Has music peaked?

Bodhidharma

I have two reasons for posting this question.

Firstly I posted a new thread about Underworld in the dance section. I wanted info on live sets, instead i got responses saying that Kraftwerk and Orbital were the greatest dance act of all time. Fair enough.

Secondly i was thinking about that U2 video "Window in the Skies". I think its a really good video, probably U2's best. Anyway looking at the people in it, i noticed the huge gap in quaility between the older acts and the contemporary ones.
So my question is this, has music peaked?
Are we ever going to have a band like the Beatles ever again, a great unifying act that transcend genres, culture and gender. To put it another way, have we seen the best of music? If you ask people to name the greatest acts of all time, i guess that there wouldnt be a contemporary act in the list.
I know music has a lot to do with nostalgia of childhood etc but the list of great names doesnt seem to be added to anymore. I would argue that Nirvana were the last great act of the last great movement (Britpop was a bit too regional for me to count).
Dont get me wrong, there are many, many very good bands out there, The White Stripes spring to mind. But i dont think there is a great modern band. As a whole i would say music today seems to lack ambition, particulary in Rock.
It just gets me that i am young in an era where there isn't a defining band or scene. I'm too old for that EMO thing and slighty too young to be a part of the brit pop generation. Where are my Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Dylan, Stone Roses, Smiths etc?
Whats the opinon, am i wrong?

(By the way i'm not looking for a discussion on who the greatest act of all time is)

cornbb

If you think music has peaked you're not listening to enough music, or enough types of music. If you mean rock music has peaked, then yes, it peaked a long long time ago. I haven't heard of a sucessful rock band that have attempted anything truly original in a very long time.

If you ask people to name the greatest acts of all time, i guess that there wouldnt be a contemporary act in the list

I think thats fair enough, given that musical "acts" have been around for hundreds of years. But in the 20th century there was an astonishing acceleration of creativity and diversity in all types of music. So your list would probably have a huge number of acts from the latter half of the 20th century. It became an era of "anything goes" and I think that is set to continue given the Internet, new technology, globalisation which has led to shared ideas etc. So no, I don't think music has peaked. but rock music has definitely stagnated.

qwertplaywert

i honestly thoguh the same as the orginal poster[apart from him listening the Beatles,imo there terrible] until i heard a band lately:
Enter Shikari.

Bodhidharma

I listen to all types of music except for hip hop. I also listen to it a lot, a whole lot in fact, so that is not correct. It isn't the variance in my taste that is the problem. The problem lies with new acts copying their predecessors and not doing something original.

I am not a fan of the Beatles either (more of a Stones man), but they did some interesting things that a lot of people got behind, and they are a great example of a band that evolves.

311

Amy winehouses album is brilliant .
I hope as things change ,we will get to hear what we all want to hear and not what sells.

Blisterman

I was reading a study recently, where they discovered that what people thought was the best period in music corrosponded to when they were 15-25, because that's when people's minds are most open to new music.
This explains why so many people say that music was better in their day.

ZappaFrank

Music Peaked in the 60s!

Orizio

As in did it peak about 40 years ago, well yes yes it did.

Rock and Hip-Hop in particular have been going nowhere fast since the 90's imo.

cornbb

Bodhidharma wrote:

I listen to all types of music except for hip hop. I also listen to it a lot, a whole lot in fact, so that is not correct. It isn't the variance in my taste that is the problem. The problem lies with new acts copying their predecessors and not doing something original.

Fair enough, I didn't mean to make any assumptions. I do think that its important that people try to listen to as many types of music as possible. I agree with you, the problem of stagnation occurs when new acts don't try to do anything new, which is a big problem in many genres at the moment. But the evolution of music takes a long time, musical revolutions don't happen overnight.
There is so much music out there to be listened to though. Rock, jazz, trad, electronic, experimental, classical, world music, hiphop, whatever. And so much of it is so good. Even with the problem of stagnation or a lack of good new stuff I don't think anyone should be bored with music in their lifetime. It is sad to see such a lack of originality in the short term though.

mike65

Music peaked in 1967-68 and no I was'nt 20 back then!

The reason it peaked was laregly down to a confluence of events - the album format was finaly being exploited to its full effect, electric instruments had developed to a point where sonic creativity was possible, Jim Marshall had invented the stack! The drugs did work for a while before killing or zombiefying half a generation, and the people were angry at stuff - happy youth makes bad music. There have been a few brief periods when magic/excitment happened since but nothing to compare really.

Mike.

John

Music can never peak because it's all subjective. For some people (crazy people) the likes of The Killers and Kasabian cannot be topped. Basically, I think if you steer clear from the charts, NME, major labels and concentrate on the independent acts you'll find a lot more creativity. Bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Coil, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Matmos, Dirty Three, Wolf Eyes, Melvins, Larsen, Nurse With Wound, Fovea Hex, Windy and Carl, Thighpaulsandra, Mike Patton's various projects, Liars, FM3, Scott Walker and so on and so on are pushing the boundaries of great music left, right and centre.

Granted a few of these artists have been around for a while but all these artists, new and old have all released records in the last few years that have floored me (and I listen to a LOT of music). Some of it may be outside of many people's comfort zones (like Nurse With Wound or Scott Walker) but if you honestly think music has peaked, listen to Godspeed's Lift Your Skinny Fists album and tell me that they are ripping off someone or that it isn't creative. There's lots of fantastic and original music out there if you look for it.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

purple'n'gold

I take it you mean pop music, and yes it peaked a long time ago. I would say with the “Bridge over troubled water” LP. All down hill after that, and the absolute drivel that passes for pop music now is just a joke.

DarkJager

No, it seems that unfortunately music has hit rock bottom as of late. We have all of these "skinny boys with guitars" bands around now that all sound exactly the same...sh1t. Pop music has never ever been a matter of quality...its just the same old sh1t with every single track " I love you baby.." or "I'm a wannabe feminist cvnt" etc etc.

It seems that the only real music that continues to evolve and get ever better is the underground stuff, the non mainstream, non commercial music. Dance, metal, hip hop all have underground scenes which are already surpassing the quality of what has gone before.

eddyc

For centurys different cultures have been playing their own style of music without any kind of outside influence, its only in the past century with increased globalisation and especially now with the internet that musicians are beginning to incorporate sounds and styles from all over the world into their music, this in my opinion has only begun and we can look forward to some really interesting music in the coming years.

OctavarIan

Of course music hasn't peaked, there are numerous bands out there doing their own original thing (too many to mention) and not only being original but making awesome music too. Personally I find the charts and 'popular music' scene to be more about profits than the music itself, if you ignore the rubbish that's popular with the kiddies today you can see that the music scene is still as fresh as ever, it's just the corporations who have grown and saturated the market with tripe that give the stale impression.

One word..and a number..
Buck 65

OfflerCrocGod

_Brian_ wrote:

we will get to hear what we all want to hear and not what sells.

They are the same thing. If people don't want to listen to it they don't buy it.

cornbb

I think a lot of people look at what's in the charts (i.e. what sells) and think thats all there is to music. Which is a real shame, because commercial music never has anything new to offer. Its been on the increase rapidly for the last 50 years or so and its lack of originality, or should I say its lack of willingness to venture outside of people's comfort zones for fear of selling fewer records, may account for the percieved stagnation/peaking in music.

Thankfull the Internet is liberalising music again. Landing a record contract is not so important now what with myspace etc. and hence its not as necessary to make "safe" (ie boring) music. I may be fooling myself but I like to think that an awful lot of contemporary artists aren't as concerned about making big bucks as about making great new music. And that is a great thing to happen to music.

Hard Larry

Yeah the Charts have always been full of crap (and always will) but some rare gems sometimes slip in there too.

I dont think music has peaked at all in fact music is moving so fast now that if you blink you'll miss it and tbh its kind of exciting now as the whole industry seems to be turning on its head.
No longer do CD/Record Charts dictate the whole thing and as previously said, the rise of MySpace and Bebo give music lovers an even wider array of choice and music makers are getting back to making good music....but on the other side of the coin Bebo and Myspace could end up being as full of crap as the old charts

I think the time of the Supergroups may be now e.g. The Raconteurs and The Good,The Bad and the Queen.

Although Supergroups were around before with massmedia and the interweb there longevity may be extended.

Karl Hungus

cornbb wrote:

I think a lot of people look at what's in the charts (i.e. what sells) and think thats all there is to music. Which is a real shame, because commercial music never has anything new to offer. Its been on the increase rapidly for the last 50 years or so and its lack of originality, or should I say its lack of willingness to venture outside of people's comfort zones for fear of selling fewer records, may account for the percieved stagnation/peaking in music.

This man speaks the truth.

Personally, I continue to hear new bands that blow me away musically. There's some astonishingly original stuff out there, it just isn't going to hit you in the face, you have to keep an ear to the ground for it.

JC 2K3

Bodhidharma wrote:

I have two reasons for posting this question.

Firstly I posted a new thread about Underworld in the dance section. I wanted info on live sets, instead i got responses saying that Kraftwerk and Orbital were the greatest dance act of all time. Fair enough.

Secondly i was thinking about that U2 video "Window in the Skies". I think its a really good video, probably U2's best. Anyway looking at the people in it, i noticed the huge gap in quaility between the older acts and the contemporary ones.
So my question is this, has music peaked?
Are we ever going to have a band like the Beatles ever again, a great unifying act that transcend genres, culture and gender. To put it another way, have we seen the best of music? If you ask people to name the greatest acts of all time, i guess that there wouldnt be a contemporary act in the list.
I know music has a lot to do with nostalgia of childhood etc but the list of great names doesnt seem to be added to anymore. I would argue that Nirvana were the last great act of the last great movement (Britpop was a bit too regional for me to count).
Dont get me wrong, there are many, many very good bands out there, The White Stripes spring to mind. But i dont think there is a great modern band. As a whole i would say music today seems to lack ambition, particulary in Rock.
It just gets me that i am young in an era where there isn't a defining band or scene. I'm too old for that EMO thing and slighty too young to be a part of the brit pop generation. Where are my Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Dylan, Stone Roses, Smiths etc?
Whats the opinon, am i wrong?

(By the way i'm not looking for a discussion on who the greatest act of all time is)

You're not wrong per se, you just don't know what the question you're really asking is.

You ask "has music peaked?", which is not really what you meant at all, especially as you say "there are many, many very good bands out there". The question you are asking is one to do with mainstream youth cultural movements in relation to music.

The answer to your question? No, there is no defining movement right now. There hasn't always been one for every period of modern history either. There have always been fads which the mainstream embraces for a short while and then moves onto something else(e.g. rap gaining a lot of popularity in the recent past, modern indie bands and commercial emo) and there have always been subcultures with distinct attitudes and musical tastes(obvious example here are metalheads).

When the attitudes of a subculture become mainstream it affects the way a lot of young people think, and if the ideas that come with these subcultures are often abstract or simply quite different to how the previous generation thought, which makes such an event "era defining" and spawns "defining bands" of that period of time. These periods are really just fads, but with a larger following and greater influence. They're largely commercially fuelled though. You cite Nirvana as the "last great act of the last great movement", but in reality loads of bands were making music that was "different" like Nirvana's for a good 6/7 years before grunge/alt. rock became popular and turned into a mass youth cultural movement. Nirvana just happened to release a good album at the right time and had the right marketing. In truth there are a number of albums by a number of bands that could have been Nevermind.

So to summerise, "era-defining bands" are a commercial fallacy; no, music han't peaked, there are plenty of amazingly groundbreaking and mind-bending bands out there if you look for them; and no, there is no mass youth-cultural movement right now, although it'd be nice to have one, so long as it was an non-commercial and pro-cultural one.

Wow, that was a long post...

grumpytrousers

To answer the OP's post, and to qoute, (I think) Tomas O'Cruithean 'Ni Bheidh na leithid aris ann'...There'll never be the likes again - certainly with regards to the cultural impact of, say, The Beatles.

If one is to define the notion of music going downhill *solely* on the criteria of 'where is my equivalent of The Smiths, The Pistols, Beatles' etc, then it's fair, I think, to say that we've seen the last of bands that transcend the entertainment pages of the paper over to the news. (I'll ignore Pete Doherty, on the grounds that I think it's la Moss what's more famous than him)

Put quite simply, the evolution of music genres, the formatting of radio stations, and the formatting of Music television channels has meant that nowadays if you prefer, say, "rock" then there's one or two stations you'll tune to, or you'll plug in your iPod with the kinda tunes you want to listen to. To the almost utter exclusion of any other kind of music. Back as recently, even, as the early 90's there wasn't that kind of thing happening. You had VH1 and MTV. And a walkman. If you were lucky!

I can only imagine that there are plenty of standard bearers for particular musical genres out there who play marvellous stuff. Mind you, back in the 90's we didn't 'ave "genres". It were either Rock/Pop or Classical...but now that we ARE into the genre thing so much, few will ever tick as many boxes as bands did back in the day. Even if your favourite Death Metal band decides to do a syruppy Dianne Warren (shudder) power ballad complete with Michael Kamen-esque strings, it STILL won't make it out of the Kerangg video rotation to the others!

The last band to nearly come close (and i'm not saying whether they were any cop or not, altho' i've fondness for albums 1 &2 due to my age) to any sort of cultural crossover were Oasis. The second last were Nirvana.

As to whether music per se is going downhill or not, well I suppose it could be; insofar as I've not become aware of any albums that are as good as, say, Exile on Main Street, Together Alone or Parallel Lines coming out in the last few years. But then that's my own personal taste! And see that's the kicker. "Personal Taste". And having said all that, it's also fair to say that it's only in the last few years that we could have had albums like "Deserters Songs, Discovery by daft punk, or Thunder Lightning Strike...

John up there pointed out plenty of acts which he says that are still pushing out the boundaries, and as long as that's happening, then at least there'll always be something interesting going on. Being an old(er) fart myself, I don't have the patience to listen to 'boundary pushing' any more, but that's a failing on my part! Certainly there's still good 'mainstream' stuff happening. If you want pure and utter disposable shiny pop, Girls Aloud have written the textbook...and there's certainly no shortage in this day and age (and definitely in this neck of the woods) of singer/songwriters in the mould of Damien Rice (not a fan meself).

In short, it's all evolution; bear in mind that on a scale there's only 13 notes and only so many permutations before you have to venture into the realms of dissonance to get your kicks. And there's nothing wrong with that either (although it's blue fookin' murder trying to start a sing-song in the pub:D)

Owensie

JC 2K3 wrote:

So to summerise, "era-defining bands" are a commercial fallacy; no, music han't peaked, there are plenty of amazingly groundbreaking and mind-bending bands out there if you look for them; and no, there is no mass youth-cultural movement right now, although it'd be nice to have one, so long as it was an non-commercial and pro-cultural one.

Wow, that was a long post...

Yeah, and even if it is non-commercial and pro-cultural the market will probably absorb the next big youth-cultural movement anyway, if another ever comes along.

What if there's an elderly-cultural movement 50 years down the road as the population ages, with over 40's representing the major demographic (not that that's necessarily true), with oldies smashing up O'Connell St. demanding higher pensions, free false-teeth, reduced taxation on haemoroid cream and incontenence pads etc... what will the soundtrack to that generation sound like?

mike65

Hard Larry wrote:

I think the time of the Supergroups may be now e.g. The Raconteurs and The Good,The Bad and the Queen.

Although Supergroups were around before with massmedia and the interweb there longevity may be extended.

40-50 year olds run for the hills - "supergroups?! *shudder*

Cream, CSNY, Blind Faith, Brinsley Schwartz, ELP, Bad Company, Asia, Power Station, The Firm, Travelling Wilburys, yikes there's millions of them.

Mike.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Killaqueen!!!

I listen to virtually all types of music (you hear that a lot, but so far I haven't found anyone who is true to that description) both new and old and I don't think that music has 'peaked'. I just think that the audience has changed significally. For all we know, there is an unsigned songwriter out there who matches Bob Dylans talents, a band as revolutionary as The Beatles etc. but we just don't know about it. Why is this? Because people these days want hip hop, rap, they wan't trance music. They wan't good looking girls and hot guys singing catchy songs. They don't care about talent.

The music on the charts is not as good as the music that was on the charts 20 years ago but there is still a lot of amazing music out there that I am only just discovering.

Sandwich

Music has indeed peaked, but even those recognising that here are out in their estimates by a long shot. Music peaked about 200 years ago. Since the Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert era we had about 100yrs of stagnation or slight decline, then another hundred of serious decline with the honourable exception of the coming of jazz. Apart from that only deadends, trivialities, and unsuccessful unmusical theoretical experimentalism.

But it that a problem? Not at all. Of course it would be nice to see a genuine pickup in inspiration or progress in the art, but even without that there is more good music already on paper than most people can get through in a lifetime.

JC 2K3

^What about Prog Rock and experimental electronic music?

And since when was academically backed, orchestral music the only credible form of music?

cornbb

Sandwich wrote:

Music has indeed peaked, but even those recognising that here are out in their estimates by a long shot. Music peaked about 200 years ago. Since the Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert era we had about 100yrs of stagnation or slight decline, then another hundred of serious decline with the honourable exception of the coming of jazz. Apart from that only deadends, trivialities, and unsuccessful unmusical theoretical experimentalism.

But it that a problem? Not at all. Of course it would be nice to see a genuine pickup in inspiration or progress in the art, but even without that there is more good music already on paper than most people can get through in a lifetime.

I must completely disagree. Firstly, the music of the classical era was not the only music of its time. It was great music and all, the fact that we still enjoy it today is a testament to this, but it only occupied a narrow subset of all the music of the time. Folk music comprised the rest of the range of music at the time. Folk music later went on to become popular music, accounting for pretty much every artist heard through the mainstream media in the last 100 years. So just considering the quality of music purely in terms of classical music is nonsense.

Secondly, whatever happened to classical music anyway? Well, we had the baroque era, the classical era and the romantic era. In the 20th century, this lineage mushroomed out into a hugely diverse range of progressive and experimental music, everything from Serialism, Minimalism, atonality etc, to the early pioneers of electronic music. Some of this music has crossed over into the mainstream and inspired a lot of the cutting edge music we hear today, for example you can now hear the influences of minimalism in a huge amount of music today, especially electronic music. So minimalism for one is hardly "unsuccessful unmusical theoretical experimentalism".

Sorry for ranting, but my point is that all of this evolution of music can hardly be considered a decline. I have the greatest respect for the composers of the classical era. Where composition is concerned, that style of music has been thoroughly explored and is dead now, but the old works still sound great today and have spawned such a wonderful and diverse range of modern music.

Orizio

Killaqueen!!! wrote:

I listen to virtually all types of music (you hear that a lot, but so far I haven't found anyone who is true to that description) both new and old and I don't think that music has 'peaked'. I just think that the audience has changed significally. For all we know, there is an unsigned songwriter out there who matches Bob Dylans talents, a band as revolutionary as The Beatles etc. but we just don't know about it. Why is this? Because people these days want hip hop, rap, they wan't trance music. They wan't good looking girls and hot guys singing catchy songs. They don't care about talent.

The music on the charts is not as good as the music that was on the charts 20 years ago but there is still a lot of amazing music out there that I am only just discovering.

I didn't know Hip-Hop doesn't do 'talent'.How does that work again?