Why Music Has Lost it’s Charms (Article)

@tylermunns 

The wonderful documentary, “Heart’s of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” features recorded conversations of Francis Ford Coppola with his wife, Eleanor.  These conversations feature Mr. Coppola expressing enormous anxiety about whether he is making a “sh***y, pompous, bad movie.”  He had assets, set pieces, clout, bankable stars, plenty of stuff that could have caused him to be content, rest on his laurels, and get away with an unscrupulous attention to detail, emotional resonance, truthful social commentary and truthful examination of human nature.

He didn’t.  These concerns drive him to the brink of madness because he cared about them deeply.  

I think we can recognize when artists care in this way, and when they do not.

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I've seen that documentary a couple of times and it's certainly well put together.

Nevertheless, wasn't there an awful lot of frantic improvisation and rewriting required after Marlon Brando turned up in an unexpected physical condition?

When you also consider that Martin Sheen suffered a minor heart attack during the making of Apocalypse Now, there's no doubting the seriousness of its director's intentions.

The fact that Coppola somehow made it all work out and still pull in a healthy profit just shows the unpredictable power of art that can sometimes transcend the intentions of its creator.

The real trick facing all artists, whatever their medium, is how to create something of artistic merit that also succeeds commercially.

Remember the old 10cc line?

"Art for arts sake

Money for Gods sake"

I believe some of us certainly can distinguish between a sincere artistic effort and a purely calculating commercial one.

Unfortunately, for us at least, it seems as if far too many people cynically opt for the second part.

Either way, whichever one is more important to the creator will be difficult enough to achieve alone.

To succeed at both is quite something else.

@jim5559 ”Unless they listen to Jazz or Classical (capitol letters, huh? Interesting…) people under 70 listen to junk and have no idea what good music is.”

Where to begin with a statement like this. Ay yi yi…

Returning to present streaming business model, and my statement "nothing inherently wrong with it".

Streaming business model could be many things, supply and demand are but one imposition on it, another important component would be artists leverage. In society where masses value artists highly, artists could pursue association, backed by masses, and demand higher remuneration. This leverage would be in the form of threatened or actively pursued strike by artists and/or boycotts by consumers. As things stand, owners of streaming services hold all the cards, and if not them record companies, distributors, etc.

Artists supply the content, based on how money presently distributed, you'd think many artists don't exist, like giving away one's labor for free while others profit. True upside down world! Value I receive from music is far more than my costs, and I give to my local student and university radio stations, and attend live concerts. I doubt physical media going to be future of music distribution, streaming business models will only change for betterment of artists if society values them more highly.

There is so much music available to us today. As music lovers, we are very fortunate to be alive at this particular point in time.

I'm 57, I laugh at this author just as I do with everyone else that believes this. The rate of good quality music being produced hasn't changed. The medium that brings it to our ears has, and it fills them with crap if we just turn on a radio or SiriusXM as our choices of content. 

I like classic rock, if somebody decides that's what they want to listen to, I'm perfectly fine with it. I grow tired of listening to familiar music, so, I choose whatever fits my mood.

I believe pop music has been ruined by Streaming and satellite radio due to the lack of fidelity in their modes of transport. When XM appeared in the stores as an accessory for your car, I was walking around Manhattan playing home recorded cassettes through a decent walkman and Koss PortaPro headphones. I came upon a Sony XM unit in a store, working, with a headphone jack, hmmm. I plugged in my headphones, found a music channel and "meh", tried another, and another, "Are they joking?!" The music quality was somewhere between AM and FM playing through a 9 volt handheld. Like mp3 recordings, weren't any better. I also discovered my wife and kids didn't care if XM or mp3s didn't sound as good as a CD.

On the road, the satellite radio is acceptable quality, but, I haven't found a single station I can tolerate for even an hour. The playlists are either boring or irritating. 

I've had a Pandora subscription for a few years. Their "Nusic Genome Project" provided decent playlists to start from. The player lets me look back on what played, vote yay or nay to tailor the list and also search out an artist for more music and more artists. They also added a stream quality option. I have it set to high and it's noticeably better than standard. When I use Bluetooth in my truck, it's better sound quality than SiriusXM. At home, my Yamaha receiver came with an external Bluetooth adapter, I've since upgraded the adapter to a unit with LDAC and it streams 96K/24 from my Samsung S22 Ultra to my receiver, which I set to direct (processing bypassed) to drive a Parasound A21 to AR303s. I also have music I purchased, stored on my phone, in flac 96K/24, that I can stream as well.

I've noticed the music quality streaming from Pandora is generally good, but the sound quality varies, from sounding like a low bandwidth mp3 that my daughter found on BearShare, to sounding as good as the 96K/24 Hi Res works that I bought from HDtracks. Since the Hi Res streaming services have made it to prime time, I decided to check them out. I discovered the same problem. It isn't the bandwidth limiting the sonic quality of the music anymore it's the engineering applied to the recording. I imagine it boils down to how much control an artist has while producing a record and how much they care about the playback quality delivered to the public.

Since I've discovered Internet and streaming, I've listened to many genres of artists, old and new, that I haven't heard before, and I really enjoy what's out there. I've been enlightened by vocals, Jazz, Blues, roots rock, Americana, folk, rockabilly, swing, and fusions of whatever. I haven't searched for classical (maybe someday). Most of what I listen to isn't played on the radio or SiriusXM.

So, if you think nobody makes good music anymore, you haven't really looked.