Classical music has not been innovated because of how dead it became in the West which is disappointing. . In fact it seems to be that Japan seems to be the only ones creating "modern" classical and opera themed music
I think it's because those who would be "classical" dudes in the West have been commercialized into movie and video game orchestra leaders.
Basically, this stuff IS modern classical music; the old stuff was patronized by rich people, for rich people entertainment. "Subverting" it to movies and games is just how that's expressed when the masses get involved. And I know I'm not explaining what I'm thinking quite right, but it's early. But consider the original Star Wars double album, and tell me that isn't a "classical music" album.
And I guess one could say another branch went into orchestral rock (Pink Floyd, etc)
The reason instrumental only music died out was because it's inherently harder to make due to the lack of lyrics meaning no crutches, and inherently harder to market because how the hell are you going to describe it while looking for it. Yes, songs relying on lyrics is a crutch in my opinion because most rap is fucking garbage.
Generalizing, every masterpiece requires enough motivation for the master to do the boring grunge work to perfect the piece, because only they are skilled enough to do it and nobody wants to put that much effort in when they could move on to something new and exciting.
Patrons, game companies, God. Sometimes even not to disappoint their fans, although rarely is that enough to make truly great works.
Not everyone goes to live theatre, such as opera or symphonies, but most people watch movies, or play video games nowadays.
And the symphonies that are most popular, are the "Pops" kind. Hell, I used to have a set of 8 track tapes (ahem, yep) with "150 Popular Classics" that was all classical music that one would recognize from somewhere - Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, The Lone Ranger, the Speedy Muffler ad, etc. I don't think that particular collection survived digitization.
Honestly, classical music still exists, but it basically only exists within movie and video game mediums. I grant you it's not Baroque-era style, but it's the best we can do since NPR Tote-baggers are the dominant majority of consumers of the traditional music.
also look up yoshihisa hirano he started off doing music for beyblade (quality of those recordings are garbo but its really hard to find the music he did for it cause if you search for "beyblade ost" its all the pop stuff) he also did hunter X hunter, ouran highschool host club, break blade and various others
and in the west if you listen to BBC radio 3... oh god all the modern composers they showcase are all fucking Benjamin Brittain school of plinky plonky shite by "insert diverse female composer here"
honestly they keep banging on about these contemporary classical composers that sound like shit and i'm sat here going japan and china have some of the best out there (seriously yu peng chen and the rest of hoyo mix have done some absolute bangers for genshin impact I know its Chinese but good artistry is good artistry) and if you want specifically female composers (because muh diversity) i know 100% that japan has more than enough
Damn, good old Zetsuen no Tempest. One of those diamonds in the rough it feels like no one talks about nowadays so it feels like you just had to be there paying attention when it aired.
Thanks for all the links, ill check them out later.
My contributions to this discussion:
Mephistopheles from the Dies Irae visual novel OST. IIRC its a metal version of part of Mozart's Requiem.
There were a couple others I was thinking of that jumped out of my mind while I was typing, but I will edit them in if they come to me later.
In short, music in the west is dead. Don't get me wrong, you can find all sorts of good shit done by less popular groups and individuals on the internet, but the popular is almost entirely shitty, soulless garbage.
If you don't like juvenile pop or lowest common denominator black music, you don't find much good stuff in the mainstream now.
Every fucking song needs some rapper yelling random shit in. I remember way back I was listening to Florence + The Machine and even they had a couple songs where they had versions with a random black guy talking over the lady singing. WHY? It never adds anything.
Big label jews chasing the success of previous hits that did that.
This right here is about 80% of the answer to why music is the way it is right now. The article that OP linked to even mentions the gold rush by the music labels for older hit music. These labels will of course want a return on their investments so they push the artists that they've bought. I guess that people don't realize that there's nothing organic about what kind of music becomes popular.
Yeah. Those were great. I feel they are way too weird now, I just don't think they match the quality of their older stuff.
Also, have you noticed how they made some amazing songs for movies that were either meh or bad? Breath of Life for that awful Snow White one, anyone?
In the 90s, the record labels colluded to buy the radio stations and only produce/promote a handful of singers/bands they could completely milk like disney is with Star Wars and Marvel, instead of gambling on new acts. The stagnation is completely because of this. They took a thriving cultural phenomenon and turned it into a form-letter money printer that ran out of ink 30 years ago.
Mind control is real. Studios discovered that if you play music to people over and over, they will learn to like it. Thus you can sell anything by saturating the airwaves. Then once it's run its course and sales taper off, they switch to the next set of "hit" songs. They're printing money at the cost of destroying culture and smothering any genuine competition.
Culture isn't being destroyed, but it certainly is struggling. There's good music out there but it's hard to find and no normie will every bring it up in talking.
The downward spiral began when the charts went from being decided by listener votes to being decided arbitrarily, which just meant decided by payments from record labels. This happened in the early 90s IIRC.
There are no good new songs on the radio. The only radio stations worth listening to are the classic ones with old hits. Radios are only full of gangsta rap or dull white music that lacks both creativity or maestry.
As someone prone to rant about how western music is dead, and how all mainstream shit is soulless garbage, one would think I would love country music. But I don't, I really hate listening to it; it grates on my ears. That being said, I dont have as much disdain for most of it as I do other shit.
Music became incredibly cheap to produce and nobody really has to pay for it anymore. On top of that, culture never advanced after roughly 2005. What else is there to say? The writer of that article is clearly deaf.
I ran errands today including a stop at my local weed shop. I guess nobody showed up for work today so I waited for a while; there was some kind of dreadfully depressing rap music loud in the backround that sounded like a repetitious sonambula of sound without melody that made my brain die a little.
I'd rather hear reruns of Perry Como or Doris Day.
I found New Retro Wave on youtube. It's based on 80s and 90s style. A bit of the recent songs featured are shit, but there's a catalog of years worth of great new music.
Old songs from the 70s, 80s, 90s now represent 70% of...
Real question: What percentage of the US population were aged 5-25 during any of those three decades?
People listening to music from when they were young is a no-brainer. The real question is how many people are listening to music from before their time?
This is it, really. When I go about my day, and I hear average people listening to music outside, its 100% of the time some mumble-rap shit with that drill beat that every modern rap song has. 20 years from now, streaming services is going to be all that shit
Even modern metal/rock is pretty good. I never run out of options when it comes to that, and my bands are still making music I like. Of course, a lot of them also sound classic (like Eclipse), but that is part of the appeal.
Whitepill: This means the woke shit from the last few years isn't popular or lasting. While I wish new shit were good, having old classics (and not 60s boomer trash) is the 2nd best option.
Or it means the people streaming music are gen x and millenial, joe normy whose music taste has stagnated, he likes what he liked as a teen, as every generation before them has done.
My musical tastes fossilized around 1995. I haven't needed to listen to Top 40 radio since I stopped with the cross-country driving about 15 years or so ago. I think the newest new song I've heard that I've liked was that one from Zootopia; all I hear otherwise is that horrible niggerific garbage they play on commercials and stuff (before I can hit the mute button, anyway). Between all the MP3s I've collected, and Spotify, I don't really need to bother with anything outside a certain range of decades or oddball genres.
Think I've mentioned here before, could be wrong but I'll type it out again:
I recently(like 1-2 months ago) listened to the top 100 of my country and the US's charts. I did not find one song I liked. Not ONE. Everything was either utter garbage or meh at best. It is not like there isn't good music being made nowadays, there is. There's tons of great artists who make amazing, engaging and throught provoking music...just never in the charts. In the charts it's all about who to fuck next and who's hot and I am so gangster and fuck the cops etc. Chart music should be burned to the ground.
Every single radio station that plays more current music is unlistenable. Actually try it yourself, listen to some of what is popular and you'll notice how vapid it all is.
Can't remember last time I listened to music in the charts, most of my music is now from game/anime soundtracks and the odd good track I hear from YouTube videos.
I don't know when I last listened to music on the radio or to chart music.
But I constantly find new artists in the genres that I like (metal, progressive house, ...) so I don't really care.
I'm pretty retro with music and growing up in the 90s I listened to a ton of 70s rock and R&B/Funk. I am so out of the loop on what music is current now.
I don't listen to radio. The modern music I like is electronica / synthwave. Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, Power Glove, Dance with the Dead, Phutureprimitive, Beats Antique, Daft Punk, Kavinsky, Bonobo, Dynatron are all good to me.
I’m not regularly exposed to pop music (not that I hate it, I just never turn the radio on) but as a guitar enthusiast I find there’s tons of awesome music coming out. https://youtu.be/0GdXNaMos_w
Classical music is infinitely superior to the ape noises and borderline pornography that currently pollutes the American soundscape.
Classical music has not been innovated because of how dead it became in the West which is disappointing. . In fact it seems to be that Japan seems to be the only ones creating "modern" classical and opera themed music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBUF-s15co&ab_channel=KeigoHoashi-Topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMfvZmhqW0A&ab_channel=HelpingHands
I think it's because those who would be "classical" dudes in the West have been commercialized into movie and video game orchestra leaders.
Basically, this stuff IS modern classical music; the old stuff was patronized by rich people, for rich people entertainment. "Subverting" it to movies and games is just how that's expressed when the masses get involved. And I know I'm not explaining what I'm thinking quite right, but it's early. But consider the original Star Wars double album, and tell me that isn't a "classical music" album.
And I guess one could say another branch went into orchestral rock (Pink Floyd, etc)
The reason instrumental only music died out was because it's inherently harder to make due to the lack of lyrics meaning no crutches, and inherently harder to market because how the hell are you going to describe it while looking for it. Yes, songs relying on lyrics is a crutch in my opinion because most rap is fucking garbage.
Generalizing, every masterpiece requires enough motivation for the master to do the boring grunge work to perfect the piece, because only they are skilled enough to do it and nobody wants to put that much effort in when they could move on to something new and exciting.
Patrons, game companies, God. Sometimes even not to disappoint their fans, although rarely is that enough to make truly great works.
Popularizing, maybe.
Not everyone goes to live theatre, such as opera or symphonies, but most people watch movies, or play video games nowadays.
And the symphonies that are most popular, are the "Pops" kind. Hell, I used to have a set of 8 track tapes (ahem, yep) with "150 Popular Classics" that was all classical music that one would recognize from somewhere - Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, The Lone Ranger, the Speedy Muffler ad, etc. I don't think that particular collection survived digitization.
It's kinda funny that I subconsciously knew this because 90% of non lyrical music I listen to is from Japanese anime or videogame OSTs.
There's the odd derivative project like Keygen Church at least.
Honestly, classical music still exists, but it basically only exists within movie and video game mediums. I grant you it's not Baroque-era style, but it's the best we can do since NPR Tote-baggers are the dominant majority of consumers of the traditional music.
That doesn't mean that we don't have good shit
look up michiru oshima
they did some great music for "blast of tempest" (a series with themes and characters based on tempest and hamlet) they did an orchestral arrangement of the third movement of Beethovens sonata no.17 I wish they had done the entire thing though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6avmpoDwCiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzSw_ChYAFQ
and a couple more tracks
they also did the music for a series called "snow white with the red hair" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAY03Ly46A&list=PL7bwIieUCQQSwr-dozH2RvRhip_IWOCb3&index=1
and little witch academia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Y_nE1IIzY&list=PL74egpP-HXJ0y1Ks_UxBHAZmtZriUMu78
also look up yoshihisa hirano he started off doing music for beyblade (quality of those recordings are garbo but its really hard to find the music he did for it cause if you search for "beyblade ost" its all the pop stuff) he also did hunter X hunter, ouran highschool host club, break blade and various others
and in the west if you listen to BBC radio 3... oh god all the modern composers they showcase are all fucking Benjamin Brittain school of plinky plonky shite by "insert diverse female composer here"
honestly they keep banging on about these contemporary classical composers that sound like shit and i'm sat here going japan and china have some of the best out there (seriously yu peng chen and the rest of hoyo mix have done some absolute bangers for genshin impact I know its Chinese but good artistry is good artistry) and if you want specifically female composers (because muh diversity) i know 100% that japan has more than enough
edit: fuck it I'm back with more
SOUND FUCKING EUPHONIUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKCY_pCPi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgIvgvvyKiA the soundtrack is a mixture of original pieces and arrangements of pre-existing work
spice and wolf, the majority of the soundtrack makes use of medieval instruments (crumbhorn etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68rGwmvn_8A&list=PLoMYI-vy6AgzjTh_9-oUPf8S1jeUyjhQA&index=3
Damn, good old Zetsuen no Tempest. One of those diamonds in the rough it feels like no one talks about nowadays so it feels like you just had to be there paying attention when it aired.
Thanks for all the links, ill check them out later. My contributions to this discussion:
Mephistopheles from the Dies Irae visual novel OST. IIRC its a metal version of part of Mozart's Requiem.
There were a couple others I was thinking of that jumped out of my mind while I was typing, but I will edit them in if they come to me later.
In short, music in the west is dead. Don't get me wrong, you can find all sorts of good shit done by less popular groups and individuals on the internet, but the popular is almost entirely shitty, soulless garbage.
Forbidden knowledge:
We are still listening to Baroque
If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it.
I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL, PACHELBEL
If you don't like juvenile pop or lowest common denominator black music, you don't find much good stuff in the mainstream now.
Every fucking song needs some rapper yelling random shit in. I remember way back I was listening to Florence + The Machine and even they had a couple songs where they had versions with a random black guy talking over the lady singing. WHY? It never adds anything.
Big label jews chasing the success of previous hits that did that. See Fly by Sugar Rat.
Yeah that's more accurate.
That rap version of Fly makes me irrationally angry.
Idk what you're talkin about man, this was peak culture!
This right here is about 80% of the answer to why music is the way it is right now. The article that OP linked to even mentions the gold rush by the music labels for older hit music. These labels will of course want a return on their investments so they push the artists that they've bought. I guess that people don't realize that there's nothing organic about what kind of music becomes popular.
I recall Lungs and Ceremonials being pretty good albums. That must've been what, over a decade ago?
Yeah. Those were great. I feel they are way too weird now, I just don't think they match the quality of their older stuff.
Also, have you noticed how they made some amazing songs for movies that were either meh or bad? Breath of Life for that awful Snow White one, anyone?
The best rap song ever was from Hitman Blood Money 2006. Listen to this masterpiece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3HXYNOzW6A
Can't argue with perfection.
Looks wise, she was always kinda weird. I also don't really like the newer songs much.
In the 90s, the record labels colluded to buy the radio stations and only produce/promote a handful of singers/bands they could completely milk like disney is with Star Wars and Marvel, instead of gambling on new acts. The stagnation is completely because of this. They took a thriving cultural phenomenon and turned it into a form-letter money printer that ran out of ink 30 years ago.
Mind control is real. Studios discovered that if you play music to people over and over, they will learn to like it. Thus you can sell anything by saturating the airwaves. Then once it's run its course and sales taper off, they switch to the next set of "hit" songs. They're printing money at the cost of destroying culture and smothering any genuine competition.
Culture can only be destroyed through absolute control like in China or North Korea.
There's only one thing a culture needs to survive: freedom.
Culture isn't being destroyed, but it certainly is struggling. There's good music out there but it's hard to find and no normie will every bring it up in talking.
That's fine. If you're into anything you should accept that you will disconnect from normies eventually.
The downward spiral began when the charts went from being decided by listener votes to being decided arbitrarily, which just meant decided by payments from record labels. This happened in the early 90s IIRC.
There are no good new songs on the radio. The only radio stations worth listening to are the classic ones with old hits. Radios are only full of gangsta rap or dull white music that lacks both creativity or maestry.
There's always country music. Come home, white man.
Nashville and the press will destroy any decent country act before they get too big.
Country music is just rap music with grandpas guitars, at this point. It's a stagnant genre where anyone with basic understanding of music theory can create a hit song that sounds like every other song you'd hear on the "country" station.
As someone prone to rant about how western music is dead, and how all mainstream shit is soulless garbage, one would think I would love country music. But I don't, I really hate listening to it; it grates on my ears. That being said, I dont have as much disdain for most of it as I do other shit.
Modern country is pop with a twang. You need to dig into bluegrass for the old feel.
Rural noun, simple adjective...
You know I like my chicken fried
That narrows it down to everything produced after 2005.
Music became incredibly cheap to produce and nobody really has to pay for it anymore. On top of that, culture never advanced after roughly 2005. What else is there to say? The writer of that article is clearly deaf.
I ran errands today including a stop at my local weed shop. I guess nobody showed up for work today so I waited for a while; there was some kind of dreadfully depressing rap music loud in the backround that sounded like a repetitious sonambula of sound without melody that made my brain die a little.
I'd rather hear reruns of Perry Como or Doris Day.
*finds they all hanged themselves in the store room
Reject modernity, embrace sea shanties
This is the way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS5xR7jBxDw
I found New Retro Wave on youtube. It's based on 80s and 90s style. A bit of the recent songs featured are shit, but there's a catalog of years worth of great new music.
If you like 80s synth / electronica, you should check out The Prime Thanatos - he showcases music from new / upcoming musicians.
thanks for the rec, I love synthwave stuff
Thaehan also puts out a good variety of stuff.
They have some really good artists on their label. Akuma, Tokyo Rose, Strngr, Deadlife, Waveshaper etc etc.
Retro wave is awesome.
Was an awesome genre while it lasted (2008-2016). RIP in peace.
DJ Khaled and Drake put a song out recently that seems to be like loosely based on the old beegee’s staying alive song. It’s like shockingly bad
Real question: What percentage of the US population were aged 5-25 during any of those three decades?
People listening to music from when they were young is a no-brainer. The real question is how many people are listening to music from before their time?
This is it, really. When I go about my day, and I hear average people listening to music outside, its 100% of the time some mumble-rap shit with that drill beat that every modern rap song has. 20 years from now, streaming services is going to be all that shit
Metal and rock are the only music. ACDC, mdkfm, remstein, metallica, judas priest, man o war, aerosmith, guns and roses, etc. That is where it is at.
Even modern metal/rock is pretty good. I never run out of options when it comes to that, and my bands are still making music I like. Of course, a lot of them also sound classic (like Eclipse), but that is part of the appeal.
I have been listening to Sabaton fanatically. Any other power metal bands like them?
In alphabetical order what I consider the best rock/metal bands are: 3 Inches of Blood.
Accept.
AC/DC.
Aerosmith.
Angel Witch.
Autograph.
Black Sabbath.
Budgie.
Crimson Glory.
Def Leppard.
DIO.
Disturbed.
Dokken.
DragonForce.
Firehouse.
Guns N'Roses.
Iced Earth.
In Flames.
Iron Maiden.
Journey.
Judas Priest.
Kaleo.
KISS.
KMFDM.
Man o' War.
MDFMK.
Megadeth.
Metallica.
Motley Crue.
Motorhead.
Omen.
Ostrogoth.
Overkill.
Ozzy Osbourne.
Pantera.
Powerwolf.
Racer X.
Rammstein.
Riot.
Rob Zombie.
Rush.
Sabaton.
Savatage.
Saxon.
Scorpions.
Slayer.
The Doors.
The Rolling Stones.
Turisas.
Twisted Sister.
There's a few others but I only have singles from them that are worth listening to.
Whitepill: This means the woke shit from the last few years isn't popular or lasting. While I wish new shit were good, having old classics (and not 60s boomer trash) is the 2nd best option.
Or it means the people streaming music are gen x and millenial, joe normy whose music taste has stagnated, he likes what he liked as a teen, as every generation before them has done.
My musical tastes fossilized around 1995. I haven't needed to listen to Top 40 radio since I stopped with the cross-country driving about 15 years or so ago. I think the newest new song I've heard that I've liked was that one from Zootopia; all I hear otherwise is that horrible niggerific garbage they play on commercials and stuff (before I can hit the mute button, anyway). Between all the MP3s I've collected, and Spotify, I don't really need to bother with anything outside a certain range of decades or oddball genres.
Zootopia. Hello fellow old person.
Think I've mentioned here before, could be wrong but I'll type it out again:
I recently(like 1-2 months ago) listened to the top 100 of my country and the US's charts. I did not find one song I liked. Not ONE. Everything was either utter garbage or meh at best. It is not like there isn't good music being made nowadays, there is. There's tons of great artists who make amazing, engaging and throught provoking music...just never in the charts. In the charts it's all about who to fuck next and who's hot and I am so gangster and fuck the cops etc. Chart music should be burned to the ground.
Every single radio station that plays more current music is unlistenable. Actually try it yourself, listen to some of what is popular and you'll notice how vapid it all is.
Can't remember last time I listened to music in the charts, most of my music is now from game/anime soundtracks and the odd good track I hear from YouTube videos.
I don't know when I last listened to music on the radio or to chart music.
But I constantly find new artists in the genres that I like (metal, progressive house, ...) so I don't really care.
This is just a colossal case of shit taste. There is plenty of amazing modern music being released regularly, you just need to find your niche.
That and a good chunk of bands you'll find when deep diving into niches aren't even on most streaming services
who owns the record companies
I'm pretty retro with music and growing up in the 90s I listened to a ton of 70s rock and R&B/Funk. I am so out of the loop on what music is current now.
I don't listen to radio. The modern music I like is electronica / synthwave. Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, Power Glove, Dance with the Dead, Phutureprimitive, Beats Antique, Daft Punk, Kavinsky, Bonobo, Dynatron are all good to me.
I’m not regularly exposed to pop music (not that I hate it, I just never turn the radio on) but as a guitar enthusiast I find there’s tons of awesome music coming out. https://youtu.be/0GdXNaMos_w
i dont even remember the last time i listened to any "chart" music.
And the other 30% is women and their man hatred anthems.