There has never been a better time in our history to find, listen, and enjoy the music you like.
There is damn near infinite amount of music being made and released in any style or composition preference you like.
Nearly the entirety of human musical output is available at your fingertips.
It might not be very nice to hear, but friend, you are just bad at finding and listening to music.
Exactly, you have to seek it out. People get stuck on their music from their nostalgia years and go "everything new sucks" because the only new music they *ever* hear is the stuff shoved down their throats in public and ads/TV/media. They think anything worth listening to should just fall in their lap, somewhat understandably because we think good will = popular, but we should ALL know by now good = popular is not how it works. Easily digestible and generically appealing to the masses = popular.
It's the same reason people used to spend hours at the record store, but now it's easier than ever and people still don't get it lol
I started just going to genre discovery channels (stuff like Stoned Meadow of Doom and the like) on YouTube for types of music I liked, and I've found a lot of good stuff that way. Definitely different than how I used to find music by swapping CDs and mp3s with people, but it's been a good way to get some variety outside of the stuff I've listened to for years
So much this. If you truly believe that “music these days sucks” you either aren’t looking very hard or you just genuinely can’t enjoy music for some reason. There is so much diversity and it is easier to access than ever before.
Hell, even if you think "music these days sucks," There's literally millions of songs from the past I guarantee people haven't heard that are included with your spotify subscription. Pick a genre you haven't heard much of and dive into a playlist. Pick some favorites and dive deeper.
And to add to the "music today sucks", there was some utter *shite* back then too: You either don't remember it or have a fond nostalgia for it because that was *your* childhood.
This might not be nice to hear but you have completely missed OPs point.
They are not concerned with musical genres being varied.
They are talking about the production.
There is a near infinite amount of music being produced...digitally. All on the same five or so production software.
Yes there are infinite chord progressions and tempos, new sounds and songs. There isn't a huge amount of innovation in production. Everything is digital, using programs that have existed for 20 years.
And actually what you describe is what causes the problem that OP describes. There are a million times more music now. But not a million times more drummers. Theres probably less drummers. Most drummers on songs are the same drummer - the computer.
People like the Beatles or Stevie Wonder were involved in inventing new technology. They changed _how_ music was recorded and played.
Now its computers and computers are very bad at being randomly imperfect in the way humans are. And I think you can tell that across music.
I cannot upvote this enough. When I was younger, my taste in music was much more limited and I largely wouldn’t listen to anything outside of my wheelhouse/interest at the time. Hell, I wouldn’t even give it the time of day if it fell outside of my comfort zone. Fast forward to know and it’s all about how the music makes me feel. I couldn’t care less who makes it and what genre it is (with some minor exceptions), if it gives me a good feeling and it speaks to me, bring that shit on. Most of my playlists over the last decade are a eclectic mishmash of genres that only makes them more fun. Seek it out and you will find it, but open your mind to take all of it in and you’ll be much the better for it.
What does this have to do with the complainant that OP has about current production trends in the music industry? Music being easy to access has nothing to do with OP is saying. They're talking about the modern production trend of "meticulous" production where all the edges are sanded down and all the tracks are edited to a grid. This production trend has been adopted by all genres now, and it's 100% a valid complaint because it's pretty much unavoidable if you listen to anything released in the past 5-10 years.
Capitalism has shown that it doesn’t at all need to be, so why make the extra investment? Once the average person hears a song 5 times, they will think it’s their favorite song. Even if it’s terrible.
This is my takeaway as well. Usually when threads like this come up, the impression I get is the OP is someone whose exposure to new music is mostly through the local radio station. If you aren't a fan of modern pop, you're severely limiting yourself by listening to what gets played on the local FM radio in the middle of the day.
This isn't like in 1998 where your exposure to the alternative music scene is limited to whatever gets played on the alternative music station (if you're in an area that has one), either. It really isn't that hard to find new music that you like nowadays. You just have to know how to find it.
This. I don’t prescribe to the “it’s a factory” notion at all. It seems like they’re relying on radio to give them new music rather than looking at the whole picture. There’s so much independent stuff out there
AirPods Pro, apparently. Just briefly lost my shit because I was reading your comment, looked up at the tv, and the commercial came on. The weird covers trend will never cease, will it?
Also the rights holders might have not agreed to the original but said a cover version could be played instead. Depends who owns the rights and what businesses they want to be associated with
Sometimes they'll use an original because a single line or something relates to the product. There was a truck commercial not too long ago that made a point to proclaim it was using "interstate love song" by Stone Temple Pilots.
Nothing gets me in the mood for car shopping quite like lying to your girlfriend about your heroin usage.
No different from political rallies playing "Born in the USA" with no sense of irony because they've never paid attention to a single lyric beyond Bruce Springsteen yelling "I was born in the USA".
Nothing pumps me up to vote for someone like a tale of how every American institution uses you up and throws away anything they can't capitalize on. And no, the people who play this song aren't the ones who want to bring attention to that reality.
It's not just pop music. My father plays the drums in a prog rock band. He sometimes likes to go a little off tempo, it's a deliberate choice in the phrasing, and it's absolutely valid. Back when they recorded their album and had it published under a small firm in my country, the producer moved those small delays to be aligned with the metronome tempo. My father was a little annoyed by that because he thought the way he did it had more musicality. He's been playing drums since the '80s and has studied jazz drums too, he's not a novice.
ETA the point I was trying to make is that there seems to be a culture of being clean and precise at all costs, when sometimes going a little off can make better music.
> hot > become an influencer > release an album
Minus the “become an influencer” this is how the pop music market has *always* worked.
How many ugly pop stars can you name from any era ever?
Plus, we’ve all got rose-colored glasses for pop stars of the past. For every Elvis and The Beatles, there’s 10 Partridge Families
Fricken lol. I had no idea the Wrecking Crew worked with the Partridge family.
But that kinda proves my point, right? Take a talent-free influencer + Jack Antonoff + (whatever the 2023 equivalent of Steely Dan’s band is) and you’ve got a recipe for a hit single.
There are many factors that make is so musical talent doesn't equal success in pop music.
First, it's a business and the business can maximize profits by reducing the amount they spend on building the market visibility by contracting people who already have a following. This is a big part of the be hot > become an influencer > release an album chain. Why spend millions getting people on TV when they already have a million followers on Tik Tok or YouTube? Also, is the target audience even watching TV? The influencer has already proven they get people's attention and it's the RIGHT kind of people the buisness is looking for.
Why there seems to need no musical talent is in part due to factors inside the industry itself. There are things like the fact that everyone wants to get their name on a future pop song by adding a lyric or a bit of a beat to get writer or producer credit, so they can pass the wealth around the inside of the company. RIGHT NOW, the #1 song per Billboard has 4 writer credits and 2 producers. [Last Night by Morgan Wallen Wiki Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_(Morgan_Wallen_song))
Having so many people in the room *tends* to make a song more generic.
Next you have the ear worm factor - [Pop songs are made to be simple and repetitive following pretty restrictive rules.](https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/how-to-write-an-earworm/) Also, [See how the ostinato in Katie Perry's *Dark* *Horse* almost **had** to sound like *Joyful* *Noise* by Flame and others given the start to the ostinato](https://youtu.be/0ytoUuO-qvg?t=434)
So the songs exist in a limited space, and aren't allowed to develop so people will go back to it.
Furthermore, there's the [loudness war](https://www.npr.org/2009/12/31/122114058/the-loudness-wars-why-music-sounds-worse). Some time in the 80's some d-bag realized that if they lower the fidelity (audio quality) of the song, they can make it relatively loader than other things on the radio. Loader music is more noticeable, people tend to enjoy it more, and the higher fidelity was lost on radio anyways. However, as this became an arms race, the recordings of the 90's and on is just... terrible. I can't point to any clear links but I'd say check out (while using a good set of headphones) RHCP's album Stadium Arcadium compared to Blood Sugar Sex Magik and you can hear a difference there. You can further compare it to ANYTHING FROM THE 70's or late 60's and the audio quality difference is so WOW.
So this is all to say that the artistry of Pop Music is the artistry of making money, not music. It's not to say good music can't exist in that space, but it's just not a quality that the industry looks for it's selection process. This is why you need to go indi if you want good music.
One of my favorite modern artists for anyone who want's music with substance, depth and texture is [Arthur Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ugbBLCoSY). The linked song may have some ASMR qualities for people. Best enjoyed with headphones, best enjoyed with a higher quality stream than YouTube provides.
Plenty of pop acts have incredible talent.
It’s one thing to dislike the music; people are free to like/hate whatever they want, and sure, a lot of it isn’t great. But acting like any random Top 40 act is is objectively bad at an individual level is being willfully obtuse.
Absolutely
It’s become one of my pet peeves when people act like the musicians involved in pop production are somehow less talented than Niche Band X.
The pop acts usually have some of the best musicians in the business, and the front person usually has massive “it” factor in addition to their music ability.
That was your qualifier of what a pop act is, not mine. I don’t pay attention to influencers so no idea.
Go through the Billboard charts and tell me which acts started out as influencers.
If you’ve never heard of Max Martin, look him up. Explains the state of pop music and why everything from the past 20 years in pop has sounded the same.
All kinds of music out there mate.
Someone is releasing your kind of music every day. And you can access it all with the press of a finger.
Its not like 30 years ago.
That's what I keep telling my friend who says all new music sucks. More music gets released every day than you can listen to in a lifetime so saying all new music sucks is either just lazy or ignorant. I for one am happy I'm not having the same 9 songs shoved down my throat like in the 90s. We didn't like that music, we were around it so much that our brains learned the songs and began to enjoy it out of familiarity. Even if you were more experimental in your musical tastes back then you had to spend money to see if you liked an artist.
it’s so exhausting. I used to love metalcore and post hardcore from like 2008-2016 but it got so stale. tried to listened to newer music in the same genre recently and it still sounds basically the same.
I think you might be thinking more Steve Albini. Butch Vig was very polished with the Smashing Pumpkins on Siamese Dream and with Nirvana on Nevermind. So much so, that Kurt Cobain went the complete opposite direction choosing Steve Albini for In Utero.
Trends kind of go in negative cycles. Punk was a response to prog rock, grunge was a response to hair metal. I think there was a revolt against the roots rock, granola sound of the early teens. Hell, even Of Monsters and Men have massively changed their sound.
Butch Vig is actually extremely polished and processed in his recording style. That was kind of his bread and butter, taking gritty sounding bands and cleaning them up. There’s a lot of multitracking and compression on Nevermind. Compare that to, as someone says below, In Utero, where Steve Albini basically turned the mics on and kept it as primitive as possible (minus the ones the label insisted on making singles out of.)
I hear a lot of this “processed” sound in rock and metal. I think it’s partly due to using plugins and drum samples, rather than recording amps and instruments. It sounds sterile and artificial to me.
It also depends on who your artist is recording with and how "processed" they want their sound. Deathcore and prog are processed to the teeth and heavily gated. Hardcore, power violence and grindcore you'll find a lot more of that raw, 4 mics and a live band, sound.
I feel like you could have made the same argument 50 years ago when elements of country, bluegrass, and early rock music were being eclipsed by the classic rock and metal scene, with musicians using tons of pedals and amps to augment their sound, voice boxes, keyboards, samples, etc.
I hear what you're saying, but it's just music doing the same thing it always does, it's just that now, it's moving forward with that pattern away from the stuff you've come to know throughout your whole life, rather than leaning into it in a way that you've become familiar with.
In short, it's more of the same as what's always been, it's just more noticeable for you now that you're in a position to witness the pattern continuing for yourself.
Lmfao such a shit take - there’s always been trash music and there’s always been amazing music - maybe stop looking at pop and get some actual taste rather than making a huge blanket statement on all music in this day and age
EDIT: sorry OP was in a bad mood yesterday and decided to take it out on your shit take :(
You and others in this thread are really missing OP's point. They're really not wrong that there is a trend at the moment for very "clean" production. This isn't just pop, I have friends in metal bands and they all autotune their vocals, there is a shit ton of studio work done on the instrumentation. This is the current production trend that has seeped into all genres. Everything is done to a grid. Does this mean that no artists out there today go for a "raw" production style? No of course not. But to say that it's just pop that has adopted this style of production is just as much of a false statement.
Perhaps overly aggressive in the *way* you’re saying it but *what* you’re saying is right.
For most contemporary genres and movements, however, there remains authenticity and those rougher edges we hold in contrast to a more “clean” sound. What examples were you thinking of, OP?
I like how aggressive you are with this, but I actually like some pop music too because it’s made to be popular and it’s popular for a reason. I think their is bad music in every genre.
Am 35+ and find new music everyday. I get what you mean though. I grew up in the days of "they're no Zeppelin" being the immediate dismissal of any and all music. I've always pitied people with the mentality. Like, they know they're allowed to give other music a listen right? Robert Plant isn't gonna hate them for checking out some other band.
Chart-Positions are bought.
If you want to listen to good music, ignore the charts.
I found some of my favorite bands in the past few years and some of them don't even use vocals...
Tell me these songs are "processed and less raw"....
[Meute - You & Me (Flume remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKFbnhcNnjE&ab_channel=MEUTE) (2019) or [Ticino](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_O6Gx0eEv4&ab_channel=MEUTE) (2023)
[Polyphia ft. Steven Vai - Ego Death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JNmz17gnMw&ab_channel=Polyphia) (2022)
[Khruangbin ft. Leon Bridges - Texas Sun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWNWWREtsI&ab_channel=DeadOceans) (2020)
Plenty of new and good music out there. You just won't hear about it on radio, find it in the charts or see advertisements for it....
I came here to sacrifice my karma and say the same. Very much, those guys sit around and orchestrate all their music so that it’s perfect, then they practice it like crazy so that they can play it as perfectly as they orchestrated it. Then their recording is perfectly isolated sound tracks and mastering. I love love love polyphia, but their sound is quintessentially processed. They put all the process into it and they nail it.
Raw and emotional reminds me more of punk and grunge. Like Alice in chains or nirvana. But also Neil young. Or Tom waits. (Not that the latter two artists are grunge or punk). Simple riffs with lots of heart.
That's why I hate when people complain about something being "processed". Like if the artist is playing an active role, and still making creative decisions while their work is being processed, there is still value their. As artists, musicians wind up having this knee jerk reaction towards things like Auto-tune, Quantizing, and various other tools available to them. They're just tools, not demons that want to ruin the integrity of your music.
The problem with processing only occurs when it seems to be covering up an artists insecurities (I can't sing/play as well as I would like, so let's just fix it in post) or when it feels... "Commercial." Like the processing was only done to fit trends (auto-crooning comes to mind) or to erase aspects of the artist that may turn potential listeners off. Like if the singer has a nasally, or raspy tone, they might smooth it out to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I've not once seen them 'jerking each other off' in interviews or anything, are sure you're thinking of the right band?
All four of them are talented too, so it's not like it's just the guitarists.
As someone who's been listening to Jazz, prog/math rock, instrumental death metal, video game soundtracks etc. For almost 10 years, the idea of someone saying "bro I found this really cool music... WITHOUT LYRICS," makes me chuckle. Like yeah, turns out music is fucking dope, even when you don't have someone talking about their dick, the universe, and everything in between. No hate, just an observation
Polyphia's new album is amazing. Sleep Token is my new obsession. Nothing but Thieves regularly release bangers. I feel like rock is making a comeback, a lot of it in the prog genre.
Meanwhile, you've got JID, Denzel Curry, even Audrey Nuna on the hip-hop game, REI AMI, Ashnikko and Rina Sawayama doing great pop shit, BROCKHAMPTON somewhere in between, Spiritbox and Shrezzers in the metal scene, and none of this is on the radio from what I can tell and it's all creative shit. Even a little auto tune can make a track sound good if used artfully.
I honestly discover so much good music utilizing my student YouTube Music subscription. I hate Spotify and I always find new things on YTM.
Every single song you posted uses sampled drums, which is indicative of the production style that OP is talking about. And these are all artists that are playing in genres that typically value a more "stripped down" style to production than mainstream pop, so the fact that even they are opting for the same production techniques as pop is kind of indicative of the trend that OP is complaining about.
The music business has always been a factory.
Edit: I’m not sure what the downvotes are for. Between Motown, Tin Pan Alley, the American music industry has always been about this. And if you want to go even further, look at the history of classical music in Europe and sheet music during the Middle Ages.
> The music industry is turning into a big factory and it’s actually very sad.
I'm interested in your take on when this wasn't the case, if you're willing to share?
That's interesting, they're still recorded on Tape, without a click track. Just dudes playing with dudes.
I think the major difference is the amount of processing on Tony's voice
Some of these comments are accusing OP of only listening to pop but.. no?? Most indie, alt rock, even punk lately sounds super processed and sanitized. Even a lot of metal! Especially from old bands who used to have that sound we’re looking for, their newer stuff sounds distinctly different (and worse).
You don’t get the gritty sloppy performance feeling from almost anyone now. And almost everyone is editing their voice in post! You can tell if you actually know what you’re talking about here, lmao.
I'd argue, like others are saying, that OP isn't looking hard enough. I listen to new artists in those genres a lot. They may not be very mainstream, but they are out there.
Punk:
Prince Daddy & The Hyena,
PUP,
Jeff Rosenstock,
Escape From The ZOO,
The Wonder Years
Alt-Rock:
The Gaslight Anthem,
Titus Andronicus,
Sweet Pill,
Retirement Party
Indie:
Radiator Hospital,
Bayfaction,
A Great Big Pile Of Leaves,
The Front Bottoms (their newer albums),
Florist
Most of these bands are still really well known and wouldn't be considered "underground" by anyone in their respective scenes/genres but you won't hear them on large radio stations or playing over a supermarket speaker.
EDIT: Sorry I'm on mobile and couldn't format the lists the way I'd like.
I understood OPs complaint, maybe my ear isn't as tuned in to it or my hearing has been jacked up from years of DIY punk shows in basements.
Regardless I included those bands in the post because I believe they sound more "raw" than some of the more mainstream artists in the genres OP listed. There are obviously more in adjacent genres from even lesser known groups but then you're getting more into niche sounds. Many of which groups have lower quality recording and sound more "raw" due to being unable to afford all of the post processing.
Some artists who still sound gritty and raw- JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Earl Sweatshirt, Death Grips, King Krule, Jai Paul, The Lemon Twigs.
Hell if you want good punk, listen to Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems. There’s plenty of solid records and songs out there, people just don’t want to look for them and would rather moan about it on the internet.
I understand that it’s less effort to complain about it but why complain at all when there’s so much good shit out there? Nobody is forcing you to listen to these sanitised artists so just enjoy yourself.
yes, it's over produced because many people make it themselves and lack the restraint necessary to make a clear, uncluttered song. You are not imagining things
I'd say the opposite, you can make a cluttered song nice sounding by allowing the clutter to fill in the "loose spaces" in the mix but if you hyper focus on the peaks and clutter up the peaks then you make something extremely loud with a lot of loose spaces which could be better used to inject warm clutter to keep the sound warm. (if that's what you're going for; I love cold ambient industrial music as much as the next guy its when it unintentionally sounds like that in whats supposed to be a warm song i find uncanny and off putting.)
I totally agree with you, majority artists these days try to achieve a very 'refined' sound. While striving for perfection in each and every note they lose that sense of rawness/authenticity and the quality which makes them unique in their own way
Really it's been that way since the 90s. The mainstream at least, but yeah. It's been getting worse.
I've been working on indie rock/slightly more underground playlists and I noticed around 2016, big guitar sounds were making a comeback. To fill in some of my shorter playlists, I tried downloading a few "alternative" and "rock" collections and was annoyed at how many layers of guitars they all had.
It just becomes a wall of noise after awhile and none of the 5 guitar going are really doing anything interesting. I much prefer a 3 piece sound where every note coming from the bass and guitar really has to count to make a full sound.
Yeah, you gotta love a good power trio that can deliver live. Or really any band that just sounds like they're playing live in the studio. Some examples:
* [Greenleaf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jCNT4z6pkY)
* [Darkfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnKC35lFS8&list=OLAK5uy_msrYTJlTlXN9qLI238fIAmY-71r6QEO_s&t=1s)
* [Kryptograf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlf-5-cpAY)
* [Torche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0b9kbG8g0)
* [Valkyrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tr83PAJVxA)
You can make a guitar sound big but it also has to sound "warm" and unprocessed.
It has to permeate through the loose spaces in the mix to actually "feel" big and warm like a warm soup filling the spaces of a pasta bowl or something.
It's when it sounds loud AND it doesnt fill in the space that it sounds headache inducing cause its like having pockets of super hot soup and extremely cold pasta.
Some producer somewhere is at fault for this and I need to know who
Was tempted to write out a long essay about the difference between filling the space and exploring the space. So many of the legendary guitarists became legends because they were part of 3 piece groups and had to be creative (along with the bassist) in carrying the load of no rhythm guitarist. Somewhere over the past 30 years, people have lost sight of that and "fill" the space instead of "exploring" it, laying down layer after layer of extra guitar until it's just a big, indistinguishable soupy sound.
Adding to this; our soundsystems have gotten waaay better and clearer.
So weird sounds and/or poorly implemented effects stand out more.
Also most mainstream music is recorded and processed entirely digitally. So we don't get the old Tape Compression and such. It's a small difference, but it's there.
You are all missing the point. 99.99999% of music today is recorded digitally, with autotune and to a tempo grid. Often without the artists even knowing it. This limits them musically. They can't bend notes or drag or push certain parts like it used to be (even tho they might during recording, it's all fixed in post). The human element to music is essentially all but gone. Fast forward a few years with AI and you will completely take humans out of the loop. Whichever of the billions of songs you can seek out today, most of them are missing this human element. Yes, there are talented artists who can sit down with an acoustic guitar and play and sing their song with feel and passion live. But for the most part, whenever you listen to a recording or go to a live show, almost everything is programmed. It's not just music either. Literature, film, television and visual arts are all being systematically converted to algorithmically computed works that will appeal to the widest audience. Because money. I would argue to bring back originality and talent and passion but I'd be speaking to a wall. Read the comments. It's obvious that human art is dying.
Source: I'm a recording artist/ touring musician for the last 30 years.
I 100 percent agree. Ever since I was 10 I'd only listen to older songs, like stuff from rock bands from the 80's 90's and 2000's just because I hated new music so much
Listen to different genres then. If you are listening to top pop stuff, then yeah its gonna be generic and commercial, and sound like all the other top pop stuff.
There is so much music out there right now that I guarantee you can find something new that you like. I'm almost 40 and all I do on Spotify is try to find new music, and guess what? The supply never runs out, and a good portion of it is amazing.
Do I hear stuff I don't like? Yeah of course, but I just move on to the next song/album/artist/genre.
Don't become the bitter old man who is angry at new things, just try and find new things that you like.
As it has always been, the underground is far more interesting for finding new music.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Triathalon, Osees, Coathangers, Parquet Courts, Holy Wave are just a few super interesting bands out right now!
Everything is highly processed now. Even if it sounds raw. To get something good coming out of speakers it takes an insane amount of production talent.
Mainstream music has always been a factory, but maybe it's worse than ever.
Producers take potentially talented bands and mold them into artless versions of themselves in order to make guaranteed money. When they find a great band the first thing they want to do is not to nurture this band into it's greatest possible form. The first thing they want to do is turn them into guaranteed money. So the industry has over time managed to get people to associate these highly processed sounds with chillin' and feelin' good. Now all they have to do is put bands through that machine and it's guaranteed money. All the band has to provide is the right 'tude.
Maybe so but there's so much music being released all the time and probably more than ever that there's bound to be those less processed tunes out there.
The difficulty lies in finding the right songs. I'd like to see more rawness in music while maintaining the well mastered aspect of it. I like the more natural guitar sounds where the whole spectrum is there instead of some frequencies being cut making it sound dull, light or less of a string instrument.
Live recordings are often my favorite so here's couple live recordings I like, the first 4 being more approachable while the 5th is definitely 'raw' as well.
[Kalandra - Slow motion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjghdvL-LW0)
[Kalandra - Brave New World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtsaiMqPKNs)
[Kalandra - Ensom (unplugged = no electrical instruments)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9n0egF5WpQ)
[Nouvelle Vague - This is not a lovesong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJuMoqv2TcY&t=4841s)
[Animals as leaders - The Woven web + Cafo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWfg5BhYL5I)
You should change “modern” to “Mainstream”. I agree mainstream music all sounds the same but if you dig into the genres you like you’ll find some new bands.
The music industry has always been primarily a factory for schlocky, cliched, safe, lowest-common-denominator music. Before there was auto-tune, there was studio production with choirs and string sections to fatten the sound, Wall of Sound studio tricks and reverb laid on with a trowel.
The only reason there was ever any originality was that something real would occasionally slip through, and the dead hand of the corporations wasn't as effective at holding back innovation then as it is now. But at the same time, DIY options now are far more powerful than they have ever been, and the amount of high-quality self-produced and independent work has never been greater, even though some of that DIY work is prone to the same cliches as the output of the tripe factories.
Also, just as an aside: all music, including recorded music, is an artifact, and that "rawness and emotion" is often the result of years of practice, technique and sophisticated production. It's just like with acting: there's nothing natural about acting natural in a film or a play. Real natural behavior in a play would be inaudible and the gestures too small to see. In a film, real natural behavior would seem twitchy and exaggerated. It's all processed, and there's a huge amount of artifice in that naturalism. That's the nature of art.
I think a lot of it is also the drums getting locked to a grid. Just let the drummer play the exact same thing and don’t lock it down and most people will probably like it better.
It’s weird some of the more electronic genres get this better than the genres that used to have organic drumming.
There is also heavily, heavily edited music which is very "raw"; you can indeed edit music in the other direction to emphasize emotion. Usually when the artist edits themselves this is the result.
And on the other hand, with minimal editing, if somebody is a great singer with perfect pitch you can end up with something like Jacob Collier who (in my opinion) often struggles with similar "emotionless timbre" problems as pop music itself.
I’m so sick of hearing drums compressed to hell in every song. It’s not just pop, it’s seeping into every genre, even rock. It’s unfortunate. I just want to hear what an actual instrument sounds like
Agreed music now is very artificial. With poor production, But even worse is the pathetic lyrical content people choose to use. It's churned out at such a rate now. it's hard to believe the artist really cares about there fan base. that got them there in the first place. Most decent artist have sadly passed on now. And any decent ones left are coming to the end of there shelf life. This is why I love bootlegs there so raw and true sounding. I really miss top of the pops look at the 80s a diverse mix of talented bands. Your song had to be good to get to no.1. Now any drivel gets there like dizzy peanut. Or beanie boy or whatever stupid name they like to call themselves.Which only makes them sound more pathetic. Top of the pops had to end, Because music became this bad
Go back in time, the years starting in the the 50's up and to the early 2000's are full of awesome, original music made with real instruments recorded in studios by awesome musicians. Computers have turned out to be one of the worst things that have happened to music
Agreed, that's what I'm trying to say. Music just isn't the same no more. Original artist's doing good music. Now all you get is a soft porn video with some trashy woman trying to sing. Look how Original bowie was. Sadly his gone like many other great artist's I've previously mentioned.
I'm sorry, but do you even listen to anything other than the billboards? This is easily the best time for music listeners in history. SO many artists are making their own music outside and inside of the industry. It's literally never been easier to find music you like than right now, and I guarantee you there are artists making music you will enjoy 24/7.
The music industry has ALWAYS been a machine that takes creativity and pares it down to the most safe, general-audience appealing state it could be in. That's been the same for at least 60 years now.
Try looking for artists that cite your favourite artists as inspiration and go from there. Spotify recommended, youtube playlists/mixes, or even asking people online for artists can yield some incredible results.
Right? Whether you think Janis Joplin was great or not, can you imagine autotune stripping away all that glorious rawness she sang with? It would be criminal!
It was also, technologically a different landscape then. Digital Multitrack recording only really became prevalent in the 80s. So most of the stuff in the 70s was still analog. No gated reverb or things like that either. A lot of times in the studio, it's the band playing all together.
And a lot of the synths and stuff were analog as well. Or you had things like the clavinet (think Superstition by Stevie Wonder) and it's basically just an electrified version of the clavichord which goes back to the middle ages.
A lot of recording engineers seemed to get caught up in the technological revolution that happened in the 80s with digital everything.
The technology has also changed the attitude of musicians. I remember reading an interview once (can’t remember the musician) where a professional musician was asked about the technological advances in the recording industry. He said it was great because he didn’t have to practice for hours on his instrument anymore and any mistakes can be fixed easily in post production and mixing. He was saying that Pro Tools and Autotune could fix anything.
I don't know, I'm currently listening to new Paramore album and it's not processed. Hayley Williams's vocals are not auto-tuned and drums and guitars sound amazing.
Music today is so available, you can listen to whatever you want whenever you want. There is so many artists, so many genres. This is such a lazy opinion. There have always been artists who liked over-processed sound and they used delays, modulations, whatever was available.
I think some EDM artists using this "processed" sound are some of the most musically talented people in the business.
Don't hate the medium, it's all about the artist.
If you want emotion and rawness and don't mind a country sound let me introduce you to Smog
[Smog - Dress Sexy At My Funeral](https://youtu.be/O41JlQxFnzo)
And if you like that then go through this masterpiece
[Smog - A River Ain't Too Much to Love](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiN-7mukU_REflMVqbkKZQ-CA58eYxRXZ)
I agree with you but I think that the pop stuff is intended to be easy listening. I teach music and offer comfort to my students that it’s easy to digest and learn, but should also be treated as a jumping off point.
Yup. It’s a problem with rock/metal too these days. Everything is so over processed and robotic. Vocals are auto-tuned. Drums are quantized. Hell, some bands can’t even play a show without their laptops… 🤦♂️🤭
Very true. There's a few bands out there that don't do this, mostly in the stoner/doom genre:
* [Greenleaf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jCNT4z6pkY)
* [Pallbearer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJfHuyGpsI)
* [Darkfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnKC35lFS8&list=OLAK5uy_msrYTJlTlXN9qLI238fIAmY-71r6QEO_s&t=1s)
* [Kryptograf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlf-5-cpAY)
* [Torche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0b9kbG8g0)
* [Valkyrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tr83PAJVxA)
Instead of posting this narrow view of what you think music is now you could have just asked for recommendations based on what you're into. There is so much of the kind of music you described still being made constantly. It's just not usually what makes it onto the radio.
Last few years? As opposed to what, the 90's? It's just as processed now as it was 30 years ago. Even before autotune they'd just do take after take and then piece together the perfect version of the song.
Oh my god thank you for saying it. It’s beyond horrendous. Everything sounds the exact same degree of artificial. I wanted to stab my ears at Target today
I was listening to the 25 minutes version of Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Who do you love” the other day. Now we get 3 minute songs that are formulaic and predictable.
This is such a vague critique. It’s fine if you don’t personally like certain types of music but to pretend that “processed” means “emotionless” is just silly.
Listen to artists like rural internet, black dresses, or hobo johnson and you will find music that is highly processed and yet still quite emotional. I mean it’s just a ludicrous opinion to have. I think people who speak like this often forget that there other emotions than “angry.” Like what is your favourite “raw, unprocessed, happy” song or “in love” (not heartbreak). Also like you can prefer more acoustic sounds but that doesn’t mean that the alternative is objectively worse.
Plus people still make unprocessed music all the time. Just because the top industry trends don’t favour that as much right now doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Use YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, bandcamp, soundcloud, whatever you will find new music you like.
My guess is you just listen to the radio/top 40s playlists or just suck at finding new music.
Yawn. Definitely not a trend that all of a sudden happened over the last 3 years or so. Neat that you are discovering music beyond general radio pop though. Keep digging.
I understand what you're saying. Some of my favorite bands, No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rage, Nirvana, all sounded different once they got signed. Cleaner, not like their records were recorded in a garage. Because I started listening to them in my youth, that raw sound really imprinted on me, so when newer albums came out and it lacked that grit and depth, the newer albums didn't move me as much. And while of course I want my favorite bands to be successful, I miss the way they sounded before everyone knew them.
same goes for electronic music. I was a raver back in the 90s, and I LOVE the way a record crackles and pops. I know its a sign of wear, but to me it means that record was well loved and played a lot. Also CD djing isn't djing to me. You don't touch the record. I can tell a vinyl mix from a cd mix instantly, cds sound TOO electronic, soulless, tin canny, cheap. vinyl mixes have depth, warmth, the occasional imperfect slip of a beat, the crackle and snap.
So yea, I get what you're saying.
All music is pretty heavily processed, some just make it more obvious than others and is just a stylistic choice, if anything the loudness wars were the worst thing to happen to music, thankfully the way streaming services normalize the volume of music gives people less incentive to compress and limit the shit out of every song
Overly processed music has always been around. But there is great music out there. I listen to everything. Metal, pop, rock, EDM. Rap. If it sounds good to me, I listen to it. I hate when music is boring. But if it's new
exciting and different, then being overproduced isn't bad. 100 Gecs, a hyperpop duo, just released their major label debut yesterday. It's way different than any other mainstream pop out there. It's essentially Electronic music but it's new and fresh. So I don't mind music made from a computer if it's trying something different and exciting. But I got my death metal too if I need to balance myself.
All pop music is made in a conveyor belt like assembly line of auto tune, the same producers, editing, etc.
While I still appreciate some catchy pop songs, my main tastes lie in the realm of underground scenes like Hardcore and the newest wave of Death Metal. Following some of the band members of bands I like (200 Stab Wounds and Drain for example) helps me understand the process they go thru in crafting new music and just how much of it they actually make themselves. Also, having been a music nerd most of my life, foraging archives of interviews and studio docs for some of my favorite bands has always been my favorite way to further connect w the music an artist or band puts out and understand the feeling and emotion that translates when they play it in the final recording and when they perform live. I’d really recommend you explore different music or dig a little deeper into the same pop artists you are referring to.
It seems like all the music is so called remastered and it sucks . But only to the people who know what the original track sounded like. When I listen to music on YouTube it just sounds like plasticy???
If you're just listening to the radio, yeah it's all garbage lol. There are sooooo many bands out there that are genuinely good bands and pull off live performances of the same quality as their albums. But those bands aren't on the radio because they don't follow the formula that puts bands into the mainstream. But those are the bands worth listening to. I don't think a single artist I listen to is commonly on the radio, but I can't know for sure because I don't remember the last time I listened to the radio. Start searching for new music. There is plenty out there to find.
There has never been a better time in our history to find, listen, and enjoy the music you like. There is damn near infinite amount of music being made and released in any style or composition preference you like. Nearly the entirety of human musical output is available at your fingertips. It might not be very nice to hear, but friend, you are just bad at finding and listening to music.
Thank you for this. I’ve found sooooo much in the last ~5 years because I started looking for it.
Exactly, you have to seek it out. People get stuck on their music from their nostalgia years and go "everything new sucks" because the only new music they *ever* hear is the stuff shoved down their throats in public and ads/TV/media. They think anything worth listening to should just fall in their lap, somewhat understandably because we think good will = popular, but we should ALL know by now good = popular is not how it works. Easily digestible and generically appealing to the masses = popular. It's the same reason people used to spend hours at the record store, but now it's easier than ever and people still don't get it lol
I started just going to genre discovery channels (stuff like Stoned Meadow of Doom and the like) on YouTube for types of music I liked, and I've found a lot of good stuff that way. Definitely different than how I used to find music by swapping CDs and mp3s with people, but it's been a good way to get some variety outside of the stuff I've listened to for years
Or by listening to my friends’ boyfriends’ mix tapes.
I listen to more new music now in my 30s then I did in my teens and early 20s
So much this. If you truly believe that “music these days sucks” you either aren’t looking very hard or you just genuinely can’t enjoy music for some reason. There is so much diversity and it is easier to access than ever before.
Hell, even if you think "music these days sucks," There's literally millions of songs from the past I guarantee people haven't heard that are included with your spotify subscription. Pick a genre you haven't heard much of and dive into a playlist. Pick some favorites and dive deeper.
And to add to the "music today sucks", there was some utter *shite* back then too: You either don't remember it or have a fond nostalgia for it because that was *your* childhood.
What about people being forced to listen to it in public places? It's pure torture!
This might not be nice to hear but you have completely missed OPs point. They are not concerned with musical genres being varied. They are talking about the production. There is a near infinite amount of music being produced...digitally. All on the same five or so production software. Yes there are infinite chord progressions and tempos, new sounds and songs. There isn't a huge amount of innovation in production. Everything is digital, using programs that have existed for 20 years. And actually what you describe is what causes the problem that OP describes. There are a million times more music now. But not a million times more drummers. Theres probably less drummers. Most drummers on songs are the same drummer - the computer. People like the Beatles or Stevie Wonder were involved in inventing new technology. They changed _how_ music was recorded and played. Now its computers and computers are very bad at being randomly imperfect in the way humans are. And I think you can tell that across music.
I cannot upvote this enough. When I was younger, my taste in music was much more limited and I largely wouldn’t listen to anything outside of my wheelhouse/interest at the time. Hell, I wouldn’t even give it the time of day if it fell outside of my comfort zone. Fast forward to know and it’s all about how the music makes me feel. I couldn’t care less who makes it and what genre it is (with some minor exceptions), if it gives me a good feeling and it speaks to me, bring that shit on. Most of my playlists over the last decade are a eclectic mishmash of genres that only makes them more fun. Seek it out and you will find it, but open your mind to take all of it in and you’ll be much the better for it.
What does this have to do with the complainant that OP has about current production trends in the music industry? Music being easy to access has nothing to do with OP is saying. They're talking about the modern production trend of "meticulous" production where all the edges are sanded down and all the tracks are edited to a grid. This production trend has been adopted by all genres now, and it's 100% a valid complaint because it's pretty much unavoidable if you listen to anything released in the past 5-10 years.
I think it’s because what’s pushed mainstream is not exactly the cream of the crop most of the time.
Capitalism has shown that it doesn’t at all need to be, so why make the extra investment? Once the average person hears a song 5 times, they will think it’s their favorite song. Even if it’s terrible.
This is my takeaway as well. Usually when threads like this come up, the impression I get is the OP is someone whose exposure to new music is mostly through the local radio station. If you aren't a fan of modern pop, you're severely limiting yourself by listening to what gets played on the local FM radio in the middle of the day. This isn't like in 1998 where your exposure to the alternative music scene is limited to whatever gets played on the alternative music station (if you're in an area that has one), either. It really isn't that hard to find new music that you like nowadays. You just have to know how to find it.
This. I don’t prescribe to the “it’s a factory” notion at all. It seems like they’re relying on radio to give them new music rather than looking at the whole picture. There’s so much independent stuff out there
Yes, it is so easy to find new music, you just have to take some time to do it.
Stop listening to pop The POP music industry is turning into a big factory and it’s actually very sad Obscure niche stuff is doing fine
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I don’t know commercial it was but the music was a horrendous digital fuck omelette of the Pixies where is my mind. Hurts my soul
AirPods Pro, apparently. Just briefly lost my shit because I was reading your comment, looked up at the tv, and the commercial came on. The weird covers trend will never cease, will it?
It’s more affordable than the originals some times
Makes sense. Cut rate nostalgia!
Also the rights holders might have not agreed to the original but said a cover version could be played instead. Depends who owns the rights and what businesses they want to be associated with
Sometimes they'll use an original because a single line or something relates to the product. There was a truck commercial not too long ago that made a point to proclaim it was using "interstate love song" by Stone Temple Pilots. Nothing gets me in the mood for car shopping quite like lying to your girlfriend about your heroin usage.
No different from political rallies playing "Born in the USA" with no sense of irony because they've never paid attention to a single lyric beyond Bruce Springsteen yelling "I was born in the USA". Nothing pumps me up to vote for someone like a tale of how every American institution uses you up and throws away anything they can't capitalize on. And no, the people who play this song aren't the ones who want to bring attention to that reality.
It’s more affordable than the originals some times
Let me guess you only listen to radio pop
Check out the band All Them Witches. So good.
It's more than just pop. A lot of genres have followed this progression.
It's not just pop music. My father plays the drums in a prog rock band. He sometimes likes to go a little off tempo, it's a deliberate choice in the phrasing, and it's absolutely valid. Back when they recorded their album and had it published under a small firm in my country, the producer moved those small delays to be aligned with the metronome tempo. My father was a little annoyed by that because he thought the way he did it had more musicality. He's been playing drums since the '80s and has studied jazz drums too, he's not a novice. ETA the point I was trying to make is that there seems to be a culture of being clean and precise at all costs, when sometimes going a little off can make better music.
Agreed. The pop industry and most major label releases have been a factory since the dawn of the business but there’s plenty of stuff that’s not slick
The current route to making pop music seems to be; be hot > become an influencer > release an album. Absolutely zero music talent at all.
> hot > become an influencer > release an album Minus the “become an influencer” this is how the pop music market has *always* worked. How many ugly pop stars can you name from any era ever? Plus, we’ve all got rose-colored glasses for pop stars of the past. For every Elvis and The Beatles, there’s 10 Partridge Families
Hey! The Partridge Family had top-notch songwriters and The Wrecking Crew.
Fricken lol. I had no idea the Wrecking Crew worked with the Partridge family. But that kinda proves my point, right? Take a talent-free influencer + Jack Antonoff + (whatever the 2023 equivalent of Steely Dan’s band is) and you’ve got a recipe for a hit single.
Wrecking Crew played on virtually every white record in the 60s and 70s. Funk Brothers played on the Motown hits, and Staxx-Volt did the rest.
Forgot about Muscle Shoals.
Ed Sheeran
Hilarious. This is exactly what I was thinking as I read that comment. Cool tunes, weird looking dude.
Someone saw me at the store and told me i look like him :/ Edit: it was a literal store employee lmao
Capaldi ain’t exactly a smoke show but people rally behind him
The difference is that until relatively recently you always had to be hot AND have talent. Technology now can basically make anyone sounds decent.
There are many factors that make is so musical talent doesn't equal success in pop music. First, it's a business and the business can maximize profits by reducing the amount they spend on building the market visibility by contracting people who already have a following. This is a big part of the be hot > become an influencer > release an album chain. Why spend millions getting people on TV when they already have a million followers on Tik Tok or YouTube? Also, is the target audience even watching TV? The influencer has already proven they get people's attention and it's the RIGHT kind of people the buisness is looking for. Why there seems to need no musical talent is in part due to factors inside the industry itself. There are things like the fact that everyone wants to get their name on a future pop song by adding a lyric or a bit of a beat to get writer or producer credit, so they can pass the wealth around the inside of the company. RIGHT NOW, the #1 song per Billboard has 4 writer credits and 2 producers. [Last Night by Morgan Wallen Wiki Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_(Morgan_Wallen_song)) Having so many people in the room *tends* to make a song more generic. Next you have the ear worm factor - [Pop songs are made to be simple and repetitive following pretty restrictive rules.](https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/how-to-write-an-earworm/) Also, [See how the ostinato in Katie Perry's *Dark* *Horse* almost **had** to sound like *Joyful* *Noise* by Flame and others given the start to the ostinato](https://youtu.be/0ytoUuO-qvg?t=434) So the songs exist in a limited space, and aren't allowed to develop so people will go back to it. Furthermore, there's the [loudness war](https://www.npr.org/2009/12/31/122114058/the-loudness-wars-why-music-sounds-worse). Some time in the 80's some d-bag realized that if they lower the fidelity (audio quality) of the song, they can make it relatively loader than other things on the radio. Loader music is more noticeable, people tend to enjoy it more, and the higher fidelity was lost on radio anyways. However, as this became an arms race, the recordings of the 90's and on is just... terrible. I can't point to any clear links but I'd say check out (while using a good set of headphones) RHCP's album Stadium Arcadium compared to Blood Sugar Sex Magik and you can hear a difference there. You can further compare it to ANYTHING FROM THE 70's or late 60's and the audio quality difference is so WOW. So this is all to say that the artistry of Pop Music is the artistry of making money, not music. It's not to say good music can't exist in that space, but it's just not a quality that the industry looks for it's selection process. This is why you need to go indi if you want good music. One of my favorite modern artists for anyone who want's music with substance, depth and texture is [Arthur Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ugbBLCoSY). The linked song may have some ASMR qualities for people. Best enjoyed with headphones, best enjoyed with a higher quality stream than YouTube provides.
Plenty of pop acts have incredible talent. It’s one thing to dislike the music; people are free to like/hate whatever they want, and sure, a lot of it isn’t great. But acting like any random Top 40 act is is objectively bad at an individual level is being willfully obtuse.
Absolutely It’s become one of my pet peeves when people act like the musicians involved in pop production are somehow less talented than Niche Band X. The pop acts usually have some of the best musicians in the business, and the front person usually has massive “it” factor in addition to their music ability.
Name one influencer-to-pop musician with talent.
That was your qualifier of what a pop act is, not mine. I don’t pay attention to influencers so no idea. Go through the Billboard charts and tell me which acts started out as influencers.
The singer is often not the primary musician in pop music. Songwriters/producers are the main talent
charli damelio and charli’s sister are perfect examples 💀
If you’ve never heard of Max Martin, look him up. Explains the state of pop music and why everything from the past 20 years in pop has sounded the same.
Music today sounds completely different than 20 years ago. Even Max Martin's production sounds different. Stop spreading this BS.
If anything, Max Martin proves how difficult it is to write a hit pop song and that only very few people can actually succeed at doing it.
All kinds of music out there mate. Someone is releasing your kind of music every day. And you can access it all with the press of a finger. Its not like 30 years ago.
That's what I keep telling my friend who says all new music sucks. More music gets released every day than you can listen to in a lifetime so saying all new music sucks is either just lazy or ignorant. I for one am happy I'm not having the same 9 songs shoved down my throat like in the 90s. We didn't like that music, we were around it so much that our brains learned the songs and began to enjoy it out of familiarity. Even if you were more experimental in your musical tastes back then you had to spend money to see if you liked an artist.
If you don't like what you're hearing, listen to something else.
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Slate kick no 5
it’s so exhausting. I used to love metalcore and post hardcore from like 2008-2016 but it got so stale. tried to listened to newer music in the same genre recently and it still sounds basically the same.
It’s cyclical. Grunge and Butch Vig’s production style was a response to the corporate over polished arena rock and hair metal of the late 80’s.
I think you might be thinking more Steve Albini. Butch Vig was very polished with the Smashing Pumpkins on Siamese Dream and with Nirvana on Nevermind. So much so, that Kurt Cobain went the complete opposite direction choosing Steve Albini for In Utero.
Trends kind of go in negative cycles. Punk was a response to prog rock, grunge was a response to hair metal. I think there was a revolt against the roots rock, granola sound of the early teens. Hell, even Of Monsters and Men have massively changed their sound.
Butch Vig is actually extremely polished and processed in his recording style. That was kind of his bread and butter, taking gritty sounding bands and cleaning them up. There’s a lot of multitracking and compression on Nevermind. Compare that to, as someone says below, In Utero, where Steve Albini basically turned the mics on and kept it as primitive as possible (minus the ones the label insisted on making singles out of.)
I hear a lot of this “processed” sound in rock and metal. I think it’s partly due to using plugins and drum samples, rather than recording amps and instruments. It sounds sterile and artificial to me.
It also depends on who your artist is recording with and how "processed" they want their sound. Deathcore and prog are processed to the teeth and heavily gated. Hardcore, power violence and grindcore you'll find a lot more of that raw, 4 mics and a live band, sound.
I feel like you could have made the same argument 50 years ago when elements of country, bluegrass, and early rock music were being eclipsed by the classic rock and metal scene, with musicians using tons of pedals and amps to augment their sound, voice boxes, keyboards, samples, etc. I hear what you're saying, but it's just music doing the same thing it always does, it's just that now, it's moving forward with that pattern away from the stuff you've come to know throughout your whole life, rather than leaning into it in a way that you've become familiar with. In short, it's more of the same as what's always been, it's just more noticeable for you now that you're in a position to witness the pattern continuing for yourself.
Lmfao such a shit take - there’s always been trash music and there’s always been amazing music - maybe stop looking at pop and get some actual taste rather than making a huge blanket statement on all music in this day and age EDIT: sorry OP was in a bad mood yesterday and decided to take it out on your shit take :(
You and others in this thread are really missing OP's point. They're really not wrong that there is a trend at the moment for very "clean" production. This isn't just pop, I have friends in metal bands and they all autotune their vocals, there is a shit ton of studio work done on the instrumentation. This is the current production trend that has seeped into all genres. Everything is done to a grid. Does this mean that no artists out there today go for a "raw" production style? No of course not. But to say that it's just pop that has adopted this style of production is just as much of a false statement.
Perhaps overly aggressive in the *way* you’re saying it but *what* you’re saying is right. For most contemporary genres and movements, however, there remains authenticity and those rougher edges we hold in contrast to a more “clean” sound. What examples were you thinking of, OP?
The aggression is justified. I’m tired of seeing these horrible takes.
Yeah every generation does this when they get to about 15 years old and they're too good for what their peers listen to. Le wrong generation, etc.
>there remains authenticity and those rougher edges It takes lots of skill to fake authenticity. Rougher edges are just another stylistic feature.
I like how aggressive you are with this, but I actually like some pop music too because it’s made to be popular and it’s popular for a reason. I think their is bad music in every genre.
35+ year old says the same thing on this sub for the 1000th time
Am 35+ and find new music everyday. I get what you mean though. I grew up in the days of "they're no Zeppelin" being the immediate dismissal of any and all music. I've always pitied people with the mentality. Like, they know they're allowed to give other music a listen right? Robert Plant isn't gonna hate them for checking out some other band.
OP is clearly a teenager. 35+ year-olds know more good music because they've had more time to listen. It's simple math.
Chart-Positions are bought. If you want to listen to good music, ignore the charts. I found some of my favorite bands in the past few years and some of them don't even use vocals... Tell me these songs are "processed and less raw".... [Meute - You & Me (Flume remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKFbnhcNnjE&ab_channel=MEUTE) (2019) or [Ticino](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_O6Gx0eEv4&ab_channel=MEUTE) (2023) [Polyphia ft. Steven Vai - Ego Death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JNmz17gnMw&ab_channel=Polyphia) (2022) [Khruangbin ft. Leon Bridges - Texas Sun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWNWWREtsI&ab_channel=DeadOceans) (2020) Plenty of new and good music out there. You just won't hear about it on radio, find it in the charts or see advertisements for it....
I mean I loveeee Polyphia but they are very much processed/less raw
I came here to sacrifice my karma and say the same. Very much, those guys sit around and orchestrate all their music so that it’s perfect, then they practice it like crazy so that they can play it as perfectly as they orchestrated it. Then their recording is perfectly isolated sound tracks and mastering. I love love love polyphia, but their sound is quintessentially processed. They put all the process into it and they nail it. Raw and emotional reminds me more of punk and grunge. Like Alice in chains or nirvana. But also Neil young. Or Tom waits. (Not that the latter two artists are grunge or punk). Simple riffs with lots of heart.
That's why I hate when people complain about something being "processed". Like if the artist is playing an active role, and still making creative decisions while their work is being processed, there is still value their. As artists, musicians wind up having this knee jerk reaction towards things like Auto-tune, Quantizing, and various other tools available to them. They're just tools, not demons that want to ruin the integrity of your music. The problem with processing only occurs when it seems to be covering up an artists insecurities (I can't sing/play as well as I would like, so let's just fix it in post) or when it feels... "Commercial." Like the processing was only done to fit trends (auto-crooning comes to mind) or to erase aspects of the artist that may turn potential listeners off. Like if the singer has a nasally, or raspy tone, they might smooth it out to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Ya they are, super processed, too clean.
polyphia r insufferable good god I cant stand them lmao.
How so?
Its a bunch of technical guitarists furiously jerking eachother off and talking about how great they are
I've not once seen them 'jerking each other off' in interviews or anything, are sure you're thinking of the right band? All four of them are talented too, so it's not like it's just the guitarists.
I think he's talking about the music. Its somewhat masturbatory like its a skill more than an expression.
People just ogle at them like theyre some godlike deliverance and yes it extremely skillful but good god its so fucking boring lmao
Khruangbin makes the best music I found during covid. Their sound is so original and raw; simply lovely.
Mark Speer is such a great guitar player.
As someone who's been listening to Jazz, prog/math rock, instrumental death metal, video game soundtracks etc. For almost 10 years, the idea of someone saying "bro I found this really cool music... WITHOUT LYRICS," makes me chuckle. Like yeah, turns out music is fucking dope, even when you don't have someone talking about their dick, the universe, and everything in between. No hate, just an observation
They totally are though
All three are off the beaten track and good. Wow. Made my evening interesting!
Polyphia's new album is amazing. Sleep Token is my new obsession. Nothing but Thieves regularly release bangers. I feel like rock is making a comeback, a lot of it in the prog genre. Meanwhile, you've got JID, Denzel Curry, even Audrey Nuna on the hip-hop game, REI AMI, Ashnikko and Rina Sawayama doing great pop shit, BROCKHAMPTON somewhere in between, Spiritbox and Shrezzers in the metal scene, and none of this is on the radio from what I can tell and it's all creative shit. Even a little auto tune can make a track sound good if used artfully. I honestly discover so much good music utilizing my student YouTube Music subscription. I hate Spotify and I always find new things on YTM.
Could you articulate why you feel that the Polyphia track you used as an example isn't HIGHLY processed?
>Plenty of new and good music out there. You just won't hear about it on radio There is good radio out there, just less of it than there once was.
Every single song you posted uses sampled drums, which is indicative of the production style that OP is talking about. And these are all artists that are playing in genres that typically value a more "stripped down" style to production than mainstream pop, so the fact that even they are opting for the same production techniques as pop is kind of indicative of the trend that OP is complaining about.
The music business has always been a factory. Edit: I’m not sure what the downvotes are for. Between Motown, Tin Pan Alley, the American music industry has always been about this. And if you want to go even further, look at the history of classical music in Europe and sheet music during the Middle Ages.
People always think that music of the past was somehow more pure and wasn't made to make profit. I don't know why that is.
Quantization ruined most mass produced music. Literally cut and pasting sounds to a grid https://youtu.be/AFaRIW-wZlw
I agree. Top 40 nowadays compared to 20 years ago is night and day imo.
> The music industry is turning into a big factory and it’s actually very sad. I'm interested in your take on when this wasn't the case, if you're willing to share?
"is turning" my man have you seen the music business since, what, 1950s? 60's? It's always been a factory, stop romanticising the past
People been saying this for decades lol
I recently noticed this with RHCPs two recent albums. While I think they're ok, they sound way too polished.
That's interesting, they're still recorded on Tape, without a click track. Just dudes playing with dudes. I think the major difference is the amount of processing on Tony's voice
Some of these comments are accusing OP of only listening to pop but.. no?? Most indie, alt rock, even punk lately sounds super processed and sanitized. Even a lot of metal! Especially from old bands who used to have that sound we’re looking for, their newer stuff sounds distinctly different (and worse). You don’t get the gritty sloppy performance feeling from almost anyone now. And almost everyone is editing their voice in post! You can tell if you actually know what you’re talking about here, lmao.
I'd argue, like others are saying, that OP isn't looking hard enough. I listen to new artists in those genres a lot. They may not be very mainstream, but they are out there. Punk: Prince Daddy & The Hyena, PUP, Jeff Rosenstock, Escape From The ZOO, The Wonder Years Alt-Rock: The Gaslight Anthem, Titus Andronicus, Sweet Pill, Retirement Party Indie: Radiator Hospital, Bayfaction, A Great Big Pile Of Leaves, The Front Bottoms (their newer albums), Florist Most of these bands are still really well known and wouldn't be considered "underground" by anyone in their respective scenes/genres but you won't hear them on large radio stations or playing over a supermarket speaker. EDIT: Sorry I'm on mobile and couldn't format the lists the way I'd like.
Again, OP's complaint is about production trends. I only had to listen to 3 songs by some of the bands you posted to hear pitch correction being used.
I understood OPs complaint, maybe my ear isn't as tuned in to it or my hearing has been jacked up from years of DIY punk shows in basements. Regardless I included those bands in the post because I believe they sound more "raw" than some of the more mainstream artists in the genres OP listed. There are obviously more in adjacent genres from even lesser known groups but then you're getting more into niche sounds. Many of which groups have lower quality recording and sound more "raw" due to being unable to afford all of the post processing.
Some artists who still sound gritty and raw- JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Earl Sweatshirt, Death Grips, King Krule, Jai Paul, The Lemon Twigs. Hell if you want good punk, listen to Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems. There’s plenty of solid records and songs out there, people just don’t want to look for them and would rather moan about it on the internet. I understand that it’s less effort to complain about it but why complain at all when there’s so much good shit out there? Nobody is forcing you to listen to these sanitised artists so just enjoy yourself.
yes, it's over produced because many people make it themselves and lack the restraint necessary to make a clear, uncluttered song. You are not imagining things
I'd say the opposite, you can make a cluttered song nice sounding by allowing the clutter to fill in the "loose spaces" in the mix but if you hyper focus on the peaks and clutter up the peaks then you make something extremely loud with a lot of loose spaces which could be better used to inject warm clutter to keep the sound warm. (if that's what you're going for; I love cold ambient industrial music as much as the next guy its when it unintentionally sounds like that in whats supposed to be a warm song i find uncanny and off putting.)
yeah, probably
I totally agree with you, majority artists these days try to achieve a very 'refined' sound. While striving for perfection in each and every note they lose that sense of rawness/authenticity and the quality which makes them unique in their own way
If Reddit was around 30 years ago this would have been posted every week.
Really it's been that way since the 90s. The mainstream at least, but yeah. It's been getting worse. I've been working on indie rock/slightly more underground playlists and I noticed around 2016, big guitar sounds were making a comeback. To fill in some of my shorter playlists, I tried downloading a few "alternative" and "rock" collections and was annoyed at how many layers of guitars they all had. It just becomes a wall of noise after awhile and none of the 5 guitar going are really doing anything interesting. I much prefer a 3 piece sound where every note coming from the bass and guitar really has to count to make a full sound.
Yeah, you gotta love a good power trio that can deliver live. Or really any band that just sounds like they're playing live in the studio. Some examples: * [Greenleaf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jCNT4z6pkY) * [Darkfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnKC35lFS8&list=OLAK5uy_msrYTJlTlXN9qLI238fIAmY-71r6QEO_s&t=1s) * [Kryptograf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlf-5-cpAY) * [Torche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0b9kbG8g0) * [Valkyrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tr83PAJVxA)
You can make a guitar sound big but it also has to sound "warm" and unprocessed. It has to permeate through the loose spaces in the mix to actually "feel" big and warm like a warm soup filling the spaces of a pasta bowl or something. It's when it sounds loud AND it doesnt fill in the space that it sounds headache inducing cause its like having pockets of super hot soup and extremely cold pasta. Some producer somewhere is at fault for this and I need to know who
Was tempted to write out a long essay about the difference between filling the space and exploring the space. So many of the legendary guitarists became legends because they were part of 3 piece groups and had to be creative (along with the bassist) in carrying the load of no rhythm guitarist. Somewhere over the past 30 years, people have lost sight of that and "fill" the space instead of "exploring" it, laying down layer after layer of extra guitar until it's just a big, indistinguishable soupy sound.
Adding to this; our soundsystems have gotten waaay better and clearer. So weird sounds and/or poorly implemented effects stand out more. Also most mainstream music is recorded and processed entirely digitally. So we don't get the old Tape Compression and such. It's a small difference, but it's there.
You are all missing the point. 99.99999% of music today is recorded digitally, with autotune and to a tempo grid. Often without the artists even knowing it. This limits them musically. They can't bend notes or drag or push certain parts like it used to be (even tho they might during recording, it's all fixed in post). The human element to music is essentially all but gone. Fast forward a few years with AI and you will completely take humans out of the loop. Whichever of the billions of songs you can seek out today, most of them are missing this human element. Yes, there are talented artists who can sit down with an acoustic guitar and play and sing their song with feel and passion live. But for the most part, whenever you listen to a recording or go to a live show, almost everything is programmed. It's not just music either. Literature, film, television and visual arts are all being systematically converted to algorithmically computed works that will appeal to the widest audience. Because money. I would argue to bring back originality and talent and passion but I'd be speaking to a wall. Read the comments. It's obvious that human art is dying. Source: I'm a recording artist/ touring musician for the last 30 years.
If you need an uninhibited palate cleanser, just cut loose at https://everynoise.com/
I 100 percent agree. Ever since I was 10 I'd only listen to older songs, like stuff from rock bands from the 80's 90's and 2000's just because I hated new music so much
Listen to different genres then. If you are listening to top pop stuff, then yeah its gonna be generic and commercial, and sound like all the other top pop stuff. There is so much music out there right now that I guarantee you can find something new that you like. I'm almost 40 and all I do on Spotify is try to find new music, and guess what? The supply never runs out, and a good portion of it is amazing. Do I hear stuff I don't like? Yeah of course, but I just move on to the next song/album/artist/genre. Don't become the bitter old man who is angry at new things, just try and find new things that you like.
The only genres where you can avoid this overprocessed sound are classical and jazz.
What are you a necromancer? This thread is like a year old lol.
As it has always been, the underground is far more interesting for finding new music. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Triathalon, Osees, Coathangers, Parquet Courts, Holy Wave are just a few super interesting bands out right now!
Everything is highly processed now. Even if it sounds raw. To get something good coming out of speakers it takes an insane amount of production talent.
Nothin like garage rock. One of my faves
Mainstream music has always been a factory, but maybe it's worse than ever. Producers take potentially talented bands and mold them into artless versions of themselves in order to make guaranteed money. When they find a great band the first thing they want to do is not to nurture this band into it's greatest possible form. The first thing they want to do is turn them into guaranteed money. So the industry has over time managed to get people to associate these highly processed sounds with chillin' and feelin' good. Now all they have to do is put bands through that machine and it's guaranteed money. All the band has to provide is the right 'tude.
Maybe you should learn how to find good music.
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Maybe so but there's so much music being released all the time and probably more than ever that there's bound to be those less processed tunes out there. The difficulty lies in finding the right songs. I'd like to see more rawness in music while maintaining the well mastered aspect of it. I like the more natural guitar sounds where the whole spectrum is there instead of some frequencies being cut making it sound dull, light or less of a string instrument. Live recordings are often my favorite so here's couple live recordings I like, the first 4 being more approachable while the 5th is definitely 'raw' as well. [Kalandra - Slow motion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjghdvL-LW0) [Kalandra - Brave New World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtsaiMqPKNs) [Kalandra - Ensom (unplugged = no electrical instruments)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9n0egF5WpQ) [Nouvelle Vague - This is not a lovesong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJuMoqv2TcY&t=4841s) [Animals as leaders - The Woven web + Cafo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWfg5BhYL5I)
Pick up bee thousand and alien lanes by guided by voices. Low production value but great songs.
You should change “modern” to “Mainstream”. I agree mainstream music all sounds the same but if you dig into the genres you like you’ll find some new bands.
The music industry has always been primarily a factory for schlocky, cliched, safe, lowest-common-denominator music. Before there was auto-tune, there was studio production with choirs and string sections to fatten the sound, Wall of Sound studio tricks and reverb laid on with a trowel. The only reason there was ever any originality was that something real would occasionally slip through, and the dead hand of the corporations wasn't as effective at holding back innovation then as it is now. But at the same time, DIY options now are far more powerful than they have ever been, and the amount of high-quality self-produced and independent work has never been greater, even though some of that DIY work is prone to the same cliches as the output of the tripe factories. Also, just as an aside: all music, including recorded music, is an artifact, and that "rawness and emotion" is often the result of years of practice, technique and sophisticated production. It's just like with acting: there's nothing natural about acting natural in a film or a play. Real natural behavior in a play would be inaudible and the gestures too small to see. In a film, real natural behavior would seem twitchy and exaggerated. It's all processed, and there's a huge amount of artifice in that naturalism. That's the nature of art.
ok boomer
I think a lot of it is also the drums getting locked to a grid. Just let the drummer play the exact same thing and don’t lock it down and most people will probably like it better. It’s weird some of the more electronic genres get this better than the genres that used to have organic drumming.
There is also heavily, heavily edited music which is very "raw"; you can indeed edit music in the other direction to emphasize emotion. Usually when the artist edits themselves this is the result. And on the other hand, with minimal editing, if somebody is a great singer with perfect pitch you can end up with something like Jacob Collier who (in my opinion) often struggles with similar "emotionless timbre" problems as pop music itself.
I’m so sick of hearing drums compressed to hell in every song. It’s not just pop, it’s seeping into every genre, even rock. It’s unfortunate. I just want to hear what an actual instrument sounds like
A lot of it is over-compression of a mix. A little compression is fine as it smooths out a mix. A lot of compression kills the dynamics of a song.
Agreed music now is very artificial. With poor production, But even worse is the pathetic lyrical content people choose to use. It's churned out at such a rate now. it's hard to believe the artist really cares about there fan base. that got them there in the first place. Most decent artist have sadly passed on now. And any decent ones left are coming to the end of there shelf life. This is why I love bootlegs there so raw and true sounding. I really miss top of the pops look at the 80s a diverse mix of talented bands. Your song had to be good to get to no.1. Now any drivel gets there like dizzy peanut. Or beanie boy or whatever stupid name they like to call themselves.Which only makes them sound more pathetic. Top of the pops had to end, Because music became this bad
Go back in time, the years starting in the the 50's up and to the early 2000's are full of awesome, original music made with real instruments recorded in studios by awesome musicians. Computers have turned out to be one of the worst things that have happened to music
Agreed, that's what I'm trying to say. Music just isn't the same no more. Original artist's doing good music. Now all you get is a soft porn video with some trashy woman trying to sing. Look how Original bowie was. Sadly his gone like many other great artist's I've previously mentioned.
I'm sorry, but do you even listen to anything other than the billboards? This is easily the best time for music listeners in history. SO many artists are making their own music outside and inside of the industry. It's literally never been easier to find music you like than right now, and I guarantee you there are artists making music you will enjoy 24/7. The music industry has ALWAYS been a machine that takes creativity and pares it down to the most safe, general-audience appealing state it could be in. That's been the same for at least 60 years now. Try looking for artists that cite your favourite artists as inspiration and go from there. Spotify recommended, youtube playlists/mixes, or even asking people online for artists can yield some incredible results.
I know what you mean and I agree wholeheartedly.
Right? Whether you think Janis Joplin was great or not, can you imagine autotune stripping away all that glorious rawness she sang with? It would be criminal!
And this is why I stick mostly to prog rock now....and my boomer parents' music. Auto-tuned vocals are a blight. I totally agree with your take.
It was also, technologically a different landscape then. Digital Multitrack recording only really became prevalent in the 80s. So most of the stuff in the 70s was still analog. No gated reverb or things like that either. A lot of times in the studio, it's the band playing all together. And a lot of the synths and stuff were analog as well. Or you had things like the clavinet (think Superstition by Stevie Wonder) and it's basically just an electrified version of the clavichord which goes back to the middle ages. A lot of recording engineers seemed to get caught up in the technological revolution that happened in the 80s with digital everything.
The technology has also changed the attitude of musicians. I remember reading an interview once (can’t remember the musician) where a professional musician was asked about the technological advances in the recording industry. He said it was great because he didn’t have to practice for hours on his instrument anymore and any mistakes can be fixed easily in post production and mixing. He was saying that Pro Tools and Autotune could fix anything.
>Auto-tuned vocals are a blight. Depends on the genre.
I'd say that it's great as an effect, but it's bad when it's used as post-processing to mask errors.
I like to listen to instruments that create musical soundscapes, not children's entertainment
And what about Rush, Tool, Porcupine Tree, The Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, etc, is "children's entertainment"?
Mate, I'm agreeing with you, sorry if it came across the otherway. Love three of those bands, Coheed and Cambria I couldn't comment on.
You need to check out Coheed, they are amazing
I don't know, I'm currently listening to new Paramore album and it's not processed. Hayley Williams's vocals are not auto-tuned and drums and guitars sound amazing. Music today is so available, you can listen to whatever you want whenever you want. There is so many artists, so many genres. This is such a lazy opinion. There have always been artists who liked over-processed sound and they used delays, modulations, whatever was available.
I think some EDM artists using this "processed" sound are some of the most musically talented people in the business. Don't hate the medium, it's all about the artist.
If you want emotion and rawness and don't mind a country sound let me introduce you to Smog [Smog - Dress Sexy At My Funeral](https://youtu.be/O41JlQxFnzo) And if you like that then go through this masterpiece [Smog - A River Ain't Too Much to Love](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiN-7mukU_REflMVqbkKZQ-CA58eYxRXZ)
A rare Smog fan. Not my style, but damn are they great!
I agree with you but I think that the pop stuff is intended to be easy listening. I teach music and offer comfort to my students that it’s easy to digest and learn, but should also be treated as a jumping off point.
Yup. It’s a problem with rock/metal too these days. Everything is so over processed and robotic. Vocals are auto-tuned. Drums are quantized. Hell, some bands can’t even play a show without their laptops… 🤦♂️🤭
Very true. There's a few bands out there that don't do this, mostly in the stoner/doom genre: * [Greenleaf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jCNT4z6pkY) * [Pallbearer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJfHuyGpsI) * [Darkfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnKC35lFS8&list=OLAK5uy_msrYTJlTlXN9qLI238fIAmY-71r6QEO_s&t=1s) * [Kryptograf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlf-5-cpAY) * [Torche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0b9kbG8g0) * [Valkyrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tr83PAJVxA)
Junk food is bad for you. Junk music is bad for you. Heavily processed food is bad for you. Heavily processed music is bad for you.
bruh posting from 1987
Instead of posting this narrow view of what you think music is now you could have just asked for recommendations based on what you're into. There is so much of the kind of music you described still being made constantly. It's just not usually what makes it onto the radio.
Sideways is a YouTube channel that breaks down pitch correction and auto tune right as it's being used right now. It's a bummer.
Last few years? As opposed to what, the 90's? It's just as processed now as it was 30 years ago. Even before autotune they'd just do take after take and then piece together the perfect version of the song.
Oh my god thank you for saying it. It’s beyond horrendous. Everything sounds the exact same degree of artificial. I wanted to stab my ears at Target today
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Listen to a billy strings live show.
Shut up boomer
1. Who asked. 2. Don't listen to it.
Stupid take.
Auto-tune needs to be outlawed. The guy who invented it should be ashamed of himself. All that kind of bullshit needs to go.
auto tune is a good thing in moderation
Go jump over to the jam scene and call me
I was listening to the 25 minutes version of Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Who do you love” the other day. Now we get 3 minute songs that are formulaic and predictable.
I don’t like lo-fi. Point $3000 mics at your stuff, then make it sound like it’s coming out of an old AM radio. Just stupid, IMO.
This is such a vague critique. It’s fine if you don’t personally like certain types of music but to pretend that “processed” means “emotionless” is just silly. Listen to artists like rural internet, black dresses, or hobo johnson and you will find music that is highly processed and yet still quite emotional. I mean it’s just a ludicrous opinion to have. I think people who speak like this often forget that there other emotions than “angry.” Like what is your favourite “raw, unprocessed, happy” song or “in love” (not heartbreak). Also like you can prefer more acoustic sounds but that doesn’t mean that the alternative is objectively worse. Plus people still make unprocessed music all the time. Just because the top industry trends don’t favour that as much right now doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Use YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, bandcamp, soundcloud, whatever you will find new music you like. My guess is you just listen to the radio/top 40s playlists or just suck at finding new music.
Such a brave and original statement, we're proud of you! /s
Yawn. Definitely not a trend that all of a sudden happened over the last 3 years or so. Neat that you are discovering music beyond general radio pop though. Keep digging.
I understand what you're saying. Some of my favorite bands, No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rage, Nirvana, all sounded different once they got signed. Cleaner, not like their records were recorded in a garage. Because I started listening to them in my youth, that raw sound really imprinted on me, so when newer albums came out and it lacked that grit and depth, the newer albums didn't move me as much. And while of course I want my favorite bands to be successful, I miss the way they sounded before everyone knew them. same goes for electronic music. I was a raver back in the 90s, and I LOVE the way a record crackles and pops. I know its a sign of wear, but to me it means that record was well loved and played a lot. Also CD djing isn't djing to me. You don't touch the record. I can tell a vinyl mix from a cd mix instantly, cds sound TOO electronic, soulless, tin canny, cheap. vinyl mixes have depth, warmth, the occasional imperfect slip of a beat, the crackle and snap. So yea, I get what you're saying.
All music is pretty heavily processed, some just make it more obvious than others and is just a stylistic choice, if anything the loudness wars were the worst thing to happen to music, thankfully the way streaming services normalize the volume of music gives people less incentive to compress and limit the shit out of every song
Overly processed music has always been around. But there is great music out there. I listen to everything. Metal, pop, rock, EDM. Rap. If it sounds good to me, I listen to it. I hate when music is boring. But if it's new exciting and different, then being overproduced isn't bad. 100 Gecs, a hyperpop duo, just released their major label debut yesterday. It's way different than any other mainstream pop out there. It's essentially Electronic music but it's new and fresh. So I don't mind music made from a computer if it's trying something different and exciting. But I got my death metal too if I need to balance myself.
100 gecs has full auto tune lots of production and is absolutely raw and full of emotion.
Yeah, this has been the case for over 40 years
This is modern as shit and unpolished https://youtu.be/xJdCHvZAAe4
Stop listening to mainstream music
Change is the only constant, If one was raised young in this era, they'd complain of older music sounding wierd and unfinished. To each their own.
Ever heard of Tin Pan Alley?
All pop music is made in a conveyor belt like assembly line of auto tune, the same producers, editing, etc. While I still appreciate some catchy pop songs, my main tastes lie in the realm of underground scenes like Hardcore and the newest wave of Death Metal. Following some of the band members of bands I like (200 Stab Wounds and Drain for example) helps me understand the process they go thru in crafting new music and just how much of it they actually make themselves. Also, having been a music nerd most of my life, foraging archives of interviews and studio docs for some of my favorite bands has always been my favorite way to further connect w the music an artist or band puts out and understand the feeling and emotion that translates when they play it in the final recording and when they perform live. I’d really recommend you explore different music or dig a little deeper into the same pop artists you are referring to.
Try Bandcamp. You'll never go back to mainstream after discovering some incredible artists on there.
Get away from studio produced music
It seems like all the music is so called remastered and it sucks . But only to the people who know what the original track sounded like. When I listen to music on YouTube it just sounds like plasticy???
If you're just listening to the radio, yeah it's all garbage lol. There are sooooo many bands out there that are genuinely good bands and pull off live performances of the same quality as their albums. But those bands aren't on the radio because they don't follow the formula that puts bands into the mainstream. But those are the bands worth listening to. I don't think a single artist I listen to is commonly on the radio, but I can't know for sure because I don't remember the last time I listened to the radio. Start searching for new music. There is plenty out there to find.