Modern singers suck. They have no real dynamic ability. They’re either screaming, the most popular thing for a modern singer to do, or they’re shouting some rap thing, or they’re “singing” in the same key they talk to people in face to face. They have no middle range they can keep in the key of a song. They can’t even do something so simple as move the position of the microphone in their hand to control dynamics, they don’t have anyway, because even if they did, a sound guy has anything from 1 to 5 compressor limiters chained together in the signal path & a digital EQ, & 3 to 13 digital efx, one of which is auto tune.
Watch Elvis: That’s The Way It Is & you will see & hear what a really talented singer could do with just a microphone in his hand. No auto tune, probably no compressor at all, probably no EQ. At most, reverb. No predelayed reverb either. Another thing, no in ear monitors. No stage monitors probably. Actually Elvis is using an omni directional microphone, so definately no monitors. His only monitor is his own ears listening to himself & the band on stage & through the main venue sound system.
Um… Given that rap and hip-hop have been pop for the last couple decades… I’m going to disagree. It’s a big thing in most branches of metal, but that’s kinda a characteristic of the genera.
Ehhhhhhh… Again, I’m going to call mis-characterization. I’m not a fan of rap or hip-hop, but there last 5 years or so, mumble rap has been the big thing, at least in that area.
Very few people do this, as many can’t pull it off the same way Johnny Cash could… You know… The man who was told he’d never make it because of his looks and singing talent?
Is your sole baseline for a good vocalist really Elvis? There’s no other good examples you can think of?
In my opinion, “screaming” of modern vocalists and their supposed lack of dynamics is probably more because of trends in sound production and compressed dynamics of modern music, not lack of skill. Often their live acoustic performances sound so different comparing to studio versions.
You also have to take into account that analog recording gear (that can make sound softer, often colours sound) was dominant in the past.
That said, I agree that musicians of the past were (on average) a little bit more skilled at relative pitch and microphpne dynamics, because they had to compensate for lack of technology.
On the other hand, many modern musicians are also skilled at sound production and other things that earlier musicians often could not do. They have other skillset in general…
I think this take is extremely flawed by far the worst take ive read in a long time. Elvis is an incredible vocalist with really good range i very much agree. but there are many modern artists i would rate over elvis easily if the only measure was how good they sang. your take sounds like your someone who listens to only music from the 50s to the 80s and listened to modern music for like 5 minutes and made a judgement entirely on that. the music space is so much bigger now as most artists don’t need to appease a recording label to get big anymore so the best vocalists and writers aren’t even on the mainstream anymore. but some of the best singers also happen to be mainstream.
@AntiWoke Think you’re way of the mark tbh…Elizabeth knows her shit when it comes to singing and singers, a great channel well worth sub’ing she’ll explain the technicalities of the human voice be it metal, opera or rock etc…
Child in Time…
It depends on who you listen to. I’m a big roots, folk, singer-songwiter fan. There are few effects to make the singer sound better than they are unless they are choosing a specific sound for a track. Its about artistry vs using effects to cover up poor singing.
this.
a great and famous example of this is Jeff Magnum hes a technically bad singer but his emotion put behind his singing makes up entirely for it.
I was watching Elvis at the time, & he was Amazing. No backing tracks, no autotune, no digital efx, no help at all. Perfect pitch & with no stage monitors either. He was using what looks like an Electrovoice RE50 omni directiinal dynamic microphone, which means, it would pick up his voice & anything like drums, or guitar amps that he was near & it would come through the venue sound system.
What people don’t seem to realize, Elvis was at heart a soul singer, gospel singer, R&B singer. His early stuff could be considered rock a billy I guess.
No we all realize that and there are plenty of modern singers that have had to shift their genres as well . What we are arguing is your take is crap as it sorely lacks anything to back up your thesis.
Any random song in the top 10 or even top 100 of spotify. They suck. Im not alone. Rick Beato agress with me.
I’m not talking top 100 artists at all though and who the hell is Rick beato?. There are plenty of great singers and musicians that don’t make it to top 100 cause their music don’t fit the taste of the masses. This is now a world full of awesome smaller recording labels and independent producing who don’t have the marketing budget or distribution budget to market their artists and people now use AI as tastemakers and not a radio like 20 years ago.
Ah nvm looked him up of course it’s another boomer with shitty boomer takes
I’ll be fair to him just looked up his videos and watched and his take has way more nuance and support and is even willing to give concession to newer artists all things your take lacks
Agreed, modern Pop music sucks. Overly processed vocals, garbage lyrics; soulless. Pretty soon we’ll be hearing fully AI generated songs and you won’t even notice the difference.
Now step outside the corporate matrix
Boomers will be boomers.
And to be fair, give it another few decades and I’m afraid a lot of us will be just the same. “These kids don’t know what music is… back in my day we had BTS and they had a true passion for music” 
(or you know… Whatever you’re into in your 15-35-ish period)
Best advice is ignore boomers. They’ll be dead soon enough 
Still can’t quite get my head around the title of this thread, this part of the forum is all about music and there’s no vs in music, just different strokes for different folks.
Take it from this Boomer I’d much rather listen to a lot of “modern” music and artists than Elvis so age has FA to do with musical taste and appreciation.
Music should and is timeless so arguing over genres/eras etc is absolutely fucking pointless 
(the only vs in music 
)
There’s cool boomers too
But there’s those who see only their beliefs as true and perfect and holy and everyone else simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about haha
The title of the thread reminded me of this from almost a decade ago…
Tis a shame I know but that holds true in many hobbies, pastimes but gosh now in such a personal and subjective thing as music 
really?
It’s like you fed “boring Boomer takes on music” into an AI. You hit all the good ones, casual uninformed dismissal of Hip-hop, unwarranted deification of Elvis Presley, even peppered in mentions of auto-tune.