# Today's Mainstream Music Boring?



## Millenium_01 (Mar 5, 2018)

I feel we've completely gone out of the golden era of music. 
I understand that music evolves and changes but there doesn't seem to be a prominent/defining culture (at least not like in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s).

When people look back on the 2010s decade what will they remember? There used to be a time when practically all the songs on the radio were catchy and still diverse with a long array of genres. 
Everything today nearly sounds the same...I don't know. Maybe because nearly all the music pop/rock legends have died.

Maybe it's just me.


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## Spit (Apr 13, 2018)

No you're completely right, everything sounds the same. And now and days I really have to search for things that sound original, but I listen to the oldies more.
I love classic rock, soul, pretty much every genre popular from back in the day. Otis Redding, Queen, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Bonnie Tyler, and the list goes on and on. But they don't really make music like that anymore. Or maybe I'm too much of an old soul.


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## Preciselyd (Mar 18, 2018)

I do find mainstream music boring these days and your not alone @Millenium_01. 

I personally prefer music from late 60s, late 70s, 80s and early 90s. A lot of people are covering songs, ripping off songs, coping dance moves etc. But in all honesty it seems to happen each decade.
















One could say Ariana Grande style is like the woman wearing black mini dress with her hair up in a ponytail (see below)





Examples:
Beyonce style is like Tina Turner
Lady Gaga style is like Madonna
Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake style is like Michael Jackson
Chris Brown style is like Bobby Brown
Rihanna style is Whitney Houston, Belinda Carlisle and Madonna
Christina Aguilera is like Cher
Etc.


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## danthemanklein (Mar 30, 2018)

I really don’t listen to individual top 40 modern pop. It’s catchy for like, 5 minutes or so, but it gets kinda boring after a while. I’m more into rock, metal, punk, R&B, and hip-hop. However, the only way for me to listen to modern pop is through pop mashups. They take something that is seemingly so mundane and creatively combine them however they want. It’s teally interesting to me how you can take a song (or a bunch of songs) and manipulate them into one mashup. Otherwise, as I said before, don’t really care about the songs themselves.


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## Millenium_01 (Mar 5, 2018)

danthemanklein said:


> I really don’t listen to individual top 40 modern pop. It’s catchy for like, 5 minutes or so, but it gets kinda boring after a while. I’m more into rock, metal, punk, R&B, and hip-hop. However, the only way for me to listen to modern pop is through pop mashups. They take something that is seemingly so mundane and creatively combine them however they want. It’s teally interesting to me how you can take a song (or a bunch of songs) and manipulate them into one mashup. Otherwise, as I said before, don’t really care about the songs themselves.


Yeah mashups are pretty sick


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## danthemanklein (Mar 30, 2018)

Millenium_01 said:


> Yeah mashups are pretty sick


Hell yeah, they are. They’re the reason why I inspired to make my own as well. Although, I would really love to see mashups of other genres than just pop, ya know?


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## Millenium_01 (Mar 5, 2018)

danthemanklein said:


> Hell yeah, they are. They’re the reason why I inspired to make my own as well. Although, I would really love to see mashups of other genres than just pop, ya know?


Yeah:eagerness:

And its pretty cool that you're inspired to create your own mashups. Best of luck:congratulatory:


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## Aluminum Frost (Oct 1, 2017)

2000s idk. 2010's probably gonna be defined by like vaporwave, tame impala, xxxtentacion, that stuff


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## Witch of Oreo (Jun 23, 2014)

Hotline Bling is, I suppose, a quintessence of what 10's music will be remembered as. Also a bunch of viral meme trash.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

I think it tends to go hand-in-hand with fascism. The more the control over self-expression and personal freedom, the less creative the musical content (it's drab, conforming, bland).

That and nepotism in the industry. People assume that kids always end up EXACTLY like their parents, which often is not the case. Combined together, we get a mixed bag doo-doo.

Probably the best age for music was in the late 1960s/1970s (I'm guessing). Quaility-wise, there's no denying- the lyrical talent, emotions, AMAAAZING!! It kinda parallels with the major movements of life back then (especially in the U.S.). There were some really incredible artists and independent bands that created America the collective identitty it had that attracted people from all around the world. That's also not to mention British bands (they had some major talents, especially). And that also relates to major historical movements in human history (reactionary to authoritarian culture).


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## attic (May 20, 2012)

I think it is about that there isn't as clear a mainstream as before, just because people listen to much more diverse music. It is easier to find now, from various times, from various genres, from various parts of the world. I think the music nowadays is super rich, there's so much to choose from. I really don't think it is bland, if thinking that I think one has not tried at all to find good stuff (which is of course different from person to person). In the 90s you had to endure Back street boys whether you liked it or not, in the 80 Michel jackson was in your face everywhere, earlier it was Beatles and Elvis. We don't have giants like that now, but I think that is a good thing.


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## JimT (May 31, 2010)

Mainstream music always sucks. It definitely sucked in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 60s and 70s you didn't hear any hard rock like Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin or The Doors on mainstream radio. Instead you heard folk or pop groups like Peter, Paul and Mary ("Puff the Magic Dragon"), Blood, Sweat, and Tears ("Spinning Wheel"), The Fifth Dimension ("Up Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloon"), Tom Jones ("What's New Pussycat?"), The Mommas and the Papas, The Carpenters, and so on and so on.

Look at the Billboard charts from any individual week back then, and you won't find any recognizable hits (unless you're old enough that you actually lived through those times). Even when the radio stations played something by a recognizable rock group (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys), it was only their pop stuff--the songs no one listens to any more.

The Boomers forum could use a thread on bad rock and roll from back in the day. Just to laugh at all the devastatingly awful music that got played back then on mainstream radio. To get any kind of variety you had to listen to college radio stations.

As for the music that is being churned out nowadays, a lot of the hit music today is dance music, which tends toward monotonous, repetitious beats. (Disco had the same problem in the late 70s and 80s.) But dance music is probably better than the folk/pop crap that got played on the radio in the 60s and 70s.

Anyways, music from the past always sounds better than it really was, because only the best stuff survives across time. But when all that music originally first appeared, there was a lot of trash that was being played on the radio on a daily basis, with only an occasional diamond-in-the-rough hit by some up-and-coming young star like Elton John or Madonna. And even the big-name rockers put out a lot of junk that has been forgotten over time. Only a few major hits remain in people's memories, making the big-name rockers seem better than they really were. People forget that even the music put out by the big-name rockers was 75-90% trash most years.

To sum up: Mainstream radio sucks in all decades. Always did suck, always will suck. It's just the nature of mainstream: Appeal to the lowest common denominator.


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## cosmoetic (Mar 24, 2020)

Gotta expand your pop music away from the general USA pop music, try some Latin pop, kpop or jpop. Of course a lot of music will sound similar if you're only listening to the mainstream stuff. But I do agree with you pop music or anything in the radio does get boring, especially since they play the same songs in repeat mainly because of money.


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## Aqualung (Nov 21, 2009)




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## xraydav (Jan 3, 2013)

I was born in 1995, so maybe I can pinpoint what the new mainstream music is and how it evolved to be. Mainstream nowadays is mumble rap or more professionally named “emo pop”, like Trippie Red or Machine Gun Kelly, it came from a generation of people who thought they were super special and every small flaw was magnified as a form of self statement, listening to MCR from the 2000s. 

You also have some teen girls who listen to KPop like they did Backstreet Boys, but there are still other bands.

The only reason we glorify the 60s, 70s or 80s, is because we’re looking at the highlight reel of the best memories of music and that’s pretty much why anything from those decades looks better 

I’m pretty sure no one cares about the Pussycat dolls or Britney Spears as much anymore, but they were on radio and TV 24/7 as well back then. 

They are fads. Fads do what fads do, I guess.


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## sheepysowner (Apr 26, 2020)

Certainly. I listen to the same songs on repeat, and may lose interest, but then come back some time in the future. Currently I'm craving Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, MGMT, Tame Impala, Glass Animals and the Neighbourhood. Can't bear even half a second of whatever crap's in the charts.


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## bobbyherrington (Dec 3, 2020)

Perhaps not all of them are boring, but they have few interesting musical solutions.


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