Has music gotten worse or are we just older?

[IronWolf]

Every generation says music was better before. But is that actually true, or is it just nostalgia kicking in?

[John]

I can barely listen now. No vocals can be clearly heard

[Phil]

Music hasn't gotten worse, it's just more saturated.

People stop discovering new stuff as they age

[DarkLantern]

There's still great music, you just have to look

[Teal Sparrow]

That is the approach I always take now. Let us know how it turns out.

[Omega]

I would only bother if the saving is real and not just headline nonsense. I will keep an eye on it

[codeberg]

I can barely listen now. No vocals can be clearly heard.

I would push back on that slightly. I always check temperatures and disk health first before anything else.

Happy to help further if you get stuck

[veritas.io]

I have had mixed results with that approach. Usually the issue is software and not hardware even when it feels like hardware.

That is how I would approach it anyway

[Builder]

That checks out. Not a life changer but it adds up

[Hollow85]

I can barely listen now. No vocals can be clearly heard.

Ended up in the same place, yeah. Good luck with it

[GlassKnight35]

Completely agree, and it is frustrating that this is not more widely known. The amount of time people spend on complicated fixes when the answer is usually a startup item is remarkable.

Worth trying before anything more drastic

[Andrew4]

A bit of both, really. Music has not suddenly become worse just because we got older, but our relationship with it changes. When you are younger every song feels like a discovery because you are building your musical identity from scratch.

A teenager hearing Nirvana or The Beatles for the first time is not having the same experience as someone hearing them for the twentieth year in a row.

[Beth3.0]

People forget how much terrible music existed in every era. The past gets filtered down to the classics while the average songs disappear into the dustbin.

Nobody looks back and says "remember that forgettable chart hit from 1997" because time has already done the editing for us

[TeaAndCode72]

There is definitely some nostalgia involved, but I do think the way music is consumed has changed things. A lot of songs now are built around quick hooks because streaming rewards immediate attention.

That does not mean there are no great artists, it just means finding them takes a bit more effort.

[Hare51]

The funny thing is every older generation eventually complains about the next one. Rock fans did it with hip hop, hip hop fans did it with new production styles, and now people are doing it with whatever is popular today.

The cycle is almost more predictable than the music itself

[IdlePhoenix]

Some modern artists are doing incredible work though. Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and many others have shown that songwriting and creativity are still very much alive.

The difference is that there is so much music available now that nobody shares the same universal soundtrack like they might have decades ago.

[Mila94]

There is an argument that the old days had more musical variety in the mainstream. Radio stations, record stores and music channels created shared moments.

Now everyone has their own algorithm bubble. One person thinks music is amazing, another thinks it all sounds the same, and both might be right based on what they are hearing.

[Gareth5]

Age changes your ears too. The songs you loved at 16 are connected to memories, friends and places, so they carry extra weight.

A new song competing with a track tied to your first holiday, first relationship or school memories has a pretty unfair challenge

[Joanne]

The production quality today is miles ahead in many ways. Artists can create amazing sounding records from bedrooms now, which is something that would have been impossible for many musicians decades ago.

The downside is that having the tools does not automatically create a great song.

[PhantomCore81]

People sometimes confuse "different" with "worse". A song not following the structures you grew up with can feel strange, but that does not mean it lacks creativity.

Every era has pushed boundaries that annoyed the previous one.

[Forge45]

The best answer might be that music has expanded rather than declined. There are more genres, more independent artists and more ways to discover music than ever.

The challenge is sorting through the enormous amount of content. Finding gems requires digging now.

[Taker_Dev]

A lot of people saying music is worse are also listening in exactly the same way they did 30 years ago. They stick to radio or whatever appears automatically and then complain nothing exciting is happening.

There are amazing artists out there, but you have to go looking.

[Nina_20]

A friend once told me their favourite music era was the one when they were young enough to stay awake at concerts and recover the next day. That might be the real secret

The knees get older, not just the playlists.

[MJF]

Some songs from the past were better, but some of that is because we remember the winners. Nobody is making documentaries about the thousands of average albums that came out alongside the classics.

The past gets a greatest hits filter applied to it.

[Ella10]

The emotional connection matters more than the release date. A simple song recorded decades ago can hit harder than a technically perfect modern production if it connects with your life.

Music is not just sound, it is memory.

[Luca99]

There are weak songs today and there were weak songs before. There are also brilliant songs today and brilliant songs from the past.

The difference is that our younger selves were discovering music during a very important period of life, so those songs are almost impossible to beat.

[ForumPhantom25]

One thing that has changed is the idea of a massive superstar everyone knows. There are still huge artists, but the internet has created thousands of smaller communities.

It is harder to have a single band become the voice of an entire generation.