Why did the last 4T have so much better music than this 4T?

[Kinser79]

(03-08-2017, 03:58 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-08-2017, 12:45 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I would say it depends on what you're listening to.  If you're listening to underground rock, underground hip hop/reggaeton there is a lot of good music out there.  If you're listening to the Top 40, well it's been garbage for decades---at least since the end of the 2T.  There is a reason for that.  Underground music is typically done for the sake of the art itself, the Top 40 is to make as much profit out of selling ad time on the radio and therefore caters to the lowest common denominator.

That being said I've been listening to a lot of salsa lately but that's mostly because I hired a lot of Puerto Ricans.  At least the Top 40 on the Spanish language stations is significantly better than the English language stations.

In a way, that was my point.  The music scene is a music-mall full of narrowly focused boutiques.  Many have really great music, and a tiny audience.  The old model allowed for the building of a Great Songbook; think Cole Porter or the Beatles.  They had wide and diverse audiences that absorbed the music and made it Great.  That's not to say that all of it really was, but that's the meme we've accepted.

FWIW, I grew up on Jazz, and that's always been great.  The audience has never been large.  That takes nothing away but the fame.

Cole Porter sure.  The Beatles are vastly over rated.  Heavily influential, yes, but over rated.  If you want to talk about good rock from the 2T I'd have to say Pink Floyd.

I think you'll find that a great deal of under ground music has a much larger audience than it used to have.  Part of the reason for that is a change in the distribution model.  It is far easier for musicians now to make money by selling shows but giving their music away for nothing over the internet--not like that wouldn't happen anyway if they signed with a major label as it is.

In the information age the record companies are struggling.  What good is having a super expensive production infrastructure when people can shoot a music video on their phone and share it with the world in five minutes?

Salsa and Reggaeton both have a very large audience, and at least in FL not just among Latinos.  Blacks and Whites have taken to listening to the Spanish radio because the quality of music is vastly superior to the schlock that is pumped out on the Top 40s. 

Where I live we have four major FM stations (excluding the one that's all news all the time, and the one that's all talk radio all the time).  One of those is the Christian station (being an atheist I have no interest in it--even if it were good but isn't), then there's the "black" station that plays degenerate hip hop that has to be bleeped every other word (makes me wonder what the point is).

Then there's the "country" station.  They don't actually play country music, just what passes for country music these days I like me some Hank Williams (Sr or Jr, the 3rd not so much) or Conway Twitty but there's not been any good hillbilly crack around since about 1988.  The last station is the Spanish station which plays Salsa which is essentially Big Band with people singing in Spanish.

I don't mind the Spanish even if I can't really follow it.  Second language and all that.  Personally I like Reggaeton the best.  This for example.  In before someone yells that Daddy Yankee is on the Spanish Top 40s