[sebrof]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

[Saturn94]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

I was thinking the same. 

[Tyson]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

Self awareness and/or a sense of irony is something that very few people seem to possess.

[charmerci]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

Yeah, but if it came down to a choice I would much rather exclusively listen to music from before I was born!
No one is saying that there is no good music since 19xx....
 


But you're missing the point, it's not old music vs. new music - it's good music vs. mediocrity. Today, there are no more minute and a half intros (not that all old music contained them but it was somewhat common), repetitive bass and drum lines (the same 6 notes over and over again for 3 and a half minutes) the lack of virtuosity, shorter attention spans, the overwhelming influence of "industry" and being famous and the lack of variety and innovation in the playing, hardly any variety in singers' phrasing and banal arrangements.
Go ahead and like the new music. Like whatever you want to like - that is not the point.

[Tyson]

Yet, if we look at the Billboard top 100 for 1959 (the year of your Coltrane example), we see a TON of mediocre crap. 

http://billboardtop100of.com/1959-2/

In fact, Coltrane didn't even make the top 100 of 1959. 

My point is not that there isn't crappy, mediocre music in 2020.  My point is that MOST music is crap throughout all history.  Every year.  Year in and year out.  Crap, crap, crap.  90% is just mediocre crap. 

In my estimation, only about 9% of music is good and only 1% is great.  But only the good and great survive, so when we look back it's skewed by this survivorship bias for the very best music of the time while we forget about the 90% of crap.

Then, we look around today and observe that 90% of music is crap.  And then falsely conclude that music is worse now than in the past.  It's not.  We're just really bad at judging history accurately.

I should note that the exact same phenomenon happens with movies too.

[WGH]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

My Mom really liked "Mares Eat Oats" by The Andrews Sisters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkGhg4Q77hk

I played "Stairway to Heaven" for her but she just didn't get it.

[krustykat]

Yet, if we look at the Billboard top 100 for 1959 (the year of your Coltrane example), we see a TON of mediocre crap. 

http://billboardtop100of.com/1959-2/

In fact, Coltrane didn't even make the top 100 of 1959. 

My point is not that there isn't crappy, mediocre music in 2020.  My point is that MOST music is crap throughout all history.  Every year.  Year in and year out.  Crap, crap, crap.  90% is just mediocre crap. 

In my estimation, only about 9% of music is good and only 1% is great.  But only the good and great survive, so when we look back it's skewed by this survivorship bias for the very best music of the time while we forget about the 90% of crap.

Then, we look around today and observe that 90% of music is crap.  And then falsely conclude that music is worse now than in the past.  It's not.  We're just really bad at judging history accurately.

I should note that the exact same phenomenon happens with movies too.

Amen!

[charmerci]

Yet, if we look at the Billboard top 100 for 1959 (the year of your Coltrane example), we see a TON of mediocre crap. 

http://billboardtop100of.com/1959-2/

In fact, Coltrane didn't even make the top 100 of 1959. 

In the top 50 -
Bobby Darin, the Fleetwoods, the song Sleepwalk, Ritchie Valens, Platters, Coasters, Everly Brothers, Drifters, Elvis, Dinah Washington and Ray Charles.

What a load of crap!
Please list 10 artists in today's top 50 that you listen to and think will be a classic 50 years from now.
I love most of that music. Music that I picked up this year -

Buddy Holly, Bill Haley,  Bobby Darin, the Buckinghams and several doo-wop collections, US hits before the British invasion - love my Freddy Cannon!
(Btw - I think movies are so much better than in the past. Most movies from the 60's and earlier, bleah. I can't see why Casablanca is always in the top 5 movies of all time.)

[Letitroll98]

My Mom really liked "Mares Eat Oats" by The Andrews Sisters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkGhg4Q77hk

My dear departed Dad would sing that all the time.

[roscoe65]

Nothing is more appealing to young music lovers than old white guys telling them that their music is shit.  I agree with Tyson:  most music sucks, great music is not always the most popular, and consequently a large plurality of people don’t have the greatest taste in music. 

I’m not sure what I want to say about the “all music after 19XX sucks” conversation.  It simply does not agree with my own experience.  I continue to enjoy and be surprised by new music of different genres as well as discovering older music I did not experience the first time.  To me, “new music” may be Finn Craig, Conor Oberst, or Sturgil Simpson.  “New music” may also be deep into Willy Nelson’s catalog because I was too cool to listen to country in the 1980’s.

Audiophiles are our own worst enemy.  We should welcome anyone and any music that helps support our hobby.  I don’t personally listen to Soundcloud Mumble Rappers but a hell of a lot of other people do.  I would rather they see a welcoming path to great sound.  Judging by the demographics of the last audio GTG I went to we need the fresh blood.

[WGH]

In the top 50 [Billboard top 100 for 1959] -
Bobby Darin, the Fleetwoods, the song Sleepwalk, Ritchie Valens, Platters, Coasters, Everly Brothers, Drifters, Elvis, Dinah Washington and Ray Charles.

....I love most of that music. Music that I picked up this year -

Buddy Holly, Bill Haley,  Bobby Darin, the Buckinghams and several doo-wop collections, US hits before the British invasion - love my Freddy Cannon!

You don't need a stereo for that music, a 1958 LEE Catenoid Mono Corner Speaker would be perfect. The August 1958 Hi Fidelity magazine has a speaker review, the entire magazine is a fun read, it has a lot of ads for new records and electronics we still lust after today.

Retro Vintage Hi Fi has an article about the Lee Catenoid speaker with cabinet measurements so it could be reproduced today. What fun.
http://www.itishifi.com/2010/03/catenoid-loudspeaker-1956-1960.html


In 1958, the first group of mass-produced stereo two-channel vinyl records was issued by Audio Fidelity in the USA and Pye in Britain, using the Westrex "45/45" single-groove system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound

If the internet had been around in 1959, this thread's title would read:

"The Death of the Home Mono System"

And someone would invariably post "All stereo music sucks".

[rcag_ils]

You guys who say there's no good music since 19XX are saying the same thing your Mom and Dad said. I mean, you get that, right?

No, actually I don't get it. I just think that when you are fat, bald, and old and still listen to the music from the 2000's, it kind of make you look out of place.

[rcag_ils]

The summary for this thread is, the shit music from the mid 1980's -today, plus the surround sound, home theater, streaming video or whatever you call it  have driven the high end audio market to it's death.

[2bigears]

  amp and the such builders went from 2 grand to now 10 grand as you make more on big tickets. In this day and age of the 1% , just one component 10 large. ??  Get real. 15 block lineups for a ten pound bag of free potatoes is where we are at now. Comparing 2000 dollar cables seems so fricken ridiculous now. 

[rollo]

   As a dealer not dead in a coma right now. Our customers like listen to Classical and Jazz mostly with some Blues. Actually more Country listeners than we thought.
   Yes the market is geared mostly to a wealthy crowd as that is where the money is mostly. There are many inexpensive components and systems that come very close to the big buck items. Just need to know what brands and synergy of such. Have fun listening.


charles
   

[rcag_ils]

Current generation growing up with shit music, people from the previous generation try to follow and not making it. That's why high end audio is history.

[rcag_ils]

Yes the market is geared mostly to a wealthy crowd as that is where the money is mostly. There are many inexpensive components and systems that come very close to the big buck items. Just need to know what brands and synergy of such. Have fun listening.

It's not about the cost, the young shit music listeners are not interested in high end, their shit music doesn't require high end to play it.

[Tyson]

It's not about the cost, the young shit music listeners are not interested in high end, their shit music doesn't require high end to play it.

Clearly you’ve never been to a Head-fi meetup.  Plenty of high end gear, young people and quality music.

[WGH]

Current generation growing up with shit music, people from the previous generation try to follow and not making it.

"The work was such a violent wrench from every musical tradition that had gone before that, to many people, it seemed like the work of a madman."¹

“The curtain opened on a group of knock-kneed and long-braided lolitas, jumping up and down. The storm broke,” the composer recounts. “I went out, I said ‘go to hell’… they were very naïve and stupid people.”

Igor Stravinsky commenting on the premiere of The Rite Of Spring at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées on May 29, 1913


¹ https://www.classicfm.com/composers/stravinsky/guides/story-behind-rite-spring/

[simoon]

I've been reading and hearing about the death of hifi for quite a few decades now.

But in reality, I believe this may be a somewhat American-centric issue.

Whenever I watch YouTube vids covering European and Asian audiophile conventions (there are quite a few of them), the turnout is huge, and if one pays attention to those attending, they seem to skew quite a bit younger than US conventions. Not to mention, that I see quite a few more couples attending, as opposed to a bunch of 60+ year old males.