today's music

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redhotdj

redhotdj

Its 5 O'clock somewhere
Mar 21, 2008
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Richfield Springs n.y.
I know I'm getting old but with in the last couple of years ( my opinion ) Most music sucks. I follow and watch trends and genera beside listing to the radio but what the hell happen to good music. Today's R&B hip hop sucks, I was never much of a country fan but a few years back I started liking Some country but today most of it is slow ballads. I'm sure someone will pipe in saying you need to do remixes, I've tried and done that around here and I say HERE it dose not work. when I look at the charts I say who the f*ck is that here today gone by tonight. I may be getting old and will probably not do many more schools BUT I used to like the hip hop style. What happen to songs by the Beatles, BTO, the guess who, the who, wild cherry, Ohio players, Aretha franklin, CCR, now start to work your way up in years Neil diamond, Santana, Elton John, well you get my point. I remember you couldn't wait for the next album to come out by the artist you liked and the same artist or group stayed together for years. I'm not stuck in a time warp but this new stuff is terrible
 
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You're talking about artists from 50 years ago. That's half a century! But I agree. Today's hits make it harder to even wanna be a DJ for us older folks.

What's the last hit song that came out that you actually liked? Off the top of my head it would be "thinking out loud". Uptown Funk was pretty good too.
 
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Because today's music industry is just more of a printing press. They just bring out a lot of crap music, and hope that a single song just might stick for a while out of hundreds.

There is really no more real musicians involved. Very rarely at least. Most of it is digital, electronic beats created by a computer program. Hip Hop is terrible. Half the time they can't even rap correctly. Less and less people who creatively write the music today.

Cardi B seems to be the only artist with hits in 2018 that I get requests from both older adults and teens/young adults today. ...And I don't really care for her music. I guess Girls Like you by Maroon 5 and her isn't bad. Good catchy tune. ...I like it is actually a okay dance song, but I don't care for it much myself.

The Middle by Zedd imo was the best song that came out this year. Very catchy, and people just love to sing along to it when they dance.

I agree that the music of the 60s, 70s, 8os, and 90s had much more talent, and crafted musicians invovled in the production of music back then. The writers were also way more talented than the song writers of today.
 
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The catchy, playable songs are a higher percentage EDM (or at least paced by an EDM DJ/Producer). Most urban music is tough to dance to.
 
I'll say there's not a lot of talented people out there anymore. It's mostly about what will make money. To hell with someone has talent or not. What's funny to me are the ones who complain when I call today's hip hop and R and B music tackhead music. Yet some are talking about how they don't like it either.

Of course we all have songs or styles of music we hate. The thing is can you deliver what the client wants? I have songs from back in the day that many people liked and still do that I never liked day one. Yet if that's what they want, that's what they get.

I have certain artists from back in the day that others liked and I say they should have never quit their day job and some need a night job too. The question is how many artists of today get to last. One that is still going strong that I hate is Usher. I heard he gets paid $750,000 a show. I wouldn't pay him a dollar. I said that but if I have to play Usher I will. I will cringe while playing him. I only like one song he ever did and that is Good Kisser. That's just because I liked the music.
 
Amen to play the Classics and earlier decades that worked then...they will work today. Movie soundtracks are bringing back the earlier music.
 
I've said this before, but we are comparing the music today vs the greatest hits of other decades. We've forgotten the crappy music of those decades because it was crappy. The great music of those decades is WHY we like those decades.
My dad said the EXACT same things about 70's and 80's music while it was coming out. It wasn't music to him. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Glenn Campbell.... That was music. Look at some of the weekly charts of those decades and you'll see some songs you don't remember. Because no one plays them any more. Because they weren't very good.

Plenty of crappy music today. But some great stuff too, like every other decade.
 
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...and I've said this before, Art (music) is a reflection of the society we live in. The really big change I see is that people don't actually dance anymore to "new music". Look at Taso's vids - everyone just jumps up and down with their hands (and smartphones) in the air! What??
 
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Scott Hanna said:
I've said this before, but we are comparing the music today vs the greatest hits of other decades. We've forgotten the crappy music of those decades because it was crappy. The great music of those decades is WHY we like those decades.
My dad said the EXACT same things about 70's and 80's music while it was coming out. It wasn't music to him. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Glenn Campbell.... That was music. Look at some of the weekly charts of those decades and you'll see some songs you don't remember. Because no one plays them any more. Because they weren't very good.

Plenty of crappy music today. But some great stuff too, like every other decade.
Click to expand...

Nail, meet head.
 
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Scott Hanna said:
I've said this before, but we are comparing the music today vs the greatest hits of other decades. We've forgotten the crappy music of those decades because it was crappy. The great music of those decades is WHY we like those decades.
My dad said the EXACT same things about 70's and 80's music while it was coming out. It wasn't music to him. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Glenn Campbell.... That was music. Look at some of the weekly charts of those decades and you'll see some songs you don't remember. Because no one plays them any more. Because they weren't very good.

Plenty of crappy music today. But some great stuff too, like every other decade.
Click to expand...

Not sure I agree with you entirely... I can remember going to the record/CD store and listening to music for hours at a time. Not all of it was good, but I always left with several purchases. Today I can listen to new music for hours without leaving the house, but I can go for days at a time without finding a single good track to buy (download). I do download some of the current hits, but only because I’m a DJ and feel like I must have them. However, not many are good enough that I listen to them for personal enjoyment. I used to make new playlists every couple of months with dozens of my latest favorites... Now... there are not enough songs to make a decent playlist every six months.[emoji1]

I will add... it does depend upon genre. Good dance music, rock, R&B, or Pop is really hard to find, but if you listen to Jazz, New Age, Country, Bluegrass, or Modern Swing, there’s good stuff to listen to. One of the points I make to prospective clients is that even though music is readily available to everyone, most people don’t have the time (or desire) to weed through all the cr@p to find the good stuff. That’s why you need a DJ with good musical taste.[emoji4]
 
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Scott Hanna said:
Plenty of crappy music today. But some great stuff too, like every other decade.
Click to expand...

I agree every generation of music has their HITS and MISSES.
But even the so-called "great" music of today does not have the staying power.
Will we honestly be listening to "Uptown Funk" and calling it a classic in 30 or 40 years?
 
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We loved that old music because we saved up and spent our allowance on it... we worked a shift bagging groceries for it... we went to the record store and sifted through endless bins of lp's to find it...we tore open the celephane and smelled it ... we knew the cover art word for word...picture for picture...back and front... we listened to EVERY track a hundred times to get our moneys worth... there were so many visceral components to music then...

music now is an icon...a button on a website... a click...and normally a drag to the recycle bin....

i used to know my records by an 1/8 inch piece of tattered color poking gently above other records in my crate.... i know song titles by the purple font on a back cover... i could see it in my mind...i could organize it by some sort of mystical sixth sense ... that music was alive... and spoke to me in whispers...

the music today isnt as much bad as it is viscerally soulless ... it has no worth... it is a plastic bag blowing across an empty parking lot...

if kids...or even WE were standing in line... buying...sniffing...studying it... excited to introduce it to a crowd who hadnt yet found it.... we would appreciate and REMEMBER this music...

cc
 
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I think the disconnect is that music is no longer intrinsic in a preponderance of contemporary songs.

There are some artists that produce musical songs that rise to the HIT plateau (see Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, just to name 2) but many others, far too many are just auto-tuned, non-melodic and fundamentally non-musical and deliver noise tracks over which vulgarity is repeatedly recited, not sung.

When my parents fussed about my music, they were complaining about the volume not the content.

YMMV.
 
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We live in a "sound bite" society, the kind of world where people seek instant notoriety from a single Twitter tweet. Music is just one more casualty of that social and commercial reality. Music today is a "hook" surrounded by another 3 minutes of filler.

Even "Uptown Funk" (someone mentioned) is just a rip-off of the sound from former 1980's R&B hits like Morris Day & the Time, for example.

I'm doing far less youth, school, or kids events and I find that with the adult audiences I have the benefit of choosing only the top of the list from today's drought stressed music pool. The number one closing request these days both young and old is: Journey - Don't STop Believin' . It's unusual to have this kind of consistency in music preference across all ages and it demonstrates that even the youth segment is looking back to an early time for inspiration.
 
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DJ Bobcat said:
Not sure I agree with you entirely... I can remember going to the record/CD store and listening to music for hours at a time. Not all of it was good, but I always left with several purchases. Today I can listen to new music for hours without leaving the house, but I can go for days at a time without finding a single good track to buy (download). I do download some of the current hits, but only because I’m a DJ and feel like I must have them. However, not many are good enough that I listen to them for personal enjoyment. I used to make new playlists every couple of months with dozens of my latest favorites... Now... there are not enough songs to make a decent playlist every six months.[emoji1]

I will add... it does depend upon genre. Good dance music, rock, R&B, or Pop is really hard to find, but if you listen to Jazz, New Age, Country, Bluegrass, or Modern Swing, there’s good stuff to listen to. One of the points I make to prospective clients is that even though music is readily available to everyone, most people don’t have the time (or desire) to weed through all the cr@p to find the good stuff. That’s why you need a DJ with good musical taste.[emoji4]
Click to expand...

While I agree - it's where your standing at that point in time as to what is good or not good. Example, people that love 50's music loved alot of stuff that the next decade considered crap. The same goes for today .. and the next decade will think most of the stuff from today is crap, except for the cream - which will rise. Some artist from today will be considered great for this time of music.
 
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Ausumm said:
I agree every generation of music has their HITS and MISSES.
But even the so-called "great" music of today does not have the staying power.
Will we honestly be listening to "Uptown Funk" and calling it a classic in 30 or 40 years?
Click to expand...
I think people from the 20's said the same about Elvis (their kids music). ;)

It's all about perspective.
 
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No, many from today's younger generation prefer music from the 70s, 80s compared to today's "music". Yeah, there were some sucky songs from every era and ever genre. The point is there isn't much in today's music for guys like me in their sixties. But things keep changing, and someday top 40 will get better (hopefully).
 
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