Musical Nostalgia and Why It Is Stupid

I am getting really sick and tired of nostalgia over the past, especially in relation to music. All the time online on forums and youtube comments, and sometimes in real life as well, I hear kids and older people talking about how much better music was in the 90s or the 80s or the 70s. They then go on to trash music of today, and talk about how all of it sucks and they wish they were back in the past.

That is a stupid and illogical position and I will prove it. First of all, I will assume that these people are correct. All music after the 90s (you can insert your own decade here) sucks. Every single song after 1999 is terrible and does not deserve to be listened. So what does that leave us with? It leaves us with a bunch of terrible new songs, and all of the old songs that people still enjoy. It's not like musicians in the 2000s are going around burning old songs so that no one can listen to them ever again. You can still listen to all of the old songs, no one is stopping you. So to point out that new songs suck right now is pointless since you do not have to listen to them. So even if these people are 100% correct, their position is illogical since old music has not stopped existing.

But they are not 100% correct. They are completely ignoring the fact that they only remember the songs that they like. It's not like only their 5 favorite bands and 100 favorite songs existed in the 90s. There were many, many bands in the past that just plain sucked, and many songs that were terrible, and many people complaining about those songs. Nothing has changed in that regard. Of course in the present you are going to be noticing more bad songs; when you go to listen to songs from the past, you are not being bombarded by random songs. You go to search for past songs that you liked, thus giving you an inherent bias when considering the past.

I don't even believe that these people hate all modern music. I have yet to meet a person that hates every single song in the last decade. In today's internet driven world, we have access to more bands than anyone has ever had access to in history. There might not be more bands than there were in the past, but the internet allows you to listen to a small, local indie band from a different country that you would never have been able to listen to before. I highly doubt that you cannot find something you like today that is new if you take the time to look rather than just listening to the radio. The real issue here is that most people are lazy and it is easier for them to listen to the top40 and complain, rather than take an hour out of their day to look for music they like. Never mind that is insanely easy to hook up an ipod to your car so you never have to even listen to the radio.

The issue is not even one of "you don't have to listen to what you don't like" although it is true to an extent (it is sometimes difficult to avoid bad music in say grocery stores). It is an issue of "your position is illogical because you have not been prevented from listening to music you do like."