Music comparison of 2018 to 1968. Guess who wins?
A person said that music was not better in the 60s compared to now. It's not so easy to compare eras, but one way we can do is to look at what was in the top ten, across various times. Thats crude, but it gives us some idea, at least. So, for your edification and my own, i just spent a couple of hours doing that!
This is the UK top 10 singles now, in November 2018. and my view after listening to it now:
Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper
SHALLOW
LADY GAGA & BRADLEY COOPER - not a bad song, quite well sung. but pretty shallow indeed, cliched stuff..
WOMAN LIKE ME
LITTLE MIX FT NICKI MINAJ - like a million other such ‘modern RnB’ / neo-soul songs. catchy but in a terrible cliched way(video filmed in the same mansion featured in a film I was once was part of)
PROMISES
CALVIN HARRIS & SAM SMITH - i quite like this one, could dance to it. it has a rather 70s disco aspect to it. but, still, rather like 10,000 other songs.
FUNKY FRIDAY
DAVE FT FREDO - the type of mainstream hip hop that has been done a million times over 20 years now. seems quite good lyrics, at least the video is not naked girls at a swimming pool. but still, it has a show off of wealth and fast cars, and the infamous n-word which we are not allowed to say.
HAPPIER
MARSHMELLO FT BASTILLE - again, terribly cliched, modern RnB/ EDM-pop of which there are, yet again, a million in the last 20 years.
LET YOU LOVE ME
RITA ORA
- this is getting depressing. Yet another cliched pop/RnB song. catchy, in the same cliched way. but is that all we can do? make the same narrow styled catchy music again and again for 20 years… isn’t that stagnation?…i think this is the only one on the list I’ve heard before (in some bar recently). also, like several of the songs here the video has a sexy girls in it. this time in the hugely cliche setting of a party. how original!
ZEZE
KODAK BLACK/SCOTT/OFFSET - jesus, yet more mainstream hip hop/rap stuff, of the type we have had a million of. and again showing off of wealth and the not to be pronounced n word in it. once again catchy in a horribly stereotyped way.
IN MY MIND
DYNORO & GIGI D'AGOSTINO - could this song be different? let see, press play…Nope. yet again a dance/electronic song which there has been, you guessed, it. a lot of. once again catchy in a horribly stereotyped way.
well at least the person is Lithuanian, thats unusual here. 172 million via on youtube! Which is 172 million people that need to broaden their music taste.
LOST WITHOUT YOU
FREYA RIDINGS - oh this is a bit unusual in this list. very simple sparse song. and the lassie seems to really mean it. i was expecting it to burst out into an upbeat ‘boom boom boom, yay yay!’ section. but it didn’t…it just stayed down and sparse. nice. this is the most distinctive song in the top ten now, i think.
ELECTRICITY
SILK CITY FT DUA LIPA - and we’re back. the same old house/EDM/modern RnB stuff as we’ve heard so much before. video of sexy people dancing at a party…again! (though in this case there are some interesting visuals parts of the video). what is the point of making yet another million songs like this?
Oh, for money! Now i get it. Originality be damned.
Generally that seems a list of cliched stuff that has changed very little in 20 years. For example, a band like Maroon 5, who do this kind of neo soul pop rock stuff started in 1994. Oh, and I think EDM stands for ‘Everyone Does mediocre Music.’ or possibly ‘listen to Enough of this Dog shit and you will go Mental’
OK, so a comparison with what was in the top ten in november 1968, and straight away we can see which era is going to win:
José Feliciano light my fire - a Puerto Rican guy doing an interesting sparse but orchestrated version of a psychedelic rock song. Not a song i love especially but its pretty good. they guy seems to mean it.
Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra & Chorus - The good, the bad and the ugly - a classic movie soundtrack. so well made, catchy, good musicians. great stuff. to be fair we might say that the late 60 and early 70s produced quite a lot of such soundtracks.
Joe Cocker - with a little help from my friends - this is astonishingly good. one of the best pop/rock versions of the beatles. fantastic and original singer, and very good musicians. this one song is better than all 10 songs in the charts now.
The Marbles - only one woman - standard pop music and pretty cliched. the is the kind of thing i couldn’t say was particularly better than pop stuff now. but that is rather the point - the lady gaga song at number 1 now is basically the same stuff as this song. it shows a lack of musical progress.
The Isley Brothers - this old heart of mine’ - fantastic old style RnB/soul. the kind of music you can’t help but dance too. but again, to be fair we might say that the mid to late 60 and early 70s produced a LOT of songs like this. it was also a cliche then. just a very good well made cliche!
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - all along the watchtower. a black American and two white british guys doing a fantastic psychedelic rock version of a boon dylan song. once again, one of the greatest songs of that type ever made. absolutely brilliant.
The Bandwagon featuring Johnny Johnson - Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache - what a song! brilliant northern soul classic. get on the dance floor! This song makes me feel happy to be alive…much much better than the so called RnB of the top ten now.
The Turtles - Elenore - classic pop. a great wee song. but again, to be fair we might say that the mid to late 60 produced a LOT of songs like this. pretty cliched, with the great exception that is has one of the funniest most original lyrics of any pop song, where he sings “ you’re my pride and joy, etc.” - just noting the empty loving words as ETC is such a cheeky inclusion! ha, ha…
Nina Simone - "Ain't Got No, I Got Life - again, brilliant. by one of the all time classic RnB/jazz singers. with, guess what - lyrics that mean something! By a black singer who actually made a genuine effort to speak of the troubles of black people in America, rather than the cliched stuff of almost all the songs by black folk in the top ten do now) . plus the video is just her at her piano, performing... what, no one dancing in a sexy way half naked at the pool side? Get with it Nina!
And by comparison with the 172 million who have watched the above cliched dance/electronic song this cool wee song by Nina Simone has only 54,000 views. quite a lot, but the huge difference in viewing shows my main point. most young folk now have a very narrow music taste. even though the Simone song is freely there for any of them to check out. they 99% dont.
From a comparison of those top ten singles there is no question of which month was better. Nov 1968 wins hands down, by a musical mile.
Young folks, please try and look beyond the EDM/neo-soul/J-pop/mainstream hip hop confines that you are 99% trapped in and have a listen to some of the dozens of other types of great music there are out there.
Some wonderful, cool, stylish music is waiting for you...
And here is that Nina song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jI9I03q8E
A person said that music was not better in the 60s compared to now. It's not so easy to compare eras, but one way we can do is to look at what was in the top ten, across various times. Thats crude, but it gives us some idea, at least. So, for your edification and my own, i just spent a couple of hours doing that!
This is the UK top 10 singles now, in November 2018. and my view after listening to it now:
Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper
SHALLOW
LADY GAGA & BRADLEY COOPER - not a bad song, quite well sung. but pretty shallow indeed, cliched stuff..
WOMAN LIKE ME
LITTLE MIX FT NICKI MINAJ - like a million other such ‘modern RnB’ / neo-soul songs. catchy but in a terrible cliched way(video filmed in the same mansion featured in a film I was once was part of)
PROMISES
CALVIN HARRIS & SAM SMITH - i quite like this one, could dance to it. it has a rather 70s disco aspect to it. but, still, rather like 10,000 other songs.
FUNKY FRIDAY
DAVE FT FREDO - the type of mainstream hip hop that has been done a million times over 20 years now. seems quite good lyrics, at least the video is not naked girls at a swimming pool. but still, it has a show off of wealth and fast cars, and the infamous n-word which we are not allowed to say.
HAPPIER
MARSHMELLO FT BASTILLE - again, terribly cliched, modern RnB/ EDM-pop of which there are, yet again, a million in the last 20 years.
LET YOU LOVE ME
RITA ORA
- this is getting depressing. Yet another cliched pop/RnB song. catchy, in the same cliched way. but is that all we can do? make the same narrow styled catchy music again and again for 20 years… isn’t that stagnation?…i think this is the only one on the list I’ve heard before (in some bar recently). also, like several of the songs here the video has a sexy girls in it. this time in the hugely cliche setting of a party. how original!
ZEZE
KODAK BLACK/SCOTT/OFFSET - jesus, yet more mainstream hip hop/rap stuff, of the type we have had a million of. and again showing off of wealth and the not to be pronounced n word in it. once again catchy in a horribly stereotyped way.
IN MY MIND
DYNORO & GIGI D'AGOSTINO - could this song be different? let see, press play…Nope. yet again a dance/electronic song which there has been, you guessed, it. a lot of. once again catchy in a horribly stereotyped way.
well at least the person is Lithuanian, thats unusual here. 172 million via on youtube! Which is 172 million people that need to broaden their music taste.
LOST WITHOUT YOU
FREYA RIDINGS - oh this is a bit unusual in this list. very simple sparse song. and the lassie seems to really mean it. i was expecting it to burst out into an upbeat ‘boom boom boom, yay yay!’ section. but it didn’t…it just stayed down and sparse. nice. this is the most distinctive song in the top ten now, i think.
ELECTRICITY
SILK CITY FT DUA LIPA - and we’re back. the same old house/EDM/modern RnB stuff as we’ve heard so much before. video of sexy people dancing at a party…again! (though in this case there are some interesting visuals parts of the video). what is the point of making yet another million songs like this?
Oh, for money! Now i get it. Originality be damned.
Generally that seems a list of cliched stuff that has changed very little in 20 years. For example, a band like Maroon 5, who do this kind of neo soul pop rock stuff started in 1994. Oh, and I think EDM stands for ‘Everyone Does mediocre Music.’ or possibly ‘listen to Enough of this Dog shit and you will go Mental’
OK, so a comparison with what was in the top ten in november 1968, and straight away we can see which era is going to win:
José Feliciano light my fire - a Puerto Rican guy doing an interesting sparse but orchestrated version of a psychedelic rock song. Not a song i love especially but its pretty good. they guy seems to mean it.
Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra & Chorus - The good, the bad and the ugly - a classic movie soundtrack. so well made, catchy, good musicians. great stuff. to be fair we might say that the late 60 and early 70s produced quite a lot of such soundtracks.
Joe Cocker - with a little help from my friends - this is astonishingly good. one of the best pop/rock versions of the beatles. fantastic and original singer, and very good musicians. this one song is better than all 10 songs in the charts now.
The Marbles - only one woman - standard pop music and pretty cliched. the is the kind of thing i couldn’t say was particularly better than pop stuff now. but that is rather the point - the lady gaga song at number 1 now is basically the same stuff as this song. it shows a lack of musical progress.
The Isley Brothers - this old heart of mine’ - fantastic old style RnB/soul. the kind of music you can’t help but dance too. but again, to be fair we might say that the mid to late 60 and early 70s produced a LOT of songs like this. it was also a cliche then. just a very good well made cliche!
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - all along the watchtower. a black American and two white british guys doing a fantastic psychedelic rock version of a boon dylan song. once again, one of the greatest songs of that type ever made. absolutely brilliant.
The Bandwagon featuring Johnny Johnson - Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache - what a song! brilliant northern soul classic. get on the dance floor! This song makes me feel happy to be alive…much much better than the so called RnB of the top ten now.
The Turtles - Elenore - classic pop. a great wee song. but again, to be fair we might say that the mid to late 60 produced a LOT of songs like this. pretty cliched, with the great exception that is has one of the funniest most original lyrics of any pop song, where he sings “ you’re my pride and joy, etc.” - just noting the empty loving words as ETC is such a cheeky inclusion! ha, ha…
Nina Simone - "Ain't Got No, I Got Life - again, brilliant. by one of the all time classic RnB/jazz singers. with, guess what - lyrics that mean something! By a black singer who actually made a genuine effort to speak of the troubles of black people in America, rather than the cliched stuff of almost all the songs by black folk in the top ten do now) . plus the video is just her at her piano, performing... what, no one dancing in a sexy way half naked at the pool side? Get with it Nina!
And by comparison with the 172 million who have watched the above cliched dance/electronic song this cool wee song by Nina Simone has only 54,000 views. quite a lot, but the huge difference in viewing shows my main point. most young folk now have a very narrow music taste. even though the Simone song is freely there for any of them to check out. they 99% dont.
From a comparison of those top ten singles there is no question of which month was better. Nov 1968 wins hands down, by a musical mile.
Young folks, please try and look beyond the EDM/neo-soul/J-pop/mainstream hip hop confines that you are 99% trapped in and have a listen to some of the dozens of other types of great music there are out there.
Some wonderful, cool, stylish music is waiting for you...
And here is that Nina song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jI9I03q8E