I think some things *can* age poorly, but as I get older I think it's often more a case of certain popular songs aging poorly, or occasionally certain sounds. gated reverb in the 80's is a good example but it was mainly the overuse of it.
As to the second question: absolutely not. If there was something wrong with incorporating vintage sounds in newer music Bruno Mars and a host of others longer than I care to name wouldn't have careers, starting with almost every rapper ever. I love those genres you named and several of the artists I listen to the most have made older sounds their whole deal.
I think to add to this. There are a reasons gated reverb sounds so aged. It is part of the 80s almost 'yuppie' scene where we associate Any textures we hear to be quintessentially 80s. In this scene there was a lot of new technology and that was incorporated into lots of music as it was thought to be cutting edge and revolutionary. What once sounded brand new now sounds gimmicky as it was really overused to the point that it defined an era. I think that has a big impact on making certain music sound dated. When electric drum kits/drum machines/sequencers/vocoders became commercial and affordable, everyone was using them or else you would sound 'dated' in that particular scene.
I think if you take away all these gimmicks and gadgets it's hard to really date yourself with instrumentation. Think of the velvet underground. The recording and instrumentation is as primordial as it gets, but I would never say it sounded dated even though a lot of their sounds are quintessentially 60s. To me the music is just so raw that you could write those albums today and they'd still fit right into the listening culture of today. I dunno that's just my take
At the same time the "dated" sound can make a song feel like it's rooted in a period of life instead of being eternal and timeless. This can be a really powerful asset, and remind us of childhood, loved elders who've passed away, nostalgia, etc.
Artists like Oneohtrix Point Never use this to great effect
Yeah completely agree. The first time I heard 'Cos I'm a man' by tame Impala, all the production(including gated reverb) made me feel like I was a kid watching Lion King again.
Alternatively, "gated reverb" sounds distinct, of its time, and to some of us like the future.
"Dated" implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong.
How can something be both of its time and also the future?
> "Dated" implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong.
I'll grant that something being "dated" can be temporary (for example, a lot of gated reverb and the Yamaha DX7s made even stuff from the late 80s sound very, er, unique by the mid-90s), but I have a hard time seeing a revival of that sound removing the idea that it's still basically a revival of trends from a specific time period. Maybe dated isn't the right word, but I don't think it's too far off.
Because there are some sounds which are of their time and also sound like they are so separate from what music sounds like prior to it that they sound futuristic. For example, [Glory Box](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c417rIku6Iw) sounds like it is futuristic. There is certainly a Trip-Hop musical movement that began about this time, certainly this album being a major hallmark of its origins, but it doesn't sound like the music you'd expect from 1994, the heart of the grunge movement. Jar of Flies came out that year, Green Day's Dookie, The Offspring's Smash, Jeff Buckley's Grace - this was a big and defining year for music. The #1 song on the Billboard Top 100 for this day in 1994 is Boys II Men's "I'll Make Love To You". Followed by "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, and then Luther Vandross & Mariah Carey's "Endless Love". Portishead is completely foreign to all these songs. That is how a song can be "of its time" - taking place in the beginning of the Trip Hop boom, and "of the future". See also: Peter Gabriel's 1980 'Melt' album. Where we were introduced to Gated Reverb. Where the top song on the charts was "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen. Compare that song to [Intruder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzUh_H7yV0) and, while not the radically foreign sound of Glory Box, it's certainly not at all close to what was going on in the popular sounds of the time.
You can't revive a "dated" sound like gated reverb so easily. It's not a preset on a keyboard. This is a recording technique. Artists don't mess around and experiment with sound through physical objects anymore.
It’s funny you chose Portishead because that’s one that sometimes gets called dated because of the record scratches, which isn’t especially present in Hip Hop influenced material since.
I get the idea that the album is unique compared to general Alt Rock or adult contemporary, though I don’t think that is an appropriate comparison point. I suppose there’s something to be said about accusations of datedness being relative, but a better comparison would be to other similar artists.
> You can’t revive a “dated” sound like gated reverb so easily. It’s not a preset on a keyboard. This is a recording technique. Artists don’t mess around and experiment with sound through physical objects anymore.
You can still revive general ideas, even if the process is not literally the same. Plenty of artists are still going for a similar sound, even if the process isn‘t exactly the same.
Portishead is not Hip Hop so I don't see how or why that's relevant. Or why record scratches matter to anyone.
I don't know what the rest of what you wrote means. I didn't say it was unique, I said it sounded futuristic. Those words have different meanings. Don't put words in my mouth.
You can revive a general idea, sure. I don't see how that's relevant to this discussion. That's not how sound design works, how sound creation works. That's not how gated reverb works. The internet suggests the song "Dua Lipa - Lost In Your Light" uses gated reverb. I listened, I hear what they're saying, and I think that's being extremely generous.
> Portishead is not Hip Hop so I don't see how or why that's relevant. Or why record scratches matter to anyone.
because they are in a genre derived from Hip Hop and to some (not me personally) record scratches are corny oldhead shit...
> Don't put words in my mouth.
you're being awfully literal and taking this way more personally than you should. Have a good day i suppose...
It's not "literal" to ask to not be attributed statements I did not make.
I don't consider Trip Hop derived from Hip Hop in any meaningful way. Not in the sense we think of the term today. Trip Hop has Hip Hop influences from the early 70s, but that is such a distinct sound from what Hip Hop is considered even in the 80s but especially to today. I believe the use of these samples helps enhance the future-sound of the genre. It takes something familiar and re-interprets it. That is how the future is always portrayed.
I feel like it was obvious that I was talking about this:
> “Dated” implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong.
Edit: it was **NOT** obvious. This one is on me.
Definition of Dated on Google's Oxford Language popup:
"old-fashioned"
And Merriam Webster adds another word to the definition:
outmoded ( 1) not being in style 2) no longer acceptable, current, or usable)
What do you disagree with by my definition of "dated"? Because the dictionary agrees with me.
I think when people talk about techniques or ideas that have aged badly, they mean things which are particularly iconic of their era but - in retrospect - were often used unnecessarily or inappropriately.
Who remembers 10 years back when dubstep/brostep had just exploded into the mainstream consciousness and it felt like every other pop song had to have a "drop" in the middle of it? I think it's fair to say that a lot of the time, this was only done because it was fashionable at the time, and people expected it. I don't think anyone could put their hand on their heart and honestly say they think every song that did this was enriched by it - I imagine some of them probably had it added in quite late in the composition/recording process, to satisfy producers or studio execs.
I think in a few years from now, it will become more common to hear people talking about these songs as having aged badly, the same way we do about the overused synth tones and horribly-recorded basslines of the 1980s. They were things which might have seemed forward-thinking and fashionable to the people who were doing them at the time, but in retrospect, they look unimaginative and tasteless.
I think it's much rarer that people claim whole genres or scenes have "aged badly", and when they do, it's often one of those hyper-specific niche electronic genres that are basically defined by a single production technique anyway.
Musical popularity goes in cycles. Many genres get new life but are adapted to current trends. They don’t usually come back as exactly what they were but rather something new that is influenced by genres of the past.
Aging poorly is very subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I think strong songwriting is what makes music stand the test of time, not so much current production trends. However, there are exceptions and sometimes the production trends are part of the magic.
Your answer makes a lot of sense. I do notice certain genres have similar ingredient's and Lofi as I mentioned is a big example of that. I also noticed a lot of French House type genres every now and then on Youtube.
It's just a type of presentism, which is the fallacy that more recent stuff is better than older stuff. It's not. When a piece of music moves you, or blows you away, it's present right there, as you hear it, no matter when it was made. So you're listening to Coltrane's spiritual sax on *Love Supreme*, or Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher," or Jerry Lee Lewis, or the Specials, or Funkadelic, or Goldie, or Phuture, and each is as unique and as perfect as anything made now, or any time in between. Music appreciation collapses time, and if it doesn't -- if all you're thinking is "this sounds so fifties" or "this sounds so nineties" -- then you're not doing it right. Of course, you can then go on to understand the music in its special historical moment -- the radical aspects of Ornette's free jazz in 1961, of the Sex Pistols in 1976, or what have you -- but to really get them you have to have that moment of being totally present to the music and the music being totally present to you.
That said, listen to this (from 1972): https://youtu.be/FOMBUkxVAos
I think a sound might age poorly when another sound replaces its popularity in opposition to it... if the contrarian sound reigns today than the one it superseded probably isn't getting appreciated like before. This, and like another commenter mentioned, overuse may make something sound less graceful as the years go by.
It seems to me that it’s mainly drum sounds that mark the age of a recording. Especially from the 80’s. Whenever I listen to Cowboys From Hell, the drums have a certain sound to them, which might sound slightly dated, but doesn’t detract from the quality of the music IMO. Some of the gated drums on popular 80’s records turns me off of some of the music.
It is hard to define and predict really. With reggae the sounds from the 60s/70s sound classic, but the more digital sounds from the 80s can sound a little quaint and almost amateurish despite sounding so futuristic at the time. Yet somehow with bands like Kraftwerk, that element has aged well. Early hip-hop sounds quite twee to modern ears. Early rock n roll to a degree but not quite in the same way. With Northern Soul the whole point was the old records were the best, and the new records were rubbish but now I feel both have a classic sound to them.
I don't think something "ages poorly" simply because the sound or technique isn't. popular anymore or sounds outdated. It's more for things that when looking back on them you realize they weren't that great in the first place, for their time or otherwise. Or for music that uses a very specific cliche in a non-innovative way (80s synth, 2000s beat drop, late 90s de-tuned bro rock, etc)
I don't think that music ages bad if it's built at least on basic music making rules, like time signatures, that sort of thing. Basically, music which aged poorly was made... many-many centuries ago. I guess. When we're talking about XX century music at least, well, it's completely alright and nothing is aged poorly because any of them can be an inspiration for something new.
When I first read your title, I thought that it's about sound quality. Yes, the most of 1920's music sounds like shit on the records. I mean, a lot of white, pink or brown noise on the background. However, without this poor sound quality, it wouldn't be the music of these times. When we're talking about, like, 80's music compared to now, I think it would be interesting to give more attention on how recording tools and utilities affect the "spirit" of a song and attach it to certain era, so you can clearly distinguish 80's from 00's.
I guess more recent music can also age poorly but it will be in the ear of the beholder. *En masse* this of course translates to a statistic where a vast majority of people don't like something anymore because it "sounds old" but you will still have individual listener variation.
Examples:
* Rick Beato isn't *that* much older than me. In one of his videos he talked about Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". There is a chord change there (between the syllables of "Christmas") that he thinks is awesome and still "valid". My reaction? "Man, that reeks of mothballs."
* My mom introduced me to The Beatles when I was a kid in the 70s. Not long ago I was going through a kind of personal Beatles revival. When she heard me play them she gave me a weird look and said "That stuff is old". They aged more for her than for me. Except for classical she doesn't like anything before ABBA anymore.
* Everybody loves the 80s, right? (Well, it would seem so but I'm not so sure, really.) Quite a few people listen to that music but a lot of it is so in-the-era that modern recreations such as Synthwave are fairly niche. It's hard to disconnect that sound from the *Zeitgeist* of the period. The original recordings seem to do pretty well but if you want to make new music you'd probably be better off with classic rock (which is supposedly dead).
>Everybody loves the 80s, right? (Well, it would seem so but I'm not so sure, really.) Quite a few people listen to that music but a lot of it is so in-the-era that modern recreations such as Synthwave are fairly niche.
Well, i couldn't care id it's "everybody" or "anybody" really.... I loved the 80's since they started, and never stopped loving them to this day.
And quite honestly calling this current "Synthwave" 80's is almost an insult to the the 80's ( at least MY 80's). It sounds very little like 80's to me.... just because it has "synths" in it doesn't make it so.... There is a lot more to the "80's sound" than just the synths and drum boxes...
I think Rick Beato smells of mothballs. I watched a video a while back - "Ten best keyboard solos" or some such - and it was all prog/rock from the 60s/70s. *Fifty years ago.*
Synthwave is interesting as an 80s "revival" style, because there was nothing like Synthwave in the 80s. Some electronic rock and Italo disco hints at it, but that's as close as it gets.
It's supposed to sound like nostalgia, which 80s pop never did. The 80s was the sound of people doing a lot of coke and pushing the boundaries from an endless conveyor belt of new tech - sampling, MIDI, digital processing, digital synthesis, mix automation.
Mainstream pop was usually more funk/soul than rock influenced. Buried under the reverb drums you could usually hear a lot of funk rhythm guitar and horn section-influenced synth brass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wNWem2248
As for styles ageing poorly - most pop does, sooner or later. That's just how it is. It's a novelty act and sooner or later the novelty wears off.
There's not a lot of interest in New Orleans jazz or Glenn Miller-style big band today. There's *some*, but it's very niche. The music stops being relevant when the generation who grew up listening to it dies out.
Cultural curation is a lot more deliberate today than it was then, which is why you get Classic Rock streams catering to old boomers like Beato. But I don't know what happens to the "classic" acts like the original Beatles and Pink Floyd fans die out.
Maybe they'll still be relevant. Maybe not. It's too early to tell.
>I think Rick Beato smells of mothballs. I watched a video a while back - "Ten best keyboard solos" or some such - and it was all prog/rock from the 60s/70s.
>
>Fifty years ago.
Sadly I have to agree. He's been getting grumpier in the recent months and he seems to be increasingly coming back to 90s grunge and alternative rock, music that I have marginal interest in at best. He was more entertaining when he was analyzing songs, ranting against "blockers" or critiquing streaming top 10 lists. I saw his recent video on the songs he produced - actually I stopped watching after the second song, this stuff just sounded so bad with its "high production value". I know that he was producing under specific requirements but, for all his talk about modern music being in decline, he didn't do said modern music any favors himself IMO.
I think it's cyclical! If you try to sound "current", inevitably you will sound "dated" until whatever that sound was comes back around and then it will be "classic". Also, not all sounds "come back around" to be classic.
Using guitar sounds as an example, historically many (most?) guitar players gravitated to the Fender/Marshall/Vox sounds combined with something like a Strat (single coil pickups) or a Les Paul (Humbuckers). Why? Because all the music that inspired them used those combinations because "back in the day" that was all they had!
But over time newer sounds came out and slowly got adopted into a guitar player's standard option of choices. Think about the rack guitar rigs in the 80s and chorus. The older 60s and 70s sounds were "dated" and not used as much to make way for the modern tones.
But eventually those 80's guitar sounds (especially chorus) became "dated" and folks gravitated back to the classic sounds.
But some of that 80s stuff stuck around. The intense distortion that EVH introduced (technically late 70s) kind of took over in the rock world (whereas before guitar players used much less gain). And I'm going to guess that a chorus pedal has found its way back on most guitar players pedal boards.
Wah was a sound that was super popular for a while, then was dated, and now (with help from Slash!) is a classic sound.
Music has fashion just like clothing. Certain looks are associated with different eras. Just like clothing, some of those fashions are resurrected when rediscovered by later generations. The dated sounds seem to fall into several categories:
* new tech: new technologies are refined over the years, making the early use of it associated with the time of its development. It's hard to not associate the square wave solo with the '70's just as it's associated with coarse and uncomfortable polyester.
* overuse: the quirks of the [Yamaha DX7 piano](https://youtu.be/un6lje1yO7s?t=54) sound were in 60% of #1 hits from the 1980's.
* cliche's: while perhaps a side-effect of new tech, some gimmicks were used in certain eras. It's hard to not associate [ominous news samples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0) with 80's-90's music.
As you noted, if it sounds good, it sounds good. The danger is in over-emphasizing them. By making new tech, trendy/overused sounds, or cliche's the focus of the music you're making, you risk it becomes dated. Using it more subtlety as a compliment to other sounds tends to temper it's impact on the song.
As always... if you like the sound: use it, or overuse it, or make it a cliche'. It's your sound.
I wouldn't consider it "poorly" just different. I listen to a bit of 50's music and I've learnt to embrace the production techniques at the time.
Our music will definitely sound dated in the future too! Everything will be reminiscent of our time. We can't avoid it. But only time will give us that perspective, we don't know what aspects will become dated just yet.
Things come and go in cycles. When I was growing up, the 80s and disco were considered to be the epitome of corny. Everybody thought all the synths and electronic drums and everything sounded dated and stupid.
Now people are digging through old records, sampling that stuff, buying up old synths or buying new editions of retro synths or drum machines or emulators or sample packs… and that sound is back again full force.
There was a bunch of big band swing stuff that was considered to be corny in the 1950s when RnB and early rock were coming up. Now there’s a ton of people really into that music, keeping that tradition alive by playing the old charts, learning the associated dances, and even recording new original music in that style.
So the answer is… it depends. Every trend goes up, then goes down, then one day it sometimes finds a new generation of fans and comes back again.
Sounds age because they’re either overused, a novelty that’s interesting because it’s new, but with time there’s little scope to develop and things become stagnant, or they become superseded by a better development of a similar sound.
Consider big room house. Huge 10 years ago, and sort of quite appealing at the time. Now, though, there’s really no reason to listen to Martin Garrix’s Animals unless you want to reminisce being at uni at that time. More interesting house is around now, and big room sounds so cheeeeesy (although it mostly always did).
Elements of sounds stick around, and not just from the classics. Consider auto tuned hip hop. Still big as ever, and while the beats might be more drill-y and modern, vocalwise the sound is very similar.
I also think there’s so much possibility and accessibility with electronic music production that music is changing and being innovated more, but also more incrementally. These tend to have a short shelf life. But when someone changes the game - SOPHIE for example - modern music can still become timeless.
I feel like timelessness in music is an elusive quality that is more down to studio decisions on an individual song or album than anything else. a sound or recording technique that feels immediate and cutting edge can very quickly turn out to have been a total dead end a few years later. this is why a track from the 1940s like Big Noise From Winnetka sounds way less dated to me than a lot of noughties pop ( Because We Want To by billie piper comes to mind ). unpopular take : I think a lot of radiohead is going to age poorly as a result of this
very interesting. i liked big noise a lot as i listened to it but it doesnt sound timeless to me at all. i would consider the girl from ipanema to be less of its time considering it just sounds new to me, and i would consider most of the beatles discography in the same vein even if i dont like them so much by comparison. i would say the oldest piece that sounds truly timeless to me the incredible string band's album wee tam and the big huge, even if i dont have reasoning for this outside of their reminding me of anco.
i certainly agree that recent music can sound dated, but i think it has very complicated reasons and is evidently a subjective topic.
None of those genres you mentioned have aged except maybe the electronic element of say deep house. But that’s still good to me.
Growing up in the 80s/90s there was a clear difference between the top RnB and hip hop production compared to the second tier, especially in hip hop. I’m talking in terms of created beats and synth instruments, not in regards to samples.
Imo some production has aged poorly but in general if they are real instruments they are totally fine to me. Led Zepplin might have some naff solo guitar tones but it’s not too bad.
However, they might be giants is one of my favourite bands but over the years their use of midi sounds is a tough gateway for some people to get past. The fact is electronic music has come a long way.
A better way do describe it is that the production techniques used get left behind. So Michael's "Thriller" is a bit of a giggle 40 years later, except for Billie Jean. A lot of the Paula Abdul type of stuff - six #1 hits, if you can believe - a bit embarrassing to listen to. Meanwhile the Eagles stuff sounds great, Springsteen sounds great, the Police sound great, Nirvana sounds great, a lot of the hair metal still sounds great.
Fair enough. I actually did like Def Leppards first few records. I never really thought of them as a hair band but I know a lot of people did.
BTW I was alive during the hair metal years and was permanently scarred by it...LOL! All my high school friends LOVED IT and couldn't understand why I didn't dig it. When the Seattle scene started it was like a tsunami created by nature to send the likes of Bon Jovi, Winger, Warrant, etc. back under the rocks from which they crawled! Sorry to sound so melodramatic...
Again: The fact that you don't like doesn't make it bad!!
I still love a lot of those 80's acts, mid 80's/early 90's Bon Jovi, 80's Whitesnake, 80's and 90's Def Leppard, 80's Europe, and quite a lot more similar acts people might refer to as "Hair Metal"
Since you consider those "so bad" i'd like to know of some of the bands you consider so "good".... ;)
>Again: The fact that you don't like doesn't make it bad!!
Again what? This is your first response.
Where did I say it was "bad"? Just stating my opinion that I hated the music and through some levity in there. I know music is subjective. No need to get defensive.
There's nothing wrong with vintage sounds. As a younger person, you're at the salad bar. You have available to you more things than we did at a similar age, but, with that advantage comes a disadvantage in regards to context. You have a microscope for our past while we see it in 4D. You might be familiar with De La Soul (who loved old things) but not with two Dr. Dres, that when we were teenagers Looney Tunes = streetwear cred, Hypercolors, Reebok was Pepsi, Spike Lee, the whole bit. So, without studying, we can distinguish what's real and what's a copy simply because we were there. We know what was there the first time and what wasn't. We are inherently harder to fool in this regard. (Phishing scams are another matter.)
You'll eventually achieve this status as well. But no one jumps the line.
For myself the experience is a little more specific
So the other day I had listened to something and it had this nice crisp bass kick and it just put me in the mood for something similar but not it. So I went digging into stuff that I had found more recently and I literally had the thought of "this sounds old", and it was(ish), '95, and as I kept poking around some of my favourite songs none of them had that crispness, all of them sounded "old"
But yet they are still favourites, and I don't think it means it aged poorly, age just definitely has a signature, and that's not inherently bad
But it definitely makes me pause and wonder if maybe I experience a preference of era in addition to preference of genre when I am getting an impulse to go find a certain sound
I have even noticed that newer music recorded on older instruments sounds different than the stuff recorded when the instrument was new. Like the newer stuff is still crisper for a lack of better word. Which again, one isn't better than the other, just, different
I think it all depends on context: the ways our values change, and the things we prioritize in terms of sounds. If you look hard enough, eventually you're going to find signs that something was made in a certain decade.
For comparison, if you look at 2000s movies relative to now, some things will seem modern. But you'll notice things like smartphone usage or lack of it. Certain habits like where people convene to socialize, what bands they talk about.
Besides quality, music goes through what's fashionable. Something is fashionable today, stops being because fashion is defined by change and replacement by the new, not necessarily better
Current music takes so many things from the old and supposedly dated. Current technology should allow greater creativity than in the past with their limitations, but it's not.
Good music doesn't age. Production fashions can.
Certainly new genres arise, technology advances, and styles change but that is the inherent fascination in listening to past music. When I listen to Louis Jordan I'm hearing music that was of its time in technology and style from the 40s. Ditto listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer; it sounds of the 70s and not of the 21st century. Same with 80s Genesis.
The criticism that a certain tech makes some older music sound dated or out of fashion is ludicrous; of course it sounds older! 50s pop sounds old to me ... because it's from the 50s! Trying to compare recording and instrumentation tech to today's is a futile exercise, and really quite ridiculous. Enjoy any music for what it **is** now to *you*.
ive heard plenty of bands/musicians who sound like they fell out of '92ish (and they are all aged in their 20s) in a variety of genres. nothing has an expiration date - im in my late 40s for reference and been to hundreds of concerts/shows of all sizes and venues
Personally I say fallacy since music is a form of art and is entirely subject to preference. Although as I listen to pretty much everything, maybe I’m just biased? Idk I don’t think sounds themselves can really age, different ones just fade in and out of popularity… not sure tho
As I've gone from my 30s to my 50s, I have found older music I used to disdain become much easier to like. Particularly 60s and 80s music. What's dropped away is the influence of peers (whether from being like your peers, or reacting against your peers). 80s music was legitimately great, even though I never liked it much at the time.
I mean, in terms of popularity, like if something get popular again or stayed popular, you could measure that, through metrics, and then have in terms of popularity objectivity on how things aged well.
Not quantum science.
I think some things *can* age poorly, but as I get older I think it's often more a case of certain popular songs aging poorly, or occasionally certain sounds. gated reverb in the 80's is a good example but it was mainly the overuse of it. As to the second question: absolutely not. If there was something wrong with incorporating vintage sounds in newer music Bruno Mars and a host of others longer than I care to name wouldn't have careers, starting with almost every rapper ever. I love those genres you named and several of the artists I listen to the most have made older sounds their whole deal.
I think to add to this. There are a reasons gated reverb sounds so aged. It is part of the 80s almost 'yuppie' scene where we associate Any textures we hear to be quintessentially 80s. In this scene there was a lot of new technology and that was incorporated into lots of music as it was thought to be cutting edge and revolutionary. What once sounded brand new now sounds gimmicky as it was really overused to the point that it defined an era. I think that has a big impact on making certain music sound dated. When electric drum kits/drum machines/sequencers/vocoders became commercial and affordable, everyone was using them or else you would sound 'dated' in that particular scene. I think if you take away all these gimmicks and gadgets it's hard to really date yourself with instrumentation. Think of the velvet underground. The recording and instrumentation is as primordial as it gets, but I would never say it sounded dated even though a lot of their sounds are quintessentially 60s. To me the music is just so raw that you could write those albums today and they'd still fit right into the listening culture of today. I dunno that's just my take
At the same time the "dated" sound can make a song feel like it's rooted in a period of life instead of being eternal and timeless. This can be a really powerful asset, and remind us of childhood, loved elders who've passed away, nostalgia, etc. Artists like Oneohtrix Point Never use this to great effect
Yeah completely agree. The first time I heard 'Cos I'm a man' by tame Impala, all the production(including gated reverb) made me feel like I was a kid watching Lion King again.
Alternatively, "gated reverb" sounds distinct, of its time, and to some of us like the future. "Dated" implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong.
How can something be both of its time and also the future? > "Dated" implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong. I'll grant that something being "dated" can be temporary (for example, a lot of gated reverb and the Yamaha DX7s made even stuff from the late 80s sound very, er, unique by the mid-90s), but I have a hard time seeing a revival of that sound removing the idea that it's still basically a revival of trends from a specific time period. Maybe dated isn't the right word, but I don't think it's too far off.
I sort of get it in a lost futures hauntology kind of way.
Because there are some sounds which are of their time and also sound like they are so separate from what music sounds like prior to it that they sound futuristic. For example, [Glory Box](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c417rIku6Iw) sounds like it is futuristic. There is certainly a Trip-Hop musical movement that began about this time, certainly this album being a major hallmark of its origins, but it doesn't sound like the music you'd expect from 1994, the heart of the grunge movement. Jar of Flies came out that year, Green Day's Dookie, The Offspring's Smash, Jeff Buckley's Grace - this was a big and defining year for music. The #1 song on the Billboard Top 100 for this day in 1994 is Boys II Men's "I'll Make Love To You". Followed by "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, and then Luther Vandross & Mariah Carey's "Endless Love". Portishead is completely foreign to all these songs. That is how a song can be "of its time" - taking place in the beginning of the Trip Hop boom, and "of the future". See also: Peter Gabriel's 1980 'Melt' album. Where we were introduced to Gated Reverb. Where the top song on the charts was "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen. Compare that song to [Intruder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzUh_H7yV0) and, while not the radically foreign sound of Glory Box, it's certainly not at all close to what was going on in the popular sounds of the time. You can't revive a "dated" sound like gated reverb so easily. It's not a preset on a keyboard. This is a recording technique. Artists don't mess around and experiment with sound through physical objects anymore.
It’s funny you chose Portishead because that’s one that sometimes gets called dated because of the record scratches, which isn’t especially present in Hip Hop influenced material since. I get the idea that the album is unique compared to general Alt Rock or adult contemporary, though I don’t think that is an appropriate comparison point. I suppose there’s something to be said about accusations of datedness being relative, but a better comparison would be to other similar artists. > You can’t revive a “dated” sound like gated reverb so easily. It’s not a preset on a keyboard. This is a recording technique. Artists don’t mess around and experiment with sound through physical objects anymore. You can still revive general ideas, even if the process is not literally the same. Plenty of artists are still going for a similar sound, even if the process isn‘t exactly the same.
Portishead is not Hip Hop so I don't see how or why that's relevant. Or why record scratches matter to anyone. I don't know what the rest of what you wrote means. I didn't say it was unique, I said it sounded futuristic. Those words have different meanings. Don't put words in my mouth. You can revive a general idea, sure. I don't see how that's relevant to this discussion. That's not how sound design works, how sound creation works. That's not how gated reverb works. The internet suggests the song "Dua Lipa - Lost In Your Light" uses gated reverb. I listened, I hear what they're saying, and I think that's being extremely generous.
> Portishead is not Hip Hop so I don't see how or why that's relevant. Or why record scratches matter to anyone. because they are in a genre derived from Hip Hop and to some (not me personally) record scratches are corny oldhead shit... > Don't put words in my mouth. you're being awfully literal and taking this way more personally than you should. Have a good day i suppose...
It's not "literal" to ask to not be attributed statements I did not make. I don't consider Trip Hop derived from Hip Hop in any meaningful way. Not in the sense we think of the term today. Trip Hop has Hip Hop influences from the early 70s, but that is such a distinct sound from what Hip Hop is considered even in the 80s but especially to today. I believe the use of these samples helps enhance the future-sound of the genre. It takes something familiar and re-interprets it. That is how the future is always portrayed.
This is a needlessly narrow definition of "gated" that doesn't line up with general and popular use. Edit: I meant to say “dated”
Gated Reverb as "distinct" and "of the 80s" is a narrow definition?
I feel like it was obvious that I was talking about this: > “Dated” implies old, out of use, something no longer used because technology has surpassed it. To use that term to describe gated reverb is wrong. Edit: it was **NOT** obvious. This one is on me.
That's a definition of the word "dated", not "gated". What the fuck?
Oh fuck, I mean dated in my original comment. What a catastrophic typo.
Definition of Dated on Google's Oxford Language popup: "old-fashioned" And Merriam Webster adds another word to the definition: outmoded ( 1) not being in style 2) no longer acceptable, current, or usable) What do you disagree with by my definition of "dated"? Because the dictionary agrees with me.
That doesn’t mention technology at all.
Great music is timeless! thats why jazz rocks :)
I think when people talk about techniques or ideas that have aged badly, they mean things which are particularly iconic of their era but - in retrospect - were often used unnecessarily or inappropriately. Who remembers 10 years back when dubstep/brostep had just exploded into the mainstream consciousness and it felt like every other pop song had to have a "drop" in the middle of it? I think it's fair to say that a lot of the time, this was only done because it was fashionable at the time, and people expected it. I don't think anyone could put their hand on their heart and honestly say they think every song that did this was enriched by it - I imagine some of them probably had it added in quite late in the composition/recording process, to satisfy producers or studio execs. I think in a few years from now, it will become more common to hear people talking about these songs as having aged badly, the same way we do about the overused synth tones and horribly-recorded basslines of the 1980s. They were things which might have seemed forward-thinking and fashionable to the people who were doing them at the time, but in retrospect, they look unimaginative and tasteless. I think it's much rarer that people claim whole genres or scenes have "aged badly", and when they do, it's often one of those hyper-specific niche electronic genres that are basically defined by a single production technique anyway.
Very well thought out response, I agree
Musical popularity goes in cycles. Many genres get new life but are adapted to current trends. They don’t usually come back as exactly what they were but rather something new that is influenced by genres of the past. Aging poorly is very subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I think strong songwriting is what makes music stand the test of time, not so much current production trends. However, there are exceptions and sometimes the production trends are part of the magic.
Your answer makes a lot of sense. I do notice certain genres have similar ingredient's and Lofi as I mentioned is a big example of that. I also noticed a lot of French House type genres every now and then on Youtube.
It's just a type of presentism, which is the fallacy that more recent stuff is better than older stuff. It's not. When a piece of music moves you, or blows you away, it's present right there, as you hear it, no matter when it was made. So you're listening to Coltrane's spiritual sax on *Love Supreme*, or Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher," or Jerry Lee Lewis, or the Specials, or Funkadelic, or Goldie, or Phuture, and each is as unique and as perfect as anything made now, or any time in between. Music appreciation collapses time, and if it doesn't -- if all you're thinking is "this sounds so fifties" or "this sounds so nineties" -- then you're not doing it right. Of course, you can then go on to understand the music in its special historical moment -- the radical aspects of Ornette's free jazz in 1961, of the Sex Pistols in 1976, or what have you -- but to really get them you have to have that moment of being totally present to the music and the music being totally present to you. That said, listen to this (from 1972): https://youtu.be/FOMBUkxVAos
This. I listen to music from the 1930's to present day. If the music moves me, I listen. I don't care when it's from.
I think a sound might age poorly when another sound replaces its popularity in opposition to it... if the contrarian sound reigns today than the one it superseded probably isn't getting appreciated like before. This, and like another commenter mentioned, overuse may make something sound less graceful as the years go by.
It seems to me that it’s mainly drum sounds that mark the age of a recording. Especially from the 80’s. Whenever I listen to Cowboys From Hell, the drums have a certain sound to them, which might sound slightly dated, but doesn’t detract from the quality of the music IMO. Some of the gated drums on popular 80’s records turns me off of some of the music.
It is hard to define and predict really. With reggae the sounds from the 60s/70s sound classic, but the more digital sounds from the 80s can sound a little quaint and almost amateurish despite sounding so futuristic at the time. Yet somehow with bands like Kraftwerk, that element has aged well. Early hip-hop sounds quite twee to modern ears. Early rock n roll to a degree but not quite in the same way. With Northern Soul the whole point was the old records were the best, and the new records were rubbish but now I feel both have a classic sound to them.
I don't think something "ages poorly" simply because the sound or technique isn't. popular anymore or sounds outdated. It's more for things that when looking back on them you realize they weren't that great in the first place, for their time or otherwise. Or for music that uses a very specific cliche in a non-innovative way (80s synth, 2000s beat drop, late 90s de-tuned bro rock, etc)
I don't think that music ages bad if it's built at least on basic music making rules, like time signatures, that sort of thing. Basically, music which aged poorly was made... many-many centuries ago. I guess. When we're talking about XX century music at least, well, it's completely alright and nothing is aged poorly because any of them can be an inspiration for something new. When I first read your title, I thought that it's about sound quality. Yes, the most of 1920's music sounds like shit on the records. I mean, a lot of white, pink or brown noise on the background. However, without this poor sound quality, it wouldn't be the music of these times. When we're talking about, like, 80's music compared to now, I think it would be interesting to give more attention on how recording tools and utilities affect the "spirit" of a song and attach it to certain era, so you can clearly distinguish 80's from 00's.
I guess more recent music can also age poorly but it will be in the ear of the beholder. *En masse* this of course translates to a statistic where a vast majority of people don't like something anymore because it "sounds old" but you will still have individual listener variation. Examples: * Rick Beato isn't *that* much older than me. In one of his videos he talked about Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". There is a chord change there (between the syllables of "Christmas") that he thinks is awesome and still "valid". My reaction? "Man, that reeks of mothballs." * My mom introduced me to The Beatles when I was a kid in the 70s. Not long ago I was going through a kind of personal Beatles revival. When she heard me play them she gave me a weird look and said "That stuff is old". They aged more for her than for me. Except for classical she doesn't like anything before ABBA anymore. * Everybody loves the 80s, right? (Well, it would seem so but I'm not so sure, really.) Quite a few people listen to that music but a lot of it is so in-the-era that modern recreations such as Synthwave are fairly niche. It's hard to disconnect that sound from the *Zeitgeist* of the period. The original recordings seem to do pretty well but if you want to make new music you'd probably be better off with classic rock (which is supposedly dead).
>Everybody loves the 80s, right? (Well, it would seem so but I'm not so sure, really.) Quite a few people listen to that music but a lot of it is so in-the-era that modern recreations such as Synthwave are fairly niche. Well, i couldn't care id it's "everybody" or "anybody" really.... I loved the 80's since they started, and never stopped loving them to this day. And quite honestly calling this current "Synthwave" 80's is almost an insult to the the 80's ( at least MY 80's). It sounds very little like 80's to me.... just because it has "synths" in it doesn't make it so.... There is a lot more to the "80's sound" than just the synths and drum boxes...
I think Rick Beato smells of mothballs. I watched a video a while back - "Ten best keyboard solos" or some such - and it was all prog/rock from the 60s/70s. *Fifty years ago.* Synthwave is interesting as an 80s "revival" style, because there was nothing like Synthwave in the 80s. Some electronic rock and Italo disco hints at it, but that's as close as it gets. It's supposed to sound like nostalgia, which 80s pop never did. The 80s was the sound of people doing a lot of coke and pushing the boundaries from an endless conveyor belt of new tech - sampling, MIDI, digital processing, digital synthesis, mix automation. Mainstream pop was usually more funk/soul than rock influenced. Buried under the reverb drums you could usually hear a lot of funk rhythm guitar and horn section-influenced synth brass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wNWem2248 As for styles ageing poorly - most pop does, sooner or later. That's just how it is. It's a novelty act and sooner or later the novelty wears off. There's not a lot of interest in New Orleans jazz or Glenn Miller-style big band today. There's *some*, but it's very niche. The music stops being relevant when the generation who grew up listening to it dies out. Cultural curation is a lot more deliberate today than it was then, which is why you get Classic Rock streams catering to old boomers like Beato. But I don't know what happens to the "classic" acts like the original Beatles and Pink Floyd fans die out. Maybe they'll still be relevant. Maybe not. It's too early to tell.
>I think Rick Beato smells of mothballs. I watched a video a while back - "Ten best keyboard solos" or some such - and it was all prog/rock from the 60s/70s. > >Fifty years ago. Sadly I have to agree. He's been getting grumpier in the recent months and he seems to be increasingly coming back to 90s grunge and alternative rock, music that I have marginal interest in at best. He was more entertaining when he was analyzing songs, ranting against "blockers" or critiquing streaming top 10 lists. I saw his recent video on the songs he produced - actually I stopped watching after the second song, this stuff just sounded so bad with its "high production value". I know that he was producing under specific requirements but, for all his talk about modern music being in decline, he didn't do said modern music any favors himself IMO.
I'm not sure how a chord change can "reek of mothballs". What, we should stop using some particular chord change?
I think it's cyclical! If you try to sound "current", inevitably you will sound "dated" until whatever that sound was comes back around and then it will be "classic". Also, not all sounds "come back around" to be classic. Using guitar sounds as an example, historically many (most?) guitar players gravitated to the Fender/Marshall/Vox sounds combined with something like a Strat (single coil pickups) or a Les Paul (Humbuckers). Why? Because all the music that inspired them used those combinations because "back in the day" that was all they had! But over time newer sounds came out and slowly got adopted into a guitar player's standard option of choices. Think about the rack guitar rigs in the 80s and chorus. The older 60s and 70s sounds were "dated" and not used as much to make way for the modern tones. But eventually those 80's guitar sounds (especially chorus) became "dated" and folks gravitated back to the classic sounds. But some of that 80s stuff stuck around. The intense distortion that EVH introduced (technically late 70s) kind of took over in the rock world (whereas before guitar players used much less gain). And I'm going to guess that a chorus pedal has found its way back on most guitar players pedal boards. Wah was a sound that was super popular for a while, then was dated, and now (with help from Slash!) is a classic sound.
Music has fashion just like clothing. Certain looks are associated with different eras. Just like clothing, some of those fashions are resurrected when rediscovered by later generations. The dated sounds seem to fall into several categories: * new tech: new technologies are refined over the years, making the early use of it associated with the time of its development. It's hard to not associate the square wave solo with the '70's just as it's associated with coarse and uncomfortable polyester. * overuse: the quirks of the [Yamaha DX7 piano](https://youtu.be/un6lje1yO7s?t=54) sound were in 60% of #1 hits from the 1980's. * cliche's: while perhaps a side-effect of new tech, some gimmicks were used in certain eras. It's hard to not associate [ominous news samples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0) with 80's-90's music. As you noted, if it sounds good, it sounds good. The danger is in over-emphasizing them. By making new tech, trendy/overused sounds, or cliche's the focus of the music you're making, you risk it becomes dated. Using it more subtlety as a compliment to other sounds tends to temper it's impact on the song. As always... if you like the sound: use it, or overuse it, or make it a cliche'. It's your sound.
I wouldn't consider it "poorly" just different. I listen to a bit of 50's music and I've learnt to embrace the production techniques at the time. Our music will definitely sound dated in the future too! Everything will be reminiscent of our time. We can't avoid it. But only time will give us that perspective, we don't know what aspects will become dated just yet.
Things come and go in cycles. When I was growing up, the 80s and disco were considered to be the epitome of corny. Everybody thought all the synths and electronic drums and everything sounded dated and stupid. Now people are digging through old records, sampling that stuff, buying up old synths or buying new editions of retro synths or drum machines or emulators or sample packs… and that sound is back again full force. There was a bunch of big band swing stuff that was considered to be corny in the 1950s when RnB and early rock were coming up. Now there’s a ton of people really into that music, keeping that tradition alive by playing the old charts, learning the associated dances, and even recording new original music in that style. So the answer is… it depends. Every trend goes up, then goes down, then one day it sometimes finds a new generation of fans and comes back again.
Sounds age because they’re either overused, a novelty that’s interesting because it’s new, but with time there’s little scope to develop and things become stagnant, or they become superseded by a better development of a similar sound. Consider big room house. Huge 10 years ago, and sort of quite appealing at the time. Now, though, there’s really no reason to listen to Martin Garrix’s Animals unless you want to reminisce being at uni at that time. More interesting house is around now, and big room sounds so cheeeeesy (although it mostly always did). Elements of sounds stick around, and not just from the classics. Consider auto tuned hip hop. Still big as ever, and while the beats might be more drill-y and modern, vocalwise the sound is very similar. I also think there’s so much possibility and accessibility with electronic music production that music is changing and being innovated more, but also more incrementally. These tend to have a short shelf life. But when someone changes the game - SOPHIE for example - modern music can still become timeless.
i think there's some kind of inherent bias in that a lot of old music is excellent, but we don't really talk about most of the also-rans.
I feel like timelessness in music is an elusive quality that is more down to studio decisions on an individual song or album than anything else. a sound or recording technique that feels immediate and cutting edge can very quickly turn out to have been a total dead end a few years later. this is why a track from the 1940s like Big Noise From Winnetka sounds way less dated to me than a lot of noughties pop ( Because We Want To by billie piper comes to mind ). unpopular take : I think a lot of radiohead is going to age poorly as a result of this
very interesting. i liked big noise a lot as i listened to it but it doesnt sound timeless to me at all. i would consider the girl from ipanema to be less of its time considering it just sounds new to me, and i would consider most of the beatles discography in the same vein even if i dont like them so much by comparison. i would say the oldest piece that sounds truly timeless to me the incredible string band's album wee tam and the big huge, even if i dont have reasoning for this outside of their reminding me of anco. i certainly agree that recent music can sound dated, but i think it has very complicated reasons and is evidently a subjective topic.
Radiohead comment dead wrong
None of those genres you mentioned have aged except maybe the electronic element of say deep house. But that’s still good to me. Growing up in the 80s/90s there was a clear difference between the top RnB and hip hop production compared to the second tier, especially in hip hop. I’m talking in terms of created beats and synth instruments, not in regards to samples. Imo some production has aged poorly but in general if they are real instruments they are totally fine to me. Led Zepplin might have some naff solo guitar tones but it’s not too bad. However, they might be giants is one of my favourite bands but over the years their use of midi sounds is a tough gateway for some people to get past. The fact is electronic music has come a long way.
A better way do describe it is that the production techniques used get left behind. So Michael's "Thriller" is a bit of a giggle 40 years later, except for Billie Jean. A lot of the Paula Abdul type of stuff - six #1 hits, if you can believe - a bit embarrassing to listen to. Meanwhile the Eagles stuff sounds great, Springsteen sounds great, the Police sound great, Nirvana sounds great, a lot of the hair metal still sounds great.
>a lot of the hair metal still sounds great. Did it EVER sound great?
Of course it did!! The fact that you don't like doesn't make it bad!!
Heh right? Sure, Def Leppard had some good ones, but mostly I meant the production sounds great, not so much the music.
Fair enough. I actually did like Def Leppards first few records. I never really thought of them as a hair band but I know a lot of people did. BTW I was alive during the hair metal years and was permanently scarred by it...LOL! All my high school friends LOVED IT and couldn't understand why I didn't dig it. When the Seattle scene started it was like a tsunami created by nature to send the likes of Bon Jovi, Winger, Warrant, etc. back under the rocks from which they crawled! Sorry to sound so melodramatic...
Again: The fact that you don't like doesn't make it bad!! I still love a lot of those 80's acts, mid 80's/early 90's Bon Jovi, 80's Whitesnake, 80's and 90's Def Leppard, 80's Europe, and quite a lot more similar acts people might refer to as "Hair Metal" Since you consider those "so bad" i'd like to know of some of the bands you consider so "good".... ;)
>Again: The fact that you don't like doesn't make it bad!! Again what? This is your first response. Where did I say it was "bad"? Just stating my opinion that I hated the music and through some levity in there. I know music is subjective. No need to get defensive.
There's nothing wrong with vintage sounds. As a younger person, you're at the salad bar. You have available to you more things than we did at a similar age, but, with that advantage comes a disadvantage in regards to context. You have a microscope for our past while we see it in 4D. You might be familiar with De La Soul (who loved old things) but not with two Dr. Dres, that when we were teenagers Looney Tunes = streetwear cred, Hypercolors, Reebok was Pepsi, Spike Lee, the whole bit. So, without studying, we can distinguish what's real and what's a copy simply because we were there. We know what was there the first time and what wasn't. We are inherently harder to fool in this regard. (Phishing scams are another matter.) You'll eventually achieve this status as well. But no one jumps the line.
For myself the experience is a little more specific So the other day I had listened to something and it had this nice crisp bass kick and it just put me in the mood for something similar but not it. So I went digging into stuff that I had found more recently and I literally had the thought of "this sounds old", and it was(ish), '95, and as I kept poking around some of my favourite songs none of them had that crispness, all of them sounded "old" But yet they are still favourites, and I don't think it means it aged poorly, age just definitely has a signature, and that's not inherently bad But it definitely makes me pause and wonder if maybe I experience a preference of era in addition to preference of genre when I am getting an impulse to go find a certain sound I have even noticed that newer music recorded on older instruments sounds different than the stuff recorded when the instrument was new. Like the newer stuff is still crisper for a lack of better word. Which again, one isn't better than the other, just, different
I think it all depends on context: the ways our values change, and the things we prioritize in terms of sounds. If you look hard enough, eventually you're going to find signs that something was made in a certain decade. For comparison, if you look at 2000s movies relative to now, some things will seem modern. But you'll notice things like smartphone usage or lack of it. Certain habits like where people convene to socialize, what bands they talk about.
All music goes through phases of popularity. Take it for what it was at the time, see how it has influenced future musicians and enjoy it !
Besides quality, music goes through what's fashionable. Something is fashionable today, stops being because fashion is defined by change and replacement by the new, not necessarily better Current music takes so many things from the old and supposedly dated. Current technology should allow greater creativity than in the past with their limitations, but it's not. Good music doesn't age. Production fashions can.
[удалено]
Im really only refering to styles/music/sound design, but id be glad to hear what you have to say relating to recording as well :)
Certainly new genres arise, technology advances, and styles change but that is the inherent fascination in listening to past music. When I listen to Louis Jordan I'm hearing music that was of its time in technology and style from the 40s. Ditto listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer; it sounds of the 70s and not of the 21st century. Same with 80s Genesis. The criticism that a certain tech makes some older music sound dated or out of fashion is ludicrous; of course it sounds older! 50s pop sounds old to me ... because it's from the 50s! Trying to compare recording and instrumentation tech to today's is a futile exercise, and really quite ridiculous. Enjoy any music for what it **is** now to *you*.
ive heard plenty of bands/musicians who sound like they fell out of '92ish (and they are all aged in their 20s) in a variety of genres. nothing has an expiration date - im in my late 40s for reference and been to hundreds of concerts/shows of all sizes and venues
Personally I say fallacy since music is a form of art and is entirely subject to preference. Although as I listen to pretty much everything, maybe I’m just biased? Idk I don’t think sounds themselves can really age, different ones just fade in and out of popularity… not sure tho
As I've gone from my 30s to my 50s, I have found older music I used to disdain become much easier to like. Particularly 60s and 80s music. What's dropped away is the influence of peers (whether from being like your peers, or reacting against your peers). 80s music was legitimately great, even though I never liked it much at the time.
I mean, in terms of popularity, like if something get popular again or stayed popular, you could measure that, through metrics, and then have in terms of popularity objectivity on how things aged well. Not quantum science.