ateiso

Let's not gloss over the fact that the charts, though not a limiting factor to enjoying music, are a good indicator of the current music landscape and people are always ready to justify the music they listen to, but your reasoning is almost the same reasoning used it one where to question whether the higher rates of crime or road deaths now as compared to the 90s are linked to higher population.

In the spirit of confining ourselves to the topic the answer I gave was in the context of the original question.

For the examples, how about RnB and soft rock?

The Batlord

Don't remember the eighties, but I've never known the nineties to be any less vapid than today. See, the reason you think music made before you remember is better is because you don't remember having to sift through all the **** to get to the good stuff. The only thing you're aware of is the music that was at least halfway decent enough to be remembered past the month it was released, which is about 1% of all music.

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Traveling_Alone

I was about to say this so I will just shake my head in agreement here.

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“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.”

― Sylvia Plath

Tristan_Geoff

I wouldn't say it's a indicating factor of anything. It's what's trending at any moment in time, but only for pop and pop rock, and even then it's the tip of the iceberg, like the smallest atom on the tip. When vaporwave and djent peaked a couple years back did the top 40 reflect this? No. In fact, the people who run the stations most likely knew nothing of them.

ateiso

I suppose you were aiming for a wider ranging context but I have to clarify that I lived through the 80s and did some of my own "grazing and sifting" and I think right from the initial post there shouldn't have been any doubt that this discussing was about anything else other than that 1% of the music. Do we really want to discuss ALL the music produced in a 30 year span, that sounds like one of those endless religious debates in the making?

As indicated by your comments, let's just keep in mind that music is an inherently subjective topic.

Tristan, so are we now saying that sampling music from previous eras and diverse genres then presenting it in a "new" way is so earth-shatteringly revolutionary as to warrant major world-wide recognition? Musicians have been sampling and remaking existing music for ages.

It's an over-simplification but you are also kind of hijacking my point and taking it in a direction that it shoudn't be going. I said a good, not a conclusive indicator, correct me if there's no distinction between the two.

Tristan_Geoff

Those were the only examples I could think of at the moment, let's use lo-fi as a better one. I'm just trying to say that it's impossible for top 40 to be a summary of anything happening in the whole music world except for other radio-friendly trends. Back to the original point, I do not believe songs from any era would be catchier or hold up longer, just due to the sheer volume of material coming out constantly. From a pop music standpoint, I find recent tunes to be much more infectious and ear-wormy than anything Madonna or Ricky Martin put out. Part of this is due to how generic it's been getting, and yeah I've known this has been said before, but I think it's most true now especially. I've heard at least three pop rap songs recently that sounded almost exactly the same, down to the hi-hats, violin sound effects, and bass. That would therefore make those beats even catchier.

Plainview

Of course the 80s and 90s seems catchier, because you've had time to filter out the none catchy stuff, so only the catchy songs remain in your memory. In ten years time people will be saying the same thing about the 00s and 10s, because they'll remember the catchy highlights. The same principle as the 'no good music nowadays' argument I guess.

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DeadChannel

To begin, I'm skeptical that what is most popular has every been a good indicator of the musical landscape. To wit, the albums that we remember from the past as being seminal aren't rarely always what top billboard or win a grammy. For instance, look at punk rock. There are very few who would question the fact that punk is one of the most influential movements on modern music. However, there are few bands within the genre that were topping the charts in the way that pop music was.

But, assuming that the charts had a baring in previous decades, I still think that we've entered a point in musical history where what's playing on the radio is increasingly irrelevant. In the internet age, we don't have to eat whatever schlock the labels have paid radio stations to play. Like, who listens to the radio anymore?

We're in the post charts era, deal with it.

Moving on. As I already said, I'm not so sure that top 40 music is any more vapid today than it has been in the past. In fact, weren't the 80s pretty notorious for one hit wonders and stupid pop songs? Can you really make the claim that Rick Astley, Bon Jovi and Smash Mouth are all that much better than Nicki Minaj, Macklemore and Ke$ha (sorry Batlord). And, indeed, didn't the 90s spawn the musical abomination that is Nu Metal? It seems to me that there has always been a pretty even amount of bollocks out there. Perhaps it's just that hindsight isn't 20/20, and that we see the schlock of our pasts through nostalgic rose tinted goggles.

I don't think there's ever been a period of time that soft rock wasn't completely void of anything resembling creativity. But hey, that's just my opinion, maybe someone else can pull out examples from the modern soft rock scene. Although, to be honest, I sure hope not.

Regarding R&B:
GrownFolk | Butcher Brown (I've been grooving pretty hard to this since it came out a few days ago. Good stuff.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anything_in_Return
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Weapon

Beyond this, there have been some really awesome records released in the last few years outside of R&B that you ought to hear before you pass judgement on an entire generation's music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Powers_That_B (Experimental noise-hope masterpiece)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Pimp_a_Butterfly (Massive, conceptual hop hop release. Some excellent top 40 hits as well)
http://www.discogs.com/Zs-Xe/release/6574867 (Not their best record, but it you want to experimental jazz, go here)
Cortar Todo: Zu: Amazon.ca: Music (Brilliant jazz-metal-whatever release)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%...arl_Sweatshirt (Melancholic rapping. First release from an member of Odd Future that I really dig)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epic_(album) (The name says everything you need to know. Massive, 3 hour jazz piece de resistance)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ba..._Joshua_Redman (Excellent jazz collaboration. Some of both artists' best material.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asunde...Other_Distress (Perhaps to some a weak moment in their discography, but it's still a massive, moving, beautiful piece of post rock)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plowin..._Field_of_Love (Depressive post punk with some sonic left hooks)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous (Jaw-breaking stoner metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhe8xpYNfo (dizzying noise rock)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_P...0%93_Easy_Meat (Napalm Death's best album in a little while. Good times)
https://patthebunny.bandcamp.com/album/cocoon-music (Fun anarcho-folk ep from one of the best songwriters in the genre)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Cities_to_Love (Brilliant indie rock record, big come back for the band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Zombie (Another come back. One of the greatest post punk bands)
https://miloraps.bandcamp.com/album/...lies-dont-come (Really great post modern art-rap thing.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_the_Jewels_2 (No holds bared hardcore hip hop with some underlying social critique)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Bi..._How_Beautiful (really pretty indie rock singer songwriter stuff)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_Kind (Best record of the decade in my opinion. Just so so god damn good.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLPPNG (Noise hop, but a bit flowier than Death Grips)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/****_O..._on_Everything (Grand post rock release from the best Godspeed side project)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Cool%3F (Fun pop punk project)
Trash Masquerade | Cousin Boneless (Brilliant spooky folk punk ensemble)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Markets (The band finally turns a good concept into a good album. And **** is it good.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_Season (Poetic, jazzy indie rock record)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Niagara_Falls (Noisy, industrial, drony, difficult, great)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_%26_Color (A colourful, fun, catchy garage rock release)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_You,_Honeybear (Singer songwriter material from the drummer of defunct excellent folk project The Fleet Foxes)
Queens of Shiva | Queens of Shiva (Typically ****ed up experimental stuff from our own Frownland)
Daydream Society (Brilliant ambient music)
I Have Everything But What I Want | The Deaf Aids (Experimental, jazzy electronic stuff)
Music | Trouble Salad (Honestly, just pick any release here. He's so god damn prolific that I can't keep up).

If you want more fore some reason, holla at me.

Moving on.

I still think that top 40 is a terrible measurement of what's happening musically at any given time. It seems like you just haven't done your research .

Wait a sec, pal, you came in here to diss an entire generation's music, as well as claim that we're too preoccupied with video games and tweeting to have good taste. Ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical to claim that modern music is vapid but cite soft rock as the height of artistic endeavor, it seems like you're the one ignoring subjectivity.

Seems like you entirely missed the point of vaporwave. The cool thing isn't that it samples other music (we have plunderfonics for that), the cool thing is that it perverts muzak for its own aesthetic purpose and in doing so transcends said muzak. Although, its gotten to be a diverse enough genre that that perhaps doesn't entirely cover the genre either. Also, and perhaps I'm just being a dick and beating on a dead horse with this one, but soft rock is exactly the kind of muzak that is being transcended.

However, vaporwave was simply cited as an example. We're not here to debate its merits. The point was that it is a trend in music that some consider significant and noteworthy that is not represented in the billboard top 40, thus demonstrating the vapidity (yes, I know, overuse of the word) of trying to nail down a generation's music based on the aforementioned top 40. I notice that you didn't address the popularity of Djent in your post.

I don't think its a good indicator because I don't think that pop radio is representative of most of the interesting trends in music, nor do I think that it will be representative of anything at all in the near future. When we look at the top 40, we see the music that is a) most commercially viable and b) best backed by major labels. Personally, I don't think that either of those things are typically very good ways of finding the best art that a generation has to offer. It's tantamount to looking at Alien 3 and discounting Reservoir dogs because they both came out in 1992.

I spent a long time writing this, so I'm gonna go watch Reservoir Dogs and eat popcorn. Have a nice day.

The Batlord

**** off, scumbag. If you were sorry then you would never have besmirched the name of Ke$ha in the first place. This was an intentional attack on the both of us, and it will not be tolerated.

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Norg

No.