Editorials

“Old Music is Much Better!”

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11 July 2014

By Bronwen

It is almost completely insufferable to allow any music channel that plays modern chart hits to run in the background while you are doing other things. Now we hate to be one of those people who says “Oh let’s go back to the 90’s. No one can sing these days, old music rules blah blah blah”. That is an untrue statement. People can sing these days. The main difference is that in order to be classed as a successful singer 20 years ago, you actually had to have vocal ability whereas today, it can be a lot less complicated.

Take the Black Eyed Peas for example. Let’s be honest… none of them can sing a note, but their beats are what shoots them up the charts every time they release a song. They have no talent vocally. When you listen to a song by the Black Eyed Peas, you’re not listening to Will.I.Am and co.; you’re listening to a computer. 100% auto tune.

When the level of technology was of poorer quality, people actually had to be able to sing in order to sell their music. There was no safety net of relying on auto tune like there is today… well there was auto tune but it was not as advanced and not used as often. If you Youtube search “[insert modern song] without auto tune” you will be shocked and quite frankly appalled. Many artists are brilliant singers. Justin Bieber can sing live (although many people deny this). Rihanna can sing live (again- denied frequently). Beyonce can sing live. Like it or not folks, they can sing live and most music they release sounds natural and untouched by auto tune.

Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears can’t sing live. But notice how most of all of their music contains a… robotic element? It’s like when you see a pretty girl and you can’t tell if she’s wearing makeup, because it’s so subtle and effective. Then some orange faced girl with bleached hair walks in and it is obvious she feels she needs the help. It’s the same with music! You can always tell who will be a good live singer from the amount of electronically generated effects in their songs. Sometimes, people feel that more credit should be given to people who produce and edit songs, as they basically do all of the work. Those instrumental parts of a song (e.g. the part in Talk Dirty by Jason Derulo) were not created by the artist, and therefore credit should be given to those who actually make that music, especially if those parts are what make the whole song effective (e.g. the whispery bit in Problem by Ariana Grande).

That’s what you’ve got to admire about Justin Bieber. Yes, we know he’s a very controversial character, but Bieber is always releasing acoustic versions of his songs and sings well live. Has anyone heard the Black Eyed Peas’ acoustic version of “I gotta feeling”? Didn’t think so.

The people who rave on and say “Let’s go back to the 80’s when music was good” probably just don’t like the whole obvious auto tune thing and therefore dismiss the entire music era, which is unconditionally wrong. Although many songs in today’s “top 40” make us feel as though we might as well listen to a computer sing, many amazing and natural songs exist that have been produced recently.

People with more money than sense (Black Eyed Peas) who make all this silly electronic dancey music negatively dilute the actual talent that exists today- and it is very frustrating!

 

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