9mo ago

Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it

232 comments

Someone forbade you to make music?
- That’s my favorite song.
  
  I mean, you did kinda leave yourself open for that one.
- Way to dodge the point! Next lesson in mental gymnastics tutorial is blocking. Press X to continue.
  
  Was this written by the cheapest, worst AI?

Nah, ugly ppl still make the music, behind the scenes :p
- Just about to comment this. Singers these days are usually the "face."

- ^ Uses 80s iconography to make fun of GenX's parents.
  
  Isn't it ironic?

Ugly people make music all the time.
You really gonna tell me Ed Sheeran is good looking? Post Malone?
- He looked better pre-Malone
- Is that Ed!? Holy shite he’s really changed his look!
  
  Where's his chin?
- But the contention is about music being better, and that's some bad music.
  
  Did we read the same post?
  Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it
  I guess your comment makes sense if you find those two attractive.
  Like I get the boomer joke of music these days sucks but my comment was leaning into joke.
- Adele isn't that good looking as well, but she is well loved as a singer.
  
  You've got some warped standards for beauty.
- I’ve never heard his music, but I think Post Malone is beautiful

Pop is just as manufactured and fake as it always was, with the exceptional trend setter or two doing their own thing, but what's just below the surface is always just as good as it always was.
As a fan of hardcore, electronica, folk, metal, and all of the genres that fall under them, I still get new bands. I still get new releases. I get cheap as fuck concerts and still get cool merch and awesome vinyls. I have zero to complain about. Hell, Primus, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer just made an album together, in 2024.
Anyone who says music sucks now doesn't really listen to that much music to start with. Music is just fine, man. Maybe look a little deeper than the pudding skin.
- Those $10 dive bar bands are always the best
  
  I have had a 50/50 success rates. The ones who are bad are REALLY bad. To make up for it, they crank the gain, volume, and distortion to 11 and just annihilate everyone’s eardrums.
- An album called?
  
  SESSANTA E.P.P.P.
  Following a tour they just kicked off.
- Exactly. I wish these types of posts would change "music these days" to "pop these days" because that's what they're talking about.
  It's debatable when pop actually began but pop as we know it really codified in the 80s with dawn of MTV and acts like Madonna and Michael Jackson. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen, etc were popular but I wouldn't classify any of this as Pop. Pop has always been pretty people because it was by its nature tied to a visual medium.
  People need to stop using Pop as a stand in for all music. We have more access to music than ever before and a lot of the music I listen to regularly, I have no idea what they look like.
- I hear you and agree with much of that. I am a fan of multiple genres as well. But, as far as it goes for jazz, jazz is dead. Anyone still attempting to play it is often a sad version of what was once great in the 50s/60s/70s. So while there's plenty of music in other genres I like, always more to find from those time periods, as well as still enjoying the classics, it's a little upsetting good jazz is dead, modern jazz is trash, and people who think they know jazz these days actually refer to some other genre, like rock. Somewhat sad.
  
  Have you checked out Live from Emmett's Place?
  Live jazz streamed every week.
  
  Jazz, to me, a layman to the genre comes off as anything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to soundtracks composed for animes, to progressive epics that span twenty minutes and spin into a free form improv that's somewhere between art and math.
  But aside from it being a flavor other things come in, like a jazzy rock band, Mars Volta or a jazzy metal band, like Opeth, or a jazzy singer, like Michael Buble, I don't know jazz.
  I don't think as a normal person that I'm exposed to pure "jazz", whatever it dilutes into, but I'm fascinated by the chance that there might be something I'm missing that you might mention.
  
  Awful take. Last weekend I saw Mike Dillon with Phunkadelick playing with Brian Haas on the Rhodes organ. They played a wild punk-jazz show that is one of the best shows I've ever attended. There was a mosh pit at a jazz concert where a primary instrument was a vibraphone.
  In recent years, I've greatly enjoyed things like AKU!'s album Blind Fury (drum/trumpet/baritone sax trio) and Ambrose Akinmusire's Origami Harvest. A lot of modern jazz is blending in electronic influences, like Sungazer. Maybe you don't like these things, but I can't imagine calling jazz dead.
  
  Modern jazz is dope. It takes influences from everywhere, and turns them into jazz. Which is what it's always done. In that sense jazz musicians playing electronica is no different to jazz musicians playing tin pan alley.
  https://youtu.be/tZNu9gLE_KE?si=XnhdkgvGRWaPBKt4
  https://youtu.be/bYUR38Yo8aw?si=eezIOM53T505klQJ

Yea that's why metal fuckin rules. We got the ugliest guys ever altogether in one room and said "what you got?" and they became legends
And for anyone that might say that doesn't happen anymore, I ask: how many open mic nights or $20 shows have you been to lately? The scene is doing great in my area, but it doesn't happen by magic. Ya gotta support it, spread the word, bring your friends.
- More of a hardcore guy myself but we're equally as ugly so I stand in solidarity
- Yeah, no kidding. I just bought tickets for a $15 show that has multiple bands and included a overseas band. I mentioned to them that they should’ve upped the prices to $20.
  Also: Sturgeon‘s law still applies: “90% of everything is crap“. Music is so amazingly easy to make these days you can do it on your phone (and I believe a Grammy nominated/winning album did so). Which means that there are literally thousands of albums every year, And so there will be a lot of crap. But between Bandcamp and Spotify and SoundCloud (and so on, even self-hosting), this is the freaking plutonium age if you like new music. There is literally so much that you can’t possibly keep up with it, even in sub genres. And there are some amazing gems coming out daily
- Most of my favorite artists are beautiful tho… Mikael Akerfeldt, Alexi Laiho (RIP), Devin Townsend, Shagrath…
  
  I also thought Alexi was hot, but I've never heard anyone else say that until now.
  Also Tosin Abasi (founder of Animals as Leaders), but I'd be shocked if anyone said he isn't attractive.
  Edit: some pics and tunes.
  Alexi Laiho, lead singer of Children of Bodom:
  
  Lake Bodom (youtube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtmFh-2CJ7A
  Tosin Abasi, guitarist of Animals as Leaders:
  
  CAFO (youtube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ZrF7taMHA

"Ugly" people still make music but apparently you don't listen to it. Shameful, tbh.

Video killed the radio star
- And the guest rappers killed the guitar solo.
  https://youtu.be/evCsdT99Iog

Is this showerthoughts or oldbumperstickers?
- Not every thought I have in the shower is original.
- sir, this is /r/lewronggeneration
  
  Hey, OP might be old. There's some of us around.

"music was better when..."
Any version of this makes the speaker sound suuuper old and bitter. 😂
- My highschool music is better than your highschool music!
- Music was way better when the musicians snorted the good ol yayo.
- At least he doesnt like all newer music simply because the artist look better.
- Nah, generally yes, but this particular follow up is hilarious. When ugly people made it haha
- I had a luthier tell me how much was much better before the record. How artists would perform live and have to do their best in these performances.
  Once records came around all the artists sold out and it has been downhill from there.
  “Ok, can I have my guitar back, please…”
- tbh we are all just snapshots of ourselves at different stage of the same cycle. The Simpsons did a whole thing about lolapalooza which starts with homer looking for his favourite artists in a record store, and the record store dude, and being directed to the oldies section.
  The bands that feature in that episode are the smashing pumpkins, soundgarden , cypress Hill and Peter Frampton, all of whom appear in Spotify old school lists
  
  Oh sure, everything new becomes old eventually, that's just how time works. I'm more poking fun at those who let their nostalgia determine what is worthwhile.

This is the kind of boomer post you make if you haven't followed music in 20 years.
- Wrong, I'm downloading the latest music on Napster right now.
- Why is it that most manufactured pop from before you were born still sounds good, but most manufactured pop after your 40s sounds irritating as fuck? Like, I could dig some “Charleston” from the 1920s but Ashley Simpson is barf-o-rama.
  
  Nostalgia

What do you think "video killed the radio star" was about?
- Well.. in my mind and in my car, we can't rewind, we've gone too far.
  Oh-a-a-a-Oh
- what about internet killed the video star

ugly people aren't allowed to make music anymore?
well fuck me then.
- its why ed sheeran was killed he made music
  
  F in chat for ed sheeran, and ugly ugly man, who made not very good music, but was loved by, some people.
  
  Literally the first person I thought of when reading the title of this post
  
  I hade to google this lmao

Lol, do you think only pop star music exist? It's actually the contrary that happend. Now, more than ever, anyone can make music. This is a really bad take.
- I think the actual take is probably closer to "I wish we went back to a time when record companies would take a bet on anyone, regardless of the overall package, looks etc"
  Which tbh, is probably more of a fairy tale view of years olden days than anything else.
  
  Exactly. I don't think it's hard to see what OP meant here.
  And I think it's still the case that they prefer certain types of people to push in the music industry
- This is a really bad take.
  683 upvotes and counting.
  
  Yeah, by recycling a phrase so popular you can buy it on bumper stickers and tshirts and literally reposted from reddit r/showerthoughts six years ago.
  slow clap
  
  Some kid on tiktok probably got 20k+ upvotes in the last 20 minutes for pissing in a MacDonald's fryer or something. Does that make it quality content?

What do you mean? there are plenty of British recording artists

Yeah no, that's just a cranky old guy thought. Just today I was watching fairly average looking people promoting music on late shows. You're probably getting a very thin slice of pop music and ignoring everything else (and hell, even pop breaks that rule sometimes).
Plus, physical beauty and music are both subjective. I try to not get all "old man yells at cloud" about how music "used to be better".
- Tbf, I think radio absolutely used to be better before iheart and their ilk bought fucking everything and turned every goddamn station into a hypersanitized prepackaged mix of the same 10 bloody songs over and over. Therefore, by extension, I could 100% see how someone basing their opinion on what actually gets radio play could easily arrive at the conclusion that music is worse now.
  
  I'm very lucky to have an independent radio station in my area. It's run by a nearby college, but they let anyone take training to become a host.
  They don't always play music I like (hell, they don't always even play music) but I'll deal with 30 minutes of buddhist chanting because the variety can't be beaten. Also, they have no ad breaks.
- ignoring or not having a chance to find it?

Video killed the radio star
- God, the irony of MTV playing this as their very first music video.
- Podcasts are literally a thing
  
  It's a song bro
  
  Podcasts are not what this song is about at all. You are not totally incorrect though, podcasts are similar to radio.

I think music staring going downhill when music was no longer an audio only thing. Once bands were expected to make videos, posters, and "act" on stage, suddenly a lot of musicians had problems getting into the business. They want to make music, not become pseudo-actors.
- So you're saying that.... video killed the radio star..?
  
  We can rewind though right?
  
  And even before MTV, there were these bands. So called “performers” even. It’s almost as if they performed some kind of act to entertain an audience.
- Metal and grunge still happened in a music video era.
  I think a bigger thing that happened was the collapse of the CD. From that point, the new acts that the industry seemed to focus on were individuals instead of groups.

Not really related to that stupid boomer post, but ho crazy is it that that ugly british lady won music star or popstar or whatever and everyone was like: oh my god this is insane, ugly people can do things? They are almost like real people.
- Susan Boyle?
  
  susanalbumparty
- Do You Have the Slightest Idea How Little That Narrows It Down?

Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder, but this is Richard Goodall. He's a school janitor in my town of Terre Haute, Indiana and he just won America's Got Talent. He will probably have at least a somewhat successful musical career after this. He really blew people away.

- I want the milkman to deliver my milk... in the myorning.
- Come to Daddy

I don't think music has gotten any worse. However, it is much easier and cheaper to produce music today: you don't have to be able to play an instrument and professional production is possible with comparatively inexpensive software on any standard computer. This and also the changes in distribution (no more need for sound carriers, ...) have probably led to a lot more music being produced today than in the past. Of course, this does not mean that music has become better as a result, but it also does not mean that it has become worse. You just have to find the gems among the admittedly gigantic amount of junk.
- "just"

Ah yes, ugly singers like:
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra
John Bon Jovi
Freddie Mercury
Aretha Franklin
- That is quite the name
  
  Which one?
- Don't forget Serge Gainsbourg
  
  Smash

Indie labels still allow ugly people on stage!
Pop / major label's job is more on the money side than the music. We don't see ugly people in adverts either.

Music was better when I used to look at the back of an album and the credits were like a dozen people. I'm sorry to people who like Beyonce, Gaga etc. But you look at their albums and they have hundreds of writers, engineers, producers, mixers, etc. What do these celebrities actually do anymore? Just show up and read the lines and the crew takes care of the rest? I'm sorry but that to me isn't a good artist or musician, that's just manufactured branding.
- There is a reason Beyoncé is labeled a performer. I don’t believe many of them could ever sing, the popular ones are all autotune performers.
  
  Reminds me of Randy on South park
  https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJd3vfCkiwDslB9r1xvfx9609RJzbLYh-?si=vOJmvu-OlFtIRflK

They aren't even ugly, they're just beautiful in a different way than media accepts.

"Ugly" and "good music" are subjective
- That's not the question. Do you think music nowadays puts more emphasis on the appearance of the artist than before? Idk what it is but I find reactions like this annoying. Like OP makes a good point and then we have to hear a lot of 'well, actually' bs.
  
  Do you think music nowadays puts more emphasis on the appearance of the artist than before?
  I think the question is backwards. What we have isn't a prioritization of appearance but a reduction of advertised talent combined with a professionalization of cosmetics. When you've consecrated your industry around a bare handful of performers, you can pick out the fist full of people that check every box.
  Beyonce, Swift, Usher, and Bieber cover all the bases.
  But once you get outside that rarified niche of promoted talent? Do you really think Post Malone is famous for his good looks? Is Kishi Bashi just coasting on his pretty face?
  I don't really think so.
- Ok Dr Peterson.

They still do, they just can't perform it

Shake hands with beef ;⁠-⁠)
- Primus sucks

Just because you aren’t Beyoncé doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful.

Imagine how much less beautiful the world would be if this face weren’t allowed to succeed
- Young Mic Jagger was a snacc.
- When he was young, he had an atypical beauty but he was fucking hot.

pretty sure that's how hyperpop happened 10 years ago

Hit me with your best music recommendations from ugly people.
- Literally anything by The Pogues
- kimya dawson and left at london
  (i think these people are gorgeous, for the purposes of this rhetoric I am basing this perception on hollywood norms)
  
  Sorry bro, she ain't got no alibi
- Motorhead.
- Radiohead
- I don't like calling people ugly but Hobo Johnson looks like a homeschooler who had his lunch money bullied from him

Blah blah blah blah old man yells at sky

Isn't this extremely genre dependent? And regardless, this has been going on for a long time.
The Supremes? Good looking gals (and great music IMHO).
Grateful Dead? Sure, rough around the edges.
The Doors? Um...ever seen a picture of Jim Morrison? Dude would make Derek Zoolander blush.
Out of curiosity, I asked Spotify for modern metal music, and I got The Black Dahlia Murder --- frontman looks like a regular dude who I'd grab a beer with.
Yeah, modern pop places a ton of emphasis on looks, sure. But I think this has been pretty prominent in music for a very long time, be it the airbrushed R&B of the sixties, the androgynous glam of the eighties, or the metro sexual (guy)/model-esque looks of modern pop.
- Beauty is also within the eye of the beholder, many forget this.
  My first proper boyfriend was very attractive to me, because he resembled Jarvis from Pulp. Not everyone's cup of tea, yet I found that look very attractive.

Listen to ugly people music (or vtuber music, same thing (na, just kidding around with vtuber insecurities (help I'm trapped inside this nested parenthesis))) nevermind, got out.
- Are you calling vtubers ugly?
  
  Oh no! You've got trapped in the first level of nested parenthesis! To get out, you need to go down two levels to where I was trapped, and here's the tricky part, you have to make sure you leave with the correct number of parenthesis and then you are out ok.

Don't forget about the halo effect. Someone on stage doing a killer set is going to seem hotter. When someone is good at one thing, we start to think they're good at everything (where being hot is a thing).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

Shut up bill withers!

The issue is marketing, go to Bandcamp and have a route around
- Which route should I take?
  
  I specified around so the most circular.

Marcus King ROCKS and he is not good looking. Charismatic as fuck on stage too.
I think there is about the same proportion of good music to bad as there ever was, you just don't hear the bad music of the past because it didn't last. Survival bias, I think it's called.

"allowed too" 🙄
- You're just imagining it.

I make music but I'll never perform it for people that judge music by appearance.

For sure, as a teenager - interest in music switched from interest in music to finding music videos that got girls in 'em'.
- What the fuck happened to your formatting
  
  These?. Yup, wrap text in these for code formatting -> `
  undefined
  
  You can also Do multiple Lines By wrapping with three of those consecutively
  Like this -> ```

That's true!!! Ugly people are talented.
Don't ask me how I know...

Les Claypool has entered the chat.
- Tbf his music is kinda ugly too... in a cool way
  I mean c'mon: https://youtu.be/r4OhIU-PmB8?si=ygSzza51BLIa2SiE
- ...and Elvis has left the building!

Lewis Capaldi isn't ugly?! Lol
Sorry Lewis no shade intended
- Nah, let's keep him in the shade...

Ed Sheeran i guess.

I'd like to thank this thread for reminding me to check out some new music. Just today, I have discovered MJ Lenderman and Still House Plants who both seem to be doing some cool stuff that's right up my alley. There's a new Mogwai track released a few days back and Sumac just released an amazing sludge metal album, even though I'm not really into sludge, it might convert me. A quick few image searches shows me that none of them are particularly attractive. Music has always been, and always will be awesome regardless of the physical appeal of the lead singers.

Music is better when you listen to what brings you joy and stop caring about the physical appearance of the artist.

232 comments