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is between about 1975-1994.

but delving into older bands back catalogues to hear the influence is really important. I.e- If it hadn't been for The Libertines I might not have heard The Smiths, Bloc Party- Gang Of Four etc. All music follows a lineage.

and even then it's more post-punk that interests me.

Bob Dylan bores the shit out of me, I feel like I've heard everything the Beatles have ever done even without having listened to it, and even the thought of listening Velvet Underground -- as influential as they have been -- can't get me excited enough to actually sit down and listen to them. I would like to be able to say that the one exception is Bowie, but even then I just can't be arsed.

It's partly a matter of changes to production, partly a matter of the force of ingenuity that was unleashed by and in the wake of punk, and partly a matter of the pre-76ers just not seeming very relevant to me. It's partly, too, a matter of having only so much time in my life and so much more to do with that time than just sit around and listen to the complete works of the "legends".

with vocals on one side and drums off to the left. But there was so much good music! Anyway, 70's production was amazing. Have you never heard any Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd?

Most people would agree that music sounds _worse_ from about the mid 90's onwards.

I just can't believe this :( No Velvet Underground? Modern Lovers? NEIL FUCKING YOUNG?!

I think that maybe you don't like old music because the genres that you seem to listen to (based on your profile page) are more modern types.

It's not that I dont appreciate older albums, this is not the case at all. But i'd much rather discover something new.

I'm not convinced it was a particularly strong decade.

in that there is an immediate deluge of stuff available once you discover one track/album/artist that you like. But that's part of the beauty of it too.

"Poorer" production, mastering and sound quality can sometimes add a certain charm to a song and I wouldn't say that much music from the 1950s (that I'm familar with/aware of anyway) really suffers from it anyway.

its the best music out there. Its probably less lyrically relatable in some contexts thou.

Its was largely tracked live with alot less edits and processing which thankfully people are now starting to force them selves to do again instead of multi track individually.

I think you need to find a record with real atmosphere this is normally what missing in modern records.

try
Miles Davis - kind of blue
the first doors record
and some king crimson.

Stupid DiS.

as I've found loads of stuff I really love and enjoy, plus I kind of like the here and now of it all. Like something is going on right now and I can get involved with it by goin to gigs / clubs ect... and even writing about it and helping along artists I'm enjoying right now even a little bit.

There is loads of ace old music mind and I often go back to my old favs like Jimi Hendrix and Herbie Hancock. I just dont find my self inspired to dig really deep right now for all the old things.

I reckon music is more varied now than in the 60s yes as there are probibly hundreds more genres than there was then for a start.

was released before about 1984. So yes, I suppose.

Music captures a moment, both in the life of the writer, but also in the life of the listener. There's always going to be more resonance if the two are happening at the same time.

There's also a lot to be said for feeling like you're the new, the innovative and the undiscovered.

a piece of music is made in, if it hits you on an emotional level then thats all you need. some field recordings made in america in the '30s and '40s sound positively otherworldy...and some jazz records recorded in the '50s and '60s have much more brightness and depth than many albums i've acquired in recent years. to me it sounds exciting if during a lead break in an old west coast garage record all you can hear is some fuzzed up les paul; if you dont listen to anything before 1984 you're cutting yourself off from a great wealth of emotional experience.

when i was a teenager and like, well punk. i've realised now how mistaken i was. most of the music i've bought and listened to this year has been from the first part of the last century and i'm enjoying it a lot.

but I consider the production on early Motown stuff to be unsurpassed, certainly far superior to most modern production. Like on 'Dancing In The Street' the snare is really loud but sounds amazing. 'Tracks of My Tears' particularly just sounds gorgeous, the guitar, the brass in the chorus, everything. It's nearly overwhelming.

but my favourite albums are all from the last ten years, and not through lack of being exposed to older stuff.

or blues coming from that period)...
I hate the naievity within the sound. And oh so boooooring... I actually have to leave a room if I hear it.
Everything else with I can find common ground on.

I would guess I would have exactly 2 that have released albums this decade.

there's a lot more shit music being made nowadays, and that's nothing to do with the production. there was a time when most musicians were actually creative artists and really cared about music and not just doing it for the money and fame. there are so many terrible bands with record deals these days it blows my mind. you just didn't see that kind of thing in the past. besides, i would rather listen to the influential music than the music with influences.

It takes a bit more imagination and effort to appreciate something displaced from yourself either temporally or stylistically. I'm not very good at appreciating Soviet cinema, but then why should I be? since I've not really spent any time or effort watching films, or going to Soviet Russia.

If you spend some time familiarising yourself with some older artists, you'll discover some really, really great stuff, which has obviously informed what followed it. In fact, if you do this enough, you may well begin to find some newer artists unbearably crass and derivative.

But if all you've ever really been exposed to is modern music, you're bound to hear something recorded forty years ago and think "It sounds all weedy!", or something equally cretinous.

percentage of good bands out of "bands that are around" has gone down since music started. You are silly.

It really makes no difference, unless you're an expert producer and really know the stuff you like. Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of us talking about production are fumbling around in a poorly lit room.

Recently I've either been listening to old records I've always known would be up my alley (Bowie, Dylan, Young, Beatles - partly because I've bonded with new friends over them) or going through the back catalogues of bands who're still around and have been for a while (Low, of Montreal and stuff). I'm prejudice towards and suspicious of the idea of listening to a 'NEW BAND' on myspace and through music websites because of the amount of bullshit they spout about stuff that's ultimately sub-standard and short-lived. I think I'm very easily swayed into listening to a band and thinking they're good without much thought. I did that when I was 16 with all of the sub/post-Libertines rubbish that was banging around, and got fed up with the constant sense of disappointment. To be honest, although it's quite lazy, I'd rather look into an album if people on here or other places are still talking about it after a year or two than rush into things so I can show off that I was the first. Still, if something steals my heart I won't be a melancholy lover and try to stop it.

(pretty much most things from pre-mid 90s)
Maybe I don't like it as much, but probably a big part of it is that I like the newness of stuff instead. Getting an album from so long ago, whose time has been and gone, doesn't excite me as much. I just prefer the buzz of something now/new, than something old.
It's kind've like the question- if you had to choose: music that has been created, or future music yet to be made/released. I'd go for the future stuff. Despite having to say goodbye to a lot of good stuff.

'GIANT DOUCHE SYNDROME'

sc-Old for this one!

I loved 60's music until something happened to disengage me, and I only started being interested again in about 1976, however I am massively ignorant about the vast musical heritage upon which much of what I like is built.

When I was listening to The Archie Bronson set and The War on Drugs at Greenman Festival it really felt weird to be carried back in time to that 'lost' period.

I love alternative, experimental, noisy stuff, but not to the exclusion of other genres, and I make a genuine attempt to fill in some of the gaps. It's going to take the rest of my life.

I feel sad for you that you do.

electronically produced music of today maybe has more intricacy and a greater palate than older music, but in terms of actual bands music has never sounded better than the 70s. The vast majority of today's music sounds far far worse than even the grubbiest tinpot 20s blues record ever could, what with digital compression and limiting and digital sheen and unnatural pro tools motherfuckery. I'd find it hard to think of 20 albums from the last decade which sound anywhere near as good as even the most unspectacularly produced record from 1975. Fucking hell, the fact that anyone could think that music today sounds better is ridiculous, and that person should probably stop talking about production full stop.

And to be honest, the actual music from that period is far superior to the vast majority of what's going on now. Of course great stuff is being produced presently, but it's hidden away underneath acres and acres of musical effluence. The range of music which taps into the sub mainstream (where we live) is comically bad - shitty emopostemoposthardcore, shitty indie, shitty folk. In the early 70s you had soul, funk, jazz, pop, rock, metal, prog, experimental all at their absolute apex, all breaking new ground. The shit us sub mainstreamers have to stand for nowadays is pathetic, an endless stream of shallow, referential, aesthetically unappealing music getting top bill seemingly because we don't know any better.

Nothing you people like appeals to me. My heart is in the 70s

i barely listen to anything earlier than 90s... i'm 19 but it shouldn't really matter should it? i think that apart from joy division i am not a 'fan' as such of any older artists....

between the newer indie style music which I think you're talking about as preferrable -- cos mainstream music now sounds a helluva lot like mainstream music then -- is that the vocals are not automatically pushed to the front of the mix. Today's indie rock uses the vocal aspect as an instrument, no more or less important than guitars, bass and drums. It makes for a more coherent sound rather than the karaoke exhibition lots of older music now sounds like.

Well, that's my theory but I really can't speak for you. But there's certainly plenty of great older stuff out there...and it's easier to find great older stuff than randomly downloading shit off indietorrents like I do.... but you're probably a masochist too G-man.

to more new music than old. One of my favourite things about music is going to see a band live and I think the fact that I can't see bands from the 60s and 70s live today puts me off spending quality time with them. There's always new records coming out each week I barely find time for any older stuff. Of course there are a few exceptions.

Love - Forever Changes
Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn
The Stooges - Raw Power
The Beatles - Either Help or Sgt Peppers
C,S,N & Y - Deja Vu

That should solve the problem

woefully late. Still, who am I to judge?

For me I struggle to find much of interest to me pre The Beatles.
Sure, there's some cool jazz before that and some pleasant enough early rock and roll but it doesn't really move me like music from about '63 does.

Most people have a cut-off in the past and, more unfortunately, in the future when they give up on contemporary music.

then you are listening to music for the wrong reasons man.

from 1920-70ish, although, with a lot of pop music (maybe due to production duties, as recorded jazz and classical is, still, quite easily interpretable) I'm less into.
I'm into Velvets, Bowie, Syd Barret, however, most of it sounds pretty dated and, while apprechative of the music, doesn't quite appeal to me on a personal level.

When I first 'got' music it was stuff from the early 80s, and I worked backwards instead of forward. I let you guys on here do all the legwork with new bands - whilst I do generally keep on new music from all across the spectrum, it's rare that more than a couple of albums from one year will join my regular rotations of post-punk, or psychadelia, or jazz, or soul, or motown, or blues, or... etc.

Nothing in music today excites me as much as the thought of seeing Bob Dylan live, even if he does sound like Scooby Doo now. I just don't pay attention to the age of music, and statistically that means there's more that's old than is new.

I also have a hard time finding any interesting music released pre 79. or so. The only real exception is Can who sound awesome even today.
The beatles/beach boys don't interest much since I don't find their melodies and song structures very interesting. The same situation is with most of the sacred cows from that era. Give me any B&S song over a Beatles/Beach Boys one, any elliott smith song over dylan/young, any boards of canada song over kraftwerk, etc.
A lot of the so called "experimental" music produced in that time sounds dreadful today, mostly cos of the production but also cos of the inability of most of the artists to incorporate good melodic elements to that experimentation. Ofc there are crap bands like that also today (the blogosphere is full of them), but there are also a lot more "smart" bands who pay a lot of attention to little details and manage to produce worthwhile and non boring melodies.

can be compared to a better version from the 60s/70s/80s

in many cases doesn't sound that different to what I personally listen to today. Modern stuff "benefits" from being mastered out of all reality. The analog vs digital, protools vs tape is still very relevant to the point where so many bands of now still want to record on old equipment using the same techniques. Some of the stuff inbetween 60s and now (think 80s snare) sounds like absolute shit but it is of its time. The massive experimentation in recording techniques and production that took place over the 60s/70s is still with us in different forms today. It's been constantly developed right through the 90s etc. Some of the older stuff has dated in comparison for sure but it still stands up to the piss poor mixing and sound of so many records from the 90s onwards. The difference might be in that there wasn't as much experimental popular music or your favourite aggressive record doesn't sound as fat. There was definitely a lot of importance placed on songwriting, performance, sound and package placed over the ridiculousness of trend, genre and technology. Less got released back then too. Listen to more old records. Sometimes it just sounds/is better.

Digitisation of music has brought it's creation closer to the people, but it's also had the side effect that many musicians have no appreciation of HOW much skill it takes to be a recording or mixing engineer, but also fail to appreciate that the main POINT of using a recording engineer and producer was so that musicians could solely concentrate on making the music itself. Perhaps you don't agree with this, but personally, if I hear a band of twenty years ago that sounds exactly like a new band, it pretty much renders the new band worthless. People may reassure themselves that they are being post-modern and knowingly combining influences as ingredients in a musical concoction, but the danger these days is that the influences are often so diluted that the resulting cocktail is just a safe-sounding mush with no real identity. That is the story of today. The other story of today is that bands are massively more influenced and guided by commerce. The 70s were probably regarded as the heyday of recording because you had bands that were effectively given truly enormous budgets and time limits to produce albums. It is no coincidence that probably the most common records to sound check serious PA systems are the likes of Steely Dan...even the 80s had crazy albums like Talk Talk's 'Spirit Of Eden', where a commercially successful act went and did a hugely expensive, beautifully recorded left field album and pretty much killed themselves off as a commercial act (though created two albums that would influence many more musicians than their pop work). That stuff can't happen now. The pressure to categorize your music and conform is almost absolute now. Sure, anyone can get their record onto ITunes, but only by labelling it, or worse conforming to a label.

In terms of production, and technology, there have been boffins at work the whole time, trying to refine the high end of things, but we are at a weird standstill, too, with many designers of music technology simply aping the devices of thirty years ago, because the 'modern' way just doesn't sound as good. Until there is some kind of high definition digital format, where the frequencies are not sharply cut off at 20kHz, digital music listeners may never hear how high the quality of 70s and 80s records were (or how bad many of todays records sound)...of course the joke is that so many people solely listen to mp3/mp4.... which are proper shit by comparison even to CD...let alone by comparison to the high bit rate high sampling frequency of most modern digital recording, or the even higher fidelity of the best analogue equipment.

Maybe what is good about making a record today is that it almost always is seen as an end in itself, as opposed to the 'old' way of capturing a live performance, or 'capturing' a band. In the case of a densely orchestrated band like 65 Days, or for instance like Muse, that's great, and results in some great records. What you don't find much in modern records, or in modern bands is spontaneity... the thought that what you just saw live nobody else will ever hear because the band never play the same song in the same way twice, or listening to a record and feeling like you've seen into someone's soul. Today it's just another commodity, sadly even to most of the artists.

It's easy to write off all older music and have a cut off date for ahat you will listen to, but then, all it takes is to hear a couple of great older albums and you're sold. I listened to Lust for life by Iggy pop, and Modern Lovers,and got right into 70' choons, and the Velvet undergrounds debut is amazing, even if I think the rest are too much hard work!! Who truly gets any decades music anyway, who would want to??,
You might as well pigeonhole music as relevant and irrelevant. If you look at music in perspective, you will see that some 'modern' music is fucking bollocks and that you're better off listening to the band who did it first 30 years ago, a lot of modern music is just a bad pastiche of an older greater band! I am not saying that older bands are always better than new bands, you just need to look at it on an individual basis, just like not all new bands are good, so not all old bands are bad!

there are very few modern bands that i like who's records i like the sound of. I think Why? Liars and HEALTH are the only bands i can listen to and appreciate the production of their records as much as the songs. There are more modern bands i like but i normally find myself thinking "this would have sounded a million times better if it was written and recorded in the 1970s".

"Dance" music however seems to sound better and better with each passing year. I can't wait to hear what your typical electronica album will sound like in 20 years through a decent hi-fi, i bet it would be mind blowing. Unless there is a major production revolution when it comes to the recording of bands i don't think i'll ever be excited by the way a typical indie/rock band sounds. I'll appreciate it, sure, but it probably won't blow me away.

what we refer to as decades are purely human created constructs..there is no 'old' or 'new' music, only Music.

...I'll get me coat.

I only really know a lot about music from about 1995, when I first became seriously interested in music. I've got a little better recently, but still, the arguement I get constantly thrown in my face when i try to convince people they should listen to a band is "why should I, they sound just like xyz" or "it's all been done before, why can't I just listen to what I already have?".

Don't get me started on the grief I get for not really liking The Beatles...

I'd say that for me it IS because of the inferior sound quality. I just can't get by that.

Give or take the usual "each one has their own tastes" issue...its simply not healthy to dismiss music from older generations just like that.

It's just not right.

One of the best things about being part of an younger generation, is that we are able to appreciate music from the past generations! It's much harder for older people to like or even understand new music.

If all the bands YOU LIKE were the same as you, most of them probably wouldn't exist...you can safely say that most artists love music and might have been inspired by music from older generations as well.

And, like a few other people here, I'd argue that something that's TOO produced, too clean and too polished (liek so many modern recordings) might actually sound worse than older stuff, because they sound more souless and artificial. Sometimes, a shit recording (like some old blues stuff by Skip James, Blind Willie McTell, whatever) may sound almost magical, transport you to other times, excite your imagination...give more depth to the songs, make you try harder and pay more attention.

Not having a dig at you, but you sound a bit narrow-minded. You should leave narrow-mindedness to older people, haha!

Be more open to all kinds of music and learn to LOVE it!

I really shouldn't have bothered. It's a matter of personal taste and nothing else, something I shouldn't be criticised for. What happened to music being subjective?

most of my music listening is limited to the nineties and noughties too.
The Smiths and Sonic Youth, as well as Wire, Television and Gang of Four and also Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine would be the pre-nineties stuff I'd listen to most frequently.
Also a select few hip hop albums, like It Takes a Nation of Millions.. and Straight Outta Compton. Most of my hip hop listening is limited to stuff like The Roots and Jurassic 5 and Common and some bagpacker hip hop artists like Aesop Rock, Atmosphere and Sage Francis.
From the sixties, I think The Velvet Underground- The Velvet Underground and Nico, Love- Forever Changes, a Beatles comp or two and a few others.
I don't feel much urge to get into older stuff. I find I only need a certain amount of post-punk albums, though I plan on getting something by Magazine and The Wedding Present and some more Wire and Gang of Four. I also really must get stuff by SST-type bands like the Replacements, Minutemen, Husker Du and Descendents.

I still prefer more modern stuff. Post-hardcore, math, emo and post-rock are the genres I've been listening to much more recently. I think the more interesting stuff from these genres is from the nineties and noughties.
Also, I find it difficult to keep up with purchasing recent releases from this year, not to mind increasing my task by trying to keep up with stuff from the past.

today I've been thinking loads about how much some "dated" music is actually amazing. I've most recently been listening to Nils Lofgren, and even some Journey.

EPIC TIMES.

Good Music began with Joy Division*

[Um. Except for all those Motown and Beach Boys records I own and love.]

absolutely. i mostly dislike all bands from about 2 years before i started buying records. and i always avoid the 60s room in indie nights.
i dont think its a flaw tho. i can appreciate stuff from a technical or historical view but thats a rubbish stupid way to enjoy music. it's not really production, cos i can listen to rough as shit recordings and still not care. its dated lyrics and ideas and chord structures and playing techniques and loads of little subconcious indicators that make you realise yr not relating to th song.. also, most of the classically good shit, teh beatles and that, was playing in my house since i was born. its more akin to nursery rhymes to me.
just cos some band did something first doesnt mean they do it right for me. thats progession.
and, i think narrowmindedness is an illfitting label. ive been in so many situations where people (usually men. in bands.) have sat me down to explain and demonstrate the godlike skills of brian wilson or zeppelin or teh beatles. and the buzz they get out of that is totally different to the feeling i get when i listen to my favourite bands and get goosebumped out and want to go out and dance and fuck and start fires and stuff.
i know its all completely subjective and that. but it seems a bit like praising the fisherman for the way he cast his rod when you should be thanking him for giving you dinner.
my subquestion would be - in indie nighclubs in 2040, will there be a seperate 60s room and a 90s room, or will there just be one lifetime spanning fake nostalgia room?

i didnt mean to write such a long message, ive just thought about this for ages. i should have just written, KENICKIE MEAN MORE TO ME THAN FUGAZI SO HELP ME GOD.