Is music today better than music from the 80's?

Pop music has always been…well, pop music. Some people enjoy that, I suppose. But there have always been plenty of independent artists making great music. The 80s had plenty of amazing music and there is likely just as much great music being made today.

It’s neither better nor worse

I can think of lots of really dismal pop music from the 60s and 70s. The 80s had some really good stuff but a whole heap of awful stuff you never hear on the radio anymore.

It seems as people get older, they mourn the loss of the crap they listened to and claim all the new stuff is really crappy. But the music quality hasn’t changed—you just got older.

(How did I know this was going to be in my questions for you!)

IMO, music since the end of the 80’s has changed focus. The new focus seems to be on the singer and it doesn’t matter if they can even sing or not. The industry just takes a pretty face and turns them in to a star.

I think about Elvis, and Loretta Lynn, stumping about the country, pubbing their music to radio stations, in person. The Beatles. Until the end of the 80’s, people sang because something inside demanded they sing. Now it’s something outside of them demand that they sing, and they all sound alike! Too much electronics, too.

Autotune has been around since the 90s, but it’s true that now it’s out of hand. Now you can make Obama sing a pop song by sampling a State of the Union address. Google “Autotune the news” and you can find all sorts of accidental pop stars.

And that is a true difference in music today.

From what I’ve heard – and I use that word advisedly, because I’m not sure that my hearing is good enough to tell – it’s the players and format that have degraded since the introduction of MP3 players, not so much the music itself.

Apparently, MP3 format is far less dense than CD tracks and live music, and the reduced density represents “information loss” – or sound.

Though I haven’t had a chance to listen to one yet, I understand that the Pono format and player should overcome some of these deficits. I look forward to listening sometime and being able to give a fuller accounting.

I feel the overall music scene is both better and worse than it was in the ‘80s (or before.)

On the one hand, back in the day pop music focused on the lyrics backed by a consistent melodic line. Now, I’m not even sure pop music even counts as music any more because the emphasis has shifted away from real music and onto showmanship and special effects.

On the other hand, the overall music scene has broadened out, thanks to the emergence of a number of new artists who are taking music in new and better directions. These include artists like Dan Gibson’s Solitudes, who has released several very enjoyable albums of instrumental music that is greatly enhanced by sounds recorded in nature. Somewhat along these same lines, Anugama, Aeoliah and Liquid Mind produce ambient music albums that I find both very enjoyable and relaxing. These latter groups could not have existed in the ‘80s because the electronic music technology was still largely undeveloped (although Foreigner’s 80s ballads sure come close.)

Now that I think about it, the music I enjoy comes mostly from two distinct eras: the ‘60s into the early 80s, and 2000 through today.

Every decade has great music & each has a fair share of dross.
The thing about the eighties was, that was when “pop” music was at it’s height, in terms of sheer output & of course popularity.

No way!!!!!

@saulD I’m not even sure pop music even counts as music any more because the emphasis has shifted away from real music and onto showmanship and special effects
That made me recall the Queen album from the early 80’s that seemed to be built on sounds from Donkey Kong, rather than real instruments.

@Dutchess_III
“The new focus seems to be on the singer and it doesn’t matter if they can even sing or not.”

A protest leveled against Bob Dylan by your demographic in the 60’s?

I never thought he could sing, even in the 60’s. I could never really figure out what his appeal was.

Before my time, but I have to agree, Dylan is massively overrated, nowt but a pug ugly, whiny voiced scruffbucket.

Some of the 80s music is really, really good, but I think more music is good from mid 90s onward. I think the music now is great, the best.

The mainstream stuff has gone downhill

On the other hand, we have more indie/niche performers keeping the musical world from descending into total mediocrity. For instance, there is Abney Park, a self-published Seattle-based band that does well enough to have put out 17 albums since their founding in 1997, put songs at #1 on the charts, do a few tours (this April has them in Russia, Germany, and London), and otherwise be quite successful.

What genre is Abney Park? Well, that’s why I cite them here as they aren’t really in any genre that existed 20–70 years ago, and thus a perfect illustration of my point.

Has quality gone down? No, I don’t believe so. I believe that talent has merely scattered much as the music audience has. The internet and 872,245 channels on TV allow us to get whatever news or other information we want, so why should music keep in the same quaint categories as TV did back when there were only three networks? The talent is still there, just more diffuse. Just as you probably never heard of a world-touring band that’s been around for almost twenty years, you probably don’t see most of the talent still left in the musical world as the talent has spread in response to the a la carte demands of teh listening audience. What is left is rather… well… lackluster compared to the days of Queen or the heyday of hair metal.

@CWOTUS I am fussy about my sound, but even I have my limits. While you can easily hear the difference between a 96kbps MP3 and a CD, and neither have quite the fidelity of a live performance, there are limits to how much of a difference bitrate makes in sound quality. It’s generally accepted that 192kbps is “CD quality” to the ears of most, and anything much higher is beyond the ability of any but the most discerning of ears to detect. Unless you’re using $1,200 headphones in a soundproof room, 160kbps MP3 really is good enough; the background noise of everyday life and poor quality of speakers that cost less than $700 a piece will obfuscate the difference in most conditions. On the other hand, ripping at a mere 128kbps is butchery and anything lower means that you just hate music.

The 1980s. The Giant Black Hole of Music.

Pop music will always be terrible, although catchy, but I’ve found so many great artists on websites like soundcloud. People with no fame or fortune making music in their apartments or their parents basements for all I know.

Kids these days and their music. This isn’t real music!

Back in my day, real music was about dressing up like a girl, pretending to worship the devil, and wearing makeup. Every song had a guitar solo and every album had a ballet! That’s real music!

Obviously joking, music is about the same as it was in the 80. The only difference is production trends, ease of recording, and better access to synthesizers. Songs are essentially made the same way today as they have been since the early 1900s.

The eighties spawned the birth of the boy band as we sadly know it today.
Talentless, annoying pretty boys miming their way through shit songs with shit melodies.

There’s still heaps of great music out there. Not the dross you hear on most commercial, pop radio stations but if you’re prepared to look further afield, there’s some fabulous artists. I pay for a music streaming service and that provides me with a list of new albums from different genres to listen to. I regularly listen to new music and often find new artists I like. I don’t think this is any different from during the 80s. Had you asked people of our age then what they thought of the 1980s music, many of them would have said it was rubbish. I think there’s a tendency for adults to be less experimental as they get older. Many don’t step out of their familiar comfort zone and listen to what’s happening now.

There’s some really good music out there. Black Keys, 2Cellos, Jack White to name a few.

90s were the best, m’kay

I have to agree with @osoraro.
I’ve seen this question in my feed too many times and had the exact same thought every time: “How could it not be better than music from the 80’s??”
Talk about setting the bar low.

Sorry, I held my tongue as long as I could.

@ibstubro What? I thought you LOVED glam metal!

Glam Metal is an oxymoron.

Cyndi Lauper was hard to dislike.

I genuinely like Run/DMC’s Walk this Way.

That’s my walk through The 100 Best Songs of the 80’s.

I think that list is flawed?

I love music from the 80’s. Music today is fitfully good, but there was much more to listen to back then.
Regarding Dylan: I had a solo drive down to the Bay Area last weekend, and I brought “The Essential Bob Dylan” to listen to on the way. It’s a 2 CD set, and damn near every song was a hit, AND they left off a lot from “Highway 61 Revisited”. It was a joy to listen to.
I don’t need a singer to have an especially pleasing voice. The message and feeling is often enough for me. Damian Rice doesn’t have a great voice, but I love all the feeling he pours into a song.