IMHO The Top 10 Things that ruined modern music

Dom Franco · From: Beaverton, OR, 97007

1. The Electronic guitar tuner - Enabling millions of tone deaf people to try learning guitar chords without even knowing if they sound in tune. (Even skilled musicians are starting to lose the ability to tune by ear!)

2. The Synthesizer - Replacing scores of talented brass, woodwind and string musicians on stage and in recording studios, with cheap samples canned for the undiscriminating listener. (This may eventually cause some of these instruments to become extinct, as many schools also drop orchestra programs)

3. The Guitar Capo - The main reason 99% of guitar players never learn to finger an Eb chord, and can't even tell you what key they are playing in. (Capo'ed guitars also begin to sound thin and whimpy past two frets...)

4. The Drum Machine - Does what a metronome should do, but now is often used as a poor replacement for the guy with the sticks who hangs around with musicians. (These boxes are often used by RAP "musicians"...uggg)

5. Multi-track Recording - First invented by Les Paul to make his guitar sound like a band, is now used by mediocre bands to try to sound like Les Paul. Take after take until they accidentally get it right once. (Bands don't even have to learn to play together)

6. Pitch Correction - Someone who couldn't "carry a tune in a bucket" can now carry a wad of cash to the bank, after performing for the dumbed-down public. (The robotic sound of pitch correction is now even used as an effect on vocals!)

7. DJ's - Making it impossible for a decent cover band to earn an honest living, and turning wedding receptions into a real musician's nightmare. (One non-musician, taking away the job of three or four players, and lowering the average pay scale for all gigs.)

8. Guitar Center - If the Gothic scantily clad, pierced, tattooed lady at the front door doesn't scare you to death, your hearing will be permanently impaired by a dozen distorted guitars playing heavy metal licks at 120DB, while you try to pay for your guitar strings and get out! (TIP: buy online at www.musiciansfriend.com)

9. China - Manufacturing cheap guitars of fairly good quality, driving up the prices of American made instruments to an un-affordable level. (So what is a patriotic musician to do?)

10. RAP - Rhymes with *rap. Ok who would have believed that music would digress to the point of a looped drum beat, minimal bass and keyboard parts, and filthy poetry? (I know that some hip hop combines actual singing with rapping, but for the most part it is a pulsing beat with cuss words)

Confession time: I have used, played or recorded all of the above at one time or another. I never played RAP, but did have to record and listen to it in my Studio... Oh Well

Dom Franco
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Barry Blackwood · Posted 24 Aug 2010 6:56 am

I agree with most of it. I'm kinda iffy on the tuner thing - electronic tuning isn't perfect either, but it has settled many an argument onstage and off over who is in/out of tune.
I especially agree with #7. DJ's are the bane of our existence.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Excellent list and comments.

The only thing you left out was the rise of mindless adulation and a culture (?) dominated by youth and extended adolescence--which explains your Guitar Center experience and plenty else.

Frank Freniere · From: The First Coast

Well said. Did you have more than 10 things on your list, Dom?

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

A quick looking thru some of the pirate software websites shows a supermarket full of PC applications targeted at every facet of music synthesis.

Is it live or is it fabricated?

Just remember, a turkey once frozen and then thawed, can be sold under the moniker "Fresh".
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

Here's another: my maturity. I don't like what a lot of those kids are playing. Laughing

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Tom Karsiotis · From: Oregon,Ohio

My father was a professional musician (Cymbalon) in the 20's and 30's and at that time he said they averaged $40 a night ($509.12 in 2010 money). He told me when records became available their pay took a nosedive. He left music as a career in the late 30's because of recorded music. Technology is not your friend.

Tom Karsiotis · From: Oregon,Ohio

In case you thought the $40 was for the band.

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

I disagree.

Brad Bechtel · From: San Francisco, CA

That's an awfully negative list, Dom. Is there anything about modern music that you do like?
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Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

you are wrong about the tuner. man in the 60s and 70s before those things came out it was a monster to try to tune up while the rest of the guys on the recording session were noodling around. you could never get them to be quiet while you tuned. playing with a symphony orchestra or a big band...no way to do it quick...the tuner has saved us hearing out of tune guitars for many years it is a God send....

Ben Elder · From: La Crescenta, California, USA

If this is all you have to complain about, your life is good but you have no clue. That's a list someone would make up who's trying to make himself miserable.

Run away!
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Dom Franco · From: Beaverton, OR, 97007

To answer some of your responses:
Yes I have more things on the list.
Yes there are many good things about modern music, in fact nearly every item on the list could be argued from the other side. For Example: Multi-track recording is a blessing for songwriters, guitar tuners are a big help as long as you still can tune by ear if needed. Capos are a cool way to double a guitar part with a different chord voicing... etc..

This was also meant to be tongue n' cheek, since I have used all of these items myself.

All technology has the potential for good or bad, and for better or worse here we are in 2010 and we must deal with it. I just hope rap goes away soon!
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David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

The world can be quite confusing, but it's worthwhile to remember that here, in the "educated" Western World, half of the population still has an I.Q. of 100 or less. And always will. And, they deserve some music to listen to, and some forms of entertainment that keeps them pliable and obedient to the dictates of the Marketing Machine. I detect the Machine's influence in at least half your list... what would you prefer they do? Pretend to act smart? Whoa!

(plenty of them around already....)

Fortunately, there's an astounding quantity of great music now available to us, mostly due to the advances in technology. From my booby-trapped mountain fortress I can listen to just about anything I want to! The great danger lies in the confusion of "popularity" with "quality." Which has little to do with technology, except that higher technology seems to work ever-better at hypnotizing the masses.

But - they don't want to change, you can't educate them out of their level of existence. They think that they're just fine the way they are, and there's lots and lots of 'em. Watching "reality" TV, on a $1,500 64" screen.... When the pod-thingies crawl out of the wreckage in One Million A.D. and write the history of the decline & fall of the human species, television will play a starring role, methinks.

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

To me, the one thing that ruined modern music was recording. When recorded music was invented, it tolled the death knell for lesser-known musicians who made a living playing live music. Records, and all-music commercial radio formats which soon followed, turned the music industry into a much bigger business, and only 'famous' singers and bands could actually make a living playing music.
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Billy Tonnesen · From: R.I.P., Buena Park, California

I will go back to Ancient History. Sometime in the 40's the Big Band Singer became more important than the Band Leader and his Musicians. When the Singers took over they took all the big money and the sidemen Musicians became just decorations on the Wall. Singers used to sit at the side of the Band and be called up to do the vocal and then the Band would continue to Swing. Thoughts from an Old Geezer !

Bill McCloskey · Posted 26 Aug 2010 5:07 am

Does anyone call it Rap now a days?

In defense of hip hop: I really don't understand why there is so much hatred of hip hop music. Hip hop has actually permeated nearly all forms of popular music with heavy dance beat and extremely inventive rhymes, internal puns, word play. All for the good, in my opinion. Plus I've never seen audience participation to the degree I've seen in hip hop music. I've seen rappers work a crowd at a bar and have them in the palm of their hand, incredibly fun stuff.

As for dirty lyrics: man, do some musical history research. This has been a part of black art music since the beginning. Take a listen to the Jelly Roll Morton interviews some time to hear the kind of tunes he was doing back at the turn of the 20th century.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

What killed modern music? Well, first and IMHO, modern music is not dead. But the mainstream is certainly pretty vacuous these days, to my tastes.

This begs the question - what killed a focus on serious music in practically any mainstream broadcast outlet today? Well - in a certain sense, it was never really there. But to the extent that there was at least some level of broadcast medium support for quality music - modernity and, frankly, way too much affluence and a cultural sense of permission of extreme excess. Excess pervades every aspect of modern culture - we are drowning in excess. Again IMO, none of the things you mention are problematic in and of themselves.

It's very easy to find scapegoats for the very things that we have done to ourselves. My opinion.

FWIW - many of these tools and others, used wisely, have made great music possible out of the mainstream. There is a ton of it out there - far more great music is being made than I will ever be able to absorb. No, most of it isn't in mainstream commercial broadcast - you have to hunt for it. It reminds me of the early days of so-called 'underground radio' - late 60s Top 40 radio was focused on the Archies "Sugar Sugar" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and other similar dreck. Out of the underground came the classic rock that has been beaten to death, but I think the 70s will always be best known for the resulting corporate rock and disco. The 80s focused on big hair pop-metal. It goes back further - 50s rock and roll and hardcore honkytonk country were hardly 'mainstream' music styles. They provided a germ, which was then bastardized into pabulum for the mainstream. Go back further - what was happening in the mainstream in the 20s and 30s? Lots of 'society music' - pabulum for the affluent. What was happening in the underground? Hot jazz and early swing, and eventually bebop and jump-blues in the 40s - all the stuff we now associate with these eras - but at the time of its inception, it was hardly mainstream.

If we keep on looking to 'mainstream culture' for 'culture', it will be a very long wait indeed. There is nothing new with this, IMHO.

BTW, I agree with Leslie that quality (electric) recording did make it a lot tougher for musicians who wanted to make a living playing music - the ability to mass-replicate music with reasonable quality cut that demand irrevocably. Before this, the only way to hear music with good sound quality was to go hear it live. But let's face it - there's no point in bemoaning the progress of technology. It's gonna happen regardless of what anybody thinks about it.

Wanna change music? Change the culture. Admittedly, not completely within our locus of control, and that kind of change is rarely initiated by old people, who are typically focused mainly on recapturing what 'once was'. My opinion, of course.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Dom Franco · From: Beaverton, OR, 97007

Bill;
I know there have been risque lyrics and foul language in music for a long time- but the continual use of the *F* word is just degrading and gratuitous filth. Yes in my youth, I remember, Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock. "Gimme an F" ...

HipHop is actually an improvement over Rap, and maybe singing will appreciated again.

And one can only pray that writing decent and thoughtful lyrics and beautiful melodies comes back into style.

NOTE: There are many younger singers embracing the old standards of the 1930's & 40's. And several old rock stars have recorded these well written songs.
So I have no doubt that great music will always survive
Cool

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Barry Blackwood · Posted 26 Aug 2010 7:02 am

Dom Franco · From: Beaverton, OR, 97007

Okay, Granted I can see a slight influence of Rap/Hip Hop in some other music styles. Even some new country songs incorporate fast rollin semi-spoken lyrics, with heavy bass thumping 1/4 notes.

In general, all musical styles bleed over into other genres. And Thank God, it seems that eventually the good music is remembered while the garbage of past decades fades. But we have to put up with some real c*rap in the process.

Dom Rolling Eyes

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Bill McCloskey · Posted 26 Aug 2010 9:50 am

No Barry I'm not kidding and I can only assume that if you think I am kidding that you only have a cursory experience with the genre, don't understand the slang being used, or both.

Don: Shall I transcribe some of Jelly Roll Morton's lyrics for you? won't pass the filters here I assure you.

Bill McCloskey · Posted 26 Aug 2010 9:58 am

Here is a link to the lyrics of Eminem's song "Cleaning out my closet"

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eminem/cleaninoutmycloset.html

can't print it here because of the language, (and if you are offended by strong language, please don't click on the link).

All these lyrics tell the tale that any country song tries to get out: a relationship gone bad (between and mother and a child), in a way that is on the same plane as Hank Williams songs like Please Make Up Your Mind but much more direct and infinitely more powerful in my opinion. This song is from the heart and spoken through incredible pain. When you hear the song reconnected to the lyrics, you realize that the music itself is very hard driving, lyrical and effusively addicting.

I submit that hip hop and country have more in common than many are willing to recognize: especially when it comes to subject matter.

Here is a link to the video; read the lyrics first before hearing the music if you've never heard the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9_TKayu9s&ob=av2e

Bill McCloskey · Posted 26 Aug 2010 10:13 am

Here is they lyrics to a Jelly Roll Morton song from around 1900. I'll let the forum's filters clean up the lyrics for me (Even with the filters it is still pretty rough. Skip if you are offended by strong lyrics:

The Murder Ballad by Jelly Roll Morton

1

I know you’ve got my man
I know you’ve got my man
Try to hold him if you can

I know that man don’t want nobody but me
I know my man don’t want nobody but me
If you don’t believe it, I’ve got his room key

If you don’t leave my fucking man alone
If you don’t leave my fucking man alone
You won’t know what way that you will go home

I’ll cut your throat and drink your fucking blood like wine
Bitch, I’ll cut your fucking throat and drink your blood like wine
Because I want you to know he’s a man of mine

I told you once, I’m not gonna tell you anymo’
I told you once, I’m not gonna tell you anymo’
Right into the barren ground your big black ass will go

I’m gonna tell him, I’m gonna tell him ‘bout you
I’m gonna tell him, I’m gonna tell him ‘bout you
He’ll either have me, or he won’t have you, too

Let me tell you one of the things that I’ve said
Let me tell you one of the things that I’ve said
The bitch that fucks my man, they’ll find among the dead

I know you don’t believe a thing that I say
I know you don’t believe a thing that I say
If you don’t leave my man alone they’ll find you every Decoration Day

2

Let me tell you, don’t want to tell you anymore
Let me tell you, don’t want to tell you anymore
I catch you again, you’ll be on that floor

If I see my man hanging round your door
If I see my man hanging round your door
If I see my man hanging round your door

Tell me, baby, what you doin’ comin’ out that bitch’s house?
Tell me, baby, what you doin’ comin’ out that bitch’s house?
I don’t think she’s no good, she’s a great big louse

If she comes out here, that’ll be her last time
(What you said?)
I said, if you come out here, that’ll be your last time
I’ll teach you some lessons ‘bout fucking a man of mine

She said, I’m coming out, I’d like to see someone stop me
She said, I’m coming out, I’d like to see a bitch like you stop me
This ain’t no slavery time and I’m sure that I’m free

Yes, come on, bitch, your day has come
Yes, come on, bitch, your day has come
You fucked my man but you will never fuck another one

She pulled out a pistol and shot her right in her eyes
She pulled out a pistol and shot her right in her eyes
She said, open your legs, you dirty bitch, I’m gonna shoot you between your thighs

She said I killed that bitch because she fucked my man
She said I killed that bitch because she fucked my man
She said I killed that bitch because she fucked my man

Policeman grabbed her and took her to jail
Policeman grabbed her and took her to jail
There was no one to go that poor gal’s bail

3

She got in the jailhouse, they asked you what you there for?
Her inmates in the jailhouse: what are you here for?
She said, I killed that bitch, that’s what I’m here for

You a murder, that’s why you in jail
You a murderer, that’s why you in jail
They had you pretty soon, they was on your trail

(Oh, that good whiskey makes me moan!)

Her trial came up, she was in front of the judge
Her trial came up, she was in front of the judge
Her attorney tried to give the judge a nudge

The jury said, that girl is here
The jury said, that girl is here
The jury said, that murdering girl is here

The prosecutor said, today we dishing out years
Prosecutor said, today, gal, we dishing out years
So be careful, don’t have your fears (?)

She said, judge, I killed her ‘cause she had my man
She said, I killed her because she had my man
I killed that bitch ‘cause she had my man

I’d rather be dead in my grave than hear that bitch havin’ my sweet man
I’d rather be dead and green than hear her havin’ my sweet man
I’d be dead in grave, let her have my sweet man

Jury found her guilty, she must go to jail
Jury found her guilty, she must go to jail
Up the river, to Baton Rouge is her trail

Judge said, fifty years for killing the woman that loved your man
Judge said, fifty years for the woman you killed loving your man
I wish that I could help you, but I’m sure that I can’t

So the poor gal has took her way to that mournful jail

4

They brought that gal to the prison gates
They brought that gal to the prison gates
They brought that gal to the prison gates

The keeper said, hard labor is your task
Yes, the keeper said, hard labor is your task
There’s anymore questions, don’t you forget to ask

Your number is nine ninety-three
Your prison number is nine ninety-three
Start to working right under that great big tree

Coffee and bread is all that you will get
Coffee and bread is all that you will get
Outside when it rain, you are sure to get wet

Don’t you wish you hadda let that woman have your man?
Don’t you wish you hadda let that woman have your man?
There is a lotta others that you could have had your man

Time is comin’ that a woman don’t need no man
(That’s what she said when she was in jail)
Time is comin’ a woman don’t need no man
You can get it off with your beautiful hand

Woman, woman, what have you been doing?
Woman, woman, what have you been doing?
This jailhouse has brought you way out to ruin

I can’t have a man, so a woman is my next bet
I can’t have a man in here; a woman is my next bet
She said to a good-looking mama: baby, I’ll get you yet

They went to sleep that night, the other gal crawled in her bed
They went just to sleep that night, the other gal crawled in her bed
She said, I’m gonna get some of this cunt, you bitch, she said

5

She said, gal, when I get through you’ll think I’m a man
She said, when I get through you’ll think that I’m a man
I’m gonna fuck you bitch that you think I’m a man

She had a thing just the same as mine
She had a thing just the same as mine
We rub together – my, but it was fine

She said, I could learn to love you like I did that boy
She said, I should learn to love you like I did that boy
To play with my thing like that is pleasure like a toy

Every morning I want you to give me some of this good cunt you’ve got
Every morning I want you to give me some of this good cunt you’ve got
Because it sure is fine, it is good and hot

(piano solo)

I want you to screw me, screw me like a dog
Screw me behind, sweet bitch, screw me like a dog
When it gets good, I want to holler out like a hog

Years and years I could take a prick just like a mule
I could take a great big prick just like a great big mule
I found out what a big damn fool

I hustled night and day for that man of mine
I hustled day and night for that man of mine
Now I’m screwed, I’m behind the walls for a long time

6

Ask my sisters, please don’t be like me
Ask my sisters, please don’t be like me
It’s better to have the things you don’t want and go free

Now I’m back here for my natural life
I’m back here for my natural life
All I had, I ain’t got nothing but my life

If the guards of heaven would show me how
If the gods of heaven would show me how
I could get away from here, I would leave right now

Prison walls is not made for people to go
Prison walls ain’t made for people to go
I killed that gal, but I never will know

I’m sorry, sorry, sorry to my heart
I’m sorry, babe, sorry to my heart
I’m sorry that that argument ever did start

I’m in jail now, and he’s got him another bitch
Yes, I’m in jail, and my man’s got another bitch
I hate him, too – he’s a dirty rotten son of a bitch

I pray and pray and pray and pray and pray
I pray and pray and pray and pray
That the Lord will show me another day

I jeopardized my life for that no good man
I jeopardized my life for that no good man
I jeopardized my life for that no good man

And at last, there’s nothing else for me to do
At last there’s nothing else for me to do
I’m gonna die in here, and I hope my man does, too

Goodbye to the world, and I am gone
Goodbye to the world because I know I’m gone
Goodbye all good people, I know I’m gone

7

Goodbye to the world I know I’m gone
Goodbye to the world because I know I’m gone
And I’ll be gone out a long, long, long

(piano solo)

I hope heaven will be my home
I hope heaven will be my home
No more on this earth for me to roam

Sinners, sinners, won’t you pray for me?
Sinners, sinners, won’t you pray for me?
Pray for me to let the devil let me be

When I’m dead, and dead way down in my grave
When I’m dead, dead way down in my grave
No more good peter of that man I’ll crave

I won’t be buried like all of my family was
I won’t be buried like my family was
I won’t be buried like my family was

They will put me in a box in the prison yard
They will put me in a box in the prison yard
Not even a tombstone, or not even a card

There won’t be no body followin’ behind my self
There won’t be no body followin’, it will be me by myself
They’ll lower me in the ground, I won’t be on the shelf

If you get outta here, try to be a good girl
(ah, I hadda tell em)
Girls, if you get out of here, try to be a good girl
That’s the only way you gonna wear your diamonds and pearls

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