The Official "Music Was So Much Better in the Glorious Days of Yore" Thread

[duga]

^

Wow, you put a lot of time into that. It doesn't change what I was arguing earlier. Everyone seems to be talking about what is popular.

I challenge every person on this planet to actually take some time, do some research, and look for music a little bit deeper. You will find music that is just as good as anything you may like from an earlier decade.

Please, I'm begging you to think stop thinking so narrowly. Imagine yourself in the 70's...no doubt what was popular then, in my opinion, is better than what is popular now. But there was still ****. There was still excellent excellent music no one even remembers. Either way you cut it, this argument will be true so if you were living in the 70's (or whatever decade you like the most), so you would probably be walking around saying the same stuff you are today.

[Nine Black Poppies]

Originally Posted by duga

Everyone seems to be talking about what is popular.

This is definitely an important distinction that doesn't seem to be being made much.

I mean, look at, say the Billboard charts for any given year and you'll find a hell of a lot of fluff--"Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (1969), "Tonight's the Night" by Rod Stewart (1977), "To Sir With Love" by Lulu (1967) were all the #1 songs for their respective years--all music I'd wager that contemporary people complained about the same way we're all bitching now. And a large quantity of music considered the creme of the crop of their era was essentially unnoticed by popular consciousness at the time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the past dozen or so years have radically shifted the way music is released and absorbed, as well. There's SO MUCH out there now, so much easy access to such a mind-bending array of different musical ideas, that any generalization about the state of modern music, especially to bemoan it for a lack of... well, frankly, anything... just seems like laziness. And not just laziness, but laziness attempting to justify itself with a comfortable elitism.

I wouldn't get on such a high horse about that, except that that kind of negativity in an artistic community makes it that much harder for that community to thrive. If one assumes that good music (however one defines that) isn't being produced, it's that much more unlikely one will find it when it is, that music doesn't get supported and ultimately either flounders, continues to live in obscurity or changes into something else, leading to more people bitching about it not being out there.

End

[Rickenbacker]

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

"To Sir With Love" by Lulu (1967)

To Sir, With Love is one of the best pop songs ever.

[storymilo]

Originally Posted by Rickenbacker

To Sir, With Love is one of the best pop songs ever.

Not to mention Sugar Sugar.... I mean it's ridiculously cheesy but it's catchy and stuff.

Not the best pop song ever or anything though.

[Neapolitan]

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

I mean, look at, say the Billboard charts for any given year and you'll find a hell of a lot of fluff--"Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (1969), "Tonight's the Night" by Rod Stewart (1977), "To Sir With Love" by Lulu (1967)

I don't get it, are you saying that those songs are awesomely fluffy or what?