There is something very, very wrong with today’s music. It just may not be very good.

Global News ^ | 7/24/22 | Alan Cross

[DallasBiff]

On warm summer nights, the park across the street from my house is filled with people playing dribbling soccer balls, playing volleyball, or engaging in aggressive games of Spikeball.

Nearly all of them will have music playing through Bluetooth speakers, usually from the Spotify Top 100. And if I’m honest, none of this music is any good. All I hear is mumbled lyrics tunelessly rendered (well, except for the overuse of Auto-Tune) and beats so quantized that they could be substituted for an atomic clock

[Allegra]

Even many young people don't like today's music.

True. I live in a college town. The coffee shops, restaurants, shops, salons, even grocery stores play mostly 70s and 80s music. There’s one coffee shop that has 70s and 80s album covers adorning its walls.

[HonkyTonkMan]

Unreal and all of them suck.

As you have often shared here, "Bad rock with a fiddle" - Tomas Pettah

[T.B. Yoits]

Most youth, today, probably don’t even understand so many of the words, colloquialisms, and, common sayings in the Beatles songs.

That's not saying much. Most listeners at the time of the Beatles didn't understand the common sayings in their songs.

For example, Paul McCartney has said that the song "Ticket To Ride" is about a British Railway ticket from a town called Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. While John Lennon said the song was about a health card that prostitutes in Hamburg, where the band spent most of their early years, carried to show they had been checked for sexually transmitted diseases and cleared.

[dfwgator]

I referenced several songs from Tom’s “The Last DJ” album on this thread.

[Varsity Flight]

Music?

Golden Calf Writhing

[cableguymn]

many are not signed with the big labels. So they don’t get the exposure they deserve.

[Varsity Flight]

Have never met anyone who correctly can answer the question, who is the father of American music?🎵

Answer on down this thread.

[Varsity Flight]

Jerome Kern

[rollo tomasi]

Neal Morse, Flower Kings, Dream Theater (Heavy though but extremely talented), Spock's Beard, Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon), Beardfish, Big Big Train, Wobbler, Kapia, Salem Hill, and a bunch of talented musicians are out there. The marketing mechanism is very narrow and potent (Profit margins) though so you need to put effort in finding good bands (Plenty are out there) away from what "they" shove down your face.

[PerConPat]

Hmmm...could be; but Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin etc. might object.

[ClearCase_guy]

Foster and Berlin were the two names I was going to offer up.

[PerConPat]

They were earlier than Kern, but only slightly in Berlin’s case.

[Night Hides Not]

Good list! The Beatles were remarkable, issuing a new LP every six months from 65-70.

[pfflier]

Actually, either. But Elvis Presley is the king.

[Fiji Hill]

Todays music lacks melody and “musicianship” for lack of better term. Where is the bass line, the sax, keyboard? Its all computer generated crap and sounds all the same.

It seems as though all tunes today are in 4/4 time. You never hear anything in 3/4 or 6/8 time. And they don't seem to use dynamics such as crescendos and decrescendos or fermatas, and everything is in a major key.

[dfwgator]

Actually Bob Wills is still the king.

[Fiji Hill]

I don’t think there is a father of American music, but an early pioneer in American sacred music is Lowell Mason. His best-known work is “Joy to the World” (1836) which we all sing at Christmastime. “Nearer, My God, to Thee” (1856), which was played by a Confederate band on the Gettysburg battlefield, is still found in some church hymnals. He also wrote “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” (1823), a hymn that the Christian Left would find highly politically incorrect (”the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone”).

[pfflier]

The king of western swing...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Oh, you betcha! I want to add Genesis, too. Not sure how I forgot them!

[dfwgator]

Dana Carvey - Every Neil Young Song You’ve Ever Heard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPpgB3OA5mM