But seriously, this is 100% correct.
I think I am immune from this because there was never a time where I was a huge fan of what was charting. To me music is getting better and better over time as the availability increases.
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The Eagles? 
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Freddie? Absolutely.
Phil? Dear Lord I hope not
Which is to say, tastes vary widely 
Ditto for me!
And just FWIW, Howard, I think I would attribute you to having introduced me to sleepmakewaves (if I remember correctly). Still not something I listen to a lot, but I surely would never have found them otherwise, and their music has probably led me down another path to find more interesting stuff I likely wouldn’t have followed otherwise.
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That’s great! I really like them.
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Every generation says their music is best, and poo-poos what comes before or after.
Then (from being a teen) - you get a bit aware and go backwards and find out the stuff that came before has a lot of great stuff (but you have do dig to find it, or, hear a song on Stranger Things, etc). The third leg of the stool - looking forward to good ‘new to you’ music is often severely overlooked.
I think the issue here is two fold…
- most people hold beloved the music of their adolescence do to strong ties to memories made during that period of their life
- finding the good music today is pure happenstance or luck or “hey have you heard” vs. the radio or scheduled TV shows of yore, so if one only looks to the hits they are aware of, it would feel like there is a lot of crap.
I have found some of the most amazing music in the last 3 years being on this forum, that I would have never heard of. It actually has sparked my own curiosity to find more. Sure, there is stuff that just doesn’t connect, however, a lot of the artists that connected when i was a teen - well, their new stuff just doesn’t connect anymore (I call this Star Wars A New Hope Syndrome - hard to live up to what was once deemed great by you).
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!!!
A good way to find new music is when you hear a new artist you like, go to a Spotify like service, and listen to a radio station of that new artist, and you will likely hear more new bands similar to the new one in some way.
But my rule of thumb is with art - any medium, movies, tv, music - 90% is mediocre; 5% is objectively bad, 5% is really good. When you consume current art, you see a lot of the 90%. When you consume past art, you get a lot more of the top 5%. So the past looks better that it was when you lived through it because you see selected examples. Black Sabbath, Judas Priest? Yeah, everyone remembers them. Uriah Heep anyone?
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My first concert was Priest/Heep
Haven’t listened to Heep since the day of the show. Priest I still listen to often.
I will say my parents reaction to their pre-teen bringing home Abominog was prettu awesome though.
For sure, the Apple Music version is to allow the player to essentially do this on its own. Whenever I listen to an album or song in Apple Music, and it ends, it starts playing similar things on its own. Found a lot this way too
The Monkees, although a made for TV band, were at least established musicians (ie unlike the Brady Bunch or Partridge Family bands).
Their trouble was that the fans couldn’t tell the difference between the TV show and reality, then the lines blurred for them and in trying to prove themselves as musicians fired the people who had made them famous and given them good music to play. Which left them in a great position to fail.
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sure, I understand that point, and I can even admit that I like plenty of garbage music myself. But the garbage:good ratio is MUCH higher these days. And yes, i’m talking about the “chart” stuff. Away from radio play and other measures of success like that, the opposite is probably true. But the stuff that his the mainstream… yeah, WAY worse than the 70s stuff, which was at least usually sung by people who could actually sing.
I think you are blissfully forgetting just how much garbage there was. Say what you will about today’s autotune; the ‘70s brought us Muzak disguised as “easy listening” soft rock stations. Whole genres of that garbage.
And then there’s soft rock in general - for every Eagles or Fleetwood Mac there were dozens of bands churning out boring derivative crap, filling dentist offices nationwide.
I’m sorry but that’s a love ballad for furries
I mean you don’t even have to dig deep. “You Light Up My Life”, the #1 hit of the entire decade, spent 10 weeks at #1.
That song can be charitably described as being like taking a tranquilizer dart right to the ‘nads. That song would be more effective at clearing out a formerly fun party than a police raid.
It’s almost like the entire decade was on ‘ludes… oh wait
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Another 70s golden oldie
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Even The Beatles got in on this shitty pop decade. Here’s Ringo’s Skeevy Ode to Jailbait, starring 40 year old Starr and Carrie Fisher playing a 16 year old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ainB6qnWBI
Basically - I really, honestly don’t think the ratio of bad pop to good pop has changed. There’s always been bad pop, and it has always overwhelmed the good pop.
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That was Ringo, not the Beatles, and he most certainly was not the most inherently gifted of the guys.
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Agree, and yet that thing hit #1, despite being basically the soundtrack to Epstein Island.
‘70s pop, as weird as the rest of the decade. Not seeing a better ratio there than now.
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There has always been crap pop songs; but, regarding @JoshFossgreen’s impetus for producing his video on Spotify’s top 10, at least crap pop of yesteryears included a bass line of some sort.
Junk food is junk, but the masses can’t get enough of it.
What some might consider crap pop is analogous to another’s tolerance for junk food. There never has been any accounting for taste.
As was often opined by American Bandstand audience members who were asked what they thought of the latest pop ditty, they uttered the immortal words, “It’s got a good beat, Dick.”
So it goes. 
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