I have so many memories of hearing a track for the first time and just thinking "0instant classic" and now it just doesn't happen anywhere near as often,
I think this experience is inevitable as we become over familiar.
I read the exact same comments on book and film forums.
It's always easier to surprise the senses in a new area of Human endeavour, but quite quickly what was once credible soon becomes over familiar if repeated.
In this manner it gets harder and harder to make a statement.
I can play my Brother a great uplifting demo of this or other fora, and whilst in 2000 he would have be moved, now he just says "where's the beef, heard than a thousand times before, it's like back to Ibiza 2001".
I notice film critics will now diss a film for being to similar in style to a Bridget Jones. So what was quite recently cool and new, is now cliche.
In summary it's not that producers can't make tracks to rival the classics, it's just that invariably if they do this, someone will say 'oh thats like back to Ibiza 2004, where's the beef'?.
The painting masters fell out of vogue - it wasn't that no one could produce such masterly landscapes, just over familiarity set in.
Beatflux
You get a thousand times more street cred if you produce a great track for an emerging genre, rather than a genre that's washed out. Once a genre is washed out, all of the people that can produce a great track are either milking it for all its worth or they have moved on.
OOPS!
Just play Skrillex :o
DJ Robby Rox
Skrillex -
Monkeysex -
The difference?
You decide.
_____________________________
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Beatflux
Am I just not looking in the right places for the good stuff?
quote:
I go through beatport top 100
Pretty much.
I don't want to derail this thread any more, but I see a lot of people with this problem so I've made a thread about Beatport and how to get more out of it:
on the side note, buying things forces me to work harder. I don't know if it'll work for you robbie, but i just bought a maschine mikro (shout outs to beatflux for the coupon!) and now i'm planning on getting a song released thanks to maschine. I absofreakinglutely did not want to make mistakes simply because i shelled out good scrilla on a maschine.
DJ RANN
With....
quote:
Originally posted by Vector A
I used to have the same complaint. But eventually I realized that my complaint had more to do with the fact that people were no longer making the particular kind of music that I cut my teeth on than any objective "loss of quality," and what I needed to do was stop complaining and open up to new stuff.
What impartial metric of quality can you offer that will give you a winning argument about an overall decrease in good music? I would like to see it.
As far as market saturation goes, psychological research has shown that when you give people a ton of things to choose from: (1) they get stressed out by having to examine so many things to make a choice and (2) they are less satisfied with their ultimate choices than if they had picked from a more limited set. I think that to whatever extent people have lost that sense of "instant classic" and such, we are seeing that effect in play. Having choice is a good thing, but it does not follow that giving people a thousand or ten thousand choices will make them happier. In fact it seems to make many of them uncertain and dissatisfied.
On the other hand, maybe you are just getting old and jaded.
;)
and....
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Butler
I think this experience is inevitable as we become over familiar.
I read the exact same comments on book and film forums.
It's always easier to surprise the senses in a new area of Human endeavour, but quite quickly what was once credible soon becomes over familiar if repeated.
In this manner it gets harder and harder to make a statement.
I can play my Brother a great uplifting demo of this or other fora, and whilst in 2000 he would have be moved, now he just says "where's the beef, heard than a thousand times before, it's like back to Ibiza 2001".
I notice film critics will now diss a film for being to similar in style to a Bridget Jones. So what was quite recently cool and new, is now cliche.
In summary it's not that producers can't make tracks to rival the classics, it's just that invariably if they do this, someone will say 'oh thats like back to Ibiza 2004, where's the beef'?.
The painting masters fell out of vogue - it wasn't that no one could produce such masterly landscapes, just over familiarity set in.
...I got both your points, and they have merit but that's not it.
The thing is, I know, going in that it's not going to be this new shiny thing, and that familiarity makes us want more. It's our need to be stimulated with something new, but the quality has sunk so low, I'm actually happy to take something that has already been done to some degree (not a varbatim ripoff) as long as it's well made and interesting.
My taste in music hasn't really changed that much, so its not that. Sure, there are tracks that I found ok or maybe decent that now I go, it wasn't all that and probably would not play out as things move on, but the core music, the stuff I LOVED then I still find as inspiration as I first heard it. Every so often someone comes to light who produces something (or a string of many somethings) that really floats my boat but it happens way less often. Again, it;s not about my tastes refining - most people, even invloved with other forms of music will tell you all EDM sounds the same and in some ways I agree; we see tiny minute changes in structure or sound and call it a different genre, but to go back to the basis of my point, I would just love to hear some good melodic prog, house and trance. It's not like I'm hoping for something so fantastically new. Just good musical composition and good groove....and that's what has greadually been lacking.
You want some objective proof of a quantifable metric of quality?
There are countless people who like modern EDM, who were not even in to EDM when these records were made, and they all get blown away by them? Why? There's no personal nostalgia for them. There's no connection - It's just great ing music, the likes of which is not being produced in the same abundance today.
And these are just the tracks that were made around 1999. What about the many years before that which also had incredibly good music in volumes? Now compare these to the average trance and prog you hear now. All the big tracks now seem like they're being produced specifically to kiss armin arse, to get airplay on ASOT, becuase the uneducated are being told that's good music.
So now we're back on topic, because it's all about finding sounds that work and having some talent to make them work
Looney4Clooney
i downloaded the oct top 100. Not 1 track. Not even one. I mean that is a ing problem. I felt like they wasted my time. NOt even worth an illegal download. I think there is a problem if pirating the music is not worth the time.
Richard Butler
quote:
Originally posted by DJ RANN
but the quality has sunk so low,
Thinking about this I get where your'e comming from. This will worry some, but the other day I did a workout to a 2006 Ministry Of Sound excercise video which featured some big dance classics from 05/06, and you know what, the difference between them and what I'm hearing now is actualy startling.
They are so well produced, they have that true artisan engineer quality to them, they have a lot of emmotion, organica and just, well, funk and depth.
A lot of stuff now sounds very plastic and oh so similar in tone / sheen iykwim and mine is no exception.
Kysora
I don't see how you guys can possibly think it's an objective measure of quality comparing tracks that are good enough to be remembered 12 years later, with the sort of stuff that's played commercially today that'll be forgotten long before that.
Technology might have made the standard of acceptable quality for live shows, radio, etc. a little lower, but I don't see how you can think EDM is worse now than it used to be by any objective standard.
Andy28
We had this conversation already in 05/06 about "music aint as good" and I'm sure it will be the same in 15/16.
It is worrying though...
Rich you need to stop prancing about to those videos :stongue:
