The truth about why modern music is so awful.

@bmontani  yes and the same goes for vintage recordings. Thanks to YouTube it's easier than ever to explore the lesser known or forgotten recordings from Pop's colossal back catalogue.

Here are a few examples,

Elvis - Puppet on a String
https://youtu.be/Sm2s3-_OFWY

Bob Dylan - Abandoned Love
https://youtu.be/BwV36JL_G0s

Genevieve Waite - White Cadillac
https://youtu.be/ZMQ3BoBSi-M

and many, many more you won't hear on your radio.

Too much compression in most popular music. Kills the dynamic range.

I think Lyngdorf used to, and possibly still do a 'clever' cd player to cope better with compressed recordings - I recall reading it did a great job with the Muse album black holes and revelations in a HiFi plus review years ago.

For the most part, I agree with the overall dismal view of modern music and it’s production and recording - particularly pop.
While I ocassionaly come across a new artist that lights a spark, for the most part, they seem to be stuck on the same techno, syntho drum beat, with one or two short verses, with no story and a five word catchy chorus, repeated fifteen times. Most of today’s pop music seems over miked, over dubbed and edited, over mixed, over compressed and quite lacking of real instrumentation.
There are a few modern day pop artists I’ve come to like - Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne, Sia (a little techno, but what a voice) and a few others, but moreover, I find a good deal to like about some of the modern music, in genres that still features mostly real instruments and somewhat decent recordings - Folk, Irish/Celtic Folk, Jazz, Blues and some R&B.
All N All, though, IMO there’s still, in many genres, some pretty fair, modern stuff out there, to set back and enjoy on a nice system.....Jim