POOK said:

Exactly! This started in the 80s!

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

New Jack Swing was the beginning of the end for R&B/funk,imo.That's when they started mixing hip-hop beats into R&B music.Sure,it sold alot of records,but it led us to where we are now.I don't think too highly of the New Jack Swing era.Latin freestyle was cool,but I still think the late 80s was a shallow period for pop music,in general.


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[Edited 11/15/06 23:57pm]

SoulAlive said:

I think you're both right. New Jack Swing was something fresh and new, but it was the beginning of the end. Teddy Riley was funky, innovative, and he played instruments. NJS was R&B with elements of hip-hop. Unfortunately, music has gone away from that and now rap has almost completely taken over R&B.

POOK said:

I found that thread. Thanks!

However, I'm not sure if it's really fair to compare the problems with a DX7 to a Triton. At least with a DX7, the electro piano & strings were the only presets that 80's producers (especially Quincy Jones) were using too much of. Plus, artists (like Rick James, Prince, Brian Eno, Jane Child, Jam/Lewis, & Freestyle producers in general) were excellent in trying to create new sounds with it. Yes, a DX7 was a total bytch to program, but at least most producers try to be original.

The 90's producers on the other hand (especially in late 90's hip-hop) were too lazy to try to create new sound with the Korg Trinity or Triton. The presets were so good that everyone were using the same sound (BTW, Kool Keith was right for pointing out how a typical Mary J. Blige album & a R.Kelly sounded too much alike.....because most of the sound came for the Trinity!).
[Edited 11/16/06 17:27pm]

the difference between 80's (and before) music and now is that we grew up on that. the music that is popular during your formative years is of course going to stick with you more than what comes out today. there was just as much crap music coming out in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's as there is today. we just have selective memory and don't hang on to and remember all of the crap that was out there. it fades away, just like the crap from today will fade away. and you don't have the emotional connection to today's music because you've got more important things to care and think about.

you're not supposed to like your kids' music. and that's the way it's been since the birth of rock & roll. you're just getting old. nothing wrong with that.

KidOmega said:

that getting old theory is crap..things changed for me in 92 when grunge started to dominate and i was only 23...sure i agree that memories are a big part of liking music from the past but look at the damn top 40 chart right now and compare it to any top chart in the 80's there's just no comparison

I LOVE THE 80'S MUSIC, MATTER FACT THE ONLY TIME I WATCH VIDEOS IS ON THE VH1 CLASSIC CHANNEL. EVERYTHING TODAY HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE, THERE IS NOTHING NEW AND FRESH.THERE IS NOT ALOT OF VARIETY.AT LEAST IN THE 80'S I COULD LISTEN TO MY FAVORITE R&B RECORDS AND WHEN I WANTED TO HEAR POP THERE WERE GREAT POP SONGS AND EVEN ROCK...ARE THERE ANY GREAT ROCK BANDS TODAY? MY RECORD COLLECTION FROM THE 80'S IS SO DIVERSE, I JUST DONT SEE ANY VARIETY TODAY

KidOmega said:

I don't buy all that. I'm only 21 and I think most of the music out now is sheer crap. Sure, there's the odd song here and there that's alright, but for the most part it makes my ears bleed. There is still good out there in the musical landscape, but it's harder to find than it used to be. And even though it's just as formula as the rest of the radio, I'd much rather listen to the local Oldies format station than anything playing Top 40 or our joke of a "rock" station.

On the other hand, the music that was out when I was 12-15, in the late 90's, does have a bit of shine to it that music now doesn't seem to. I'm not sure if that's some sort of weird, short-term nostalgia that's got ahold of me or if music really was more bearable then.

I feel so old when I try to listen to what some of my friends like. My best friend will be jamming to Pussycat Dolls and raving about their album and videos, and then accuses me of being an old fogey because I roll my eyes at it. I'm only 9 months older than her. But I guess if having taste means I'm out of touch, I'm cool with that.





















But I do like Backstreet Boys.

KidOmega said:

I think that is a very important analysis. I am sure the 12 yr old today will be ccomplaining about how music was so much better in 2006 in 20 yrs time. Having said that from the late 80s onwards music has lost it direction and I am not quite sure what or who to blame; I do know that video hasn't help that much.

I think out of all the genres RnB has suffered the most, simply because Rap/Hip Hop is now seen as RnB, so with a few exceptions, people rarely actually sing anymore. And if they do it has a little rap in the middle. That's why in away I appreciate peeps like John Legend and Alicia Keyes, even though they may be overrated, they actually sing songs in the old fashion way.

meow85 said:

BTW, do you watch The House Of Carters?

Here we go with that tired old excuse for today's bullshit music. If we were teenagers in the 1980s and could only go to limited places such as skating rinks to enjoy music, then who the hell was in the nightclubs and discos? It was people in their 20s and our parents in their 30s.

Yeah, my mother grew up in the 1960s with stuff like The Supremes but she continued partying in the 1980s when she was in her late 30s (my age today). She was in a club, not just weekends, but every night. Hell, the only time I really saw her was the next morning before school. On Saturdays, she would drop me off at the skating rink and pick me up at 1 a.m. when it was over. She would then take me home and go back to the club. She would drive up to a club (she went to several) and tell her friends she would be back. I could hear the music and it was the same music I was listening to. My mother was not the oldest one in the clubs either. Everyone in the clubs she went to was her age.

So, you see, that "you're getting older" shit is a bunch of bullshit. The difference in people in their 30s in the 1980s liking the music and people in their 30s today hating the music, is because the music actually turned to bullshit. It's not even music anymore. It's a slow ass beat with some "talking" on top of it. And while you're referring to parents of the rock and roll era hating the music, they hated it because it was fast "devil" music. This shit today is slow as hell. My great grandparents would probably have loved it if it didn't have the profanity in it.

Also, as far as getting older goes, I hated most of the music of the 1990s and I was in my 20s then. I first started bitching about music in 1985 when Shitney Houston came on the scene and I was only 17. Once again, that "getting older" is a bunch of bullshit.
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[Edited 11/18/06 17:16pm]

vainandy said:

you really want to use your absent mother and her other old pathetic friends re-living ther adolescence in their late 30's as an example?

oh dear.


but anwyay, adults (at least the ones who acted like them) in the 80's were calling the music then crap (Duran Duran, Madonna, even Depeche Mode, etc.) compared to what it was in the 60's & 70's. drum machines, synthesizers, etc.

and it's been that way for every generation for many decades now. the stuff you grew up on and grew of age with has an emotional connection for you that you don't have with most current music. in 20 years, kids today will be saying the same thing about music from 2020's. "boy it sure was a lot better back in the early 2000's compared to this shit we've got today.
[Edited 11/19/06 12:22pm]

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

Nope. I'm in Canada with what's apparently a limited cable package so I don't have any channels it runs on. Saw a few clips on youtube though. Even though so much of it is obviously staged (hey, it's "reality" tv) after having paid attention to Nick since I was 12, nothing I did see really surprised me.

vainandy said:

I went out to a straight club last night with some friends, and half the music was mid-tempo! Too slow to dance to, but too fast to have a slow, sexy moment with someone else either. Talking over a walking-pace beat -so boring!


Now I remember why I normally only go to gay clubs.

KidOmega said:

*clears throat* So how come most of my friends and I (save my bff with her questionable taste) think popular music now is shit? At 21 I'm the oldest in our crowd -most of the others are 18 or 19. Maybe we're an exception, I don't know. But the theory that you guys don't like the new music as a generational rule and we love it doesn't really hold.

meow85 said:

of course there are exceptions to every rule. i'm talking about overal generalities.

I don't think people in general care as much about music as they did back then (and before then, for that matter). I think loyalty to artists in general is on the decline, and many more music consumers today are more likely to download a "hot song" than they are to follow an artist's career trajectory.

KidOmega said:

Like I said, if being out of touch means I've got some amount of taste, I'm okay with that.
[Edited 11/19/06 22:15pm]

Mazerati said:

My hypothesis places the blame equally on on the shoulders of Prince and Madonna. Everybody from Fergie to Stefani to Spears to Timberlake to Janet to beyonce seem to pull from either of these. Considering their output ran from the exceptional to mostly mediocre pop-dance-rock, the current crop of artists lack any kind of vision or originality.

its not the lyrics... ITS THE MUSIC.. behind the lyrics... Today music doesnt even sound like music... it sounds like a bunch of noise. Or just sounds but together...

Has anyone heard Beyonce's new album... every song... sounds like some loud noise...

I just think the 80's and 90's had real music.... with a real rhythem.

2000's is the worst decade of music.... IMO

I miss the late 90's that was the best music ever... IMO

It's not called re-living your adolescence, it's called living your life. Life does not end once you reach the age of 30, especially if you are single. If it were just my mother and her friends, then it would have been limited to one nightclub. There were tons of clubs that people 30 and older frequented back then and they played the exact same music that us teenagers were listening to....funk, and earlier was disco. Hell, look at Studio 54. Those weren't exactly spring chickens that partied up in there. Hell, even the two guys that owned it were balding.

Nowadays, there are still clubs for the older crowd but all of them play blues because most of the older crowd hates hip hop, which is all that most of the younger crowd listens to these days. There were very few blues clubs in the early 1980s because mainstream R&B was still good. As a matter of fact, we didn't even have one blues radio station in the 1970s and early 1980s. The only blues that was played was for one hour on a local R&B station on Saturday mornings called "The Blues Workshop" and maybe a blues song every blue moon throughout the day. This blues takeover with the older crowd didn't come about until hip hop took over R&B. Before then, older people listened to current R&B and all of them that I remember, enjoyed it.



I never was exposed to any adults that listened to pop music. All the white people that I knew, their parents listened to country. So, yeah, they may have bitched about people like Madonna or Duran Duran.

However, on the R&B side of the fence, everyone older was listening to the current R&B. They may have not liked absolutely everything about it, but they did like a lot of it....especially enough to go out and party with it.

Also, there were R&B entertainers that were 30 and older in the 1980s. Rick James was in his 30s when he was at his biggest. He wasn't a tired adult contemporary singer, he was a hard funkateer. The Temptations threwdown in the 1980s also. So did Diana Ross. She did funky disco in the 1970s and some funky stuff in the 1980s. The Chi-Lites had two funky jams in the 1980s..."Hot On A Thing" and "Bottoms Up". The Four Tops and Smokey Robinson were also still making hits in the 1980s. That's just on the R&B side.

On the rock side, I remember Rod Stewart still making hard hits in the 1980s until he turned all adult contemporary in the late 1980s. The Rolling Stones were still around also.

As I said before, it's not about not acting your age, it's about living your life and it doesn't end once you reach 30. I can't help it if everyone over 30 that you knew in the 1980s were DULL.




I have no problem changing with the styles as long as the styles are good. I had no problem changing from disco to funk and from funk to house music. I do have a problem when the music stops being music and turns into just a slow ass beat with one of our hits that we grew up with being sampled and slowed down with some "talking" on top of it. That's not progress, that's going backwards.

Also, where the hell is the fast music these days? Every generation has had music fast enough to dance to except for this generation, which seems to be going back to the slow days of the 1400s. Yeah, the sluts in the rap videos are shaking and popping asses but the music they are shaking to is too slow for the dances they are doing. The only thing you can do to that music is slowly bob your head and "swat flies" with your arm gestures. Big thrill. That's really a good time.

The parents of the 1950s hated music beginning with the rock and roll era because it was "fast devil music". Hell, even they had the big band era and swingin' jazz era earlier. It ain't a matter of changing styles in music that I hate about current music because every style in the past has had plenty of mainstream music that was danceable except for today. Also, a lot of today's middle aged generation bitches about current music because of the profanity. Hell, I love and prefer profanity, it's the slow ass tempo I hate.



I doubt it. We've always had changing styles approximately every five years. This slow ass stripped down midtempo hip hop has dominated since the very early 1990s and has no intention of changing styles. Believe me, I have waited for the style to change. I waited till 1995, nothing happened. I waited till 2000, nothing happened. I waited till 2005, nothing happened. I've given up. In 20 years, the style will probably still be the same because today's shit is cheap as hell to make.
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[Edited 11/20/06 13:18pm]

The gay clubs were my main and probably only source for music in the 1990s (especially the early 1990s). They played house music and most of it was never played on the radio. I heard a few of the house songs on pop radio but hardly any on R&B radio, which was becoming dominated with adult contemporary R&B and midtempo shit hop.

In the late 1990s, the black gay club in my area started playing less and less house and more and more shit hop. Now, they play no house and nothing but midtempo (c)rap. I crossed those clubs off my list years ago.

In the white gay clubs in my area, what used to be house has turned into acid house, trance, or whatever the hell it's called these days. It's tolerable but not really enjoyeable. I can at least stand to be in the same room with it, which is more than I can say about this midtempo bullshit in the black gay clubs. However, a lot of the (c)rap is making it's way into the white gay clubs now and it's becoming more and more dull. I only go out these days to find someone to sleep with. It's a damn shame that you can't go out and dance, party, and have a good time.
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[Edited 11/20/06 12:37pm]

vainandy said:

he must think i'm going to real all of that

the funny thing is that im 20 years old... and even I know that music from the 90's sounds better then today's music

vainandy said:

I agree.

There's actually not any gay clubs in my area -I've got to head out to the cities or wait for the spare gay dances that pop up every few months. But everywhere I've been (all white gay clubs) has had such an interesting mix of music. Sure, there's the obligatory Top 40 Fergie and Timberlake and Pussycat Dolls, () but there's also a glorious shitmix of 70's disco, 80's pop, house, trash rock, and a guaranteed there are songs, new and old, I've never heard before. But the best part is -even if it's painfully cheesy, you can dance to it. Really dance.

I had to get drunk at that straight club to get into the groove and feel like moving the other night. I know I must've looked like an ass out there, drunken fool that I was, but I wasn't about to waste my Saturday night out.

KidOmega said:

It's funny though....alot of times,I will hear a song from the 70s or 80s that I originally thought was "crap",but when I hear it nowadays,it actually sounds GOOD to me.The "crap songs" from back then are better than most of today's music,imo.Disposable stuff like Kajagoogoo and The Starland Vocal Band sounds much better to me than,say,Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas.

Moonbeam said:

You are absolutely correct.Nowadays,people don't really "follow" an artist.They simply download the songs they like,or buy the CD,then quickly move on to the next thing.That's why artists like Pink,Ashanti,and Christina Aguilera are having such a hard time on the charts.Their fans are moving on."Fan loyalty" may be a thing of the past.