The music business has always worked in cycles - one artist gets big, then next thing you know there's 3,000 rip offs looking for a bit of the action. Then there's the journalistic shorthand, the new Beatles, the new Nirvana, the new Amy Winehouse... So it comes down to the common denominator of money, where you've less risk and hopefully some reward.
In the 80s there was no-one more overproduced than Def Leppard - drum machine and all - but I will hear no argument that Hysteria isn't a classic album. But there's a big difference between overproducing great music and polishing a turd!
But for me, modern music falls down with the vocals. It's either under-emoting, like Billy Eilish and followers, or over-emoting, and you can pick just about anybody new here. And you can hear this difference in the plethora of modern covers of classic songs, where the performers and producers skilfully manage to lose the melody of the original and squeeze the life out of the song. The hangover's too bad or I'd come up with examples, but here in the UK just about every advert has a terrible cover version as the soundtrack. Oftentimes I only recognise the song by the words.
And drum machines might not swing, but again, put them under a good tune and nobody cares about the lack of a drummer. Here's Marvin Gaye from 1982.
of the 1980s.
