Music has dumbed down - since 1950

[slotkar]

Jazz, IMO, has always been timeless and current jazz musicians had an amazing legacy to improvise from!

But there does seem to be a dearth of great jazz vocalists in the tradition of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Etta James, Nancy Wilson et alia!

My very favorite up and coming female jazz interpreter is Samara Joy who harks back to that golden age sound.



Her debut album for VERVE 'Linger Awhile' is stunning!

I may add that there are some newer female jazz vocalists that are very good to outstanding. Names that come to mind are: Veronica Swift (Not Taylor's sister :>) ), Jazzmeia Horn, Cyrille Aimée, Gretchen Parlato, Patricia Barber, Lizz Wright just to name a few. Notice there are very few noticeable or notable male jazz vocalists. I wonder why...

 

[PolkSDA]

Some of the curmudgeonly opinions expressed in this thread make my hair hurt.

There's plenty of complex, quality music being made, if you know where to find it. There's also plenty of vapid cookiecutter music everywhere you look.

Thus has ever been the case.

 

[ar surround]

Some of the curmudgeonly opinions expressed in this thread make my hair hurt.

There's plenty of complex, quality music being made, if you know where to find it. There's also plenty of vapid cookiecutter music everywhere you look.

Thus has ever been the case.

There were a lot of people who thought that the early Beatles stuff was garbage. (James Bond hated The Beatles. LOL)

Think about it, "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah." Can't get much more banal than that. Then they ended in a sixth chord, which for me made the whole song and saved it.

 

[key_wiz]

There were a lot of people who thought that the early Beatles stuff was garbage. (James Bond hated The Beatles. LOL)

Think about it, "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah." Can't get much more banal than that. Then they ended in a sixth chord, which for me made the whole song and saved it.

Which was far from an original musical device. But to young audiences who, for the last several years, had been listening to rock music only as complex as Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, ending on a six-chord was opening a whole new musical world. And The Beatles were certainly largely responsible for rock music becoming more musically complex.

My point being that these things are cyclical. Before The Beatles, rock/pop music was in a creative doldrums as the simplistic rhythms and 3 or 4 chord limitations of early 50s rock n roll had pretty much run its course. I suspect we may simply be in another such place in the cycle and it will only be a matter of time before someone adds a creative chord or two or melodic twist to what is an otherwise simplistic Taylor Swift song and it opens the creative doors for the next generation of composers.

 

[jimfisheye]

You hear some of those click track + robot voice "songs" that have infiltrated the scene and you just might question if things have dumbed down! Sure, there's usually some synth blort sound that's supposed to be the hook or something in there too. Simple can be effective. So can clinical. There's a plastic and lazy 'corporate' element in there that stinks though.

If you didn't know. FYI, drum machine beats are often quickly programmed and used for click tracks. Makes for a better groove for an "advanced" click track! Some of these pop tracks stop there and just push the fader up on that. Then add the autotuned robot voice. Serenaded by robots! Hear that coming out of cars driving around and I'm wondering if you have Bender in there making your playlist or something.

Context is key I suppose. I'm missing something that fans of that grab onto. I remember never understanding how the early Beatles singles could have done anything for them. Then I heard them in context on some oldies station at a brief day job I had and WOW! those tracks wiped the floor with the other 'hits' of the period. Suddenly made sense. There was some weird shit from the 50s or something with what sounded like children's songs and some early experiments with being odd in the studio with sped up tape bits and distortion experiments. A couple of the bands had the singer atonally screeching in falsetto. It got your attention! I suppose that cut through a muddy indistinct sound system too.

 

[ar surround]

Context is key I suppose. I'm missing something that fans of that grab onto. I remember never understanding how the early Beatles singles could have done anything for them. Then I heard them in context on some oldies station at a brief day job I had and WOW! those tracks wiped the floor with the other 'hits' of the period. Suddenly made sense.

Yes, context indeed. My bottom line: It always has been, and always will be, extremely difficult to make a hit song with wide appeal. Whether or not any of us think that most of today's stuff is crap or not, wonderfully talented people are out there working their butts off on this material.

 

[barfle]

Tom Hanks made a movie in the 90s titled “That Thing You Do.” It’s about a band pushing the envelope with popular music, and there are about a dozen songs written for the movie.The opening credits are covered by a pleasant song “Lovin’ You Lots and Lots” showing the state of pop music before the band (the One-ders, which became The Wonders) dropped their bomb. The story isn’t bad, but the musical history is fascinating.