Are Those Good Days Really Gone?

[AboutAGirl]

Ah but how one perceives the quality level of Taylor Swift and The Beatles is irrelevant to how similar they are. I'm absolutely not arguing that they're equally good or of identical nature, I'm only arguing that Taylor Swift shares more in common with early Beatles than today's indie rock bands share with early Beatles. Which she does, pretty much objectively.

Think of it this way. The Godfather and Animal House may both be good, high quality films. But they're completely different films, nobody would call them similar. Meanwhile Gigli, considered one of the worst films of all-time, shares many things with The Godfather. They're both mob movies, and dramas, whereas a raunchy comedy like Animal House has much less in common with either of them.

I'd never go around trying to convince anyone to like Taylor, that'd be very dumb of me. If you don't like her already you're pretty much not going to like her. But after 25 years of alternative rock being the driving force in what we consider rock music, I'm glad that there are still artists that retain aspects of what I love most about the early rock music.

 

[Khor1255]

Sorry I gotta step in here and say something. All because Taylor swift may have a drummer and guitarist in her band and use a familiar chord progression doesn't mean she draws from The Beatles. That early Beatles song, while simple, has some very interesting elements that separate it by leagues from boring songs like that TS song. Listen to that Paul McCartney bass line! Where is that in any of those other songs? Not there - the bass line is not interesting, it's just flat out loud and boring. Also, the Beatles voices meshed into many different sounds, and are showcased in the background vocals. Once again, the Beatles show how to use melody in such a simple but engaging way. Also the drumming and production, even though it's older and sounds a bit rough, it sound "real" - an element missing in most modern recordings where the drums sound like I'm banging a book against a wall and it's just way too friggin loud and overmastered.

A lot of the negative elements I mentioned above are why people can't find anything positive about a lot of today's music. It just doesn't sound good once you've heard things like the OP mentioned. It's mastering is utter crap and the artists don't really have anything interesting to offer. (though they are heavily marketed that way) Even those Indie bands - while it may be said that hey - they connect to psychedelic Beatles because they use distortion and weird sounds - that's just not true either. Even The Beatles in their psychedelic years made great songs with melody and coherent singing. That's why a lot of indie bands turn me off - their vocals and general sound are utter crap. Also where is the musicianship in a lot of those bands? Nowhere to be found. Throw on some distortion, play a few chords, yell into a mic and suddenly you're a band.

Anyways, I'm not saying there aren't any newer bands that I do enjoy a lot, but the majority of it is just junk.... I guess people like to think of those years when The Who, The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, etc were in their primes as the golden years - well yeah - when else have we had such a HUGE saturation in great bands, where the saturation in creative song writing was so high - people didn't have to search and search and search to find some decent music. It was everywhere!

Done rambling... just my opinion!

I was trying to be nice and not say such things. I'm glad you did. Bravo.

 

[runningshoes]

Sorry I gotta step in here and say something. All because Taylor swift may have a drummer and guitarist in her band and use a familiar chord progression doesn't mean she draws from The Beatles. That early Beatles song, while simple, has some very interesting elements that separate it by leagues from boring songs like that TS song. Listen to that Paul McCartney bass line! Where is that in any of those other songs? Not there - the bass line is not interesting, it's just flat out loud and boring. Also, the Beatles voices meshed into many different sounds, and are showcased in the background vocals. Once again, the Beatles show how to use melody in such a simple but engaging way. Also the drumming and production, even though it's older and sounds a bit rough, it sound "real" - an element missing in most modern recordings where the drums sound like I'm banging a book against a wall and it's just way too friggin loud and overmastered.

A lot of the negative elements I mentioned above are why people can't find anything positive about a lot of today's music. It just doesn't sound good once you've heard things like the OP mentioned. It's mastering is utter crap and the artists don't really have anything interesting to offer. (though they are heavily marketed that way) Even those Indie bands - while it may be said that hey - they connect to psychedelic Beatles because they use distortion and weird sounds - that's just not true either. Even The Beatles in their psychedelic years made great songs with melody and coherent singing. That's why a lot of indie bands turn me off - their vocals and general sound are utter crap. Also where is the musicianship in a lot of those bands? Nowhere to be found. Throw on some distortion, play a few chords, yell into a mic and suddenly you're a band.

Anyways, I'm not saying there aren't any newer bands that I do enjoy a lot, but the majority of it is just junk.... I guess people like to think of those years when The Who, The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, etc were in their primes as the golden years - well yeah - when else have we had such a HUGE saturation in great bands, where the saturation in creative song writing was so high - people didn't have to search and search and search to find some decent music. It was everywhere!

Done rambling... just my opinion!

Amen.

 

[Aero]

Sorry I gotta step in here and say something. All because Taylor swift may have a drummer and guitarist in her band and use a familiar chord progression doesn't mean she draws from The Beatles. That early Beatles song, while simple, has some very interesting elements that separate it by leagues from boring songs like that TS song. Listen to that Paul McCartney bass line! Where is that in any of those other songs? Not there - the bass line is not interesting, it's just flat out loud and boring. Also, the Beatles voices meshed into many different sounds, and are showcased in the background vocals. Once again, the Beatles show how to use melody in such a simple but engaging way. Also the drumming and production, even though it's older and sounds a bit rough, it sound "real" - an element missing in most modern recordings where the drums sound like I'm banging a book against a wall and it's just way too friggin loud and overmastered.

A lot of the negative elements I mentioned above are why people can't find anything positive about a lot of today's music. It just doesn't sound good once you've heard things like the OP mentioned. It's mastering is utter crap and the artists don't really have anything interesting to offer. (though they are heavily marketed that way) Even those Indie bands - while it may be said that hey - they connect to psychedelic Beatles because they use distortion and weird sounds - that's just not true either. Even The Beatles in their psychedelic years made great songs with melody and coherent singing. That's why a lot of indie bands turn me off - their vocals and general sound are utter crap. Also where is the musicianship in a lot of those bands? Nowhere to be found. Throw on some distortion, play a few chords, yell into a mic and suddenly you're a band.

Anyways, I'm not saying there aren't any newer bands that I do enjoy a lot, but the majority of it is just junk.... I guess people like to think of those years when The Who, The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, etc were in their primes as the golden years - well yeah - when else have we had such a HUGE saturation in great bands, where the saturation in creative song writing was so high - people didn't have to search and search and search to find some decent music. It was everywhere!

Done rambling... just my opinion!

Excellent critique.

Taylor Swift (and all singers like her) don't have any melody in their songs, be it in the vocals or an added guitar. Add to this, they all sound like they're based off the same template and are like you said, overmastered.