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

[Kinser79]

(03-08-2017, 04:07 PM)noway2 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.

I think you're pretty much hitting it on the head. I think we're seeing a combination of lowest common denominator based corporatism combined with technology changes that make it difficult to quantify music culture.

It used to be that (commercial) radio and physical music stores worked hand in hand and the offerings of both were representative of the current musical culture.  Not so much today.  Commercial radio has been effectively killed by syndication and even "rock" stations play the same old songs from days of lore while playing virtually nothing new and this is obviously some sort of market driven economic force.  I suspect that it is in part an artificial effect caused by groups like the "record labels" and the RIAA and a fight over royalties.  

So more and more people move away from corporate radio. I myself, listen to more music than I have in previous years, but it is largely foreign in origin.  I find that I particularly like Gothic / Symphonic metal which is heavily dominated by the Scandinavian countries today.  I listen to virtually nothing that is American.  My sources include purchasing MP3 'albums' and online streaming from various sources rather than physical media.

I can't speak for your tastes.  I'm gravitating toward Latin America rather than Scandinavia---unless of course it is Punk Rock with that classic Punk Rock flavor.  And even then I'm more likely to hear that in Spanish rather than Swedish.  That could be due to my geography though. 

Florida is heavily influenced by the Caribbean.  We have large populations of both Immigrant and Native Born Cubans, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans.  Spanish is spoken almost as much as English here (and has been since before I was born too--so it's not new).  Hence why I was able to pick it up--I get lots of practice.  Unfortunately I lack sufficient formal instruction to read much beyond --a 4th grade level in that language--I learned it from speaking it focusing on swears, insults, and commands first.

I would say that the market forces at play are the means of music reproduction.  Used to be that if you wanted to listen to a song you had to wait for it to come on the radio or Mtv (yes they used to actually play music back in the day) or go to a record store.  I'm using record to mean any recorded music format, not just vinyl.  Vinyl still has a niche market.

Think for a minute what you said about how you get your music?  You purchase MP3 albums, and stream online.  There is no need to have a record company when one can put together such an album or even a video with the right software--some of which itself can be had for cheap or even free.