Music was better in the 1970s than it is now

There seems to be this romanticization of music from the 1970s, and in my opinion it's unwarranted. The people who argue for that music's superiority often point to what they see as the lowered standards of music in popular media. They point to groups like Led Zeppelin, and then talk about how much better that stuff is than, say, Justin Bieber. What is ignored with this comparison is the parallels that these bands have across their times. It's important to remember, for every vapid pop group of today, there was a bland radio rock or manufactured bubblegum group from back then. Advocates of music from the 1970s often overlook the insufferable vapidness of formulaic pleasant pop songs by groups like Air Supply. People seem to overlook the fact that groups like Led Zeppelin weren't dominating the charts - people like Barbara Streisand were. If we look at heavy rock music from the 1970s, we see a lot of great groups, including some of the bands that paved the way for heavy metal - Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin, for example. Yes, these bands were crucial for a lot of the music that came later, but the fact that it came first doesn't necessarily make it better. Yes, those three bands are hard to compete with, since they're three of the most revered names in hard rock. However, most of the bands around then were much lesser, and are quite easy to compete with: Uriah Heep, Free, Rush, Aerosmith, Hawkwind, KISS. . . . Comparable acts are still around. Once Black Sabbath appealed to people because they were the heaviest band around (or one of them, along with groups like Blue Cheer). That style is still around, and now there are a ton of bands that picked things up where Black Sabbath left off. And while all these bands carry Black Sabbath's influence, I would even argue that they're not any less individualistic or unique than Sabbath. Sure, Black Sabbath seem visionary, but their downtuned guitars had been done before by groups like Blue Cheer, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the MC5, their style was taken straight from Chicago blues, and their obsession with dark themes also came from the influence of the blues, at least initially - think of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" - a song about selling your soul to the devil. Just as groups as Black Sabbath and the others I've listed built upon the blues, the heavy metal bands of today built on their work, along with such things as noise rock and gothic rock. And now, instead of there being a few loud blues rock bands, there are entire scenes. From that sound came entire genres: out of Scandinavia came black metal, which melded thrash, noise rock, hardcore punk and satanic themes. Some huge names came out of that scene, like Mayhem, Bathory and Gorgoroth. Out of Southern California came desert rock, with a ton of influential bands like Fu Manchu and Kyuss (whose guitarist, Josh Homme, would go on to lead one of the most famous rock acts in the world, Queens of the Stone Age). From Seattle exploded the Seattle Sound, latter dubbed "grunge" - heavy bands that melded metal with hardcore punk - bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana. And there are still tons of other movements - doom metal, sludge metal, drone metal . . . all focusing on building on that downtuned sound in different ways, to express themselves in a variety of directions. The 70s, being a time of diversity for music, also spawned a lot of what would become the sounds of the underground. It was the decade punk rock was born (arguably, though some would date that back to 60s garage rock), and out from that came a ton of sounds, like goth, industrial and hardcore. What we might consider today's "indie" sound could even be said to have originated in the 70s, because of groups like Joy Division. And, of course, it was a time when the artistic underground was pushed into pop music by the more ambitious figures of glam rock, like David Bowie, Lou Reed and Brian Eno (then of Roxy Music). Certainly, these branches are interesting, but they're just one part of a continuum. Punk branched off from earlier sounds itself (garage, surf, bubblegum, avant-garde), and its descendants would continue to split out later on. Yeah, goth started, but the early goth bands barely hinted at what was to come, with the deathrock music of the 80s still to follow, as well as gothic metal. Industrial was in a fetal stage itself - back then, it was a bunch of non-musician artists (Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK) experimenting with noise. Later it would take shape with percussion and even tribal sounts (Einstï¿½rzende Neubauten, Test Dept.), electronic dance music (Front Line Assembly and electro-industrial), and, of course, alternative rock (Nine Inch Nails). Instead of a few disparate artists in the US, UK and Australia, it became a huge scene with its own dedicated audience. And instead of the majority never getting to hear it, it's now easily accessible, both online and in any city. Hardcore grew even more rapidly. In the late 70s and early 80s, it was a small group of kids venting their rage. They were disliked by the artsy punk community, and didn't have much of an audience. That changed - Black Flag's influence grew throughout the 80s, and now tons of heavy punk bands exist. Minor Threat, which was just some angry teenagers, spawned an entire scene of kids dedicated to sobriety and positive thinking (straight edge), and today bands like Have Heart have pushed those kids' ranting to much more expressive heights. From that scene also came groups like Fugazi, who in more recent times made the music much more complex and expressive, while maintaining the passion. And, of course, those artsy punk bands and their diverse sounds live on as well, but are used by others as building blocks for their own sounds. For example, the Ramones can be heard in garage punk groups like the New Bomb Turks, but that band is not constrained to that sound - they meld it with a variety of other influences. And now, instead of one thrashy garage/surf band in new york, there are a ton of bands that carry on that same vibe in any city you go to. Quirky bands like Richard Hell & The Voidoids and Television have inspired tons of "indie" and "alternative" bands, while noisier bands like DNA gave rise to more skilled noise bands like Sonic Youth. Again, from those few bands, a ton grew around them. The great radical proclamations of the Clash live on through bands like Against Me! and the Gaslight Anthem, and these bands carry their own voices and influences to meld with that sound (folk, in the first case). Those 70s bands were no more original than these - the Ramones drew from garage rock bands like the Stooges and pop groups like the Shangri-Las, and in turn these more recent groups drew from them. Some complain about the simplicity of today's dance music, but they forget about the 70s own simple dance music: disco. Disco was manufactured and made for mass consumption. After the 70s it would be improved upon with new artistic ideas to give rise to everything from house music to techno. We have Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake in the mainstream, and LFO on the underground (with people like Moby as the missing link); they had Chic and the Bee Gees. Our dance music today is more complex and expressive than it ever was before, if only because of technological constraints. Hip-Hop also grew, from a few block parties in the Bronx to a style used in some cases to address social issues (dead prez, K'naan, The Coup), and in others to push music in directions that would've been unimaginable previously (DJ Spooky). To summarize, 1) there was a lot of bland, manufactured, soulless music dominated the media back then, too - we just remember some good stuff 2) everything that existed back then still exists, just in greater abundance now, and 3) today's bands are no less original. Everyone must draw from something - imagination is synthesizing ideas you've been exposed to.