Music just isn't good anymore

Comments

• Gorillatactics@hexbear.net ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is anti-art. If the sonic shape of the music doesnt matter and kids just imprint on what was popular in their youths why not scrap every art program? Why not cut all funding, why not just let Ai make all the music. Why bother dong anything at all?

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• testaccount789@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I thought about trying this, but thinking about how to execute it already sounds painful enough.
  For input data, I could use my existing library of mostly individually-selected songs, currently at size 1,662. Since I mostly listen to everything, this spans a rather large range of dates.
  Then start taking random songs, and rating them on 1 - 10 scale in relation to entire library, enter ratings into 10 year buckets, and use mean of those ratings.
  Probably 5 ratings per bucket to keep it short.
  Unfortunately, I most likely can’t fill every bucket, hell, some would remain empty. After all, classical music makes my library likely start in late 1600s, and end in 2025.
  I didn’t think about that. Perhaps I could leave it out, and start at, say 1920s, but that would make the data incomplete.

  Problem is, I don’t have the years for most of them, so that would mean looking up release dates for those individually.

  Huh, what if everyone would absolutely love (old) classical music, but we don’t see a spike as the graph starts at age of -40?

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• Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Well there have been scientific studies showing music became more shitty.

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• SuspiciousCatThing@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Listen to better musicians?

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• expatriado@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  most of the music i listen is from before i was born 😕

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My dad was like that, but the music he liked was from 1750 to 1830 or so. If there’s no cello, he’s not interested.

    For me, my favourites are from the funk era. I don’t think I knew that kind of music existed until I was in my 20s. Now it’s my go-to kind of music.

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  • mirshafie@europe.pub ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    For real, there’s so much incredible music from before I was born and I’m going into my 40s.

    Here’s a song from 1974.

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    • antonim@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I was wondering what song it might be as I was clicking on the link. Hmm, 1974, that’s the time when prog was going strong, maybe King Crimson…

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• timestatic@feddit.org ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I wonder if there is any noticeable difference between different generations to this graph. Like if there is a specific time-frame, that if we account for nostalgia and calculate out this bias/distribute different generations evenly performs higher than other time frames

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  • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I was curious too so I pulled up the study.

    First off, this is a marketing paper aimed at companies trying inform the industry about taste demographics.

    Secondly, I think it’s relevant to note they selected sample songs from billboard top ten (excluding the top 3) so the data is definitely only speaking to ‘an average of average taste in billboard pop music’ and not to musical taste overall.

    Image

    This is the bit that I think gets at our question:

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    Peak Preference in SSA indicates the peak preference of each respondent based on their birth year, so if you were born in 1970 and the testing showed you favoring the 1990 song Vogue- Madonna as your peak preference, your SSA would be 20 (you favor music from when you were 20).

    My impression from this scatter chart is that a lot of people liked 80s music regardless of when they were born haha.

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• Michal@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I tend to listen to music from before i was born, but then again that’s the music I listened to in my formative years.

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• wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  When I was a kid I only listened to music from the 80s and prior.

  As an adult I started finding other genres of more contemporary stuff that I actually liked, but as a kid my only exposure to “modern music” was the bullshit top 40s pop music radio stations that they would play on the school bus, and I hated that stuff with a burning passion.

  Even when there was an occasional song that I found catchy, I felt very conflicted inside and would never admit to liking it…

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• humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Don’t understand graph. is dark line what people think of songs released 11 years ago? WTH is graph before age 0? Oh ok, maybe. A song released when you were 40 is rated the same as one released 45-80 years earlier.

  There is huge bias in “popular music” category. Can get very sick of old songs, or just stop listening to contemporary pop after a while. I’m surprised old people would still like pop songs of their youth, after being overplayed over the years.

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  • stoly@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They did the survey repeatedly over 11 years and the line spores the average across all years.

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• homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The music industry, such as it is today, is nothing. It was getting super fucked in the 80s, had a last gasp in the 90s and now it’s nothing.

  The former pipeline of label to radio to charts is dead. Whats left is a necrotic accounting and marketing mechanism driven by algorithms and viral splashes.

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  • glimse@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Things have changed but the music industry is very much alive. The barrier to entry dropped significantly with the advent of the internet which definitely affected the established companies but they don’t represent the industry. The artists do.

    There’s more independent labels than ever and live music hasn’t changed significantly (minus the feed for “major” venues). I’d even go as far as to say the music industry is better than it’s ever been.

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    • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m sure that’s true in many respects, but from the standpoint of putting content in front of . . uh . . earballs, that pipeline that used to exist for almost every adult person (in the US anyway) is dead.

      Spotify and Youtube are two possibilities, both pay almost nothing and require lots of sandbagging to get a foothold.

      Any new music I accidentally come across is more often than not a style I’m not into, and/or it sounds like everything else.

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• snoons@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Obviously biased data, I’m not in it. >:(

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• Sunsofold@lemmings.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Nostalgia needs to go back to its old status as a form of mental illness.

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• gegil@sopuli.xyz ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  My favourite music is indeed released when i was in teens. However, i did not listen to that music when i was in teens.

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The only music that was released in my teens that I like is stuff I never heard until I was maybe 30. I look back and think it was such a shame that I missed that era when it was current/new.

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• turtlesareneat@piefed.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I never listen to old music, nothing from my teen 90s especially. I’ve heard those three million times each. Give me some new artists producing shimmering, sparkly electronic-indie and I am happy to keep eating it up. Other genres too but there’s so much in just this one, it’s immersive, and I absolutely think it keeps my brain sharper.

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• Zannsolo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The best of my parent’s generation cusp boomers is better than the best of my generation which is better than the best of anytime put out in the last 20 years

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• SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Post your finds so that this graph may die

  Rat Heart outta Manchester has been my repeat lately. Whole album Dancin’ In The Streets is great if you’re after something down tempo and not super up beat.

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m going to attack the other side of the graph.

    • 1973: Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground Catchy lyrics, very funky, heavy use of the Wah pedal
    • 1977: Fela Kuti, Opposite People Africa’s tank on funk music. Screw western norms of 5 minute songs. Have 10 minutes of jamming before the vocals even come in.
    • 1967: James Brown, Cold Sweat One of the first funk songs, downbeat on the 1s, one chord groove, lots of improvisation, bass forward, lots of focus on the groove and not the lyrics, etc.
    • 1967: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Ain’t no Mountain High Enough Delicious Motown, but in particular focus in James Jamerson’s incredible bass line
    • 1959: Take Five, Dave Brubeck 1960s jazz with a 5/4 beat
    • 1965: Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash, Streets of Laredo A “modern” cowboy remake of a folk song that goes back centuries

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  • YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    2026: Elder - Through Zero. Heavy Stoner/Psych/Metal 2025: Totorro - Sofa So Good. Upbeat Math Rock. 2024: Alcest - Les Chants de l’Aurore. Shoegaze meets black metal. Minimal screaming.

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• Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Mozart was actually peak piano tho

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• Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I have a question about electronic music only.
  Since it really exploded in the 80’s/90’s plenty genres have evolved.
  But for me I can’t think of anything after dubstep in 2003 that is worth being called ‘new’.
  Recycling and sub-genres at best.
  Like everything has been done before. Does anyone feel this way or am I missing something?

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  • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Dubstep is just as much a recycled genre/subgenre as anything else?

    If you’re after something new to your ears it really shouldn’t fit neatly into any genre, right?

    Listen to OPN’s R Plus Seven. Electronic in its production, yes. But it’s got a ton of orchestral structure/texture to it…on top of chopped vocal samples.

    Or how about some Floating Points? Again, electronic for sure. But there’s definitely a fluency in the conversation between electronic dance and jazz that wasn’t there a few decades ago.

    Murlo

    Photay

    All leap from genre to genre effortlessly enough while also having a ton of electronics sensibilities. Maybe it’s recycling genres, but I think in some instances mastery in disparate areas leads to a greater sum than the parts.

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• RustyNova@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Well… Guess I peaked. listenbrainz.org/user/RustyNova/stats/?range=all_…

  TBF there was a switch in the dubstep sphere and a lot of brostep artist (which I love) moved to riddim (which I hate). As well as my biggest source of song (Monstercat) switching styles

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• Lussy@hexbear.net ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s been a long time since I’ve actually just…listened to music, or followed anything music related, despite my love for it; and soon I will listen to the new Boards of Canada album, because it’s literally the only thing I’ve been looking forward to. Hoping I feel things again

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• woodenghost@hexbear.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I read that deliberately alternating listening to one new song between two to four already known songs is supposed to be a good exercise for the brain. (Don’t remember where I read that, maybe I should exercise my brain more.)

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• SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  ALL Americans are exactly this?

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• dumnezero@piefed.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  My guess is that the big capitalists in this domain have trained their non-ML models for what the music that makes money is. This is especially easy with radio “top charts.” By figuring out what is most popular, they figured out mediocrity and also had the power to create more and more of it, in a positive feedback loop. The AI slop factories are accelerating this.

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• morto@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  And theres me, who prefers music from before I was born

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• davidgro@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I don’t listen to music much, but I feel like this graph would be nearly inverted for me. Didn’t care much for the music I was forced to hear on the school bus, but inherited my mom’s enjoyment of both oldies and classical, and enjoy some modern music (which is just much more diverse than when I grew up, so there’s something for everyone)

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• Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because human brains are finally fully developed by your late 30’s.

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• Melobol@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It is just so much work to dig through all that mumble rap, melodic humming - and not even melodic mumbling without rhyme or time signature…
  It is even harder if you have a professional musician as an SO.
  “Where is the music theory?!?”
  Tho Demonhunters slaps (Golden isn’t even the best song in the movie).

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• adarza@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  totally tracks. that would be the 80s for me and i still listen to it more than from any other decade.

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