Recently I was debating this point with a family member and I've heard this statement a couple of times since. Each time, the person making the statement has been of an older generation, I respect my elders but this statement bugs me, as it always seems like an insult, as if our generation are incapable of producing good music and good musicians.
I believe that the problem (if it can be considered a "problem") is not one of quality but one of availability and fragmenting genre's.
Consider if you will, peoples availablility to music in the "golden" era's for music. In the U.K, musical opinion was driven by radio and what you saw on Top of the Pops. There was only so much music out there and the labels and producers decided what was good, based on how much money they could make. Then the radio stations and tv programs took that music to the people and told them it was good, because the labels and producers said it was.
But like it has with everything else, the internet changed all that. Artists were now able to approach the public directly, build a loyal following, allow that following to listen to their music online and tell that following about the next venue they would be performing at. Artists could cut out the middleman if they chose to, they no longer needed to rely upon a manager, promoter or label to help get noticed, they could simply approach a venue in a town or city directly, get a gig, then easily and quickly get word out to existing fans.
This change lead to the fragmenting of genre's. Artists began with a choice, am I happy to entertain true fans in my niché or shall I try to go for gold making sure my music appeals to everyone. After this, the music does the talking, falling into one of many defined categories of music or maybe crossing categories, combining styles or creating some sort of hybrid style, combining multiple categories at once, needless to say this has lead to a massive increase in the number of styles and recognised genre's of music.
Faced with this overwhelming choice, if you don't know where to find your favoured style it's easy to get lost, and when you get lost, you return to what you know, you stick with the familiar, which is why i theorise that the older generation simply don't know where to find modern music that suites their tastes.
I argue adamantly that modern music is just as good, as the music from bygone era's, you just need to be willing to find some and give it a good listen to with an open mind.
Is there an argument that older or newer music is any better than the other, what do you think?
