Classical music is better than modern

Fellow debaters of this site, something which I have been passionate about from my birth is the opposition to this notion that classical music is better than modern music. My parents said it, some of my peers said it and there is an inherent disgust at what we now regard as successful, mainstream music. In fact many people often hate a rap song by the same person later on in their career because it's a different style to the previous album, stating "Aw man, Eminem's song 'Not Afraid' is so lame, all the losers like it when bully was the real stuff!" additionally people who adore the mainstream are amused by those who enjoy classical music and barbarically state "classical music is lame and people only like id because this awesome electronic style wasn't invented yet oh yeah man! This rap is so badass!" I would like to state why both these comments are amusing and to then hopefully separate myself, in your mind, from the ignorant youth who blindly enjoy modern music simply for its aggression and mindlessness as opposed to the more humble forms of music of the classical era. Following this I shall place a brief attack on the classical era's styles of music and then move on to the main body of my debate, the brilliance of modern music.I think to understand my view it is most essential to define the phrase classical music, better and modern.Classical[1]: The art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times.Better[2]: more desirable, satisfactory, or effective.Modern[3]: denoting a current or recent style or trend in art, architecture, or other cultural activity marked by a significant departure from traditional styles and values.To begin my attack on classical music I would like to bring some facts to your attention. Classical music existed in a period of time where gays were viewed as mentally insane, to be different or weird in any manner was to be a freak of nature, the government was severely oppressive over the people (a far different dynamic sine it was pre-punk and pre-hippy era, whereby the concept of democracy began to form) and music was less about expressing oneself freely as much as simply being a technical composer. The issue I have with classical music is that is not appreciative of music as an art. It is far more concerned with music as a means of displaying one's technical ability to put a huge amount of notes and instruments together to make a song. It is made to please an audience, as opposed to the composer themselves, any and all vocal communication was extremely difficult to understand and the entire concept of opera was that the words were only to be understood by the expression with which one sang them. The issue with all of this is that it was a very limiting musical era. To speak against the government, of human sexual nature, of anger to the world for hardship one has faced was seen as absurd (after all, how can one who has faced very little hardship have much to speak of, considering that the majority of composers came from middle and upper class families). To be honest I think classical music is only enjoyable as a background music, it has minimal sense of rhythm (hence it lack of percussion) this lack of rhythm is especially apparent in opera songs whereby one merely belts out chord after chord of expression for the simple sake of displaying the emotions that the words convey, never to be easily heard as a string of reasoning or of artistic expression but rather as a technical execution of one's vocal chords to a strict set of piece (ever wonder why you never ever have heard of nor seen an improvised opera piece? Opera is never to be freestyled but rather disciplined and practised to a regimented scheme of notes and words). This is basically my attack on classical music.Now for my favourite part of the debate, the justification for modern music! Modern music pretty much began around the 60's when the rock 'n' roll and blues began (although this is no longer considered modern, this was the beginning of what is modern music). in fact rock 'n' roll could be equated to what the blues was for black people (no racism intended). It was a means of beginning to express things just for the sake of doing so. Whilst rock 'n' roll expressed things to a rather repetitive set o notes and drum beat, the blues and jazz (closely related genres) were more quirky and focused more on simply letting loose as one performs, often having the saxophonist do solos where he simply would improvise to just express a string of notes he felt were right at that time(I say he because female saxophonists were extremely rare back then, the blacks far preferred male musicians in that era, as did the whites). This actually was following the second world war, which devastated many countries as well as the rising equality of blacks (although still then there was much segregation in USA, where the blues began to originate). So from these two styles, modern music originated down several paths. From the blues, came rap and hip hop and from rock 'n' roll came rock, metal and pop. Let's skip to the 80's. By the 80's several genres of music had sprung up. Poor people were performing on the streets for money (never heard of in the classical era where performing was to be done only by technical experts with a lengthy education in composition and expertise in the instrument). Rap was insanely popular in this era (far dominating over hip-hop) with biggie smalls and Tupac at the top of the game, female backing singers had sprung up (as well as lead female vocalists in hip hop songs) jazz was note dead as such but often was used to back up the rap's tunes, the theory of using half notes as opposed to whole notes as still very present in their tunes. As for white people, their path tot he 80's had opened up many avenues. From the hippies of the 60's had sprung punks in the 70s. Punk culture began because whilst hippies shared the view of equality between people and the government, punks believe din far more aggressive and violent means of going about it than hippies did. However, as a means of channeling the rage in a form of entertainment as opposed to violent protest, punks created a very loud rock/metal subgenre termed punk where people combined rock's tuning style with metals raging voice. From pop had come techno (thanks to computers) where a repetitive beat was used to help people known to what rhythm to dance and far more subgenres originated from this. Then when blacks and whites intermingled came what we now call 'mainstream' pop' where rap and hip hop's style of rhyming fast and at a rhythmic pace combines with techno and pop's theory of making catchy tunes above all. This is how artists such as drake and wiz khalifa have erupted. Although we see them as less skilled they are in fact quite skilled at combining several genres into one song.Your attack on modern music was on its aggressive nature but there are many calm, loving songs (Taylor Swift for example), inspirational songs (look at the first video to see one) and songs which combine rage and aggression to display pain in artistic manner of rap and pop combined in one song (see second video).In conclusion, although modern music has a lot of swearing sex and drugs in it, it equally has far more serious issues discussed and sung about. Additionally, the fact the people are free to shout and swear to artistically display rage and energy is only an additional point in favour for the brilliance of the freedom of expression in modern music.http://www.youtube.com... http://www.youtube.com... Sources:[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://oxforddictionaries.com...[3] http://oxforddictionaries.com...