Yep, here I go again pointing out the decline in the quality of rock and pop music. But this time I’m joined by the music maven Rick Beato, who has always had the same opinion. In this video he compares music from 1984 vs. 2026, juxtaposing the Grammy nominees for Song of the Year from both years. Save for one song, he finds the 2026 nominees lame, so there’s no contest. Music, he argues implictly, has gone downhill in the past four decades.
I’ll list the nominees and make some comments below. The winner for both years is is at the top. My own comments are flush left.
Song of the Year
- “Every Breath You Take” – The Police
- Sting (songwriter)
- “All Night Long (All Night)” – Lionel Richie
- Lionel Richie (songwriter)
- “Beat It” – Michael Jackson
- Michael Jackson (songwriter)
- “Billie Jean” – Michael Jackson
- Michael Jackson (songwriter)
- “Maniac” – Michael Sembello
- Michael Sembello & Dennis Matkosky (songwriters)
Had I voted, there would be no hesitation in my dubbing “Billie Jean” as Song of the Year, but all of these songs, as Beato agrees, are good and memorable. They will last, and will still be popular years from now (they’re still listened to 42 years later!).
*******************
2026 (winner was announced on Feb. 1)
Song of the Year
- “Wildflower“
- Billie Eilish O’Connell & Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)
- “Abracadabra”
- Henry Walter, Lady Gaga & Andrew Watt, songwriters (Lady Gaga)
- “Anxiety”
- Jaylah Hickmon, songwriter (Doechii)
- “APT.”
- Amy Allen, Christopher Brody Brown, Rogét Chahayed, Henry Walter, Omer Fedi, Philip Lawrence, Bruno Mars, Chae Young Park & Theron Thomas, songwriters (Rosé & Bruno Mars)
- “DTMF”
- Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Scott Dittrich, Benjamin Falik, Roberto José Rosado Torres, Marco Daniel Borrero, Hugo René Sención Sanabria & Tyler Spry, songwriters (Bad Bunny)
- “Golden” (from KPop Demon Hunters)
- Park Hong Jun, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Ejae & Mark Sonnenblick, songwriters (Huntrix: Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami)
- “Luther”
- Jack Antonoff, Roshwita Larisha Bacha, Matthew Bernard, Ink, Scott Bridgeway, Sam Dew, Kendrick Lamar, Mark Anthony Spears, Solána Rowe & Kamasi Washington, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar and SZA)
- “Manchild”
- Amy Allen, Jack Antonoff & Sabrina Carpenter, songwriters (Sabrina Carpenter)
Beato finds “Wildflower” the best for this year; it is, he says, a “great song”. (This is Eilish’s tenth Grammy.) While I don’t think it’s great, it is very good, and miles above all the other nominees. And it won. I’ll put it below. He simply dismisses the other seven songs, though a few have some merit, like being “well produced.”
The reasons Beato finds this year’s songs worse are that they are in general lame, derivative, often include many songwriters (too many writers spoil the song), and sometimes include sampling from older songs.
In contrast, only one of the 1984 songs has more than one writer, and all include the singer as a composer. (Note that one is by Bad Bunny, and Beato can’t understand the words!) Beato’s takeaway is that nobody will remember songs written by so many people, and nobody will remember these latest songs more than three years from now.
Beato:
Here is “Wildflower,” live with Billie Eilish (the official release is here, and the lyrics are here). The only accompaniments are a guitar, bass, two sets of drums, and three backup singers.
Yes, the mystery continues…
But
Mystery is good!
I hope Beato applies this treatment to Classical one day. These Great Old Performers (Heifetz, van Cliburn, to name a few…) vs. now – there is gorgeous stuff – incredible performer sound, exquisite recordings – but – how much bit-tweaking is going on?!
IMHO/nutshell : has something to do with the audience sadly not needing live performance anymore.
Good thing is, to find out, all you gotta do is listen!
🎼🎶
… oh also, the 1984 nominees might have put the song together with their band or producer, but left them off the credits because it was not a big deal all ’round the room, IDK 🤔
There are lots of great classical players today. For pianists, I would name Yuja Wang, Igor Levit, and Jonathan Biss (his recent Beethoven cycle is great). Here’s Wang playing an encore of Prokofiev’s “Toccata”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoMEaX75FkY
For modern-day violinists, three names comes to mind: Anne Sophie-Mutter, Viktoria Mullova, and Isabelle Faust.
By the way, while I’m here, why do some people say “PEE-a-nist” when nobody plays a PEE-a-no? Why can’t everyone say “Pee-ANN-ist”? I don’t understand how and why this “PEE-a-nist” pronunciation ever got traction. So strange.
Yuja Wang is extraordinary!
Interesting question about the pronunciation of pianist. By default the stress in English tends to fall at or near the beginning of the word, unlike Italian, say, where by default it’s on the penultimate syllable. Obviously there are many exceptions in both languages, but I would guess that’s where the pronunciation you dislike originates.
My wife keeps up with contemporary music. I don’t know how she does it. It all seems much of a muchness to me, and not a lot of it stands out. The lyrics are banal and the recordings themselves are so overproduced that you can’t tell what’s the artist and what’s the machine. The more I hear it, the more I dig into older music.
There are a few contemporary artists I like to keep track of (but not many). I like The Decemberists. Here’s a song I like, “Burial Ground”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBlJ35D7tss
I also like The Pernice Brothers. I found their their latest album, which came out last year, disappointing. But here’s a song I love from their previous record, Spread the Feeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-1XXGgyNCw
And have another from the same record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtWSXGd1YPg
That’s it. I don’t want Jerry calling me out for posting too much!
I very much like Rick Beato.
A couple years ago he had a YT video where he recounts how the popular music industry went downhill thru the passing of legislation during the Clinton admin. As I recall, a bill was passed that de-regulated the industry, and what happened was that a few super rich families did the following.
1. They bought up a large % of the local radio stations across the US. This consolidation I believe has continued since then. There are not many truly independent stations left.
2. They also bought up music studios. So now they had control over both what music would be publicly broadcasted, and quite a lot of what popular music was going to be made. What you would hear on the radio was what they had produced, and what they broadcast is according to a rigid algorithm. Meanwhile, artists that were not connected are relegated to other means to be heard.
3. They fired the staff and re-structured the radio stations and music studios. Stations would play music that was permitted, often on the same rotation schedule, and there is now less chance for a new and unconnected artist to be heard on the radio. The music studios were staffed with their pick of musicians, and they aren’t very good and so they are cheap! This is part why the music is dumbed down and repetitive. It is also why you hear the same damn electronic loops in song after song.
The ‘deciders’ about what you hear don’t care about high quality. They don’t care about art. They only care about maximum profit.
I wish I can find the link to Beatos’ rant. But that is the gist of it as I recall it.
Tipper Gore and the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC)
Ahhh, good times…. mocking it….🎸🤘
There is still good stuff being produced, but yes the mainstream (literal sense) is far more mainstream (pejorative sense) than ever before.
I remember at the time thinking that 1984 was a big step back from the musical golden age of 1977-83.
IIRC the guitar line in EBYT is largely down to Andy Summers, and there is now a dispute over royalties etc. Rather sad.
I always bring up Steven Wilson when this topic comes up: master writer, musician, singer, mixer. He’s been creating musical magic since the 90’s with ‘Porcupine Tree’ but his solo output since 2008 has been utterly superb. His latest “The Overview” was voted best rock album of 2025 by Classic Rock magazine. He’s also an atheist and has some good lines and songs on the matter. But he’ll never be nominated for a Grammy; for him, I’m sure that’s a point of pride.
But in general, I agree with Beato, and like him.
I have been listening to a YouTube playlist Classic Soft Rock while preparing supper tonight. No contest. The modern stuff is boring.
Just watched Beato’s video. I agree that the current crop of songs will not end up as part of the American Songbook. To me, the current crop lacks melody, lacks lyrics, and lacks rhythm. It seems that the songs that Beato highlighted (with a couple of exceptions) are heavily influenced by hip-hop, which tends to focus more on verbiage more than on the usual characteristics we (old folks) associate with song. That seems to be part of it.
Another part is that songs today rely a great deal on technology—including the incorporation (even the lifting) of older themes. Finally comes the problem of multiple composers. When the music has to satisfy several masters, it’s a compromise. So, all in all, I agree with Beato.
But with all that said, I want to add a caveat. With some exceptions, my favorite music came from my teenage years and 20’s. It’s true that the artists were different then, but so was I. During those years, I was at my most receptive. It was a time of great awakening, so the songs of those years necessarily had the most impact. They are the ones I go back to again and again. The same may be true of today’s crop of songs and today’s youth. It’s hard to separate the role of the sender from the role of the recipient.
There is a scientific study that shows that people overwhelmingly prefer the music from their youth, whether that youth was 60 or 10 years ago. This seems an obvious discovery, but here it was demonstrated with data.
The loss of guitar based bands is really sad. I don’t think it has been bad for 40 years. There is some definite merit to the grunge movement of the 90s. But since about 2005, the downhill slide really started. But ive been pounding the drum for the band Black Pumas. Classified as psychedelic soul and it’s some really good rock! Please check them out!
Psychedelic progressive rock lives on:
I can’t recall if I’ve commented here before but I know that I found you due to our names. I’d contend that there is a LOT of excellent new music but the music that is getting popular acclaim is less so.
Perhaps I’m biased. I’m a musician/performer and I tend to favor acoustically based rock and folk. I attended The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco last October… my second year doing so. Josh Ritter, I’m With Her, Watchhouse, etc. – are making amazing music. And, of course, enjoyed the stalwarts like Steve Earle & Emmylou Harris.
But, to Beato’s point, highly repetitive, overly-processed, and highly-sampled isn’t my jam for sure.
It’s fascinating how Beato always frames this comparison through specific metrics like Grammy nominees. I wonder if focusing solely on “Song of the Year” misses smaller, perhaps more innovative underground scenes that are pushing boundaries, even if they aren’t charting mainstream success today.
I’m in my 40s these days (closer to 50 than 40), so I don’t keep up with pop music the way I used to. So I just went and had a listen to all of the 2026 nominees (and the 1984 ones to refresh my memory). If “quality” is subjective enjoyment of the songs, I’d say the 1984 songs were a little more consistent in how much I liked them (middling), while the 2026 assortment had more songs I’d put on my regular playlist. Of course, part of that is because the 2026 nominees had more variety in styles – I wouldn’t listen to the Billie Eilish song all that often, for example, simply because that style of music isn’t my cup of tea. And to be honest, after watching the Beato video, I realized that some of the new songs I like sampled older songs, so I suppose they’re not as original. Still, as far as music I’d want to listen to on a regular basis, the 2026 nominees edge out the 1984 nominees.
Side note: I went and reviewed a list of best song nominees for every year back to 1979. I can’t say that many of the nominees match my own taste, from any year. As they say, there’s no accounting for taste.
Side note 2: The song, Golden, is annoyingly catchy. I watched the movie on a weekend night when I had nothing better to do, and ended up with that song stuck in my head for days afterwards. But the grumpy old man in me refuses to admit that a K Pop song from a kids movie would make it onto my playlist.
I agree Steven Wilson is brilliant, my daughter’s a huge fan, surprising he isn’t better known. Or maybe not so much given the way the music industry operates. Must track down The Overview.