Changes in music taste: Why is my music better than yours?

This is not my comment. It just got me thinking!

We have all had that debate in our families - you sit there and complain that your fellow relative is playing drivel and that they should listen to decent music like you. In my family, we're ok when it comes to music taste but my brother does tend to slip towards chart music which to the rest of the family is mindless nonsense. Why is this? Why does something seem like mind numbing crap that lacks substance to me yet be amongst the top played tracks on my brother's iPod?

This thought came into my mind why I saw a post on Reddit that asked the same thing and if you ask me what my opinion of what music today is it's that: music in general today lacks substance because it has become easier and easier for bands to get their sound heard and recorded. It is now easy to get a hit without much talent at all, only money. Jenna Rose and Rebecca Black are examples of this - with greed want-to-be music producers telling young girls that they have talent and auto-tuning their toneless voices to hell and posting it on YouTube the music scene is being watered down to a meaningless pulp.

The Change in Music Taste

In the 60s, the Beatles took over the world. Rock and roll was here and chart music was born. Back then, people were happy to listen to twee love songs that stuck in their heads and that they could tap their foot to. The music was modest and spoke of the ideal. People were just starting to throw away the barre chords and actually write something new and exciting which sparked off the whole issue that I am discussing today.

Eurovision 1974, ABBA blow away Europe and the rest of the world with "Waterloo". Although they didn't win the contest, it was the start of something big! Again throughout the 70s the themes to most of the music were love and heartbreak but for the first time there was music you and your Mum could listen to and not feel like your whole family thought you were the spawn of the devil. The 70s was the the musical era for everyone which is why it is a popular period of debate in these kind of discussions.

30 years ago, the Smiths got together in Manchester and took the country by storm. They would become my  and many others idea of "the perfect band". What was it that made the Smiths so successful? It is easy to say that the Smiths were one of the 80s most successful bands because for the first time ever they told the truth, in terms of politics and love. Morrissey summed up teenagers angst beautifully which is why he is a hero to so many people. When during the 70s music could be listened to by all, in the 80s it separated again - you locked yourself in your room listening to the words of Curtis, Weller and Morrissey whilst your parents still gripped onto the ABBA records. But of course, there was WHAM! and Duran Duran who lit up discos around the country and that your Gran danced to at Christmas - we shouldn't forget pop music in this decade, it was some of the best!

The 90s was another decade where parents and children stayed separate with the birth of grunge and Oasis. Nirvana brought heavy rock to the scene without constantly going on about the being the Anti-Christ, Kurt Cobain, like Morrissey, wrote about the hardships of being an awkward teenager which reached out to the entire generation. Oasis, Blur, Pulp etc carried on the rebellious edge to teenage music promoting getting pissed and laid and whatever but still made the decade one of the best in terms of bands to come out of it. But the 90s was very cheesy as well... Steps, Take That, Boyzone, PETE WATERMAN! If you could vaguely singing a tune and their were five or six of you, Pete wanted you and some may argue that put a downer on the decade - not me... I WENT TO GO SEE TAKE THAT AND I'M NOT ASHAMED!

This brings us to know.... the decade where teenagers with taste in music have gone backwards. There have been good bands but none of them have revolutionised anything or made teenagers feel any different. Take me for example: yes, I love Palma Violets and Biffy and Dry the River but if I had to choose a band that really speak to me then I'd have to go with the Smiths. I have others who would choose Nirvana or the Beatles or Oasis. The bottom line is music today sucks and that is why this debate has come about because unless today's pop music is all you have been exposed to, everyone knows there has been better. Today is a whole load of bands trying too hard to be different and edgy and they really aren't - they are just a bit pathetic and if they are good, they are saying what someone said 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago!

Parents argue with their children about music taste because they regret not exposing their children to something better in the first place! I thank my lucky stars my Dad put his Oasis CDs in the car when we went on holiday whether I liked it or not because at least now I have enough knowledge to make my own decisions about what I listen to instead of MTV telling me.