# Rant attacking VIs and in-the-box music



## NekujaK (Jul 23, 2022)

Here's a rather incendiary article about the state of music today, that essentially blames computerization, virtual instruments, and an overall absence of human musicianship. I can't say I disagree, but it pretty much targets most of us on this forum and the way we make our music.









Forget the Apocalypse, Let’s Talk About What Happened to Music


Why Music Doesn’t Sound Like Music Anymore




eand.co


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## ptram (Jul 23, 2022)

I can fully agree that those older things by Moroder were excellent!

Moroder 1985

Paolo


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## youngpokie (Jul 23, 2022)

I don't get what he's saying here:






First, a real orchestra sounds different even to the best classical recording ever made. 

Second, a "computer orchestra" is 90% of time _does not_ sound the same even as a recording. The music is _not performed_ the way each "real" player would perform it and it's often not even written (and orchestrated) the same way classical symphonic music typically sounds. It's just pop music underneath, dressed up in samples. 

Perhaps he's not had enough practice to pick up on the thousand little details, so he's just feeling something's off without quite understanding what that is.

But his larger point that music is produced now instead of written somehow rings true, perhaps for the same reason - it used to take years of study to master the experience of writing for the orchestra because so many hundreds of composers had contributed something to that knowledge. And then several hundred musicians who studied their chosen instrument for years. In contrast to that, music production is an extremely young field, and it only takes a single person with a computer. So, it's inevitable it delivers results faster even though it only sounds very vaguely like the real thing.


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## ka00 (Jul 23, 2022)

Here’s an entire afternoon’s doom scroll written by the same author on various subjects:









Eudaimonia and Co


Eudaimonia & Co.




eand.co


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## doctoremmet (Jul 23, 2022)

Doomscroll indeed! Always attracts way more eyeballs. I think the author should maybe also try and write on a typewriter and use an actual print press to distribute his thoughts. Back when people did that, instead of just go on the internet and rant to attract followers and attention, rants were actually way better. Imho.

Edit: I would also like to see the author fail HARD telling the difference between an actually talented musician (who still very much exist) tweaking a 50 year old Moog running into a sequencer, versus a $39 Cherry Audio Miniverse in Ableton. 

He makes some valid points, but honestly, this person appears to be extremely pretentious when it comes to VI knowledge and the nefarious effect of “computer music” in general. I detect almost Luddite levels of BS.


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## tonio_ (Jul 23, 2022)

Yeah... Kind of old news to be honest.


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## pinki (Jul 23, 2022)

old people saying it was better in the good old days...yawn

(old people being a state of mind not an absolute)


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## Henning (Jul 23, 2022)

Well, my teenage years were in the 80s and damn me if there was not the same amount of aweful music on the radio as today. The good stuff that I liked seldomly got air time. On the other hand head over to bandcamp and you'll find a lot of inspiring music by real musicians. For me It's a very narrow-minded article, quite cringey in it's black and white painting style.


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## DoubleTap (Jul 23, 2022)

Nah that’s bollocks. Billie Eilish doesn’t provoke emotion? Olivia Rodrigo is lifeless? I could add Mefjus and plenty more dance music producers to that list. He should get out and listen to some music.


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## NekujaK (Jul 23, 2022)

The article is definitely over the top in its sensationalized approach, and utterly dismissive of new ways of doing things... but I must admit, the one thing I miss most about working in the box with VIs, is the contributions and interactions of live musicians.

VIs simply can't reproduce the same energy and feel. Not talking about sound - VIs generally sound great - it's the intangible energy that collaborating with live musicians provides. Especially with really great players.

But of course, there are many (good) reasons we work in the box. So carry on...


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## pinki (Jul 23, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> The article is definitely over the top in its sensationalized approach, and utterly dismissive of new ways of doing things... but I must admit, the one thing I miss most about working in the box with VIs, is the contributions and interactions of live musicians.
> 
> VIs simply can't reproduce the same energy and feel. Not talking about sound - VIs generally sound great - it's the intangible energy that collaborating with live musicians provides. Especially with really great players.
> 
> But of course, there are many (good) reasons we work in the box. So carry on...


Well yes and no! Yes, that creative frisson with other musicians is wonderul…and no, leave me alone in my own world.. I don’t need all the ego nonsense


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## NekujaK (Jul 23, 2022)

pinki said:


> Well yes and no! Yes, that creative frisson with other musicians is wonderul…and no, leave me alone in my own world.. I don’t need all the ego nonsense


I'm copying my post over from another recent thread where this subject came up:



> *Nekujak:*
> 
> As horribly unpleasant as that can be, sometimes friction can actually help fuel creativity.
> 
> ...



I should add that all of my experiences with hired studio musicians has always been great. If they're professional, they'll get the job done quickly, perform at the highest caliber, and will gladly take direction. They have to, or they'll be out of a job


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## Ethan Toavs (Jul 23, 2022)

This article reminds me of something I read in Plato's _Republic_. Plato lamented about how the advent of major scales and lutes supposedly represented the downfall of music and Greek society as a whole. Change some dates and jargon around, and you basically get this article here. Some things never change, I guess.


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## NekujaK (Jul 23, 2022)

Ethan Toavs said:


> This article reminds me of something I read in Plato's _Republic_. Plato lamented about how the advent of major scales and lutes supposedly represented the downfall of music and Greek society as a whole. Change some dates and jargon around, and you basically get this article here. Some things never change, I guess.


_*"People have always been like this*_*."*
- Gustave Flaubert


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## ryans (Jul 23, 2022)

My only takeaway is _wow_

That guy _loves _his _random italics._


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## LamaRose (Jul 23, 2022)

Virtually all music that I hear today is overproduced to the hilt... sterilized. 99.9% of it is redundant shite to boot. I definitely lay a lot of blame on electronic/midi/tech for the lack of writing chops and musicianship in general... but don't forgot the corporate meathooks that under-monetize the real value of music. 

Well, back to TikTok, TicTok, TickTock...


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## YaniDee (Jul 23, 2022)

Henning said:


> Well, my teenage years were in the 80s and damn me if there was not the same amount of aweful music on the radio as today.


If you're talking about new wave bands, like Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order,etc..yes they embraced (very expensive) technology, but they had something a lot of current music lacks..melody!


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## NoamL (Jul 23, 2022)

A man went to his rabbi: 

"Rabbi, is there anything on God's green earth, more inaccurate than journalism?"

The rabbi thought for a long time. Finally, he replied: "unpaid journalism."


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## WWBiscuit (Jul 23, 2022)

Rant that it is, I agree with most of it. 

I find chart music unlistenable. There is certainly a lot of great stuff around if you know where to look, but still find it a shame that popular mainstream music isn't a whole lot better. Good chart music, after all, has gifted wonderful soundtracks to entire generations. But I just can't see the current offerings enmeshing themselves into popular culture nor inspiring much in the way of nostalgia in years to come. We are, IMO, living in (popular) music's Dark Ages. 

Yes, even Socrates complained about the young generation...etc, but I don't believe this is an issue of changing youth culture. Much of the soulless formulaic crap that masquerades as music is the responsibility of people my age or older. 

I don't blame the technology...it's just a tool. I blame the industry, which has become cynical and passionless, unless your passion happens to be money. This is what happens to the arts when you entrust it to neo-liberals. The music business has never been less about artists, musicians and visionaries.


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## Henning (Jul 23, 2022)

YaniDee said:


> If you're talking about new wave bands, like Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order,etc..yes they embraced (very expensive) technology, but they had something a lot of current music lacks..melody!


No, actually these are bands that I like and which wrote really good songs through their careers. And though some of them were heard on the radio with some hit singles a lot of things at least on German radio left me cold. 

There were people already back then who dismissed everything that had a synth or sampler in it and that was not guitar driven. A way of thinking that I always found conservative and backwards. As I see it it's not the tools you use to create music that decide if it's worth listening to. Throw in some sweat and heart blood and experience and you can make a good song out of nearly everything.


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## juliandoe (Jul 24, 2022)

The article is complete rubbish. It reminds me of the "old men yells at clouds" from the Simpsons.
One thing I do when I see articles like these is to see who's the writer and what's the publication the article is on.

The author is *Umair Haque* a British economist, who graduated from McGill with a degree in neuroscience and got an MBA from the London Business School.

So it's equal to say that tomorrow Julian Doe musician, who graduated from Chichester with a degree in popular music and engineering writes an article about the economic situation of the world. 

The publication is Medium: If you join the Medium Partner Program, you can earn money based on how much time members spend reading your work and whenever you convert non-paying readers into members. 

So, basically, our economist makes money with this article, which means that making it controversial and about music (without any fundaments of logic and objectivity) assures him a large audience and exposure and, in the end, more money. 

It's just lame.


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## Henning (Jul 24, 2022)

As perhaps an afterthought: it's always a slippery slope to think your own feelings about music must inadvertantly be shared by anyone else. To my shame perhaps I have to admit that I never liked the Beatles or the Rolling Stones for different reasons but I know that quite a lot of people have loved and still love their songs. A piece of music touches you or it doesn't. It's not much use discussing. Look at these forum threads about the Obi-Wan theme or the new Rings of Power music. People just like or dislike. It's fun discussing the reasons for this but it seldom changes the way the other one feels about a particular piece of music (as can be seen again in the above mentioned threads).

So, raving against certain ways of modern music production shows more about the author's own feelings than give an objective scientific view of our musical landscape. It's basically a gut feeling article with some true words perhaps here and there but basically just one opinion in a sea of others. 

Am I worried about the future of music? No, not really.


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## Bee_Abney (Jul 24, 2022)

Multi-track recording, sampling, lack of regard for musicianship, auto-tune, insane schedules for composition. Whatever these things have in common, it isn't a) computers or b) bad music.

It's good to engage with critiques one doesn't agree with all or part of. It's probably more fruitful when those critiques are better reasoned and more coherent; and probably more fruitful when you are more awake than I am at half eight on a Sunday morning.

Thanks for posting this, @NekujaK!


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## Saxer (Jul 24, 2022)

If virtual instruments music wouldn't touch anybody on an emotional level there wouldn't be any "computer-made" film/game/media music at all.

There are different interaction levels of music:

Improvised live music
Written live music
Recorded live music
Multitrack stem overdub recorded live music
Multitrack single instrument overdub recorded live music
Multitrack single instrument single musician overdub recorded live music
Multitrack single instrument single musician virtual instruments overdub recorded music
Loop based multitrack single instrument single musician virtual instruments overdub recorded music

Fun fact: on every level there are artists who do great stuff.


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## jcrosby (Jul 24, 2022)

Sounds like a disgruntled old fart. 

Seriously though. It does seems a little bit like complaining about not being comfortable with whatever technological gaps exist; but ironically not seeing any irony in the fact that as a fan of music, they listen to _some_ recorded version of music, which is wholly unnatural -- Music in its _natural_ form is an *acoustic* event that only exists in a specific place, at a specific time, when a musical event occurs.... And couldn't be captured and reproduced before the phonograph. Technically nothing about listening to _recorded_ music is natural. So where does the line begin and end?


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## PaulieDC (Jul 24, 2022)

Ethan Toavs said:


> This article reminds me of something I read in Plato's _Republic_. Plato lamented about how the advent of major scales and lutes supposedly represented the downfall of music and Greek society as a whole. Change some dates and jargon around, and you basically get this article here. Some things never change, I guess.


Right. Solomon said there was "nothing new under the sun" and that was before Plato.

Speaking of Plato's quote, that's actually incredibly encouraging... 2,400 years later and the major scale and stringed instruments abound plentifully! What fades away from memory is the motivation of those that have to shred something in articles like that. A few years down the road, nobody is going to care about Mr. Doomsday Grumpy Pants.


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## PaulieDC (Jul 24, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> Here's a rather incendiary article about the state of music today, that essentially blames computerization, virtual instruments, and an overall absence of human musicianship. I can't say I disagree, *but it pretty much targets most of us on this forum and the way we make our music*.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Know what? I don't think it does... this forum is all about pulling out hair and teeth and every thing else because we NEVER stop trying to make things sound as real as possible! ARRRGGHHHH, the legatos are weak in the new Bombastic Strings 17.0, this is an outrage!


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## PaulieDC (Jul 24, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> Sounds like a disgruntled old fart.


It's 1:11am here in Arizona and now I won't be able to get to sleep because I keep cracking up.


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## jcrosby (Jul 24, 2022)

Ironically I can think of a few nieces and nephews that consider me an old fart  Point??? 
_Old Fart _is a state of mind


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## TomislavEP (Jul 24, 2022)

I don't have enough patience to read the whole article, but I don't completely agree about rants against using computers and VI's in music production. In some cases, they indeed might be a "necessary evil", especially for us fighting with a limited budget, but they're also a technological breakthrough and often rightfully preferred method of working in comparison with the more traditional ones. For example, I consider virtual orchestration to be an art in its own right rather than being just an inferior substitution for classical orchestration involving real musicians. Furthermore, I equally appreciate quality music regardless of the chosen modus operandi of a certain composer. I remember reading how many classicists criticized Vangelis back in the day for the use of technology in his music. Now there are those ranting against computers, VI's, and libraries in favor of using real instruments and equipment...

The bottom line is - it all depends on the music itself and the person behind it. If the music conveys emotion and spirit, it is IMO irrelevant what method of music production is behind it.


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## GtrString (Jul 24, 2022)

One thing these ranters conveniently overlook are the lyrics. What makes songs relatable is that the lyrics speaks to people, or says something about the world they percieve to be living in.

In music with lyrics, lyrics are still king. It’s not about the virtuoso bassplayer, nor the big name producer, nor the flat -5 chords or vi-v-II progression, or the polyphonics counter rhythm, the fc*g compressor or what maschine that produced the sound (regardless of analog/ digital). And lyrics have become so much more differentiated than before, and there are many many more perspectives of the world now than there was in the music before the millennial and the digitalization and democratization of music.

So, no wonder these old geezers can’t relate to new music. They simply can’t read nor understand the world(s) the young people are living in. They superimpose their own culture of how it used to be over it. No wonder why they don’t analyse contemporary lyrics. Why not take a stance of discovery and learning in their videos, instead of that stupid know-it-all prick?

Those rants are basically an example of the white privilege boomer/genX culture, many of us‘d like to cancel and many already has. It also says something about those musicians they interview, old opportunists trying to rob teens by old fart dancing on TikTok. Embarrassing!

They have had their time, and their views - now lets fix it.


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## Henning (Jul 24, 2022)

By the way what I always love about this forum is that at some point someone will quote the classics, be it Plato, Shakespeare or what-not


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## doctoremmet (Jul 24, 2022)

Here’s a record from the 1980s that takes pride in being created with samplers, synths and sequencers, where Green Gartside was striving to sound as “cold” as possible. Miles Davis and Marcus Miller loved it, and were happy with the fact that their parts were sampled and edited to ‘perfection”. I wonder if the author would have loved it back in the day hehe. Or does now. Because every damn record from the 1980s is better and “more human” than whatever music produced these days, according to him 😂. Because: undisclosed reasons.

Of course the record flopped in 1988. I love it.


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## PeterN (Jul 24, 2022)

Its a person with an opinion. 

Its great from that point of view. These days everyone is supposed to say the same mantra. 

He should be demanding "burning of the sample libraries", so the masses™ can be offended.


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## Chris Schmidt (Jul 24, 2022)

Forget the Apocalypse, Let’s Talk About What Happened to Music


Why Music Doesn’t Sound Like Music Anymore




eand.co





TL;DR LOL


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## Living Fossil (Jul 24, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> VIs simply can't reproduce the same energy and feel. Not talking about sound - VIs generally sound great - it's the intangible energy that collaborating with live musicians provides. Especially with really great players.


This contains a very relevant point.

I think there is a* huge* difference between music that was played by great players and music that derives from quantized midi performances of not so great players.
The latter simply lacks that microcosm of agogic nuances that good musicians play.
Of course, it depends a lot on the style, but in some genres the difference is huge.

But i guess, the music of the 80ies and 90ies was much worse in this regard (I'm still remembering some quantized synth solos from the 80ies pop era...)

As for the article: it's an opinion stated by an individual person. It's a good thing when people state their honest opinion. This creates a place of reflection and creates oportunities for change towards a better future. Regardless if I agree or not.


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## Markrs (Jul 24, 2022)

The author lost me when he joked about the 90's being "oldies" and then talked about how 90s music sounded better and today's music sounds rubbish which is why we are copying the 80s.

I feel he missed a couple of points here, when I was listening to music in the 90s, the 60s were considered "Golden Oldies" yet they were only 30 years ago. When mentioning bands like Oasis he didn't mention that they were effectively a revival band of the 60s, along with many other guitar bands of the period.

Just like we borrowed from the 60s in the 90s it didn't seem strange that we would borrow from the 80s in the 2010s and 2020s after all that was 30-40 years ago.

It just sounded like the classic "they don't make them like they use to" line that had been said by every older generation about younger generations art.


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## d4vec4rter (Jul 24, 2022)

It's all subjective bollox really. I've been an active musician for 40+ years, I'm 61 years old and still in a band playing the local live music circuit. You can't beat live music and sharing it with others, it invigorates the soul. I couldn't be without it but, at the same time, as a keen home music producer I also love what modern computer technology can provide for us these days with the enormous scope of incredible software available to us. I started out with a Tascam Portastudio 4-Track Cassette Recorder, a Drum Machine and a guitar. To say it was limited is a bit of an understatement. What we can achieve nowadays is totally mind-blowing. 

What I suppose I'm getting at with reference to the discussed article is that; whether it's live music or created ITB with VIs and sample libraries, it all has its place in the fundamental enjoyment of music and what it can do for you as an individual. As much as it brings tears to my eyes when watching and listening to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra playing Strauss's Blue Danube, I can be in just as much wonderment listening to a well put together track using my orchestral sample libraries and the fact that I am able to produce such a thing in my home studio. Yes, it would be great to be able to nip into Abbey Road and get the BBC Symphony Orchestra to lay down a track or two for me but, alas, can't see it happening somehow.

As for the argument "music isn't what it used to be". They'll be saying the same thing for centuries to come (if the human race lasts that long).


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## AudioLoco (Jul 24, 2022)

ah-hemm....

Read the article. The man has got a point.
Not being a musician, his inside knowledge of how everything actually works is a bit iffy, but on the level of emotional response to *most *new music I'm with him.

The Moroder example is really border line silly but some of his points sounds pretty legit to me.

I work with a computer everyday to make music, but if I watch a live show it has to be actual instruments playing together by sweaty people otherwise *I feel nothing* and, if it's interesting/good music, I would rather listen to it while I'm cooking or on the toilet, no need to stare at one or two guys on a stage noding, raising their hands in the air, pressing play and maybe moving a couple of hi pass filters.
Do you need skill and "musicianship" to be able to make good stuff with a computer? Hell yes!

The "musicianship" argument is also very insidious.
For one generation the Beatles were kids playing a few chords badly with a terrible drummer, for the next one the Pistols were raping their instruments and music in general, for some Bob Dylan was a horrible singer who strums badly and blows in that terrible harmonica thingy, Kurt Cobain might be considered a terrible guitarist by some etc etc....
Musicianship is a more difficult thing to define and it shifts value generation by generation.

For example, to be able to "flip" a sample is these days (erm... at least the last 30 years actually) considered a precious skill for example, for me it means being able to take a snippet of something already great crafted with attention, love and talent and knowhow by some talented people in the 70s or 60s and "steal" it to make it work in a collage to which you take credit for. ( Usual answer: "Yes but it takes skill to do that!" - Usual reply: "not as much skill as writing an actual great piece from scratch- I'll have coffee while you go write something great without relying on using other people's work").
Anyhow cultural and generational differences shift what "musicianship" actually means, to the general public at least.
In my case, am I right to consider most EDM and modern Pop and Hip Hop an art that is *most of the times* extremely childish and devoted of emotions? Isn't it instead really a noble art that does create emotions, just not in me? Am I just an old fart not understanding the new world?
I remember a conversation with a non musician friend, he told me: "music has to be just for dancing, for fun"... Well fuck that! His value perception is different then mine, probably represents many people's thoughts, maybe the majority. Do I care? Not really.

How recorded music is being created AND published has changed so much, the culture has changed so much because of internet and extreme globalization, young generations are very different then previous ones. Is it good or bad for art?
Only history, with its colander filtration system, will tell. The rest are just opinions that will be lost like tears in the rain.


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## polynaeus (Jul 24, 2022)

Having just watched the documentary _*The Wrecking Crew *_this article does connect. But even still… I like my virtual instruments and DAW


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## GtrString (Jul 24, 2022)

PeterN said:


> Its a person with an opinion.


But it really isn't. It is one person reproducing and representing a wider bulk of statements, which you can consider demeaning of new music and the choices and opinions of young musicians and their/ contemporary culture.

This author/ article
Rick Beato +followers
Veteran artists and producers
Record companies interested in selling vinyls and CDs from the old artists
The new publishing hubs who's bought up the old catalogs
Everyone else with stakes in these old records

So, this devaluation discourse is there for a reason, serving particular economic interests..


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## PeterN (Jul 24, 2022)

GtrString said:


> But it really isn't. It is one person reproducing and representing a wider bulk of statements, which you can consider demeaning of new music and the choices and opinions of young musicians and their/ contemporary culture.
> 
> This author/ article
> Rick Beato +followers
> ...


Nah.

And if it was - then so what. That's just colourisation.

The only thing annoying here's that he made a 5 pages long essay of something he could have put in 10 sentences. It fails to impress.


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## Awoo Composer (Jul 24, 2022)

There's some valid points in there... but I think it's wrong to group all new music under that umbrella. I cannot listen to most mainstream music today; it's why i'm a metalhead. That being said I know a lot of people who have the attitude of "I can make music and get rich" and as such they are producing music not because they are passionate about it - but just because they can profit from it. I firmly believe that if you're so preoccupied with money you are going to produce shit and not quality.

When I make music I do it because it feels good and not only that, it allows me to reflect on my own past experiences and views. Even though I'm only a beginner I didn't start this because I dreamed of getting rich from it. Far from it. I couldn't care less about making money from it. I want to do it because I feel like out of the creative outlets there are I resonate with music the most. 

In that vein, I feel like the author of the article has some merit. A lot of mainstream music is really about quantity over quality. It's wrong though to blame VIs for this - just because the technology is there, doesn't mean it can't be used to produce some brilliant pieces (I think this forum can attest to that). It all comes down to the mindset of the people using it. Like most things in society, the gross commercialization makes people think of music as money instead of a passionate project that can resonate with people.


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## Polkasound (Jul 24, 2022)

PeterN said:


> The only thing annoying here's that he made a 5 pages long essay of something he could have put in 10 sentences.


*Here's my theory.* I _think_ he did that so that he "could fill his quota" of underlined ,*boldface*, and _italicized_ "words in quotations." My goodness, *that* was _some_ "annoying reading!"


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## PeterN (Jul 24, 2022)

Polkasound said:


> *Here's my theory.* I _think_ he did that so that he "could fill his quota" of underlined ,*boldface*, and _italicized_ "words in quotations." My goodness, *that* was _some_ "annoying reading!"


I did wade through it twice, since GtrString commented. Try. That's when it really gets under your skin. First reading you could still defend yourself.


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## Chris Schmidt (Jul 25, 2022)

The author's point about technology is not wrong, but it is vastly overstated. Especially in the minds of the average listener and music fan and not introverted computer nerds.



> Modern music is a really, really strange thing, when I think about it. Because…this is hard to explain, but let me try. Everything’s in the right place. The notes are right. The harmonies are nice. The chords are just fine.


I challenge you to go listen to something like that "Thrift Shop" aural abomination that every club to school dance DJ was blasting a few years ago and tell me with a straight face you believe the "notes are right"; that the issue is quantization and VIs and not the composition.

Because that's the _real_ problem. We are hearing, across genres, music that is the result of abysmally-low ability and mastery of the craft. The technology isn't to blame (at least not solely) for a lack of "humanity" in music. No, the problem with the technology lies mostly in that it has allowed everyone and their dog to play composer and the collapse of what was once known as the music industry and all quality standards along with it means these people can play the same field with the people who actually know what they're doing. With enough nepotism, you can barely know anything about music and get some agency to make your video go viral or wind up scoring a big film.

You see this so much in modern "Orchestral" music. A Legato Horns patch plays the "melody", assuming there even IS one, you use the same third-root two-note ostinato in the violas for the "rhythm", rest of the strings play a pad, drum loop, and what the hell even are woodwinds?

It's like...you're _sure_ it's lack of a real orchestra that's causing the emotional disconnect here? Because 80s and 90s lo-fi Chiptunes have a very large fanbase despite having had far worse than modern VIs to work with.

Many and I dare say most of these composers are not simply composing this music as a result of choice, but because they simply do not know how to do anything else, and are not willing to put in the effort to do so. They don't really have any respect for the craft of composing music.

It's like how in the '90s, the new bands shunned guitar solos because "it's self-indulgent wankery". A funny way to say "I'm not that good". The singers in metal? Fuck it, they just started screaming, growling and yelling. Singing is difficult, takes too much practice and maybe I don't even have the disposition to be good at it all.

Then, what we do is rationalize it by pretending that good and bad don't real like we did when looking at the eyesores Picasso put to canvas and say it's "all subjective". "Bro like, can we actually PROVE Mozart was a better composer than my cat running across my piano?"

Yes, Mozart was a better composer than Whiskers,_ for real_ and we all know it. Eddie Van Halen was _actually_ a better guitar player than Lil' Wayne and John Williams curbstomps Generic Trailer Composer #17383627. That is why all of the former examples have had such enduring success among laymen and continue to command respect among musicians of younger generations.

The author is also wrong: MIDI came into being in the '80s and the bulk of these synth tunes were MIDI sequenced and drum machined 

People loved them, and prefer them to most of the synth pop today because in the '80s, ZZTop and co. actually put good tunes on top of them.

Good live players will always beat your computer, but generally, they don't make the difference between good and bad music.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 25, 2022)

TL;DR
Let’s cherrypick all good music from the past and all the worst current music, and compare them and then make some generalized statement from that comparison


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## doctoremmet (Jul 25, 2022)

This music is from the 1980s. Back when music was still good:



This music is from 4 weeks ago. It is bad:


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## pinki (Jul 25, 2022)

Chris Schmidt said:


> The author's point about technology is not wrong, but it is vastly overstated. Especially in the minds of the average listener and music fan and not introverted computer nerds.
> 
> 
> I challenge you to go listen to something like that "Thrift Shop" aural abomination that every club to school dance DJ was blasting a few years ago and tell me with a straight face you believe the "notes are right"; that the issue is quantization and VIs and not the composition.
> ...


The problem with this view..and I get where you are coming from, is it doesn’t take in to account the simple fact that some of the best music comes from people who don’t “know” anything about music. Some of the best music is actually made with pure sprit and no tecnique.


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## d4vec4rter (Jul 25, 2022)

pinki said:


> The problem with this view..and I get where you are coming from, is it doesn’t take in to account the simple fact that some of the best music comes from people who don’t “know” anything about music. Some of the best music is actually made with pure sprit and no tecnique.


I have to disagree with this statement. In order to create any music whatsoever (good or bad), you NEED to know something about music surely? Like how to play an instrument or what chords work in a particular key. My 5 year old nephew plays his guitar with pure spirit. Unfortunately, the music is pretty terrible.


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## pinki (Jul 25, 2022)

d4vec4rter said:


> I have to disagree with this statement. In order to create any music whatsoever (good or bad), you NEED to know something about music surely? Like how to play an instrument or what chords work in a particular key.


Singing? Folk music? Some of the most moving music ever is folk.

Also punk music?

I guess this comes down to that eternal question ”what is music?”


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## Markrs (Jul 25, 2022)

d4vec4rter said:


> I have to disagree with this statement. In order to create any music whatsoever (good or bad), you NEED to know something about music surely? Like how to play an instrument or what chords work in a particular key. My 5 year old nephew plays his guitar with pure spirit. Unfortunately, the music is pretty terrible.


I some genres like Rap, there is hardly any harmonic or melodic elements and so you don't need that knowledge. Of course to be good at that you do need other skills.

Lots of famous tracks use only 1 or 2 chords and use just pentatonic scales, which is the music we naturally hear (there have been test to show that most people automatically use the pentatonic scale, without knowing music theory), so no real theory needed. 

I do agree though the vast amount of popular music songwriters do know music theory even though they don't know the names or specific hamonic progression they are using. In most cases this knowledge is picked up by listening to music, playing covers and experiementation. After all music theory is just the codifying of the sounds we find useful.


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## jcrosby (Jul 25, 2022)

Music from the the golden age. 
_*Remember*_*?* _When people had *musicianship?*_


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## DoubleTap (Jul 25, 2022)

To me the difference between knowing theory and not knowing it is that someone can play I-IV-V-I on their guitar and instantly think either that it's an hackneyed cliche or it's the freshest thing they've ever heard. 

The question is whether or not the person unencumbered by knowledge will be inspired to write something as good as Blowin' in the Wind or Call Me Maybe (not that I know how much Bob Dylan or Carly Rae Jepsen know about music theory).


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## Chris Schmidt (Jul 25, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> Music from the the golden age.
> _*Remember*_*?* _When people had *musicianship?*_



Yet the number of people who have heard of this band probably hovers close to zero in almost any given area big or small and upon googling, had exactly 1 studio album over 50 years ago and were universally panned for sucking.

We're basically not even allowed to say people suck today.

People like this used to get buried and lost in the pages of history and deservingly so. Today, they form large echo chambers on Soundcloud and at your local music venues and the like and get their music on spotify. There is literally no incentive anymore for people to become better.

Shitty bands and musicians have always been around, but crap bands who barely knew how to tune their instruments and play in time used to stay in the garage and composers who couldn't write a coherent tune didn't usually get their music played by a live orchestra in Eastern Europe.

Guns N' Roses were literal drug-addicted dropouts and runaways who lived under the staircase at the video store, but even they were competent enough musicians and songwriters to write and record not just a all-the-way-through good album that was original for its time, but one of the greatest rock albums ever made.

So what is all of these sober people's excuse?


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## NekujaK (Jul 25, 2022)

I can't disparage today's popular music. It may not always be something that brings me listening enjoyment, but that can be said about some music from any time period, really.

I used to dismiss current pop music as commercialized mass-produced fluff, until I started paying attention to the comments on YouTube videos and other social media sites. This music actually resonates with lots of people in very meaningful ways. I was surprised to see young people quoting lyrics and sharing how the songs related to their lives, struggles and triumphs. It was clear this music is vitally important to them.

So just because the music doesn't move me, or is structurally transparent to me, doesn't mean it's objectively "bad" or worthless. Who am I to judge someone's creative process and the resulting impact on an audience?

I grew up with two opera singers for parents, and classical music was the only thing I ever heard at home. So the day I came from my friend's house with a stack of Beatles records, it was like an atom bomb went off. I was smitten with the Beatles' music, but it would be decades before my parents would begrudgingly acknowledge their musical worth.

My parents simply couldn't relate to the Beatles, and quite frankly, they weren't the intended audience. So I totally accept the fact that now I'm simply too old and have too many decades of my own musical conditioning that makes it challenging for me to relate to today's popular music. And that's perfectly okay. It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's bit about how whatever style of clothes people were wearing when they first got laid, that's the style they end up wearing for the rest of their life. The impact music has on us is kind of like that.

Popular music isn't about musicianship, virtuosity, or compositional sophistication. It's about making emotional connections. We composers are quick to dissect, analyze, and reduce music to its structural components, and if it seems too simple or obvious, we tend to sneer and dismiss it. But we're a weird bunch  We think about music every day, all day. But the vast majority that makes up the listening audience, barely think about music at all, and they experience it in a completely different way than we do. And thank goodness for that, because we need an audience that can embrace our music on an emotional and visceral level to remind us what the true power of music is.


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## pinki (Jul 25, 2022)

It’s all been shit since Pala-frikin-strina and that’s my final word.


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## Kyle Preston (Jul 25, 2022)

These rants are always the same. Underneath the sharp words and spiteful tone is someone simply saying: _“real music is what I learned during that one decade I never grew out of.”_


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## Leigh (Jul 25, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> These rants are always the same. Underneath the sharp words and spiteful tone is someone simply saying: _“real music is what I learned during that one decade I never grew out of.”_


"We do most of our listening when we're young." -- Joni Mitchell


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## rnb_2 (Jul 25, 2022)

I was wondering if someone was going to link to that piece here - I saw it a few weeks ago (I haven't been a Medium subscriber in years, but I still get a digest email from them every day, and sometimes read some of the writers that aren't monetizing there) and thought about doing it myself, but eventually decided that the piece didn't really hold together that well.

First, he isn't strictly a non-musician - he often writes about composing "disco" music for fun - so he's not coming from a place of no hands-on knowledge. That said, while I think some of his points are valid - there are a lot of problems with current popular music, whether it's the over-processing that is done as a matter of course, or the autotuning of just about everyone, or the way that musicians' looks (particularly women) have become even more essential to success over the last few decades - there are also areas where he gets into "old man yelling at clouds" territory and loses the plot a bit. He doesn't have a firm grasp of exactly what a sampled orchestra is, for instance - those are _real musicians_ playing _real instruments_, after all, though it's not *purely* that, and what many on this board spend their lives chasing is some combination of the technically "best" and most emotionally evocative version of that.

I'm old enough to have some understanding of how time locks you into certain eras of your life, for good and bad. There isn't much music that could ever hit me the way that my favorites from the 80s and 90s did, but I don't generally use that as an indictment of more or less modern music - everything is a product of its time, and our brains are heavily biased to attach emotional weight to things we encounter when we're young. I honestly don't even listen to much music any more - there are only so many hours in the day, and I can't listen to anything with lyrics while reading, or I won't absorb anything (and I'm constantly reading, to the point where I have to find time to squeeze in a few podcasts while doing other things).

Also, I do think that democratizing creative and artistic pursuits is a good thing, full stop. Whatever tools are used to get an idea from someone's head out into the world are valid, and while I understand that spending years learning to play an instrument well is valuable, there are a lot of people who either never had the opportunity (because of cost or circumstance) or don't have the physical ability to do it (through simply not having the physical coordination and dexterity, for whatever reason). That doesn't mean those people don't have a beautiful melody in their head, and anything that allows them to get that out is a positive for the world. So, I can't agree that technology is the root of any problem we might see in modern music - it's more about the choices that people make in the use of technology, what shortcuts are taken along the way, and which bad habits get ingrained into the process.


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## Cyberic (Jul 26, 2022)

d4vec4rter said:


> I have to disagree with this statement. In order to create any music whatsoever (good or bad), you NEED to know something about music surely? Like how to play an instrument or what chords work in a particular key. My 5 year old nephew plays his guitar with pure spirit. Unfortunately, the music is pretty terrible.


Steve Lukather on an internal US flight found himself seated next to 17 year old male. They talked and Lukather asked “What do you do?”. The teenager replied “I’m a musician.”

“What do you play?” enquired Luke.

“I play the drum machine.” said the teen.

Back in the day there was a columnist named Big George, a professional composer, on Sound on Sound magazine who related the story of a songwriter who came to him for advice. The songwriter only played the white keys on a keyboard because he didn’t know what the black ones were for.


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## Polkasound (Jul 26, 2022)

A few years ago I wrote this article:


*The "Problem" with Today's Pop Music*
_October 30, 2019_

I knew it would happen sooner or later. My friends— the people I grew up with — are complaining about today's pop music. "It's got no melody"; "It's so risqué"; "It all sounds the same"; "How can anyone listen to this crap?" and so on.

It's one thing to have an opinion about a song or style of music, but when you start making blanket statements declaring how bad today's pop music is, whose voice are you hearing? Your own, or your parents'? If you truly feel that today's pop music is void of substance and moving in the wrong direction, you're welcome to that opinion, but please be advised... you run the risk of revealing your age.

Pop music changes with each new generation. It's supposed to. World events, social trends, and technology continually shape and transform pop music. It was once parlor music and ragtime, then became jazz, then became swing, then became rock n' roll, then became surf rock and British pop, then became punk and album-oriented rock, then became hair metal, rap, and synth-oriented dance pop, then became boy bands, divas, indie, and more. When pop music hit the new millennium, it had already branched out into unlimited, blended forms of styles like EDM and trap.

Whether or not you like today's pop music, it's right where it's supposed to be and doing what it's supposed to be doing: appealing to young people with lyrics, sounds, and beats tuned specifically to their ears. It's not supposed to sound good to you because you're too old to feel what it has to offer.

The reason pop music has always appealed to young people, and why young people are the driving force behind it, is biological in nature. Music is a vehicle by which young people form and establish their identities and social connections. Before they enter their teens, they start growing virtual antennae tuned to the frequency of pop music. When they reach their mid teens, their antennae grow to their maximum height. As they enter adulthood, the antennae start to shrink, and within about ten years, they're completely gone. They're no longer needed, because the person's identity has been established.

Your antennae are long gone, so any hope of experiencing your children's emotional connection to today's pop music is futile. If you're open-minded, you can still appreciate aspects of the music, but your brain is incapable of responding to it like it did when you were 15. If you are aware of this, then you can understand why your parents didn't like your music of the 80s, just like your grandparents didn't like your parents' music of the 50s, just like your great grandparents didn't like your grandparents' music of the 30s.

So, if you think today's pop music sounds bad, you can swear up and down it's the music, but... is it?




Cyberic said:


> The songwriter only played the white keys on a keyboard because he didn’t know what the black ones were for.


What polka band did he play with?

(I've really got to stop cracking these polka jokes before one of my peers finds me here and rats me out!)


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## cedricm (Jul 26, 2022)

Pretty sure the same article has been written every 20 years since Gutenberg at least.


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## Kent (Jul 26, 2022)

cedricm said:


> Pretty sure the same article has been written every 20 years since Gutenberg at least.


yep, it's basically a remix of this old chestnut (& current meme)


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## versko19 (Jul 26, 2022)

This is just so poorly thought out and executed. The ideas are rambles scattered all over the place. One minute it's about the musicianship, another minute it's about the soul, the next it's about the synths; but wait, some dudes "play" their synths so they don't fall into that category. His entire post is ironic. He's literally whining about the downfall of an entire art form, whilst contributing to the dilution of another art form altogether. I wonder if he even notices?

It's hilarious how little his rant has contributed to any sort of discourse, yet he feels the need to attack an entire generation of artists who are most certainly contributing to the music as a whole. Had he framed his argument around the accessibility of creative tools and content distribution, then maybe that would have made for a more interesting rant/discourse.

As mentioned above, I suppose the guy needs to make a quick buck, and this is his way of doing. Just a hypocritical, clickbait artist.


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## PeterN (Jul 27, 2022)

versko19 said:


> This is just so poorly thought out and executed. The ideas are rambles scattered all over the place. One minute it's about the musicianship, another minute it's about the soul, the next it's about the synths; but wait, some dudes "play" their synths so they don't fall into that category. His entire post is ironic. He's literally whining about the downfall of an entire art form, whilst contributing to the dilution of another art form altogether. I wonder if he even notices?
> 
> It's hilarious how little his rant has contributed to any sort of discourse, yet he feels the need to attack an entire generation of artists who are most certainly contributing to the music as a whole. Had he framed his argument around the accessibility of creative tools and content distribution, then maybe that would have made for a more interesting rant/discourse.
> 
> As mentioned above, I suppose the guy needs to make a quick buck, and this is his way of doing. Just a hypocritical, clickbait artist.


Yea, but this is same with our art.

You throw in 15 plugins on a track, when 1 is the most needed. He is on the track to sharpen his swords, he shall not be ridiculed as a fool. Eventually - if he continues and develops - he will see his writings objectively and take steps further.

If the guy is young, this is the abyss he has to wade through. Just like we threw stereo enhancement, saturation, crystalliser, delay and low end boost on a single track.

In the end he may realise only saying "Omm" can bring the wrath of Gods. Or, that no words are even necessary: thinking is already a tool for power.


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

Pretty sure there's a correlation between how old and how white the people are who write things like that article.

...ah well, I'm already bored. Next!

Edit: because people will read this very literally I will clarify: this post translates to something along the lines of "this is nonsense and who gives a shit"


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

Denkii said:


> Pretty sure there's a correlation between how old and how white the people are who write things like that article.
> 
> ...ah well, I'm already bored. Next!


Mr. Umair Haque?.... Irish and German ancestors...


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> Mr. Umair Haque?.... Irish and German ancestors...


Sounds like a slight historic predisposition for wanting to Leiting the Kultur

Edit: just an ironic, insensitive comment to fuel the fire. Again: who gives a shit?


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## Corda1983 (Jul 27, 2022)

The article is incredibly general and not very well formulated.

I sort of get what the author is saying. We *do *live in a world of "beats" and "sounds" now. There's a whole industry of "music producers" and "beatmakers" out there who are ostensibly creating music in a much more algorithmic, digital way than it used to be made - and there's an argument to be made that it has fostered a more sterile, brittle and lifeless music industry... to an extent.

But there's a few major caveats to be made here.

Firstly, since the dawn of culture the "it used to be better back then" argument has been used over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. It's the most tired argument in existence - everything these days is soulless and horrible and everything back _then_ is brilliant and human and warm and fuzzy. People have been talking about sterile, manufactured pop for decades. The Backstreet Boys or NSYNC were this awful, manufactured, soulless boyband tripe back in the 90s but now people look at the boyband phenomena of the 90s as something much more honest and real. That sense that we live in a dystopia is perennial and a bad way of thinking about culture.

Secondly, there's a ton of great digital music out there. A ton. There's a metric ton of bad digital music too, but then that's never been any different either.

The mainstream music industry has always been attacked as sterile - always. It's always been seen as lifeless, cynical, soulless, exploitative. Whether that's true or not is largely irrelevant - in twenty or thirty years time people will be looking back at this period with the same "it wasn't so bad" attitude as we look back at the 80s or 90s.

Finally - there's literally a million songs on Apple/Spotify/YouTube that are amazing, warm, soulful, honest, human - and have been produced in the last 5 years. It's not like there's no good music out there. Looking at the charts and bemoaning the state of music, especially in this digital/streaming age, is pointless. Yes - it's a shame for sure that a lot of wonderful musicians will never get the recognition or financial freedom they deserve - but that's most certainly true of any decade in human memory. But, if you just want to find good, interesting, honest, innovative music of almost any genre - we've never lived in a better age.


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

Denkii said:


> Sounds like a slight historic predisposition for wanting to Leiting the Kultur


Huh?


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## Polkasound (Jul 27, 2022)

I didn't think Haque's article was all that poorly executed, because he maintained a central theme -- how today's music is sterile because of all the different ways computers aid in its creation. Although he didn't use all these specific terms, he went down the list of those ways: Virtual instruments, quantization, auto-tune, multi-band limiting, programming vs. playing, etc. His article is about how they all add up to music that's lifeless.

As some have pointed out, an article like this is one that could have been written 30, 60, or 90 years ago. A person over 35 saying he doesn't like the day's current pop music is like a toddler saying he doesn't like broccoli. _It's not news._ So my guess is that he wrote this article as a means of venting, or else he chose a clickbaity subject on which to stamp out a filler article.

A couple years ago, I saw a video where a young musician was creating a beat on his computer. He whipped together a four-bar drum, bass, and chord pattern, and as it looped over and over, he closed his eyes and bobbed his head, getting lost in the sound of the beat no differently than how some of us might get lost in an emotional orchestral piece. This is when it hit me that today's pop music, no matter what anyone thinks of it, is exactly where it should be. What may sound sterile and lifeless to Umair Haque is the same exact music that stirs the souls of millions of Millennials and Gen Z youth. In other words, there's nothing wrong with it.


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> Huh?


I admit it's a bit far fetched and taken out of it's original context: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitkultur


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

While the "old man yells at clouds" opinion is not a completely non-existent argument, I have to say it sounds mostly ageist and kind of nasty. (some now even blame it on the race of the person...)

Older people (what is "old" ? 30?40?50?) cannot have a very good taste in music?


While it's true we tend to immediately respond what we associate with our youth, maybe it's not always a generational thing and there might an actual point in one's opinion and taste?
Maybe it's not OK to just dismiss an opinion based on one's age?

Most accomplished composers are 40 and over....

I hated most mainstream when I was a kid too.


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

Denkii said:


> I admit it's a bit far fetched and taken out of it's original context: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitkultur


you said the *person* is white you didn't refer to the "culture"
Own your bs please


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> While the "old man yells at clouds" opinion is not a completely non-existent argument, I have to say it sounds mostly ageist and kind of nasty. (some now even blame it on the race of the person...)


You didn't get my sense of humor and I can see why. Like i said it was far fetched.
I cannot speak for others but for me personally, I certainly blame nothing on age or race in this discussion about that article.
I just can't take anyone serious who will address an audience with saying that their opinion about art is supposedly objectively better than any alternative that they personally dislike.

My far fetched comment went into the direction of "I heard that one before and I don't like it".


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> you said the *person* is white you didn't refer to the "culture"
> Own your bs please


Oh we gettin personal now?
Sanctus Café or deleted posts let's go.


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

Denkii said:


> You didn't get my sense of humor and I can see why. Like i said it was far fetched.
> I cannot speak for others but for me personally, I certainly blame nothing on age or race in this discussion about that article.
> I just can't take anyone serious who will address an audience with saying that their opinion about art is supposedly objectively better than any alternative that they personally dislike.
> 
> My far fetched comment went into the direction of "I heard that one before and I don't like it".


I'm not going to bother.
see ya


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## Polkasound (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> While the "old man yells at clouds" opinion is not a completely non-existent argument, I have to say it sounds mostly ageist and kind of nasty. (some now even blame it on the race of the person...)


What you're seeing is stereotypes exploited for humorous intent... the same thing comedians have been doing for generations. I'm certain no offense was intended.

When I was going over an elderly relative's TV watching habits with a Black caregiver, I mentioned that she plunks down in her chair and watches Fox News pretty much all day. I added something like, "Well, she is 85 and White," and we both got a hearty chuckle out of it. I can't speak for Denkii but I'm confident his comments were meant in the same lighthearted way.


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## A.Dern (Jul 27, 2022)

Random British economist who describes himself as "one of the world's leading thinkers" has blanket opinions on all music ever created by anyone, and assumes his thoughts must be the objective truth. Because reasons. Oh no... whatever am I gonna do? Nothing. Ignore the noise and keep creating everyone  If he can't feel the music anymore, that's a _him_ problem, not an _us_ problem. I for one can feel _a lot _of modern music being created, no matter what tools have been used.


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## AudioLoco (Jul 27, 2022)

Polkasound said:


> What you're seeing is stereotypes exploited for humorous intent... the same thing comedians have been doing for generations. I'm certain no offense was intended.
> 
> When I was going over an elderly relative's TV watching habits with a Black caregiver, I mentioned that she plunks down in her chair and watches Fox News pretty much all day. I added something like, "Well, she is 85 and White," and we both got a hearty chuckle out of it. I can't speak for Denkii but I'm confident his comments were meant in the same lighthearted way.


Your story is pretty funny.
Probably wouldn't have worked if you relative was called Yasmin Hussein Ahmedi Abdul Jabar....
 

His comment really didn't feel like humor, and if there was any, it totally passed me by.


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

A.Dern said:


> Random British economist who describes himself as "one of the world's leading thinkers" has blanket opinions on all music ever created by anyone, and assumes his thoughts must be the objective truth. Because reasons. Oh no... whatever am I gonna do? Nothing. Ignore the noise and keep creating everyone  If he can't feel the music anymore, that's a _him_ problem, not an _us_ problem. I for one can feel _a lot _of modern music being created, no matter what tools have been used.


Where's the guide to be 10% as elegant as you?
I seem to need it.


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## Denkii (Jul 27, 2022)

Polkasound said:


> What you're seeing is stereotypes exploited for humorous intent... the same thing comedians have been doing for generations. I'm certain no offense was intended.
> 
> When I was going over an elderly relative's TV watching habits with a Black caregiver, I mentioned that she plunks down in her chair and watches Fox News pretty much all day. I added something like, "Well, she is 85 and White," and we both got a hearty chuckle out of it. I can't speak for Denkii but I'm confident his comments were meant in the same lighthearted way.


Pretty much this.
Yes, I'm not stupid, i knew my comment would probably backfire because it would be read way more literal than I meant it but also (spoiler alert, another race-bomb incoming) I am not Canadian enough to not be a tiny bit provocative.

To clarify: i did not want to attack anyone and I am not looking for a fight. I was trying to make ridiculous comments that are just as absurd and meaningless as this man's article (in my opinion because everything is subjective yadda yadda).


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## Polkasound (Jul 27, 2022)

AudioLoco said:


> Probably wouldn't have worked if you relative was called Yasmin Hussein Ahmedi Abdul Jabar....


Probably not, but every culture and race has its stereotypes. As a Midwestern polka musician, I can poke fun at old, white people stereotypes like no one else, and that may be why I immediately perceived Denkii's remark as humor.



AudioLoco said:


> His comment really didn't feel like humor, and if there was any, it totally passed me by.


Totally understood. We all perceive words in our own way.


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## kitekrazy (Jul 27, 2022)

So many of these type of rants.

When anything is mass produced the quality suffers.

There are also more styles of music that cater to different needs. People say there is no feeling in EDM. Well it's for dancing instead of lying in a lounge chair listening through a boutique hi-fi system.


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## Gingerbread (Jul 27, 2022)

Unhappy old person is unhappy and old.

He's arguing against a _tool_. That's always a losing proposition.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Jul 29, 2022)

There is some truth to what the guy wrote, but largely he is trolling us, like all clickbait. He wants to inspire threads like this, where people can debate all his ridiculous overstatements.

I think the music you appreciate has to do with the kind of music you are exposed to a lot. Personally I never listened enough to EDM to be able to even say what it was. I assumed it was aimed at young people dancing at clubs and raves to DJs. But I didn't reject it. I got older and tended to listen to music that connected with the music I grew up on--singer-songwriters like Sara Bareilles, Maggie Rogers, etc.

But I recently got an Oculus so I could exercise. And when you play a game like Beat Saber or exercise to Supernatural you're exposed to all kinds of music. To score the most points you have to think like a drummer and hit right on the beats. If you're a little off it's not good. As I listened to so many songs--EDM and its variants, unfamiliar rap, etc--dozens of times I became fascinated with how they were constructed, because it was so alien to what I knew. Playing in rhythm meant I became hyper-aware of constant changes in BPM. This was much more complicated stuff than an idle, offhand listen would suggest. It was just centered more on the beat than on what I was more familiar with.

And strangely I started to really love some of these songs. I look forward to hearing them. I never would have, but the people who curated my workouts led me to them.

I've also become obsessed with Billie Eilish (who you can get on Beat Saber) Listening to this song, it took me a long time to figure out that the narrator just killed many people. People she knew. Not the most obvious choice for the premise of a pop song in any era.



Is Billie Eilish a bad singer that needs auto-tune? Working with her brother, does she create great songs with great arrangements? How is this so incredibly different from Kate Bush in the studio with her Fairlight? Kate Bush is a genius, but she wasn't necessarily seen that way when she was releasing her greatest records. Billie Eilish is 20 years old. Will she develop into somebody even more interesting? In the meantime, I'm listening obsessively to her current output.

It's news to me that Ariana Grande can't sing. I doubt anybody who has seen this thinks that.



How does Miley Cyrus sound unplugged? She sings with control and feeling and would have been at home in the eras this guy pines for.



My point is that there are all kinds of music being made today. There are a lot of talented people with real musical chops making music today. It's on us to choose what we will listen to.

And unless it's your goal to be a cranky old person, it's also on us to listen to it with an open heart. Even the stuff that is produced in a DAW, rather than played. So what? I haven't been in a band in a long time and I make my music in a DAW. I think it's a mistake to reject new music like this click-bait know-it-all. There has always been bad music. There has always been good music. Memory is selective. I remember the set list of the songs I played in garage bands in the 60s and some of them seem like crap today.

I'm not a member of the Rick Beato cult, but the author did cherry-pick him to suit his screed. But this is also a Rick Beato video. On the Swedish hit-making producer Max Martin.



And seriously? People who love melodic pop won't be listening to "I Want it That Way" for a long time? Decades from today people will still love what is being produced by the kind of musicians the writer decries.


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