Why does most new music suck?

Toddnkaya,

It pays to read the thread before you respond, my man. My response was to Donjr's post about air guitar. I took it to be a metaphor for getting excited about the music. If he meant it literally, oh well...

I'm actually surprised that the issue of the sound quality of contemporary music recordings has not been raised in this thread. After all, the OP's question was asked on an audiophile forum. As an audiophile, I cannot connect to new music unless it sounds good. The great majority of contemporary music sounds like crap sound-wise so to me it is no surprise I cannot connect even if the music has potential. If some of you can connect through your car radio, good for you; I cannot. I need more than compressed mash recorded and processed digitally to spark my interest, and I'm not going to make apologies for it.

Why does most new music suck? Because it fails to connect at the most basic level in our brains like older music does. If your brain knows what music should sound like, you should not accept anything that does not sound right. If you accept that new inferior level, I don't understand how you can consider yourself a music lover. Music deserves better. No doubt there was a lot of bad music back in the day, but at least it was recorded properly. I can accept Count Basie's records sounding awful, but not contemporary bands' that have at their disposal the most advanced recording technology and still release ear-bleeding music. Every once in a while I buy a new record, and then invariably shake my head. Another lost opportunity...

****I can accept Count Basie's records sounding awful, but not contemporary bands' that have at their disposal the most advanced recording technology and still release ear-bleeding music****

Some of Basie's records sound awful for a lot of the same reasons that some of today's records sound awful; lack of care. It was not because records from that era could not sound fantastic; I think we all know that many do. I find that there is a direct relationship between quality of the music and tolerance for inferior sound. IOW, the better the music (Basie) the more I am willing to accept inferior sound. What does that say about the quality of much new music that one may not be able to listen to because of inferior sound?

Basie last recording from the 80's "Fancy Pants" is reference material in regards to sound quality + good performance as well.

Many newer albums by newer groups are very well recorded. I find few CDs that I want to like but cannot because of poor sound these days. It does happen occasionally though.

Actusreus' response is the most intelligent one so far.

Previous posters pointed to the fact that right now lots of young people dig records that were made before they were born. That generally wasn't the case in the 70's. Musicians in earlier decades had a smaller inventory of background music floating around in their heads. If you started a band 40 years ago the odds that you'd be stumbling on to something you hadn't heard before were way higher. It shows when bands are hitting something that feels new to them... it can also be apparent when a band is rote or trying not to play something that they heard from Yes, Santana, Led Zeppelin, Zappa, B.O.C., The Doors, David Bowie, King Crimson, Thin Lizzy, Kansas, The Who, Alice Cooper, Genesis, Nirvana, Black Sabbath...In any culture you'll find ebb and flow. It doesn't seem like we're in a period where a lot of people are rushing to the dial for that one new song that really crushes them. Value judgments aside, popular music has become(possibly by statistical necessity) more derivative during the last several decades.