DISCUSSING TODAY'S MUSIC, IS IT TRASH??

I just saw debates and discussion in various sources and found that many people are disappointed about how today’s music is soulless and not as good as old music. Well I have my own opinions, they are just my opinions and some things written are actually arguments in platforms like Reddit.

SONGWRITERS

Creating and crafting a beautiful piece of art requires diligent work ethic, to accomplish and resonate with the audience, you have to stay up day and night formulating melodies and instrumentals to it. Songwriting is such an allure skill which can only be acquired after years of trial and error. Some people might not like it and some might, but that doesn’t define your music as worthless or soulless. Some individuals utilize AI to create music, this music can be called as soulless as AI doesn’t have a soul.

While we look at it, many people are flustered at the sight of numerous songwriters in the credits, apart from having many songwriters, they also have ghost writers. Ghost writers are writers who write but doesn’t get any credit for their contribution, example might be Alan Walker (some allegations have made that he uses them, but no proof or evidence is there, just put him because many sources criticize him) . Some even don’t write the music but receive co writer credit unnecessarily, example Elvis Presley. But as you see Elvis Presley was a dominant figure of the mid 1950s, this was there even in the old times.

Many people talked about the amount of songwriters in a single song, while even the artist who has their main strength as songwriting use many songwriters. Sometimes, the artist themselves don’t write the music and use a team of writers to create their music. It is debatable because to many people an artist is a person who crafts the music. To be honest, a performer is known as a performing artist. But let me say, most people who are just plain listeners doesn’t actually look up credits and look who actually wrote the songs. They just believe that the artists wrote it and start praising their unbelievable talent and the people behind the scenes are left unnoticed which seriously hurts. Some artists like Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande ( who is actually mainly singing, her voice is just so amazing) have been criticized for using too many songwriters. Even artists like Taylor Swift are criticized despite having over 60 songs written by herself and even the whole “Speak Now” album was written by her. In 2022, Blur frontman Damon Albarn incorrectly claimed that she did not write her own songs and that co-writing “doesn’t count,” a remark for which he later apologized after receiving backlash.

The critique that artists should be “lone songwriters” to be considered authentic is largely considered outdated by industry standards.

THE SIMPLE CHORDS

“The music industry is frequently criticized for using simple, repetitive chord progressions, particularly within the pop, rock, and country genres. This criticism often highlights the use of basic, three-or-four-chord formulas that appear across numerous hit songs, such as the I-V-vi-IV progression”

People often consider the chords too basic and really simple comparing to the Beatles Era, that with only two or four chords that whole song is done. Most songs utilize the four chord progressions and while artists do the acoustic performance, it becomes way more clear that it is too basic and not all that hard. Most artists really solely on their hearing skills and are not that virtuosic so the songs they create don’t utilize complex music techniques. The fact that they can create beautiful music without having too much knowledge is inspiration itself, most are self taught and they can still create such music.

SEXUAL CONTENT

“modern music is heavily criticized for its sexual content, often more intensely than older music, largely because studies show sexual references, explicitness, and themes of “lust” have increased significantly in popular music over the past 50 years. While older music also contained sexual themes, modern music is characterized by more direct, and frequently degrading, references to sexual acts”

Not only modern music but also films are criticized for this, the influence on young youths and the way it has increased over time has definitely angered people. Sabrina Carpenter’s music was criticized for this reason and even her new album cover for “Man’s Best Friend’ received significant backlash as it seemed like it encouraged anti feminism, the album cover had Carpenter on all fours while a man held her hair like a leash.

INTERPOLATION, SAMPLING AND PLAGIARISM

Modern Music samples many music which leads to them sometimes have too many songwriters because they have to credit the writers of the song which the sampled. Many artists received significant criticism recently like Taylor Swift. In her new album “The Life Of The Showgirl”, Swift had many songs which hate like The Fate Of Ophelia which sampled many songs and even songs like “The Life Of A Showgirl ft Sabrina Carpenter” had the whole chorus largely similar to “Cool by The Jonas Brothers” and they were not credited so many other songs were sampled heavily. Even the song “Wish List” had some similarities to her own song “Glitch”.

While people like Olivia Rodrigo had the bridge of her song Deja Vu similar to Cruel Summer by Taylor, she was sued definitely and was criticized largely for that. She was also called out for her song “good 4 u” being similar to “Paramore”, she expressed her disappointment in it and even said that no music is ever gonna be fully new. Some songs like “Anxiety” by Doechii which sampled “Somebody That I Used to Know“ by Gotye featuring Kimbra was largely hated, but they actually announced that it was sampled. The K Pop Demon Hunters sound tracks are also criticized for having many songs similar to many K pop songs.

But actually as Olivia Rodrigo said no song could ever be totally new, it is gonna be similar to some other song in some way.

CONCLUSION

So in the end, whether it is trash or treasure is subjective, while some of these arguments are acceptable, some are just not. No one’s art is bad unless it was made from AI, humans tend to copy other’s music accidentally and we can’t charge and attack them like the way we do, well if you are saying it should have no mistakes, you should only stick to AI music. But some arguments are worth thinking about. Let me know about your thoughts on modern music.

I ONLY WROTE SOME, SHOULD I DO A PART 2? LET ME KNOW…..

HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT….