our culture is diversifying and challenging the concept of free speech every day which enables asses, bitches, hoes, etc. to be rapped/belted about. At the same time, it has gone up. I'd rather listen to today's modern music than a collection of oldies in terms of music beats and tracks.

I know one of the few artists that sings live without a backing track every single time she performs and that is Fantasia.
Music, esp R&B music has taken a nose dive lately. The unconventional artists like Jill scott, India irie, Fantasia etc are the few true artists that actually don't rely on backing tracks, but since they're not pop lockin and jiggling their scantly clad asses in barely there clothes, they go completely ignored.

Listen to TV On The Radio. They're not really mainstream, but they are unique.

Thanks for the suggestion i will check them out

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