Why does most new music suck?

To paraphrase Edgar Quintet -- civility and good manners are ordinarily the last refuge of a degenerate nobility.

One aspect of good music is knowing the rules and when to break them. The same applies to good conversation.

Most new things (music, fashion, books, art, ect.) suck because you've gotten old and become inflexible. You know what you know and really don't want to know anything else. You were once a young leopard invading the temple, but you're now old and saying things typically said by old people. You're "One step closer to death", and they sang that about you 40 years ago!

Frogman, you're statement about modern "country" music is not surprising. The majority of today's country music sounds like soft rock from the 1980-90s. It's a long way from Hank Williams.

Byroncunningham, thanks for alerting us to the threat to our civilization, although you're not the first with that observation. Let's face it, music designed to appeal to young people probably won't make much sense to adults.

No I am not calling you degenerate. That would be completely uncalled for based upon anything I've read from you. It would also be rude. What I've done is quote someone who has pointed out that good manners and civility are a method used by one class of society to oppress another sector of that society. The implication is that you are trying to impose civility upon this thread as an attempt to silence opinions that disagree with yours. I doubt that was your intention, but that may well be the effect.

The OP offered an opinion, somewhat rudely stated, about today's music. At some point the thread veered towards talk of the end of civilization with teacher's union as a main culprit. I guess Albert Shanker really does get hold of nukes. I don't think the OP was taking himself as seriously as others are taking this topic. This thread could have been titled "What's Wrong With Me That I Can't Relate to Today's Popular Music?"

Here's a list from 2011 from the magazine NME. It's their 150 best tracks of the past 15 years. It doesn't matter whether you agree with their selection or not, but it does represent a nice collection of recent pop/rock music. If you are truly interested in finding good recently recorded music it's a good place to start.

Rather than all the good melodies already having been used, could it be that all the intelligent statements about music certain people refuse to acknowledge, let alone comprehend, have already been posted?

Apparently Lou Reed has an opinion about new music too. And he's an old guy!

Actusreus, I was just listening to Colosseum two days ago. An excellent album from 44 years ago.

I agree with you that there was more high quality music produced and recorded in the past than what's being made in the current year. 44 years from now they'll be saying the same thing.

Take any single year over the past 100 years and the majority of music produced that year sucks. The same goes for movies, art, plays, etc. The music that gets remembered 10 or 60 years later is obviously the best music from that period. To compare the best music of the past 100 years to whatever is being produced now is not an apples to apples comparison.

The economics of the recording and music distribution industries has radically changed in the past 20 years. The end result is that there is vastly more music being commercially produced, but it is now the listeners' responsibility to find it. Radio stations, magazine reviews and record stores only hint at what's available. Another economic change is that streaming services make it impossible for a songwriter to live on the proceeds of their songs.

And if anything above is too complex or just plain wrong, we can always blame Sweden.