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peterdevries

macrumors 68040
Feb 22, 2008
3,146
1,135
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Sorry but comments like these are just absurd. I have no idea how people don't make the slightest attempt to listen to any new music besides what's on the radio then make sweeping generalization that all music is terrible.

In my opinion, there were ten or so great albums in just 2013. And no, none of them are what you see on that top 40 list above.

Well, there is one gigantic difference between now and say 10-20 years ago. Artists nowadays don't need to be able to sing, read notes or play an instrument, because everything can be created and altered digitally. Again, look at Britney: used to be a pretty face, but she can't sing, her music is written by someone else and she couldn't play an instrument to save her life. She is a pure digital product.

I like lots of current music artists such as Timberlake and Katy Perry, but there is no way in hell that these compare to the likes of Muse, Pink Floyd, or Genesis in terms of artistic quality and musicianship.
 

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
thats just a way of life, you are just getting older. I am sure my grandmother hated my mothers music and my mother hates my music and my children will hate my music and their children will hate their parents music ;)

Yup. Jazz in 1920s = Elvis's hip gyrating rock in 1957 = Miley Cyrus's twerking and tounge in 2013. The Beatles were the end of civilization and Rolling Stones were the devil's own prodigy. Every gen has its thing.

98% of all music ever made is bland at best. People who think "their" decade had the best music and it went downhill after are delusional. There is a sliver of good, fresh music each decade. The rest is copycat, uninteresting, or pushes the envelope too far.
 

McGiord

macrumors 601
Oct 5, 2003
4,558
290
Dark Castle
That kind of 'news' is a poor attempt to demonize the new sources of money for the music industry they just want to keep up with their traditional way of milking the artists.
They are getting more money with the new models than a few years back when napster and all the peer to peer services were really hurting them. I wonder how these numbers are nowadays, did they really decreased the illegal pirated music underworld?
The revenue they get from ads, plus what they are paying artists to get their music streamed is still for the benefit of the "music industry" not all artists have good deals and own their music.
I personally use Pandora and iTunes Radio and if I look back I have bought many more complete records thanks to them after finding out about artists unknown to me, these are great times for good musicians to get their artwork distributed and quickly sold.
The problem with mainstream music is that it is filled with crappy artists who cater the reality shows demand, and popular is not always good but mediocre (certain exceptions apply).
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,241
12,388
[[ How old do you have to be to remember CDs? ]]

I just burned some CD's for a trip in the car (today) a few days ago.

98%+ of the music I "keep around" is on CD's. I have a few thousand I've made myself over the course of the last 11 years or so.

ALL the music I use on the Harley is MP3's, burned onto CD's (for the stereo's CD player). Before that, I used MiniDisc on the previous motorcycle because the stereo on that one had only a cassette player, but it also had a "minijack" auxilliary input.

I've never bought a single song from the iTunes music store. Not one, ever. I never will.
I have bought a few classical music collections from amazon.com -- $2 for 100 tracks can't be beat...

CD's are still a viable media for quite a few folks (and yes, I -am- older).

Too bad you're young -- you've missed so much! :)
 

macnerd93

macrumors 6502a
Nov 28, 2009
712
189
United Kingdom
I'm only 20, but the only way I truly enjoy listening to music is on my Toshiba record player and records. I must have over two or three hundred records about including 45 singles. The stuff what I listen to sounds better on vinyl anyway, Jazz and the big bands, Northern Soul, Bob Dylan, ELO, and Supertramp. I dislike most new songs, just mass produced junk.
 

slapppy

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2008
1,227
42
It's possible that most new music today is pure crap. Who wants to spend money on crappy music.
 

Traverse

macrumors 604
Mar 11, 2013
7,688
4,399
Here
I still don't like to stream music unless I'm at home.

For one, it really does chew a 2GB data plan pretty fast, so you need wifi.
Second, it can be slow if you have a bad connection.
Third, intrusive and obnoxious ads (although iTunes Radios ads aren't as bad)
Forth, it's a big hit on battery life.

For me at least, nothing beats on board music, but for many, streaming may be the way to go.

Just my little rant. :p
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,545
6,042
When Spotify announced their free tier, the Music app, which had been on my iOS dock for the past 5 years, got booted to the page 2 Apple folder, and I replaced it with Spotify.

I have no regrets. I have a great collection of starred music on Spotify that I've been building up on the free desktop version for 2 years - I love listening to it on shuffle. A lot of it I haven't had the time/money to actually buy.

The big money for artists, I think, comes from merchandise sells. I tend to buy band shirts and sweaters when I go to concerts.
 

Primejimbo

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2008
3,295
131
Around
Well, there is one gigantic difference between now and say 10-20 years ago. Artists nowadays don't need to be able to sing, read notes or play an instrument, because everything can be created and altered digitally. Again, look at Britney: used to be a pretty face, but she can't sing, her music is written by someone else and she couldn't play an instrument to save her life. She is a pure digital product.

I like lots of current music artists such as Timberlake and Katy Perry, but there is no way in hell that these compare to the likes of Muse, Pink Floyd, or Genesis in terms of artistic quality and musicianship.

This is dead on. I don't even consider the likes of Britney an artist at all. Performer, yes, but that's it. What happened to song writing? Having an artist write about a past experience or something personal, and then sing it with their heart into it. That to me is a music artist.
I still buy from iTunes and buy CDs, and I don't stream music. I may try it someday, and I also said I would never get an iPod haha.

Could it be that sales are down because music isn't great, but the artist knows it will probably be downloaded illegally? Maybe they think what's the point since someone will steal it.
 
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kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
To be fair though 2013 wasn't a stellar year for music, there was only a handful of songs that came out I felt worth buying.

For you. 2013 was actually an incredible year for indie music (which is basically the new alternative/rock). As for music pushed by the major labels, I can't comment.
 

Brittany246

macrumors 6502a
Apr 21, 2013
791
0
I believe it. I haven't put iTunes music on my iPhone since I discoverer spotify. I use pandora to discover new music and spotify to listen to whatever song I want.

It's possible that most new music today is pure crap. Who wants to spend money on crappy music.

Yeah... no.
 

JackieInCo

Suspended
Jul 18, 2013
5,178
1,601
Colorado
Best Selling of 2013:

ALBUM
1. “The 20/20 Experience” – Justin Timberlake – 2.43 million
2. “The Marshall Mathers LP 2″ – Eminem – 1.73
3. “Crash My Party – Luke Bryan – 1.52
4. “Night Visions” – Imagine Dragons – 1.4
5. “Unorthodox Jukebox” – Bruno Mars – <1.4
6. “Here’s to the Good Times” – Florida Georgia Line – 1.35
7. “Nothing Was the Same” – Drake – 1.34
8. “Beyonce” – Beyonce – 1.3
9. “Based On a True Story” – Blake Shelton – 1.11
10. “Magna Carta…Holy Grail” – Jay Z – 1.1

SINGLE
1. “Blurred Lines” – Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell & T.I. – 6.5 million
2. “Thrift Shop” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – 6.15
3. “Radioactive” – Imagine Dragons – 5.5
4. “Cruise” – Florida Georgia Line – 4.69
5. “Royals” – Lorde – 4.42
6. “Roar” – Katy Perry – 4.41
7. “Just Give Me a Reason” – P!nk feat. Nate Ruess – 4.32
8. “Can’t Hold Us” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – 4.26
9. “When I Was Your Man” – Bruno Mars – 3.93
10. “Stay” – Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko – 3.85

I am proud to say that i do not own any of this.
 

Gubbz

macrumors member
May 2, 2010
64
26
Perth, Australia
For me, the music industry is churning out disposable music at far from disposable prices. I see so much that is just mediocre pap, a far cry from the crafted musicianship that Apple would tout in their ads which isn't Apple's fault, thats the music industry grabbing someone that has a look, putting their voice through the system so they sound ok, getting in a producer to create a package... There aren't so many artists now, they are producers that back the vocalist until they want more money, then line up the next one... To me, its a bit like comparing a certified Apple accessory with a similar 'accessory' from a market stall, the craft quality just isn't there :S
 

japanime

macrumors 68030
Feb 27, 2006
2,916
4,844
Japan
I'm only 20, but the only way I truly enjoy listening to music is on my Toshiba record player and records. I must have over two or three hundred records about including 45 singles. The stuff what I listen to sounds better on vinyl anyway, Jazz and the big bands, Northern Soul, Bob Dylan, ELO, and Supertramp. I dislike most new songs, just mass produced junk.

If the "only way you truly enjoy listening to music" is on vinyl, what are you doing with an iPod?:D

Seriously, though, you've got great taste in music. :)
 

Nozuka

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2012
3,527
5,996
thats just a way of life, you are just getting older. I am sure my grandmother hated my mothers music and my mother hates my music and my children will hate my music and their children will hate their parents music ;)

i enjoy old and new music just the same. you just need to have an open mind.
 

LastQuadrant

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2013
94
0
To be fair though 2013 wasn't a stellar year for music, there was only a handful of songs that came out I felt worth buying. Also Digital albums are very expensive still compared to physical copies which offer superior sound quality and the tactile experience of physical media which people do still enjoy. Also a lot of music is still not available to download atleast not through legal channels so people fall back to ripping physical copies instead.

Well, I've been buying 24 Bit versions of my favorite albums that have been released. Hopefully, they'll start offering more. I prefer to buy music where the entire album is worth having rather than the typical one or two songs. That's a major problem with most of the music being released in the last decade or two. Not many artists can actually spit out an entire CD's worth of music that's worth listening to.

I think Apple is eventually going to get 24 bit AAC files on iTunes and upgrade all of their devices (iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs) with 24 bit DACs. I think that might start happening in about a year or so as it becomes cheaper to install a better DAC.

The real problem is going to be with DSD when Sony releases those downloads and people are being forced to buy a USB DAC that can handle both standard format and DSD.

I rarely listen to streaming music. Every once in a while I'll turn on iTunes Radio, but I prefer it over Spotify or Pandora.
 

LastQuadrant

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2013
94
0
I believe it. I haven't put iTunes music on my iPhone since I discoverer spotify. I use pandora to discover new music and spotify to listen to whatever song I want.



Yeah... no.

Pandora's sound quality sucks IMO. Apple's Radio is actually pretty good. I'm happy with it, even though I don't use it much as I prefer to buy CDs and high res downloads from HD Tracks, WolfgangsVault and other sources.
 

iSunrise

macrumors 6502
May 11, 2012
382
118
Nope. I still get all of my music on CDs. Its the best way.
Indeed. Lossless masters over everything else. Don´t you just hate it, when they sell you compressed audio without any choices whatsoever for the original masters. Instead, they give us "Mastered for iTunes", which is almost pure marketing and still in a compressed format.

Lossless audio is the way to go and if iTunes would offer such a thing, I would probably stop buying CDs altogether. Only rare soundtracks like from Intrada would still be offered only on CDs, but then again, maybe Intrada will offer digital services in the future.

Otherwise I don´t see how iTunes can bring back sales, since Spotify etc. are getting more and more popular (especially in the EU). They really need something new after Jobs has died and put so much effort into it.
 

LastQuadrant

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2013
94
0
[[ How old do you have to be to remember CDs? ]]

I just burned some CD's for a trip in the car (today) a few days ago.

98%+ of the music I "keep around" is on CD's. I have a few thousand I've made myself over the course of the last 11 years or so.

ALL the music I use on the Harley is MP3's, burned onto CD's (for the stereo's CD player). Before that, I used MiniDisc on the previous motorcycle because the stereo on that one had only a cassette player, but it also had a "minijack" auxilliary input.

I've never bought a single song from the iTunes music store. Not one, ever. I never will.
I have bought a few classical music collections from amazon.com -- $2 for 100 tracks can't be beat...

CD's are still a viable media for quite a few folks (and yes, I -am- older).

Too bad you're young -- you've missed so much! :)

The newer 256kbps versions of music on iTunes is sonically not that bad especially if you have a decent DAC. I'm digging on concert downloads from Wolfgangsvault as they are spitting out 320kbps MP3's which aren't too bad. Paying $5 for a full concert is reasonable, even though it's soundboard recordings. Or for the really good versions, I go to places like HD Tracks and get 24 bit versions.

Vinyl is getting expensive since to get a good turntable/cartridge and phono pre amp, it's far more expensive than a good USB DAC. Plus you have to invest in a good record cleaning system to get rid of the pops and clicks. Digital audio has come a long way since it's introduction as they are learning how to actually get even 16 bit to sound better. It's all about the quality of the DAC, clocking, noise isolation, and better output stages.
 

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2002
756
92
New England
I'm old fashioned. i still download from the pirate bay

But even that is rare. I mainly listen to my old library or pandora/itunes radio

Also the economy still sucks for me and many others. I'm not spending money on music or go to concerts either
 

LastQuadrant

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2013
94
0
Best Selling of 2013:

ALBUM
1. “The 20/20 Experience” – Justin Timberlake – 2.43 million
2. “The Marshall Mathers LP 2″ – Eminem – 1.73
3. “Crash My Party – Luke Bryan – 1.52
4. “Night Visions” – Imagine Dragons – 1.4
5. “Unorthodox Jukebox” – Bruno Mars – <1.4
6. “Here’s to the Good Times” – Florida Georgia Line – 1.35
7. “Nothing Was the Same” – Drake – 1.34
8. “Beyonce” – Beyonce – 1.3
9. “Based On a True Story” – Blake Shelton – 1.11
10. “Magna Carta…Holy Grail” – Jay Z – 1.1

SINGLE
1. “Blurred Lines” – Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell & T.I. – 6.5 million
2. “Thrift Shop” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – 6.15
3. “Radioactive” – Imagine Dragons – 5.5
4. “Cruise” – Florida Georgia Line – 4.69
5. “Royals” – Lorde – 4.42
6. “Roar” – Katy Perry – 4.41
7. “Just Give Me a Reason” – P!nk feat. Nate Ruess – 4.32
8. “Can’t Hold Us” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – 4.26
9. “When I Was Your Man” – Bruno Mars – 3.93
10. “Stay” – Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko – 3.85


--

I for one havent updated my iTunes library in like forever due to Spotify and the deal they have made with T-Mobile in Germany. I pay 10 bucks a month for unlimited music + it does not get added to my data volume on my iPhone = AMAZING

Well, i rarely buy something that's popular. None of this list would ever be on my iTunes library.
 
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