No, Today's Music Isn't Boring (A Response To Rick Beato)

The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/12tone07210 Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) I'm gonna say this one last time: This video is not a declaration of war. It's not a reckoning on Rick Beato as a creator, as a theorist, or as a person. If you're going to interact with Rick about it at all (And honestly, I'd really rather you didn't.) please engage with kindness and compassion. I don't want to see a bunch of y'all starting fights in his comment sections or anything. That would be the opposite of productive. 2) Also, while I'm at it, I'm not saying old music is bad, or that you have to listen to and enjoy new music! It's ok to not seek out new music you like if you're happy with the stuff you already have. Most of the songs I make videos on are at least, like, 20 years old, so I get it. But trying to take away the stuff other people enjoy because it's not made for you is bad. 3) On the topic of 1991, I chose to focus specifically on rock music because that's the genre I'm most familiar with. There's plenty of important things that happened that year in hip-hop, soul, and other styles, I just don't trust myself to curate those lists as accurately as I could with rock. I don't mean to imply that only rock stuff happened, but since Rick and I are both primarily rock enthusiasts, it seemed like the most natural area to focus on for the sake of the argument I was making. 4) Also on the topic of 1991, To The Extreme by Vanilla Ice spent 8 weeks as the number 1 album that year. I'd be willing to bet that you know, at most, one song off it, and you probably know that song as a joke. 5) I didn't select my list of modern example songs with this criterion in mind, but it's interesting to me that none of them have harmonies that behave the way Rick says all modern pop harmonies do. Montero is built on two major chords a half-step apart, Pay Your Way In Pain's harmony is mostly just a chromatic sliding bassline, and NDA has that diminished triad arpeggio thing. 6) The statement "the entire Romantic period was basically just one long, increasingly complicated chord progression" is an intentional oversimplification for emphasis and comedic effect. I don't need you to explain to me that they were doing, like, orchestration stuff too or whatever. I know. 7) For the sake of transparency, the two songs in Rick's iTunes video where I interpreted his reaction as not entirely positive were Leave Before You Love Me and Good 4 U. The other 8 he seemed pretty completely in favor of, at least as far as I could tell. Feel free to go watch the video and compare for yourself. 8) Technically, Lemonade was produced by Columbia in partnership with Beyonce's own company, Parkwood Entertainment. I have no idea how the financial risk was distributed between the two companies, but the point remains that Beyonce is in a position to take these sorts of risks because of her success as a major-label artist.

We gotta stop combining modern music and mainstream music into one category

Pop music isn't "TODAY'S MUSIC" It's today's "POP" music.

I get the feeling that music has always been like this. Only the great tracks survive the sands of time and everything else crumbles to dust.

I'm quite surprised that you presented "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" as an unknown forgotten song. Perhaps that's the case in America? Here in central Europe, it's one of the most notorious "romantic" radio songs I know. It's played on radios that play softer music very frequently and every time there is something like "an hour of romantic songs", you can be almost certain that it will be there. It's similar to notoriety to "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith.

I like it when Rick talks about things he loves. I dislike when Rick talks about things he dislikes. He's great at analyzing things he appreciates, and he's bad at putting aside personal distaste when he's criticizing. And he usually doesn't frame it as personal distaste. He makes it sound like an objective measure of quality.

"I don't wanna notate this" And nobody could possibly blame you for that.

If you want interesting music made today, ya gotta get out of the mainstream, and ya gotta expand beyond whatever type of music you liked when you were 15. There's always something good to find in any era, and the biggest problem with finding it today is that there's so much being made each and every week. Something only a few people have heard today will be essential listening for the masses in a few decades.

I'm 43 and I grew up in the 80's/90's, both great decades for music, but there definitely was 5hit stuff being released! As we get older we romanticize the stuff we liked and ignore the rest!. For the first two decades of our lives (possibly a bit longer) music is aimed at us, it forms identity, represents many "firsts" in life and basically transports you back to a time and place, its nostalgia. Once we get beyond 30 we more than likely have other priorities; marriage/children/ mortgage/career and it's now for the generation coming up behind us to get what we got. In recent years, I have bought best of albums from many 80's groups; "Depeche Mode", "Tears For Fears" etc etc, basically all the stuff I grew up with, and the music my mum use to play (she would be proud ! - RIP Mum). There is still "good" music, it just depends what your looking for, and knowing where to find it.😊

"Let's go back 30 years to 1991" ....you didn't have to do that to us. But great video regardless.

The "let's go back 30 years to 1991" line made me say, "shit... I'm getting old." Haha.

Your point about "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" caught me by surprise. I don't know if you haven't heard it on the radio or something, but as a guy in his early 20s, I've heard that song a bunch of times. More than I've heard any of the other songs you listed in that example, actually

I grew up totally fetishising 90s alternative music. I still love a lot of it and certain albums will always hold a special place in my heart, but I'm 32 now and genuinely believe that we live in one of the most exciting eras for music. I discover fantastic new albums across multiple genres on a weekly basis and completely disagree with the idea that music is getting worse. It's not - it's expanding and diversifying in a totally unprecedented fashion. The mainstream will always be the mainstream and, apart from occasional glimmers of subversion, can often feel uninspired. But if you just scratch the surface even a little bit, you'll never run out of new music to fall in love with. I actually respect Rick Beato quite a bit, but I also pity his reluctance to expand his musical horizons. Music is not getting worse, we just become complacent consumers as we age and are constantly chasing the highs of our teenage years/early 20s. Those highs are still out there, you just need to start looking in some different places.

“Everything I do, I do it for you” was on the radio 10 times a day. I heard it alright.

I'm old enough to confirm that "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams was everywhere in 1991.

Why did this video age so well. :c

lol, this video is 2 years old and is basically replying to the 2 new videos he made saying the same thing.

The top 40 - or whatever it's called these days - does not, nor ever did, represent the enormous diversity in music.

There’s only two kinds of music in the world… The kind you like, and the kind that sucks.

I'm the same age as Rick and am sympathetic. I grew up on listening to whole records, arguing over deep cuts, etc. As a classical musician, I listen for individual musicianship; plus melodic, harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic complexity. I like minor keys and introspective/weird lyrics. And, crucially, I don't enjoy dancing. Net result, I like solos, funky bass lines, intricate drum parts, crunchy harmonies, etc. I usually prefer music that was played on instruments and can be performed live, as opposed to lots of production. Some favorite music includes Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, the Doors, CSN, and grunge. My car radio could get by on one preset, the "classic rock" station. I don't like excessive repetition - a song should build and change over the length of it, rather than just repeat verses and choruses verbatim. Rap and dance music bore me, Auto-Tune sets my teeth on edge, synthesizers and drum machines sound sterile (part of the reason I found the 80s rather dry and relatively uninteresting). In all honesty, I've played in orchestras but don't go to many classical concerts anymore because I got tired of the self-indulgence. Ditto for jazz. As a classical conductor, my programs have a rock 'n' roll vibe. And none of that really matters. Who gives a ** what I like? Listen to whatever the ** you like. I don't enjoy today's music because, well, it doesn't resonate. And of course it doesn't. Kids will like the music they grow up on for the same reasons I like what I grew up on, but theirs doesn't do the things I want music to do. For that matter, I didn't like most of the pop music from my era, either. I've been despairing over kids' choice of music for 40 years...