The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I'm talking about 1995-2005, approximately. What the hell happened to pop music in America over these ten years? And why is it getting worse? I'm tired of college brats (and high school brats) that emulate the egos of crappy rap stars. What happened to rock music on the radio, and why does it seem like it's declining in appreciation?

Here's the formula for a (bad) rap song, which incorporates about 95% of the genre:

Catchy synth beat with lots of bass and drum
-opens with a hook
-verse:
   I'm as cool as a (simile)
   and you're as lame as a (simile)
   I make more money then (allusion or metaphor)
   I get more women then (allusion or metaphor)
   Reference to sports or rap star, defaming or faming them
   Here's the DJ
-beat drops
-stupid chorus with a more hyper catchy beat
-repeat

Every top ten list has at least 8 of these stupid songs. This creates a vicious circle because the more dumb rap stars get their voice heard, the more an impressionable person is going to wear their clothes and pretend like they have a rapper's personality.

It's killing youth in America. There's no value to any of this music. I know that a lot of music on the radio has little value, but at least in '95 when Sonic Youth and R.E.M. were still topping the charts, they were creating music that was worth listening to.

Are we talking at rap specifically then? Or was that formula for a rap song just an example?

I think almost any song can have a formula applied to it, that doesn't necessarily mean that the whole genre has failed.

yes, this is all directed at main stream rap. I'm saying that 95% of the genre is formulaic, following the formula I wrote. You can't say that for rock music.

That's not why the genre failed. It failed because of what the lines of each song is saying. There's no value in it.

Kurt Cobain died in 1994 ... Cause or coincidence? ;)

Kurt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain)

New music sucks terribly, and I'm from the UK. I'm finding that I'm wanting to listen to game music tracks like the kind found in C&C, Emperor Battle for Dune and other game songs more than any music that's broadcasted, because those are tracks which have sweat put into them. How did music end up being so good and so various to repetitive (c)rap?

Frank Klepacki (http://www.frankklepacki.com/) is definitely one of the greats of computer game music, and his website has a very nice (albeit slow) jukebox with high quality copies of much of his work. Extracting the MP3s is left as an exercise for the student (hint: you need a list of tunes (http://www.frankklepacki.com/listxml.php), some idea where the music is stored (http://www.frankklepacki.com/music/554.fk) and some software (http://www.swftools.org/swfextract.html)).

Now please excuse me while I see how loud I can play "Mechanical Man" at 3 AM before someone disrupts my power supply. ;D

I do this too sometimes, but wouldn't admit to it outside of a nerdy gaming community like this one. If someone mentions game music in real life, I return my best blank stare. Think I might need to meet a few new friends.

This thread is now about our favorite video game music composers.  Tim Follin (http://timfollin.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Archive.htm) is mine.

Who was behind Hellmarch 2 from CnCRA2?

Frank Klepacki again ;)

(He did all the RA2 music iirc)

Yeah Frank Klepacki is the king of game music.

The guys behind Chrono Trigger and FF6 come in a close second then.

What, no mention of Stephane Picq's dune tracks (http://www.grandgent.com/tom/dune/dunemp3s.htm)? Try Morning Sunrise, Sekvence and Arakeen Palace, they were possibly the strongest aspect of that old game.

And as usual, the protoss are the best (http://www.starcraft.org/news/comments/303) (reply 14 in that thread).

How about all that great midi doom music (http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/search.php?search=Doom) (not doom 3)? I think it was just one composer, can't remember his name though.

This is a wise course of action. I have a few friend who aren't always make the distinction between "gamer talk" and "non-gamer talk" and it can make for some really awkward situations.



Aren't all the friends you need are right here? ;)

I myself always pinned Cobain's death and Soundgarden's breakup a couple of years later on the late 90s music decline.

I do, however, know that good new music is still out there, just not as prevalent. Most of it is no longer mainstream though (ie, you're not going to hear most of it on the radio).

Yep. With the huge number of bands that start up because of the internet, the really good bands are drowned out by the huge number of not so good ones. For that reason and because it's easier to over produce and edit bad music now more than it was in previous decades, pop music on the radio is getting worse and requiring less talent.

I'm not sure how related this is to the topic, but I think Hannah Montana needs to be shot in the face. You can't walk into a store without seeing her stuff everywhere.

Haha Miley Cyrus is a differant, but related issue.

Big companies like Disney can easily churn out all matter of crap with their latest star plastered all over it, which drowns out what other better but smaller people can manage.

maybe not shot in the face, just maimed a little

How do you maim someone "a little"?

In regards to music, I think it's the same trend you see everywhere. Big companies know what will sell, and the want to make money. So once something is a proven formula, they'll run it into the ground for as long as they can. After all, producing music today has become quite expensive, and they have shareholders to answer to.

While the music business has become a lot more monolithic and commercial than it was in earleir decades the main complaint you have really isn't anything new. It just means your old :) Old people always dislike whatever new-fangled crap the youngsters are listening to, and remember their own youth (and their own new-fangled crap) wistfully.  Your forebears probably weren't too fond of Nirvana or any other band you care to name.

But back to game music, which is much more enjoyable. Every now and then a game theme will find itself onto my playlist, and it's usually nice in a nostalgic way. I guess my main problem with game music is that I like lyrics, and they tend to not have them.

Stéphane Picq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stéphane_Picq) certainly produced some impressive Adlib music. I also recommend his KGB (http://board.kohina.net/viewtopic.php?t=471&sid=090bc2694d3d2a3bfaedb2b5a8e7335d) and MegaRace (http://www.freewebs.com/raceprg/music.html) soundtracks.

Blizzard has had several really good composers working for them; Gamespy interviewed three of them (http://archive.gamespy.com/legacy/interviews/blizzard_composers_a.shtm). Glenn Stafford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Stafford) is particularly interesting as he has done good work in a variety of styles on SNES (e.g. Lost Vikings 2), MIDI (e.g. Warcraft 2) and digital audio (e.g. Starcraft).

Bobby Prince (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Prince) did an lot of quality music (http://www.thealmightyguru.com/VGMPF/Composer-BobbyPrince.html) for id Software and Apogee (mostly Adlib, e.g. Commander Keen 4-6 and MIDI (e.g. Doom 1 and 2)).

I won't get started listing favourites, because that would take all day. We've only scratched the surface yet.

Producing music is pretty cheap compared to how expensive it was 30 years ago. That's why there's such a huge pool of artists to choose from. Making CDs and recording on the internet is so easy.

Although you're right about the old argument, nonetheless there never was a time when music had so little value. Except one time, and that was the disco era. Some disco artists had a lot of song writing talent though.

Oh I agree, producing music is cheap(ish). But when it's cheap and all sorts of folk can do it, you need to be really good at marketing, and that's expensive. And because people will only buy what they've heard about, you need to sink loads of money into this. Then there's the artists. Once someone starts selling well, you need to give them more and more money. The lifestyle of an star is becoming exponentially more expensive.


I guess it's a question of quality and quantity? Back when it was hard to get out there you needed a good product. Now it's easy to get out so everyone is doing it, and many because they want to be famous rather than because they love their music. So it all comes down to who can shout the loudest, so to speak.

So unfortunate. And it's only adding to their ego, which adds to the problem.


Yes, exactly.