Why is older music so much better compared to what we have to listen to today?
You either are or have met someone who has stated that older music is much better than contemporary music, and I get it. I used to be one of those people who was perplexed about today’s popular music. How come older music is so much better? Why is every mall replaying overrated, annoying songs? Why aren’t young artists talking about anything important, but only about clothes, money, or breakups? Why have songs gone repetitive and shallow? What is up?
During every period, good and bad songs are written, sung, and played. “Duh, obviously!” you might argue, “but today music is massively bad with very few exceptions.” Yes, yet, isn’t it how it has always been? The only difference is that we only have listened to old music that survived the test of time, meaning excellent ones. The not-so-good songs, even those that might have been quite popular at the time (like the 60s or 70s,) were filtered out. They are forgotten unless you specifically look for them. Hence, as it seems, we are comparing the best of the older songs to everything of today. Now, that’s a bit unfair, isn’t it?
Imagine if a visual artist named Ben compared all his doodles, quick sketches, and refined paintings to Van Gogh’s top five artworks. All the low-quality drawings would water down the overall value of Ben’s portfolio. Now, if we took Ben’s best work and compared them to Van Gogh’s best, then we might get somewhere. Ben’s been practicing for decades. He’s pretty good! No less than Vincent Van Gogh himself.
We could try to do the same with current music. We might attempt to compare the best songs of 2021 to the best songs of, let’s say 1981. Unfortunately, we can’t do that because we don’t know which songs will survive for decades. The top 10 certainly won’t. We could wait out and check a couple of decades later what was the best of the musical world during covid-19 quarantine times. Or, we could compare the best of the 1960s with the best of the 1980s. One might not be particularly better than the other.
Today might be the easiest time to create music. You don’t even need to have an instrument. You can use your computer and free software to produce music. Next, you can release it independently, and if it’s any good (or provocative) it could go viral. A crew of one can achieve a lot today compared to older times. Hence, many amateurs are putting music out there that reduces the overall quality of today’s music. That’s why it might seem that there are a lot of doodles’ equivalent of music the “kids are listening to today.” On the plus side, making music got simpler for people who want to spread important messages too. Shortly, yes, a lot of bad music is made today but wasn’t there always? Give today’s artists a chance! If you keep an open mind and stop comparing songs, you might enjoy new music more than you thought.
