Is True Music Talent Dying...

[oZzIIgk]

Country tends to revolve around the subjects of praising America, big trucks, alcohol and dirt roads.

Almost comically so. Is modern country a parody of itself?

 

[Foxus]

Almost comically so. Is modern country a parody of itself?

For the most part, pretty much. Its just become just that, more modernized. Less acoustic and more electric. I thought I read once that Keith Urban was into rock. Well dude, prove it. You have a Telecaster and a Amp, two essential ingredients to raise hell. Crank that amp up and take that Tele out for size. Put out a rock record so you don't look hypocritical.

But seriously though, rocks highly noticeable absence in the mainstream really irritates me something fierce.

 

[swampthingcs]

But seriously though, rocks highly noticeable absence in the mainstream really irritates me something fierce.

Why though?
If there's still quality rock being pumped out from other sources, (I assume, I don't pay attention to the "rock scene" especially because of how diverse the term is) you shouldn't have any issue with listening to that stuff.
(Never mind the literal millions of existing songs.)
"The general populous doesn't listen to what I do, and that irritates me!"
Nevermind that rock is such a broad term (not even including sub-genres) that half of what's not hip-hop or big room on the radio could be called rock.

 

[oZzIIgk]

"The general populous doesn't listen to what I do, and that irritates me!"
Nevermind that rock is such a broad term (not even including sub-genres) that half of what's not hip-hop or big room on the radio could be called rock.

"ROCK"

"ROCK"

EDIT: Improved my comparison so that it's fairer. Anamanaguchi is hacks when it comes to the "rock is hella broad" argument.

 

[smokebomb12]

I don't think the talent is dead, I just think the effort put into our music is the same.

 

[Foxus]

Deep Purples Smoke on the Water came out in the 70s and Nickleback's Photograph came out in 2005, ten years ago (racking in the success other rock bands had in rocks extended prime from the boost it got int eh 90s). Not quite sure what the point was supposed to be with the videos unless its supposed to be implying yesterday still applies to todays standard of rock (which, if anything, as I've said before, morphed itself into a harder form of pop music. Its lost that raw edge that makes rock, rock).

 

[oZzIIgk]

Deep Purples Smoke on the Water came out in the 70s and Nickleback's Photograph came out in 2005, ten years ago (racking in the success other rock bands had in rocks extended prime from the boost it got int eh 90s). Not quite sure what the point was supposed to be with the videos unless its supposed to be implying yesterday still applies to todays standard of rock (which, if anything, as I've said before, morphed itself into a harder form of pop music. Its lost that raw edge that makes rock, rock).

If I was comparing Nickelback to Deep Purple to make the point that they were the same tier of music, I think I might just have to commit some immensely hellish form of suicide.
Most of what I'm trying to say is that "rock" means literally nothing.

 

[Plunder]

The origin of this question is inevitably subjective even if the OP claims otherwise.

The music talent that you think is dead isn't, it's just not the mainstream popular stuff right now but it's out there and there is a ton of it. You just have to look for it, there are artists with millions and millions of views and fans that are probably your exact cup of tea, but you're just oblivious to them because they don't get mainstream publicity and advertising..

The same goes for pretty much anyone with any kind of taste in music. Music is evolving, EDM is pop right now. I remember listening to Dubstep and Trance and all kinds of EDM in the 90s and people thought it was really weird....now it's everywhere and everyone can't get enough of it.

The same goes for high fantasy and super heroes. If you were into that stuff back in the day people would tease you about it, now those same ignorants are going to see The Avengers five times in theaters and binge watching Game of Thrones.

 

[swampthingcs]

The origin of this question is inevitably subjective even if the OP claims otherwise.

The music talent that you think is dead isn't, it's just not the mainstream popular stuff right now but it's out there and there is a ton of it. You just have to look for it, there are artists with millions and millions of views and fans that are probably your exact cup of tea, but you're just oblivious to them because they don't get mainstream publicity and advertising..

The same goes for pretty much anyone with any kind of taste in music. Music is evolving, EDM is pop right now. I remember listening to Dubstep and Trance and all kinds of EDM in the 90s and people thought it was really weird....now it's everywhere and everyone can't get enough of it.

The same goes for high fantasy and super heroes. If you were into that stuff back in the day people would tease you about it, now those same ignorants are going to see The Avengers five times in theaters and binge watching Game of Thrones.

Honestly if dubstep was on the radio constantly that'd be sweet as hell

 

[Plunder]

I also forgot to address the OP's second question which was a good one.


Yes electronic music takes just as much effort if not more to create nowadays even with all the advancements and supposed "template" ways of making it.

I make both live electronic music (I have 2 Juno synths and KORG KRONOS) and software based music (using FL studio)

To engineer and synthesize the sounds for a track, it can take longer than it takes an entire band to come up with the lyrics and music for a song. Constantly tweaking ADSR values, envelope generators, filters, cutoff resonance, effects, mastering, equalizing, etc until you find those perfect sounds. Always trying new things and keeping up with current trends and software. Not to mention making drums from scratch or sampling them, then setting up the complex layout of a track with Air pads, stabs, bass, melody side-chaining, vocal mixing....you are a one man band, engineer, and producer usually when you make electronic music.

From cradle to grave you handle everything, thankfully the tools are there to do what used to take 10-15 people back in the 70s to accomplish. Of course you can play it safe or copy other people's sounds and melodies, but that happens just as much (if not more) in most non-electronic music too. The same progressions and lyrics that sound like they were written by a computer (Bieber, 1 Direction, 90% of all country and rap music, etc)

Most instrumental electronic music is quite unique and in a way the creativity, ingenuity, and complexity of the genre's overall musicality is comparable to it being the new classical music. Just with different intsruments.

 

[Sucumbio]

^ he gets it. I have been a music producer for 21 years and it still remains a time consuming prospect each and every track I write. You can throw anyone into a studio, whether or not they can use those tools is the thing. Saying talent isn't necessary for EDM is like saying working at Lowes means you should be able to build your own home.

 

[NotaSkeleton]

Whenever I hear a statement similar to ''Music today is..'' I immediately roll my eyes. Anyone making such a inane claim just shows his/her limited exposure to music. There are so many, many, many artists out there covering so many, many, many different musical styles. You simply can not say that music as a whole is X or Y.
Though, to generalise, perhaps pop music has become somewhat simplified in the execution department. That is, instrumentation and vocals. You have a lot more tools to make music now than you had, say, 30 years ago. You don't even need to learn an instrument in order to include one in your work. There are samples for that. So, I guess I understand what people mean when they are saying music is getting dumbed down or something, but for every pop artist there are at least a hundred obscure artists making extremely complex music, both technically and artistically. Also, as people pointed out earlier, while the executional aspect of pop music may have gotten easier, the production and mixing side of it has definitely become more advanced, so there is still a huge amount of work put into making a simple song sound good.

 

[Foxus]

Whenever I hear a statement similar to ''Music today is..'' I immediately roll my eyes. Anyone making such a inane claim just shows his/her limited exposure to music. There are so many, many, many artists out there covering so many, many, many different musical styles. You simply can not say that music as a whole is X or Y.
Though, to generalise, perhaps pop music has become somewhat simplified in the execution department. That is, instrumentation and vocals. You have a lot more tools to make music now than you had, say, 30 years ago. You don't even need to learn an instrument in order to include one in your work. There are samples for that. So, I guess I understand what people mean when they are saying music is getting dumbed down or something, but for every pop artist there are at least a hundred obscure artists making extremely complex music, both technically and artistically. Also, as people pointed out earlier, while the executional aspect of pop music may have gotten easier, the production and mixing side of it has definitely become more advanced, so there is still a huge amount of work put into making a simple song sound good.

I highlighted certain things in your post I want to take a moment to point out.

While I found it cool at first, the accurate replication of a instruments sound nowadays on keyboards and software has a negative to it. And that negative is one you pointed out yourself. That you don't need to learn that instrument to utilize it in a recording. Sampling can only go so far before it begins breaking the framework of what has made one a musician from the very beginning: knowing how to play an instrument. And regardless of how technology advances, that should never be replaced and sampling used as a excuse not to learn that instrument.

So it can be a cool technology, but when you begin prying at it, you'll see an equal amount of cons that come with the pros.

In a band setting, or in my case, it takes three hours to come up with a song, or close to it. Then longer for the lyrics, coming from a creative standpoint, if they are not to be half-assed or of the like. A band, even today, can take up to a year to fully come up with an album in the studio. It depends on how ones artistic vision works. As Plunder pointed out, it reminds me a lot of what goes on in the inner workings of Pro Tools (coming from an engineers point of view now).

You have the individual tracks to adjust, for each part of the chicken so-to-speak. From the bass drum to the lead vocals, you have to level them all that works when a casual listener listens to the track, all the EQing, compressing, applying effects through aux tracks, it's a foreign language in itself. But I frown upon EDM in general, and often joke the earliest EDM track I heard was the dial-up noise for America Online.

 

[Shin Chie]

No I don't believe music talent is dying at all. Now this sibject is completely subjective. We all have different tastes in music and artists. But for each of us there always is that new musician we always like and we think is extremely talented.

 

[Hina]

Saying it's subjective is a quick way to excuse a lack of knowledge of musical theory (or understanding). It's definitely not dying in the least. Actually, pop music particularly is the most theoretically complex genre (successfully applied) and interweaves ideas from many genres and such.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Hey guys? Music always sucked. That piece of über-simplistic caramel sludge hit #1 on the billboards in 1969. Among the songs that didn't that year:
- Whole Lotta Love
- Pinball Wizard
- Evil Ways
- Space Oddity
- 21st Century Schizoid Man
...I could keep going. By the way, if you haven't heard any of those songs yet and are past your 30th birthday, I'm allowed to declare you legally dead until you rectify the situation. Pop has always sucked, and the most popular songs often don't hold up well in the harsh mirror of history. Or, to put it another way, in 30 years, do you think anyone will still reference Justin Bieber favorably? Now how about Imagine Dragons? Yeah, that's a little more believable.

If you really feel the impulsive need, the blame really needs to put on technology. Ableton, Propellerhead, all this software is becoming a quick fix for people (which really all dubstep is, is looping certain bass frequencies for two-four minutes).

...Beg yer pardon? Have you ever done any dubstep? It's a little harder to do well than you make it out to be. It's easy to take some basic resources and crank out a turd in FL Studio. But making something worth listening to? Dude, get outta here. Plunder kinda nailed it.

But really, let me put two things side by side...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_0sDe-vWFo

Now you tell me - which one took more effort? Which one has a more interesting, creative feel to it? Need I remind you that one of those was #1 on the charts in the same year "In The Court Of The Crimson King", "Tommy", "Led Zeppelin II", and god knows how many other nigh-eternal classics came out, and the other is a random fandom youtube video by some 15-year-old kid (no, really) playing around with FL Studio?

Dubstep as a genre is limited. It's what you'd expect when you get really specific and demand that in order to belong to a genre, a song must have certain specific characteristics, up to and including song structure and certain auditory elements. And even then, you can easily tell the difference between the signature styles of many artists. Sit me down with a song by Alex S, a song by The Living Tombstone, and a song by General Mumble, and I could tell you which is which based purely on the artistic flairs noted therein. And those aren't just Dubstep/EDM artists, those are all bronies. And that's not even getting into the weird stuff, like Lindsey Sterling, who is awesome enough to namedrop, albeit not exactly germane to a discussion of purely electronic music.
Sure, some people will drum out absolute garbage. Big deal. Some of them will even become famous! Big deal! That's always been the case, and it always will be the case. The trick is to ignore them, and focus on the real talent. The other trick: don't get jaded. For example: Lady Gaga's material is actually rather novel, or at least was a few years ago. Not only that, but she both sings and writes her own material, and she's legitimately great at it. And a lot of the "pablum pop" we get on the radio, at least here in Germany, is actually kind of awesome in interesting ways. "I just came to say hello", for example - standard EDM, but it's got some nice twists and a very front-loaded beat I haven't seen all that often, and the straight-up minimalism present throughout the song is really cool. I thought it was interesting, at least, and the lyrical content is quite refreshing - we don't get enough songs about people saying "**** off and stop hitting on me" politely.

Actually, I changed my mind. Lindsey Sterling is germane to this discussion. You know why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tpIMDy9BE

Because as great of a fiddler as she is, her music would not be as unique or amazing without the elements of EDM and, yes, dubstep. Take the good, mix it with other stuff that works, and make masterpieces. Ignore the crap, even if the multitude doesn't. Making music easier to make doesn't just make it easier for some tool to get famous. It also means that there's way more people trying. And that means way, way more hidden gems that we never would have heard of otherwise. Gems like Alex S. :D

 

[Foxus]

I'm getting the impression Dubstep is like the genre for programmers so-to-speak, if you're to dive deeper than FL Studio.

Germany has always had its fair share of well-meaning musicians (actually, musical history tips its hat off to Germany, for Mozart and Beethoven) such as Rammstein, Eisbrecher and The Scorpions.

Lady Gaga, like most pop icons of today, USED to sing I believe, kinda like when Pink was starting out on the East Coast in pubs with a acoustic guitar (Funhouse is probably the only pop record I can think of, other than Avril Lavigne's "The Best Damn Thing" that has been a reasonable pop record in the last decade) before giving way to lip syncing live. I've observed performances of these pop icons today, and conclude there is little to no difference between their live performance and the studio record. Normally, when someone performs live, the tonal quality of their voice either sounds a bit lower or higher, given on how big the arena is and the setup of the PA System.

With the right lighting and sound team, playing a backing track live can be made out to look like the real thing.

Country may be different, since there are more instruments involved, but as Flea from RHCP disclosed a while back when RHCP "played" the halftime show (which I used to tune into, but its just become just no) none of the instruments, with exception of vocals, were plugged in or making sound. It was a backing track. Basically the Super Bowl and Pepsi were giving the audience the short end of the stick on that one. I find it absolutely degrading, coming from a musicians standpoint, that a band would cave in to the point of falsely performing. I would not perform with any backing track.

Why?
Because I wouldn't want to lose my credibility as a musician.
Its easy to memorize a song and move your lips to it, but I'm sorry. That type of performance in my eyes, is disgraceful and screwing over the fan.

And you're right, the classics have rarely, if ever, seen the light of day by pops standard. That's why publications like Billboard and Rolling Stone have become so laughable.

 

[Plunder]

Well that's the reason you are seeing artists like Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, and Adele attract such huge numbers these days. There are many people across all generations still craving the singer songwriter who can stand there and deliver a solid vocal.

Often they sound better live than in even in the studio; and it's just them, no gimmicks, or over the top production numbers...they just give stunning performances of their songs.

But there is an audience for everything, and some people don't care about singing at all. Like a Skrillex or Tiesto concert, most go just to dance to the music they like played over a massive sound system. And also be around thousands of like minded people who are there to enjoy themselves and share in the experience; a large motivation for most is to meet people, make friends, get laid, make connections, etc.

And of course you have the always mega popular artists like Madonna, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears - those people are going to see a spectacle that basically looks like a Broadway musical, they don't even care if they are lip syncing or singing terribly live.

p.s. Avril can actually sing pretty well live still, but I've noticed it's only when she does acoustic versions of her songs or it's a more intimate concert. As opposed to someone like Haley from Paramore who just absolutely crushes it every single time, she's amazing.

 

[Duplighost]

Based off of what Plunder said above, it has generally been accepted that one who lip syncs and does not write his or her own music is not very valued in the music industry, and typically does not care what kind of message his or her music is portraying. I respect songwriters, not only because they are telling a story on a deeper level when they put pen to paper, but these peoples' goal is to connect with their audience; on the flip side, there are various "artists" who produce generic music to get their name recognized, even if they spent little or no effort producing the music at all.

Compared to years ago, musical talent has not died, but decreased significantly. For some reason, a "trashy" song will have no problem reaching the top charts as long as it is catchy, no matter what type of message it contains. I feel that music is made to impact people, and lately, music has not been doing that. In order to augment the amount of musical talent before it goes completely downhill, we have to honor people that can deliver a true performance and write their own music to make a connection with the audience through their lyrics, not the unimaginative artists we hear nowadays.