I feel bad for Generation X and The Millennial's

I have to weigh in on this.

What seems to be lacking in modern pop music is the flesh-and-bones humanity of the old school recording process (ugly warts and all). I’d rather hear John Lennon screw up the bass line in "The Long and Winding Road" than some technically perfect digitally generated bass line. I’d rather hear Dylan sing off key than hear "Ye" sounding pitch-perfect using autotune. The visceral experience of hearing a live orchestra cannot be matched by a synthesizer playing state-of-the-art pitch and rhythm perfect renditions of the same score.

To be fair, there are many modern artists who eschew digital manipulation and prefer to stay true to the old analog processes (digital recording is fine as long as manipulation is kept to a minimum, or, even better, entirely eliminated). I do respect that many modern artists use synthesized music and autotune as part of their expression (T-Pain is a good example), but certain genres simply do not hold up (for me at least) when overly processed and produced.

George Gershwin was a prodigeous piano player and composer who has left us with an amazing repertoire. All evidence suggests that hearing him play live was enthralling. Gershwin is also famously known for creating piano rolls (to be played on the then popular player pianos – the digital music of the times). No doubt this made him a lot of money, and has left us with some priceless historical artifacts, "But a sense of voiceless perfection, a lack of microcosmic nuance, and an overall mechanicalness of the recordings ultimately shatter the “live” illusion and return our attention toward their inorganic nature. It’s even more difficult to coax out the personality of Gershwin as the performer of this music. Though scholarly analysis can provide clues about Gershwin’s style and arrangement, the combination of post-performance editing and analog reproduction obscures what traits of a “live” Gershwin performance might linger in the facsimile."*

* quote from "The Ghost in the Machine: Decoding Gershwin in his Piano Rolls" by Sarah Sisk, 2021.

@ianb52 

I think Ian nailed it in his comments. What is interesting to me is my daughter loves making music and she is able to without the need and expense for a recording studio etc. She posted her first official song on YouTube Music, Apple Music, Spotify without a record label. It’s actually very good. Growing up she would get so excited about a song that she heard and would play it for us and inevitably it was a remake of a classic song which we would play for her. We had friends over and would play classics (50’s-80’s), Guitar Hero exposed her to a ton of awesome music as well! I know there has been some great music being made in the 90’s through today, due to the ease of making and posting online it is difficult to sort the good from the bad but it’s there. I think history buried the bad and only the great ones stand out so it always appears that the current generation doesn’t have anything worth listening to because it is still getting sorted out. 

I’m a Boomer and there is no way that I would consider any era of music to be better than another.  It is all in the brain of the listener. 95% of the Boomers that I know only listen to the same rock/pop/soul music that the listened to in high school or college.  They might go to a classical music concert, but the they have no idea of any current music music is.

I listen to all sorts of current music in the blues, Americana, bluegrass, jam band, and Jazz genres. The people that I see at concerts include Boomers, Generation X, and Millenials.  The new music that is playing at those concerts sound good to everyone at those concerts.  The younger listeners have the advantage that they can better utilize technology to find the best new music and artists.

@flyfish77 + 1

If you stream, how many Boomers actually explore the genres? Like, click on Tidal "Hip-hop" or "Indie" and listen to a few songs from 10-15 newly released albums? I mean, it's easy to shy away from genres we don't like, but there's always good gems in them if you keep an open musical mind.