Kids Listening To Older Generation Music

[Red]

So the other day I was talking to my friend about music. He says that his favourite song is "Bohemian Rhapsody", and I was like "Yeah I guess that song is good." Then he starts going off about how music these days is the equivlent of human feces, and that he wishes that he was born during the 70s so he could listen to all the classic rock music. Now I didn't say this straight to his face (I wish I did), but growing up during that time period, specifically just for the music is kinda depressing, not to mention just false. This guy sits on his ass 70% of the day playing Colon Beserkers while shoving Mountain Dew™and Doritios™ into his mouth and always calling people gay as a derogatory term. Okay maybe not that last part, but what I'm trying to say if you haven't guessed already, he still uses other modern day games, food, devices, etc., and he wouldn't care about leaving the stuff that he still likes in the present day just for the music that still exists? Not to mention that kids like my friend have a certain level of arrogance. They think that they are superior to the other kids because they listen to"Carry on Wayward Son" and that automatically makes them more intelligent and wiser. Now granted, I like some of the music that was made before 2000 more than I like most music of today. But I'm not going around saying I'm better than anyone who listens to Nikki Manaj. Now you could say I'm more arrogant about not being arrogant about being arrogant by listening to older music and saying I'm better, and you may or may not be right. But at least I'm more tolerant of the fact that people like shitty music, and I care more about what else they do in life. But remember, pre 2000s music was not at all immune from shit. Want proof? -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis ... e=youtu.be

So what do you think about these youngsters?

[Cirion Spellbinder]

He probably doesn't actually want to live back then. Its probably just an expression. He just appreciates the music more. You can enjoy things from the modern world and older world.

How do these kids express this arrogance?

[Red]

Did I not make these points clear?

[brimstoneSalad]

There's a certain bias in the perception of old music. The 70's were fully of shitty music, it's just that the bad stuff didn't survive the test of time to be heard today. It's the good stuff that's kept, and that's what we think of as 70's music. Same thing for any musical generation, I would guess. It's the good stuff that survives and represents the decade, making older musical decades seem better on average because we've just forgotten all of the bad stuff.

By the 2050, people will be moaning about how modern music sucks and they wish they grew up in the 2010's for all of the great music.
Well, maybe not, since the coming singularity is a little less predictable than human sentimentality and classical bias.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Did I not make these points clear?

You expressed that they were being arrogant and that they think they are superior, but you didn't specify how they expressed this. I highly doubt their just pointing out how their better than y'all cause they listen to old music!

[Jebus]

I believe music was objectively better in the 1970s and these are the reasons:
1. The drugs improved creativity.
2. There were more undiscovered melodies. These days it's hard to come up with a good melody that someone else has not already written.
3. As most people didn't know what the artists looked like, the music industry focused more on musical talent than on the artist's looks.

[brimstoneSalad]

3. As most people didn't know what the artists looked like, the music industry focused more on musical talent than on the artist's looks.

That's a good point. But many of the stars today are manufactured, and have ugly professionals writing their 'original' music in the background.

A lot of the stars today are also pretty homely. Makeup, Photoshop. Lots of it.

2. There were more undiscovered melodies. These days it's hard to come up with a good melody that someone else has not already written.

We're just 30 years later, though; music is thousands of years old. I'm not sure; it's plausible, but I wonder if there's anything new under the sun, or we just forget stuff people already came up with, making it seem new.

The limitation there may be more our knowledge and access to older music, thus biasing our perceptions of what is original rather than the quality of the music itself

I believe music was objectively better in the 1970s and these are the reasons:
1. The drugs improved creativity.

That's hard to doubt, but whether musicians did more drugs then or now I'm not sure about. Drug culture has gone underground a bit, but it's still huge in the music scene isn't it?

[Dream Sphere]

I first got really into music when I was around the age of seven. At that time two of my favourite groups were Queen and Rush. I also liked about a dozen other bands from that time period, which I had all learned about from my parents. Around thirteen years old, after having been introduced to 1980's heavy metal music by my uncle when I was about ten, I began looking for a lot of new (to me) music, uncaring of what time period it came out from. It had initially resulted in me finding mostly well regarded classics from past decades, however, as my base of music knowledge grew I started to venture out into more genres and the past couple decades more and more, until I found a lot of stuff I liked from the present in different places. So, basically, I had found a liking for music from before my time, which I still retain a liking of today, and ventured both further into the past and into the present, both explorations of which garnered a knowledge and liking of music from the different times.

I figure that the tendency for some young people to grab hold of music from the past, see it as special and better, particularly in an elitist way may be part of a stage in maturing where they're trying to develop their identity. I think it's fine for anyone to like that period of music, though I would hope that people wouldn't consider any segment of, or style in music's history as the be-all end-all of music, and would be open to broadening their palate. To be greatly interested in one or a few styles for your whole life may be fine in itself, for as long as you're satisfied with it. However, letting preconceived notions of time periods and styles which you may not yet be familiar with be keeping you from giving them a chance, may result in a loss of an opportunity to discover something which you could come to enjoy just as much, if not more than what you're currently into.

To touch on modern music and sentiments to do with it often having an especially derivative nature. Well, whether or not most simple melodies have already been written and preformed in one place or another, I value the overall composition, of which can contain a unique combination and performance/production of dozens of familiar melodies, yet come out sounding unique enough for me to value listening to it as well as other music with similarities, which also have their own share of differences between each other too.


I know that that (paraphrased) "favourite albums of 2015" thread I made a while ago moved somewhat off topic ( largely because of me,) though I'm thinking I'll assemble the list of my favourites and post them there sometime soon, because this year has really been quite great to me for new music releases. So, I'm hoping others could see modern music output in as good a way as I've been, whether or not it's something I'm liking, I think there would be a lot of different, enjoyable stuff for most people today if they were to seriously go looking for it.


Oh, I almost forgot to address one other thing I'd meant to. About the "I would want to live in this time to experience the music being made in this time" well, I really only see it as valid if they really wanted to see the artists' live performances, in likely what was their golden age for live performances. However, if it wasn't for that, then I don't know why, since virtually all of the music that young person knows about today is still available to listen to today. It would however be interesting to see, or better 'hear' back in time, to hear unrecorded/lost music from past centuries, but only if [insert all bad possibilities from time travel here] wouldn't happen of course.

[Red]

Did I not make these points clear?

You expressed that they were being arrogant and that they think they are superior, but you didn't specify how they expressed this. I highly doubt their just pointing out how their better than y'all cause they listen to old music!

You'd be surprised. Go to any youtube music video of a popular 70s/80s/90s video and read the comments. It may take a bit of digging, but you'll find at least one. The ones that don't say they are more intelligent may or may not complain about music sucking these days and wishing they were born earlier, y'know that kind of shit (even though I'm 100% sure that they believe that they are more intelligent deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep down inside). Maybe you don't see them because you're not in my age group or my country, but trust me, these people exist.

[Red]

This makes me wonder something: Did some kids in the 70s listen to 40s music and thought that was better? That may or may not be ironic..