Is music getting more miserable?

muser

Well-known member
Im talking pure genuine happiness, nothing to do with euphoric rave, just happy music. I think it all sounds pretty miserable or atleast hedonistic/based on desire. Not that im against it in anyway, but I decided today it is a thing, Discuss.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
you mean all the post-burial tracks, people like weeknd and mopey drake and things like that? the misery might explain why the energy/everything of the new britney single (number one amazingly) sounds so forced and tired - though forced and tired have always been part and parcel of pop. theres been a couple of articles about the popularity of death in modern pop (kesha's die young, lana del ray, etc).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/16/kesha-rita-ora-death-pop

I think it all sounds pretty miserable or atleast hedonistic/based on desire
why dyou think desire is a bad quality? i dont hear much desire actually. was listening to some old kevin saunderson lately and comparing with a lot of modern uk bass - uk bass doesnt have sexiness in it. au seve was a bit sensual at least but by and large its pretty disinterested in sex. i dont know if i hear much real desire in pop that much either - all sounds a bit robotic.
 
Last edited:

muser

Well-known member
why dyou think desire is a bad quality?

I dont know if I do, maybe ive been hanging around buddhist culture too much recently lol.

looks like you need to head over to the afrobeats thread

Ive been chilling in the afrobeats thread plenty much much love for it, but it seems much more hedonistic and desire based then early "afrobeats" as it where, same way for modern Jamaican music, which I equally love and listen to alot (allthough of course calypso is almost pure sex and innuendo but its all for the hilarity) . Most western pop-music now, what might be joyous is hedonistic. my theory for now, weeknd and all that stuff i have time for, not making any value judgement here.
 
Last edited:

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The notable difference (for me) is between music today and music in the 90s. Of course there was a lot of angry/dark music in the 90s but I feel like when I listen to music from that decade there is often a sense of genuine optimistic feeling/yearning. I don't think that feeling exists so much nowadays, and certainly not the belief in music changing things for the better (as we mini-discussed in the 'Music 2013' thread).
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
the pads/synths in jungle have that, which i totally miss.

i always put that down to the legacy of e that came through rave, that euphoric optimism, without sounding like chemical trance gatecrasher/tiesto vapourware-emotions.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
you mean all the post-burial tracks, people like weeknd and mopey drake and things like that?

why dyou think desire is a bad quality? i dont hear much desire actually. was listening to some old kevin saunderson lately and comparing with a lot of modern uk bass - uk bass doesnt have sexiness in it. au seve was a bit sensual at least but by and large its pretty disinterested in sex. i dont know if i hear much real desire in pop that much either - all sounds a bit robotic.

Agreed - isn't this what happens when music moves into knowing post-modernism? Eventually the sensuous pleasures themselves have to be deconstructed - it's almost a logical consequence. So instead of 'Your Love' or Kevin Saunderson tracks as you say, you get the Weeknd/Drake, whose 'parties sex and drugs aren't all they're cracked up to be'/capitalist existential crisis schtick is so zeitgeisty that it almost had to happen - if it wasn't them, someone else would've had to do it.

Interestingly though, the Weeknd's music is still full of desire, in direct contradiction to the stories he's telling (which works really well, that tension between wanting and not wanting something). Whereas in a lot of UK bass etc, it's like the sexiness has been surgically removed.
 

Leo

Well-known member
maybe it's a reflection of real-world events: the crap world economy, dysfunctional governments, austerity, growing divide between the rich and everyone else, chronic/longterm unemployment, international conflict, global warming, etc.

granted, all those things have happened before, but there does seem to be a convergence of bad things happening.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
maybe it's a reflection of real-world events: the crap world economy, dysfunctional governments, austerity, growing divide between the rich and everyone else, chronic/longterm unemployment, international conflict, global warming, etc.

granted, all those things have happened before, but there does seem to be a convergence of bad things happening.

absolutely. and more generally a questioning of whether the wealthy lifestyle of acumulating 'things' (whether those be inanimate objects or other people used as objects) that is supposed to be everyone's aim, is not completely empty at its core. which is why i love the weeknd, for foregrounding that question lyrically, albeit in a problematic way.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
More miserable than what / since when?

Edit: I mean, without answering that we can't really answer the yes / no part of the original question, and without checking whether that actually stands up to scrutiny we're back to playing that game where we make up a trend based on our prejudices about why the world is going to hell in a handcart, and then spend ages demonstrating how this trend perfectly confirms our theories about why the world is going to hell in a handcart. Which is kind of a wank.
 
Last edited:

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I can't hear purely euphoric Western Pop anymore. In the orient, yeah, but out here, there's nothing without melancholy or cynicism/sarcasm.

Actually, that's a lie, One Direction don't appear to have any of that, hence their success.

As far as "MUSIC MUSIC", well... if it's around, I don't gravitate to it because of my attitudes, so I'm screwing myself up in that regard!
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i didnt think i would say this but its for that reason that id like to see more groups/songs like one direction. when i watch old top of the pops, the lack of cynicism is one of the things i most appreciate about it.
 
Maybe production values play a part in that? The loudness war debate is usually about ear fatigue and such things, but not mood (at least i haven't seen it). When everything is sonically maxed out, even a song that could be a happy tune sounds heavy. I really miss playfulness and a sense of lightness in mainstream pop.
 

muser

Well-known member
More miserable than what / since when?

Edit: I mean, without answering that we can't really answer the yes / no part of the original question, and without checking whether that actually stands up to scrutiny we're back to playing that game where we make up a trend based on our prejudices about why the world is going to hell in a handcart, and then spend ages demonstrating how this trend perfectly confirms our theories about why the world is going to hell in a handcart. Which is kind of a wank.

well yea it is all its a vague as a starting point.. um im just looking at various disparate musical developments of genres and they seem to have gotten more miseralbe/nihilistic/hedonistic, with a lot less unabated joy and maybe naivety.
 
Top