Why has the quality of mainstream film and music taken a nosedive since the 70's?

Franz Von Peppercorn

BailMeOut wrote: »

There is no such thing nor will there ever be 'main stream' again due to the wast amount of entertainment available to to us all now. I will not ague with OP that the 70's was great for movies and one could argue that the 90's was another excellent decade however we are now in the era of unprecedented and excellent TV quality.

Yes there is a lot of garbage out there however if you look there is incredible amount of great music, movie and TV available.

PS: I cannot stand Pink Floyd.

I think its pretty reasonable to call Adele or Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift mainstream.

I don't like Pink Floyd either.

Gimme A Pound

Radiohead stopped getting mainstream attention in terms of the singles charts and daytime radio after OK Computer.

I like Pink Floyd but not sure what the relevance of opinions on Pink Floyd is.

grindle

Music and movies have become standardised to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I don't see where any confusion lies.
Why? Money. How to avoid? Listen to and watch things that don't necessarily seek to reach a Top 10 decided by people with low standards.

There's no point feeling sad or put out about it - there's more art being made nowadays that's just as good and there are many more avenues available to search them out.
Anybody depending on mainstream charts to serve up quality content deserves the sub-standard content they receive tbh.

CrankyHaus

Good music still gets made - there's just so much music being made and so much tripe pushed through the media that it's very hard to find the good stuff without a lot of work or an engaged peer group (which you probably won't have after about 30) to recommend it to you.

Good films still get made - But intelligent fare is crowded out by superhero junk as Hollywood takes less risks. The space for smart low and medium budget stories is increasingly online with the likes of Netflix.

One thing that is regrettable is the demise of good music, and to a lesser extent film, critics. Once upon a time you could rely on these to recommend good material and artists. Now it's more and more of an echo chamber, regurgitating a very shallow pool of endorsements with the odd exception. While newspaper features sections have always been happy to accept freebies their opinions seem to be more bought and paid for by label and studio marketing departments than ever before.

James Brown

Quick easier money. Remakes, turning popular things into movies. Get a few one hit wonders and move on to the next batch.

sk8erboii

batgoat wrote: »

Your arguments from authority actually shows how weak you are at making an argument. It's a style of debate that will get you nowhere.

Reading comprehension is very poor in afterhours. I spent about 20 posts discussing the poor direction, choreography, plot holes, awkward dialogue, bad writing in general.

Meanwhile you took your time to just latch on to that one post saying people who work in the industry think the dark knight trilogy is a joke.

Its bizarre. Though it really just shows the level of discourse the people defending a comic book movie is capable of

sk8erboii

xckjoo wrote: »

Its a parody account no? Reads like one anyway

Makes no sense. Ive given all the evidence based on the movies themselves.

This thread shows the typical mindset of old people: Young person says something that defies their perspective. Must be a troll.

If you do a quick google, you'll find many critics stating distaste for Nolans trilogy for the same reasons I listed. Its a series that is laughable with new eyes. Please stop being insular and backwards. The Dark Knight trilogy is a mess of plot holes and poor direction.

sk8erboii

Leandro Clever Sunbonnet wrote: »

As is the below:

Be. More. Subtle.

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

Woke Hogan

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

The anti-craic right here.

Imagine a grown man aged thirty to forty going to watch the Christopher Reeve films on his own back in the 70s and 80s. People would either have thought he was "special" or even something more sinister than that.

I'm not saying people who go to superhero movies are all perverts or anything, in fact I believe the opposite, it just shows a worrying slide into people showing a lack of intellectual curiosity.

xckjoo

sk8erboii wrote: »

Makes no sense. Ive given all the evidence based on the movies themselves.

This thread shows the typical mindset of old people: Young person says something that defies their perspective. Must be a troll.

If you do a quick google, you'll find many critics stating distaste for Nolans trilogy for the same reasons I listed. Its a series that is laughable with new eyes. Please stop being insular and backwards. The Dark Knight trilogy is a mess of plot holes and poor direction.

lol. If you insist you're not a parody then I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

My conclusion wasn't related to your opinion on movies though. It wasn't based on this thread at all TBH.

xckjoo

Woke Hogan wrote: »

Imagine a grown man aged thirty to forty going to watch the Christopher Reeve films on his own back in the 70s and 80s. People would either have thought he was "special" or even something more sinister than that.

I'm not saying people who go to superhero movies are all perverts or anything, in fact I believe the opposite, it just shows a worrying slide into people showing a lack of intellectual curiosity.

See sk8er? That's how you do a parody post. You "young people" can't do anything right :pac:

sk8erboii

xckjoo wrote: »

See sk8er? That's how you do a parody post. You "young people" can't do anything right :pac:

?? Thats clearly post-irony

ToddyDoody

I think it's because the barbarians have taken over and this is the type of stuff they like to produce / consume.

James Brown

sk8erboii wrote: »

?? Thats clearly post-irony

Beyond Irony?

I think the superhero genre is the only saving grace, aside from a few others, in a time were mobile phone games, Angry Birds and emojis, Emoji Movie, are created.
The oscars tend to promote drivel too IMO. 'The Artist'? The 'A star is born' remake? Muck.

Sciprio

I like the style and quality of 70's/80's horror movies like Phantasm and such. Most horror types today don't really do anything for me.

xckjoo

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Beyond Irony?

I think the superhero genre is the only saving grace, aside from a few others, in a time were mobile phone games, Angry Birds and emojis, Emoji Movie, are created.
The oscars tend to promote drivel too IMO. 'The Artist'? The 'A star is born' remake? Muck.

The Oscars got Weinstein-ed in the 90s.

Franz Von Peppercorn

sk8erboii wrote: »

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

I know you have a lower than average IQ but the ad hominems are even below someone of your limited intellect.

You haven’t really discussed why the dark knight was bad – not that anyone really cared to begin with – you just said it was, and that people you knew who worked in the industry all said it.

This barely is an argument to authority because it’s not even people we can verify as an authority. I mean it’s not likely you are hanging around with the greatest minds. Or that they live in Limerick.

Even if we did know who they were it would be a weak argument to authority to say “my friends sed dis and dey is smart”. So you fail even at logical fallacies.

Unfortunately I don’t believe you are a troll. It’s disquieting that you may be the future.

Fortunately however I don’t believe you represent the upcoming generation.

Gimme A Pound

sk8erboii wrote: »

Cringy old people humor.

Notice how all my detractors are attacking me instead of my evidence.

https://i.imgur.com/2QcNSmR.gif

You cant defend this though, so I get it.

I wasn't even talking about you on that post you quoted. I'm not even reading your posts and I don't think I responded to you once, so I don't know what your "you can't defend this" comment is about.

Attacking? You attack people literally for just disagreeing with you.

Arghus

sk8erboii wrote: »

Reading comprehension is very poor in afterhours. I spent about 20 posts discussing the poor direction, choreography, plot holes, awkward dialogue, bad writing in general.

Meanwhile you took your time to just latch on to that one post saying people who work in the industry think the dark knight trilogy is a joke.

Its bizarre. Though it really just shows the level of discourse the people defending a comic book movie is capable of

It's pretty bad alright.

You were convinced that I said The Dark Trilogy was a classic, even though I didn't say that anywhere.

And in one of your other posts you mentioned that Derek Cianfrance "is literally the staple in indie discourse because of Blue valentine.". Now, he might be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's a piece of office equipment!

Gimme A Pound

No doubt the inane "old man doesn't like new stuff" comments by people missing the point/not reading will continue (if that applied, how come old people love today's TV? Surely going by the logic here, they would be watching only 80s and 90s re-runs) but I think it's starting to be acknowledged that yes indeed, there is way more sh1t today than ever before.

grindle wrote: »

Music and movies have become standardised to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I don't see where any confusion lies.
Why? Money. How to avoid? Listen to and watch things that don't necessarily seek to reach a Top 10 decided by people with low standards.

There's no point feeling sad or put out about it - there's more art being made nowadays that's just as good and there are many more avenues available to search them out.
Anybody depending on mainstream charts to serve up quality content deserves the sub-standard content they receive tbh.

But David Bowie, The Smiths, The Jam, Elvis Costello, The Who, New Order, The Cure, Marvin Gaye, Primal Scream, Talking Heads, Blondie, Kate Bush and the Stone Roses used to be high in the charts/on Top of The Pops. It's a shame that's gone.

Even the equivalent of Westlife in the 80s was Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Wham. Not a fan of any of them but Westlife are a hundred times blander.

The absence of just pop music involving talent is a sad one imo. Great bands were inspired by what they saw on Top of the Pops.

Arghus

I'm loathe to completely dismiss mainstream music. Yes, sure enough, to my ears a lot of it does sound like fairly mediocre stuff. There's a certain familiarity to the way songs are produced and arranged now - a lot of the big songs by different artists of the last few years have been written by the same group of songwriters and producers and more and more people want to work with them all the time, so definitely that sense of homogeneity in popular music is at least partly quantifiable and not just wholly down to subjective taste.

But, at the same time, I do know that I'm not the target market for the stuff that's in the charts. Chart music is for people in their teens or just about crossing over into adulthood. It always has been. So sometimes I get off my high horse of hate for the music. I don't like a lot of it, but there's probably millions of fifteen years olds who do. Personally, I'd be really interested in knowing what it is that people like about it, rather than just dismissively crapping on it. I was just into my teens around the turn of the millennium and I think chart music back then was really bad, even worse than it is now. The blandness of most of the pop music from that era was utterly chronic - as bad and all as it is now, I think it was actually worse fifteen to twenty years ago.

I think what irritates a lot of people is that it seems like it's the same artists that get pushed in the media a lot. Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Arianna Grande etc,etc. And a lot of talent show bullsh!t clogging up the TV and radio. But that's just a reflection of how record companies - who are usually parts of bigger entertainment empires these days - can't afford to take risks like they may have in the past. People don't spend as much money on music now as they did in the past. It has to compete on fronts against other media all the time now, so that forces a conservative approach, mixed with relentless advertising in order to push a product. Risks can't be taken like they were in the past, smaller labels find it harder and harder to survive.

Of course the quality of mainstream music was higher in previous decades, but things were different. There was a lot of new ground waiting to be broken, unexplored territory. But now we're fifty plus years down the line, things are going to get a bit stale, it's only natural.

But, I dunno, in some ways I feel cautiously optimistic. People bemoan the quality of chart music and mainstream music, but stuff that doesn't fall into that category becomes easier to find all the time. I used to read about bands for ages before I could even hear them. Now everything is accessible, all the time. Now, that has its own unique downsides too, for sure. But there's still a lot of people out there making good music - fcking tons of people - and in most cases it's only a click away. It was never that easy to find new music even back in the supposed glory days.

Best music of 2019

sk8erboii

People here lambasting Marvel movies are also defending this

https://i.imgur.com/xv6UW6G.gif

Then backpedalling 'No! I didnt say it was a classic i swear!'

Come on. This is pathetic now

sk8erboii

Arghus wrote: »

It's pretty bad alright.

You were convinced that I said The Dark Trilogy was a classic, even though I didn't say that anywhere.

And in one of your other posts you mentioned that Derek Cianfrance "is literally the staple in indie discourse because of Blue valentine.". Now, he might be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's a piece of office equipment!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz


'a main or important part of something:'

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/staple

smurgen

All those superhero movies are evidence that the o.p is right.how many marvel crap films have been made.
Also rap is now unrecognizable from where it was.there's barely any artists I can listen to nowadays.there's no substance or meaning to it.

Wibbs

TBH I would largely agree with sk8erboii on the The Dark Knight trilogy, with the exception of the The Dark Knight flic in the middle. It was a good film with all the actors hitting the spot with a good script behind it too. The first and last, nope. Decidedly meh for me.

To be fair I have liked precious few superhero genre films. A rollercoaster of 90 mins distraction daftness at best, though you get the impression those behind the camera play it for laughs a lot of the time. People in shiny capes is a bit too daft to be played for real. Unless you're twelve. When filmmakers try to make it serious business and "worthy" it just comes across as awkward, empty and childish.

Greyfox

smurgen wrote: »

All those superhero movies are evidence that the o.p is right.how many marvel crap films have been made.

A small minority don't like the Marvel films, for most people the majority of marvel films are amazing. Endgame is a 10/10 film for people who enjoy great films, it might be the only 10/10 film this year. The 90's was the best decade for films but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films and Hollywood has accepted this.

Wibbs

Greyfox wrote: »

A small minority don't like the Marvel films, for most people the majority of marvel films are amazing. Endgame is a 10/10 film for people who enjoy great films, it might be the only 10/10 film this year.

Ten outa ten? Endgame? Jeebus were doomed. Doooooooooooooomed I tells ya.

The 90's was the best decade for films

Oh Lord have mercy... Actually I can't think of any "best decade" for film. Each decade brought the masterpieces and the howlers and mostly the rest were filler.

but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films

We'd agree there.

Hollywood doesn't compete with more complex fare, not so much because of the format of cinema, but because they realised they can get far more bums on seats when they keep it childishly simplistic with regular CGI explosions and whoosh noises, with an already primed audience and huge merch takings too. That costs money, but they get it back. Especially so with the comic book story arc stuff. Marvel, DC, Star Wars too(not so much Star Trek, as while they're solid performers they're not the blockbusters of Marvel, but can cost nearly as much to make).

The fans have also transformed compared to the past. Watch Star Wars conventions and sneak previews. They're almost like religious events crossed with Triumph of the Will, with adults waving placcy light sabres(Lucasfilm©™) around whooping like eight year olds that have been at the red smarties. That kinda audience will damn near consume anything they produce no matter how slipshod so long as it presses the right buttons in the right general order. QV the last two main story Star Wars flics. The first a shinier near scene for scene knock off of the original with extra whizz bangs, the second... well the less said about that the better. Marvel stuff engenders similar. A huge ready made audience that will lap it up. When such properties go out in less primed less nostalgia based cultures like China where they approach it like an old style audience and judge more on merit they often die a death. Star Wars a good example of that.

Basically they've become pop culture events rather than just films.

Sciprio

Sciprio wrote: »

I like the style and quality of 70's/80's horror movies like Phantasm and such. Most horror types today don't really do anything for me.

There is something about late 60's and 70's horror that makes it especially scary.

Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Amityville Horror, The Shining, The Exorcist

but to name a few

Gunmonkey

Greyfox wrote: »

The 90's was the best decade for films but tv series are now better than films and Hollywood can't compete. The writing and story depth and complexity in Sopranos, wire, breaking bad and Game of thrones is superior to films and Hollywood has accepted this.

Was half way through writing something similar. As TV has advanced from the sitcom heavy 70's, it has pulled more and more people into it who might have moved into films and taken their skills and ideas with them.

As for there being far too many superhero films recently....my count is about 40 in the past decade (since Iron Man in 2008). Compare that to the amount of westerns released in the 70's...its well over twice that many, and can assume they all arent deep deconstructions of the human psyche or tortured examinations of the isolation of the Old West and more "pew pew we shoots the bad guys".

There will always be "popcorn flicks" for mainstream viewers....its not a new thing!

Wibbs

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Compare that to the amount of westerns released in the 70's...its well over twice that many, and can assume they all arent deep deconstructions of the human psyche or tortured examinations of the isolation of the Old West and more "pew pew we shoots the bad guys".

I'd agree with your general take G, save for the above part. The 70's were very much the decade where the western genre "grew up" to some degree and was much more about deconstructing the old myths about the genre. Arguably started by the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone in the 1960's. Once upon a time in the west is very stylised but nothing like the usual westerns. Eastwood who came from that background and the old style baddies/goodies cowboy flics expanded on it in his own films. Outlaw Josey Wales and the like. Now if you'd said the 40's and 50's yeah.

Actually the 70's was big on that new look at things in general across a few genres that came out of more gritty 60's(particularly non American flics), broken up by the rise of blockbusters like Star Wars.

badabing106

Wibbs wrote: »

TBH I would largely agree with sk8erboii on the The Dark Knight trilogy, with the exception of the The Dark Knight flic in the middle. It was a good film with all the actors hitting the spot with a good script behind it too. The first and last, nope. Decidedly meh for me.

The ending to the batman trilogy was a terrible ending to a good trilogy. The director completely bottled it,succumbing to a deflating corny finish. It would have made a 9 year old girl groan in disappointing amazement, it was that stupid.
A decision which l am sure haunts him to this day

Church on Tuesday

Woke Hogan wrote: »

Imagine a grown man aged thirty to forty going to watch the Christopher Reeve films on his own back in the 70s and 80s. People would either have thought he was "special" or even something more sinister than that.

I'm not saying people who go to superhero movies are all perverts or anything, in fact I believe the opposite, it just shows a worrying slide into people showing a lack of intellectual curiosity.

Nonsense.

In today's fast paced and utterly cut throat society people want to go to the cinema to have fun and veg out. It's fun escapism.

Same people will also go to 'intellectual' films if they happen to be in the mood for it.

I go see what I want in the cinema and whatever I'm in the mood for that particular evening.

I'm sure many grown men and women went to see the Superman franchise and I highly doubt people gave much of a toss because everyone else was there also.

randd1

I can never understand why so many people blast the Marvel/Superhero/Sci-fi films for having no depth or poor dialogue. They're meant to be what they are, turn off the brain and relax for two hours entertainment or a day out for the kids. One of the reasons the marvel films have been so successful is they knew they were meant to be fun and just went with it.

TV has taken over in terms of stories with decent character arcs. Hollywood knows it can't compete with 10 episode series where characters are explored in depth, so it makes entertainment, not quality. Even at that, most of the great Hollywood classics are over the two hour mark where the audience really gets to know character to sell the film.

grindle

Leandro Clever Sunbonnet wrote: »

The absence of just pop music involving talent is a sad one imo. Great bands were inspired by what they saw on Top of the Pops.

I don't see much benefit (musically) to being a part of some generational zeitgeist moment I guess, unless that's the point of the performance like 'This Is America'. Even that could have fallen flat, but the video was so visually arresting that it got to ride a wave. The future good bands who would have previously been inspired by seeing a band on TOTP are now inspired by YouTube, KEXP or Pitchfork performance (amongst many others). All with longer sets, better quality video and audio and no trash in between. I fully remember the days of watching TOTP waiting for my idols to pop up once every show or three.

People used to complain when record companies exerted too much control on an artist in order to fit into the radio-shítstream - uproar from rockers that even one or two songs from Albini's 'In Utero' recordings were remastered - nowadays it's easier than ever to escape that control and release whatever music you want. If the cost is that you don't get onto whatever TOTP-equivalent exists nowadays that seems a blessing in disguise.
Leave the charts to whichever rappersingers can gloat best or whichever starlet can make up the cost of autotuning her voice by showing her ass off or by being some anhedonic "R&B-meets-Nirvana" (Billie Eilish, apparently).

There could be a turnaround but it depends on many people looking for and listening to music and a majority liking it all at the same time. That doesn't make any difference to the music imo, it only affects people with too little time or motivation to look. Much the same as how sifting through records was a thing for music nerds but by the time most people were 30 and distracted by kids they gave up being a music nerd.

Agricola

When the film Bohemian Rhapsody came out, this popped up on my youtube....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g

This is a crowd comprised of people, the majority of whom weren't even born when the song released. It's a long unusual mix of different genres of music, the very antithesis of what could be described as a mainstream hit.
Yet here's thousand of people singing it word for word, over 40 years after it was released. Would a band like Queen even get mainstream recognition today, would they be allowed to record a song like Bohemian Rhapsody if they did?

I think this is the biggest tragedy of the loss of quality and real artistry in mainstream music. We wont see this kind of thing anymore. I severely doubt in 40 years time, your grandchildren will be singing along to Niki Minaj's Anaconda.

Hal3000

Check out The Boy who harnessed the wind, great piece of modern filmmaking.

riclad

I think music in the 80,s was better than the 70,s ,
there was a wide range of music in the charts, there was also electronic music,
synths were being developed and improved and used in pop music.
I Think theres great pop music being made now.
i think now the problem i see is most music is made on laptops, or tablets,
pop groups in the 70s had to really play instruments ,
Most composers used pianos or guitars to compose a song.
Music from the 80,s, 70,s 60,s sounds more powerful to me.
Modern music sounds slightly clinical ,
you can compose a song now without touching a real instrument.
Theres still great music being made .
Maybe i,m being nostalgic but new songs now don,t sound as good to me,
i think because most of the music is being emulated ,its not being
played on a real guitar .
it,s just easier to make music on pcs, or synths .
I understand their still trad and country groups who do not use
computers to compose music.
or maybe its because musicians had to really be good
to play pop music, or compose it.
it demanded a high level of skill .
Now we have online streaming , soundcloud, etc
theres so much music avaidable it can be confusing .
iN the 80,s ,groups needed a few hits ,they had to get a record contract.
and release albums on vinyl or cassette .
Now there 1000.s of albums are released in digital format.
Record companys would only release or promote a limited amount of albums per week.
There had to be strict quality control ,it was expensive to send 1000.s of
LP.S to all the record stores .
There were plenty of bad films made in the 70,s
,maybe you just remember the good ones .
i Think Sia or lady gaga or as good as most pop singers from the
70,s .
They write songs, they can really sing .
I look at a website like pitchfork, a music website. and i have no idea who most of the
groups mentioned are .
Most songs in the charts, are pop,r and b,
see bbc 4 tv, from the 80,s , top of the pop,s on friday night, , there ,s a very wide range of music in the top 30,
rap,pop,ballads, reggae ,and some people actually sing with a real accent.
Every pop singer now sounds american or mid atlantic.
I still think theres singers and composers who have great talent ,
in the charts and good music being made.

timthumbni

Right lads. I love films and especially the under the radar stuff. Instead of bickering with skater boy can some of you including him recommend any decent off the beaten track movies to watch.

Now I still want to be able to enjoy it so I don’t want some 90 minute art house film about a lonely house plant in Estonia.

I really enjoyed Ink if that’s any help.

Hal3000

timthumbni wrote: »

Right lads. I love films and especially the under the radar stuff. Instead of bickering with skater boy can some of you including him recommend any decent off the beaten track movies to watch.

Now I still want to be able to enjoy it so I don’t want some 90 minute art house film about a lonely house plant in Estonia.

I really enjoyed Ink if that’s any help.

Not off the beaten track but Sexy Beast was a real find for me. Absolutely loved it. Great acting and amazing visuals.

Wibbs

timthumbni wrote: »

Now I still want to be able to enjoy it so I don’t want some 90 minute art house film about a lonely house plant in Estonia.

:D

timthumbni

Hal3000 wrote: »

Not off the beaten track but Sexy Beast was a real find for me. Absolutely loved it. Great acting and amazing visuals.

Saw it already unfortunately. And yes I enjoyed it though bit uncomfortable as Kingsley was so good at playing the madman.

Elmer Jones

Tell No One a French Film from 2006 is a really good film.

The Rape of Lucretia

timthumbni wrote: »

Right lads. I love films and especially the under the radar stuff. off the beaten track movies to watch.

Why does the number of other people who have seen a movie influence your own enjoyment of it ?

timthumbni

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Why does the number of other people who have seen a movie influence your own enjoyment of it ?

They don’t. But the normal popular ones I am likely to have heard of and watched already. I’m not a film snob.

bodhrandude

timthumbni wrote: »

Right lads. I love films and especially the under the radar stuff. Instead of bickering with skater boy can some of you including him recommend any decent off the beaten track movies to watch.

Now I still want to be able to enjoy it so I don’t want some 90 minute art house film about a lonely house plant in Estonia.

I really enjoyed Ink if that’s any help.

The perfect thread for you

Gimme A Pound

Woke Hogan wrote: »

Star Wars came out in 1977 and the generations who grew up watching it never graduated to serious films for adults

No serious films for adults in the 80s, 90s, 2000s? Come on now, I realise your thing is just to say provocative sh1t but the above isn't even logical.

Arghus wrote: »

I'm loathe to completely dismiss mainstream music. Yes, sure enough, to my ears a lot of it does sound like fairly mediocre stuff. There's a certain familiarity to the way songs are produced and arranged now - a lot of the big songs by different artists of the last few years have been written by the same group of songwriters and producers and more and more people want to work with them all the time, so definitely that sense of homogeneity in popular music is at least partly quantifiable and not just wholly down to subjective taste.

But, at the same time, I do know that I'm not the target market for the stuff that's in the charts. Chart music is for people in their teens or just about crossing over into adulthood. It always has been. So sometimes I get off my high horse of hate for the music. I don't like a lot of it, but there's probably millions of fifteen years olds who do. Personally, I'd be really interested in knowing what it is that people like about it, rather than just dismissively crapping on it. I was just into my teens around the turn of the millennium and I think chart music back then was really bad, even worse than it is now. The blandness of most of the pop music from that era was utterly chronic - as bad and all as it is now, I think it was actually worse fifteen to twenty years ago.

I think what irritates a lot of people is that it seems like it's the same artists that get pushed in the media a lot. Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Arianna Grande etc,etc. And a lot of talent show bullsh!t clogging up the TV and radio. But that's just a reflection of how record companies - who are usually parts of bigger entertainment empires these days - can't afford to take risks like they may have in the past. People don't spend as much money on music now as they did in the past. It has to compete on fronts against other media all the time now, so that forces a conservative approach, mixed with relentless advertising in order to push a product. Risks can't be taken like they were in the past, smaller labels find it harder and harder to survive.

Of course the quality of mainstream music was higher in previous decades, but things were different. There was a lot of new ground waiting to be broken, unexplored territory. But now we're fifty plus years down the line, things are going to get a bit stale, it's only natural.

But, I dunno, in some ways I feel cautiously optimistic. People bemoan the quality of chart music and mainstream music, but stuff that doesn't fall into that category becomes easier to find all the time. I used to read about bands for ages before I could even hear them. Now everything is accessible, all the time. Now, that has its own unique downsides too, for sure. But there's still a lot of people out there making good music - fcking tons of people - and in most cases it's only a click away. It was never that easy to find new music even back in the supposed glory days.

Best music of 2019

Still the odd good pop tune. That Major Lazar "Lean On" song is class (although I see it's four years old - crikey) but due to changes like technology, the internet, X Factor stuff, image over substance (I know, always around, but now more than ever), cost cutting, pop music is just a mass produced thing using the same formula most of the time, and that's a shame, as a good pop song is the biz.

Woke Hogan

Leandro Clever Sunbonnet wrote: »

No serious films for adults in the 80s, 90s, 2000s? Come on now, I realise your thing is just to say provocative sh1t but the above isn't even logical.

Still the odd good pop tune. That Major Lazar "Lean On" song is class (although I see it's four years old - crikey) but due to changes like technology, the internet, X Factor stuff, image over substance (I know, always around, but now more than ever), cost cutting, pop music is just a mass produced thing using the same formula most of the time, and that's a shame, as a good pop song is the biz.

In the mainstream serious films for adults are nowhere near as popular as they were in the 60z and 70s. Even in the 90s you would see stuff like American Beauty and so on in the multiplexes. Now it’s all cartoon movies for babies.

batgoat

Woke Hogan wrote: »

In the mainstream serious films for adults are nowhere near as popular as they were in the 60z and 70s. Even in the 90s you would see stuff like American Beauty and so on in the multiplexes. Now it’s all cartoon movies for babies.

The likes of Paul Thomas Anderson have consistently gotten on incredibly well for the past two decades. Then you've got Wes Anderson, Dennis Villineuve. Films such as Arrival and Bladerunner 2069 which were films that used scifi to make a viewer think. Even the likes of Logan were great cinema. Yes, we've had big blockbusters but both international cinema(Haneke,Park Chan-wook and Alfonso Cuarón to name a few) and Hollywood have outputted superb films that are at the same level of decades prior to it.

riclad

In the 70,s star wars and jaws were big hits,
studios decided we,d be better off making a smaller no of movies
,action blockbusters with easy to understand plots , that would be big hits all over the world.
Than complex drama,s aimed at an older audience.
Like coming home or taxi driver.
Also action movies are hits around the world , they are easy to understand concepts ,
a shark attacks , the rebels are up againts darth vader ,
those are concepts easy to understand .
Theres loads of good movies made now,
but they may be seen on netflix, amazon,streaming service .
They are also streaming channels that show classic films,
also see film 4, bbc, sky, theres plenty of places to see movies
outside the cinema .
Disney now owns marvel comics, and fox,
of course they will be releasing star war film,s
and marvel movies based on the characters they own.
Maybe the 70s was a golden age when the studios would
release a wide range of film,s ,
directors and writers had more power than they do now .
Theres more tv drama,s being made now than ever before ,
amazon,disney, apple, netflix need more content to attract
subscribers to their streaming services .
there was plenty of awful mediocre movies made in the 70s .
We remember the good films , thats how human memory works .

Gimme A Pound

Woke Hogan wrote: »

In the mainstream serious films for adults are nowhere near as popular as they were in the 60z and 70s. Even in the 90s you would see stuff like American Beauty and so on in the multiplexes. Now it’s all cartoon movies for babies.

Yes, so people who watched Star Wars were indeed also exposed to serious films in the 80s, 90s and 2000s.

And there still are plenty of them. It's not all comic book stuff. There's a lot of it yes, but it would be extremely dishonest to suggest there's nothing else.