More Music?

Hating on 'today's music' is just making you an annoying, angry, grump. Please stop.

I'm going to let you in on a secret, there isn't much that's unique to your favorite band. They probably haven't done anything too revolutionary with music. Actually, they probably used the same chord progression as Justin Bieber. YES! Your precious Led Zepplin used the 50's progression, Justin Bieber used the 50's progression, Madonna used the 50's progression (but I like to think she would call it the ice cream changes). The 50s progression is I - vi - IV - V ( I don't actually know much about chord progressions, but I know in C major it's C - Am - F - G). I can play your rock music back to back with pop music. Oh, the humanity!

Ok, here's the thing, pop music, for the most part, is repetitive, made for that masses, and diluted. It's designed to be sold. I hate it, you probably hate it, we both probably have hummed Shake It Off at least once. But this mass produced music is not all the music that this age has to offer. There has been bad pop music, and there will continue to be bad pop music. I think everyone can agree with that.

No, my problem is the fact that people actually believe the music industry as a whole is dead. There are people who think it's going to crash into the ground and from the ashes will rise a new, better generation of music. History is due to repeat itself, and just like in the 20's and all through the last hundred years, music is evolving, and some people are being grumps about it.

The fact is, today we have a million new ways to create music. We can throw together some beats at a computer, or we can sit down a play with a guitar for hours on end. Both will make music, but one way always seems to get incredible backlash. Since the guitar is a much more traditional way of doing it, people perceive it as more sincere. Who is to say that person at the computer didn't put thought into it? Maybe they thought the whole song out, each note.

My personal favorite band is The 1975. They were a band for about 10 years before they started trying to get their music out there and it shows. Their first album is a compilation of what they sounded like over 10 years. They have classic guitar/bass/drums/keyboard/vocals songs, but also very heavily produced songs. They still take music seriously and they plan out every ridiculous part of their albums.  I don't know how someone can say something about how everyone in the music business is in it for money, or how nobody cares about their songs anymore. If you stopped and listened to the artist, regardless of whether you liked the music or not, you know that they care.

Not only that, you have plenty of artist taking 'risks' still. Karen O's debut album, Crush Songs is strange and, uncomfortable at times. It's incredibly raw and under-produced, with singing that sounds almost distant, and still very gentle. Or if not risking the underproduction, you risk the overproduction. St. Vincent's most recent, self-titled album, is almost intergalactic. Nearly all the music is produced via technology and her lyrics are far from what's considered social acceptable. To say music now is void of risks is to look solely at what you want to see.

Maybe it's just that people don't want to listen to anything to do with new music, so they label it with scary and bad. Kind of like what old people to with technology.