What's the paradigm of today's popular music?

[Blood Brain Barrier]

You know what I mean by paradigm. Every generation has a kind of general disposition influenced by social happenings in the world, political events and youth culture in general, and you can hear that come out in their popular music. Looking back you can vaguely sketch out each decade of postwar popular music by the trends and feelings both inside and outside popular music. You can see that the way we viewed the world changed and determined the way we made music, and what became popular shows us what kind of feelings and view of the world appealed to the consumers.

-50s: Uplifting, bouncy music due to war fatigue and people wanting 'feelgood' music like Beach Boys
-60s: A reaction against conventional music of the 50s and a wish to experiment with different sounds late in the decade. Definite anti-war feeling from the effects of the Vietnam war.
-70s: The impact of psychedelic drugs on bands and listeners took experimentalism further, and a reaction against conservative politics. Weirdness reached a peak
-80s: Re-entry of conservative politics, hippie culture became unpopular and music became more simplistic and hedonistic with the topics becoming more about sex, money and fame
-90s: A kind of disillusionment of the world and the decadence of the 80s leading up to grunge, heavy rock, hip-hop. Much less optimistic than the 80s

-00s-10s: ???

I don't really see any sort of paradigm right now. It's more of a pick-and-mix from each previous decade and blending of different sounds - electronica with real instruments, rap with rock, etc. Maybe that itself is the paradigm - rejection of boundaries, bringing together of people. That seems to be a common theme in today's youth culture as well. But if there's a general attitude it seems strictly musical rather than linked to social structures or movements.

That's not to say there isn't one. Something like Gangnam Style has a definite perspective of society, even though I couldn't quite say what it is.

*EDIT: This is not a "today's music sucks" thread. I have no opinion on the quality of it.

 

[Vault101]

*insert obligitory joke about skrillex/beiber/gangnam style/everything being shit or somthing because the music when you were a kid was sooooo much better*

eh..I got nothing, I tend not to look at thease things on such a wide scale anyway...all I know if wubs are cool

 

[pilouuuu]

Music nowadays is a reflection of consumerism in our society. It's like junk food. Easily consumed, but with no soul or passion. It's just a discardable product, made by producers with different target markets in mind. There's little artistic value in music these days and it reminds a bit of pop in the 80s, except that during that time it may have been commercial music, but it had an artistic vision and musicians were really talented in many cases.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

So yeah... all in all, I'd say this decade has been a bit crap in terms of musical movements.

Music nowadays is a reflection of consumerism in our society. It's like junk food. Easily consumed, but with no soul or passion. It's just a discardable product, made by producers with different target markets in mind. There's little artistic value in music these days and it reminds a bit of pop in the 80s, except that during that time it may have been commercial music, but it had an artistic vision and musicians were really talented in many cases.

Oh, I didn't mean to say anything about the quality of today's music. I don't listen to much of it so I don't have an opinion. Musical quality is all taste anyway. I don't regard political or meaningful music as 'superior' to music about sex and fashion.

Whatever the music is, it's an expression of the Being of the musicians of the day. It's never about nothing, nor can it be. If it's popular and listened to on a large scale then there's something in it that resonates with the audience. I just want to know what that is.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

As for why this all is... Kids aren't looking for deep insight or emotion in their music anymore. They're looking for songs to soundtrack their nights down the clubs. Here in the UK at least, teenagers seem to want to spend their free time getting shit-faced in a club, and music is being made to cater to this. Hence why there hasn't been the same political awareness in recent music, despite economic and social upheaval being as great as anything that happened in the 60s or 70s. The majority of record buying kids don't look to music for inspiration or insight any more, they use it to soundtrack their beer chugging contests.

Music nowadays is a reflection of consumerism in our society. It's like junk food. Easily consumed, but with no soul or passion. It's just a discardable product, made by producers with different target markets in mind. There's little artistic value in music these days and it reminds a bit of pop in the 80s, except that during that time it may have been commercial music, but it had an artistic vision and musicians were really talented in many cases.

Pretty much these points. People don't want music, they want soundtracks that can accompany their drugs and bright lights.

That said, I think there's another factor at play here, and that is the simple fact that the idea music as we know it is probably going to change within this decade. What do I mean? Well . . .

Spoiler: I never miss any opportunity to plug these guys. Brilliant channel, and this particular video is relevant to the discussion at hand.

Okay, so, what I mean when I say that music is changing is that it isn't music any more - it's sound. That is, if you listen to any given dubstep "song," you'll find that is has pretty much nothing in common with a traditional song. There's no verse, no chorus, very little actual singing, and very few traditional instruments. What dubstep does have, however, is an abundance of sound and fury. And, yes, it's mostly written by idiots, signifying nothing.

That is to say, dubstep has pretty much ushered in a new kind of "music." Previously, music as we knew it was about things like harmony, melody, intelligent and articulate lyrics, that sort of thing. Nowadays, music has shifted more into (I feel; I could be wrong) providing accompaniment or a soundtrack to club activities and the like. It's less about the "music" itself and more about the feelings we associate with it.

Spoiler: By COMPLETE coincidence, I have an Idea Channel video about liking the feelings we get from things more than things themselves. Who'd have guessed?

Now, you could very well say that ye olde musice was about that sort of thing. After all, plenty of bands in the 60s and 70s wrote about emotions, but - and I think this is a pretty important distinction - those songs, being songs, tended to be about the emotion. One would write a love ballad or a song about sad things, rather than a song that just served to help people feel those emotions themselves.

As an addendum, I just want to point out that I don't think this is a good change. I vastly prefer actual music to sound and fury, and I would be much happier if the mainstream did so as well, but I just think that it's the way things are going. Rock and roll was the music of our parents, and dubstep is the music of this generation. I hate that that's the case, but it seems to be so, and it isn't going anywhere any time soon.

 

[smithy_2045]

Music has diversified greatly in the past decade or so because it's so much more accessible. You don't need to be on a major label, anyone can make music from their bedroom, upload it onto the internet and become successful.

 

[M K Ultra]

/beeps in

What is Autotune, Alex?

 

[Slitzkin]

A lot of revivalist music in the early 00s. Bands like The Strokes, The Killers Interpol, Arctic Monkeys, Mew, Japandroids (they are a bit later on though), Tame Impala, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Real Estate, Editors take a lot of influences from 70s and 80s Punk/Alternative bands like the Velvet Underground, Television, The Stooges, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Cure, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks and even some more stream stuff like Bruce Springsteen, New Order, The Cars and Spandau Ballet.

There is also a lot of ambient inspired, dark pop, dream pop or experimental music. They use a lot synths and unconvential sounds and instruments, some are heavily textured and complex (Animal Collective) and others are very simple and stripped down (James Blake). In the last 5 or so years musicians like Animal Collective (Panda Bear included), Grimes, James Blake, M83, Passion Pit, The Knife, Atlas Sound, Lotus Plaza, Deerhunter, Beach House, Bat For Lashes, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, Phoenix.

Bands using baroque or chamber instruments are becoming more common also. Remember Kate Bush? They sound like her with better audio quality and a lot more experimentation (and more guitar. But they sound most like those few Beatle albums (Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul), The Kinks and other 60s music. Beirut, Florence + the Machine, Fleet Foxes, The Decemberists Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Destroyer, Feist, She & Him are a few baroque bands.

So in short, old school music with a twist, dream pop/ambien/experimental and baroque.

 

[CityofTreez]

Not going to talk about Gaga or teh Beibs.

If you want a good feel of quality music over the past decade, look at groups such as: The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Modest Mouse ect. You can find a ton of quality music, you just have to look past the "big names" of pop.

I would say most of these bands take from a good portion of 70's/80's stuff with nice experimentation and a face lift. (for good or bad)

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

This whole generation of mainstream music is defined by a single word: consumerism.

Basically, everyone's making the same generic, shallow-but-stimulative sounds in an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator and make as many sales as possible. Teenage pop stars are being churned out one after another because one of the largest consumer demographics of modern music is the teenage group. Everything is over-processed and heavily tuned to mask the low-quality of the actual stars. That's not to say that all modern musicians are crappy, and that nothing should be processed at all; I'm quite fond of Lights, and I think the amount of tuning she does matches the electronic style of her music without compromising her actual voice.

It's all about what sells these days. Many big stars have little vision besides making money. In fact, that's, in many cases, exactly why they're big stars. No one cares about the guy writing heartfelt lyrics with meaning and vision in his garage if he doesn't appeal to mass audiences, because he won't make any money. Since no one cares about him, he's not going to get popular, no matter how much he believes in his vision. On the other hand, some overly-made-up, collagen-injected, plastic woman earns tons of cash because she calls someone a "stupid ho" repeatedly over the course of a song, because for some reason that appeals to people.

I really don't think that this is fair. While talent and quality are factors, they take a back seat to marketability. It's more a popularity contest than anything else, which is the major problem I have with award shows, such as the VGAs. How popular a song only has a rather small correlation with its quality, and I dislike this. However, I do understand that quality is subjective. It's just that everything is geared toward being the easiest to make at the lowest tolerable quality possible in order to minimize production costs while still generating heavy revenue from a massive consumer base and appeal to the lowest common denominator. The emphasis on profit's kind of disgusting, actually.

Modern music isn't accompanied solely by downsides, though; the ease at which music's produced has allowed for everyone with an idea and some method of composing to get in on it. This has caused a hell of a lot of diversity in the underground scene, and hopefully in a few years when everyone realizes that they're being fed crap for every meal, metaphorically speaking, we'll see a flood of real talent and quality enter the industry.

... Wow, that quickly turned into a rant about my opinions on modern mainstream music, didn't it? I still say that it can be defined by the rampant consumerism that currently exists in our society. That's our paradigm; we've entered the consumerist era, and I for one am scrambling to get out.

EDIT: I also see that I'm looking at things rather narrowly. But, honestly, I'm not exposed to much besides what's super popular, so I don't have much reference besides that.

 

[Dags90]

How does Mariah Carey, by far the biggest selling musical artist of the 90's, fit into your 90's paradigm (Hint: She doesn't). While grunge was a very popular movement, it wasn't ever mainstream. Boybands and Bubblegum Pop typify 90's pop music just as much as grunge and sold more records, and they were only really prevalent in the late 90's. Whereas for the early 90's, I'd say R&B was probably the biggest influence.

Similarly, I'd say the 00'-09 period needs to be broken in half. With the early half taking more influences from rap and hip-hop, and the latter half taking a lot from eurodance/house music.

So far for 10-beyond: Adele, Florence + the Machine, Ed Sheeran, Gotye, The Lumineers, Imagine Dragons, I think this is the trend pop music is heading towards so far. If Of Monsters and Men can start getting some major radio play (and it is getting some playtime on my local adult contemporary station) I think it would pretty much seal the deal

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Every idiot with a middle-school vocabulary and a sound producing device (wub to the wub) decides that if they act douchey enough or sell out enough they can become riCh and famous.

However, too many people had this idea and now none of them will be remembered for very long or stand out well enough for anyone to care.


So I'm cynical since my Nickelback thread, sue me.

 

[Spiritmaster]

As someone who mostly listens to metal, I can only offer my view on that genre. I agree with those above who talked about consumerism, looking at artists such as Korn and Rob Zombie, their newer stuff has gotten far more... mainstream or perhaps more easily paletable by those who would probably be turned off by their older stuff. I mean Rob's latest stuff is either strip club nonsense or terrible remixes, and Korn's last album just didn't feel like Korn and I don;t think I would buy the "moving in a new direction" defense for those two specific groups who have been making music since the eairly 90s.

Death Metal has also gotten to the point where I'm not even sure if they write lyrics any more as it all just sounds like noise with no discernable syllabels.

 

[Olas]

I think OP might enjoy this.

Spoiler: The Rock Timeline

Basically it suggests the most recent decade was when music became the most commercialized and artificial with songs scientifically tailored to make money by appealing to mass audiences as much as possible. In other words it's the decade of hip hop and pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Nickelback. I don't listen to much recent music so I'm the last person to ask for expert advice on this sort of thing but it seems like it's true.

However, I feel like pointing out that the way we remember decades isn't always highly reflective of what was actually popular during said decade. We tend to remember the music that's grown to be the most popular over the years, forgetting that for every Rolling Stones or Beatles song in the 60s there was also a song like Sugar Sugar and Yummy Yummy Yummy also topping the charts.

 

[lechat]

Not going to talk about Gaga or teh Beibs.

If you want a good feel of quality music over the past decade, look at groups such as: The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Modest Mouse ect. You can find a ton of quality music, you just have to look past the "big names" of pop.

I would say most of these bands take from a good portion of 70's/80's stuff with nice experimentation and a face lift. (for good or bad)

so basically your opinion is anything not from the 70's and 80's or sounding like it is garbage?
interesting that i like alot of 70's and 80's stuff but hate all those bands (except some strokes) but i would really hope ppl could put aside their own opinions of what is the best decade of music is (hint it's whatever the fuck you listened to growing up) or which decade had the best fashion (clearly the 80's)

i personally blame the internets for the mish mash of music we have these days. go back 10 years ago and in order to get a record deal you had to make a mix tape that someone would listen to for more than 5 seconds, maybe do some time performing in pubs/clubs without getting strangled and then sign a deal locking you into a 50 year contract to do whatever the record labels thinks is the safest mass produced garbage they can get away with making

these days you just jump on youtube and hope you don't get locked up for making a few preteens moist while singing a copy of some other recycled garbage



from wikipedia
The song was a hit in Australia, spending thirteen weeks on the Australian singles chart and peaking at number eighteen. It also came 40th in Triple J's annual Hottest 100 music poll in 1993. It was also successful on United States Alternative rock radio, charting at #21 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart

 

[Reginald]

Death Metal has also gotten to the point where I'm not even sure if they write lyrics any more as it all just sounds like noise with no discernable syllabels.

Man, have you forgotten about Lord Worm? Dude didn't even bother with, like, half the syllables. That was back in the day, too.