Music artists/bands whose music has aged poorly

I can't think of solo performers or bands thoroughly but music genres come to my head.

Disco even though some performers incorporated it in recent years, it will sound dated again.

New Jack Swing is another one, Michael's Dangerous album is the exception though. It comes to mind Teddy Riley's side projects he did without Michael's involvement and his music with NJS didn't age well at all.

And the fact they were made in the 80s, maybe why they sound 80s. I a sure Prince did not want to give them a 2010s or 2030s sound back then as he had no idea what that would be.

Please leave ofF Prince, none of his music is dated and all of his music is TIMELESS. Meanwhile if its dated music you want, peep some of this stuff. Well okay I may pass some of the lesser cuts on his 90s material and all the rap tracks with Tony M and Scrap D. His most dated album in my opinion is Emnacipation. Some the dance cuts there are saaddd. the ballads are still timeless though.

1. Everything by Elvis Aaron Presley per se, most over rated pile of shit ever to strum a guitar.
2. Most 2nd tier 60s acts like Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Swinging Blue Jeans, The Hollies, The Beach Boys - a documentary the other night, just showed how bad and tacky their music has dated. The exception is the Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations era, that song and album has stood the test of time.

3. Most boy bands through the years from Monkees, through Bay City Rollers, Vengaboyz, Nsync, 5ive, Blue, No direction.

4. Most dance fad songs - Macarenas, Stanky leg, Watch me, Juju on that beat, Ketchup song, Crazy Frog, Haddaway

5. Many lesser disco dance acts of the 1970s - Peter Brown, Boney M, Abba, Manvision, Fruit, Cocomotion, Mad for dancing (I listen to a lot of Germanic and Eurodisco)

6. The most dated acts are the cowboy/MOR ones of around 1980/81, Oak ridge Boys, Juice Newton, Christopher Cross, Leo Sayer, Air Supply, Dr Hook - I like these acts but yacht rock and 80s C and W is dated.

7. Jermaine Jackson and any other Jackson other than Michael and Janet (Sorry!)

8. Madonna - Her 2000s and early 2010s output is very dated, worst offender is American Life (Yuk)

9. The rash of douchebaggy late 90s and early 00s acts - Sublime, Smashmouth, New Radicals, Green Day, Len, Rob Thomas, Maroon 5 etc

10. I am sorry to say, but all stuff by Usher and Neyo, even Maxwell and D'Angelo

11. By the far the most dated, is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, love them, but every new album sounds like a grown up take on Blood Sugar Sex Magik and also a lesser take on that BRILLIANT masterpiece of early 90s punk funk.

By saying music sounds dated in my eyes, still means I like a lot of it. I am dated myself, I love the fact that for me the 80s and maybe the early 90s never ended.

I mean to say their music isn't relevant anymore I think is pretty ignorant. They're still one of the highest streamed legacy artists on Spotify and I (in my very early 20s) can think of many, many people my age who either are fans, or like a number of their songs. Certainly beyond that subset they're still very respected and in doing so, it shows that many people my age are aware of their status and respect that enough to continue this perception of them.

As a fan of them, I'm always subconsciously looking out for references to their work in everyday life and I see them referenced a lot, more than other legacy artists. Hell I see more references to them in day to day life than I see references to Michael Jackson, and I say that completely honestly, as someone who is also looking out for him just as much as he look out for the Fab Four. To me it's just more and more evidence that they still hold relevance to this day, and that they will continue to, because more than half a century on they are still being referenced in popular culture and everyday life.

I certainly don't doubt that as time goes on, the numbers will fluctuate to varying degrees and might be played less but like Michael said, great music is immortal. Fashion changes, culture changes, but when all of us are six feet under, people will still be listening to legacy artists to the likes of The Beatles. Their numbers certainly face trends, like they experienced a huuuuuge renaissance in the 1990s for example - 30 years after their peak. Similar to what MJ and Queen are seeing now 30 years after their commercial peak.

Now if you mean sonically, that their music sounds dated then I can totally see that for a number of their songs - but then again almost all music represents the age they were produced in one way or another. That's pretty much the case with almost everything artistic however. Like for MJ, I think Bad is one of the greatest pop albums of all time, but let's be real, that album just fucking shrieks the 1980s, but I don't think it's a bad thing because the album is just so good. I think the same with The Beatles, a lot of their music might shriek the 1960s as well (especially their earlier 'moptop era' work), but it's still some fantastically produced music so it sounds just as good now as it did then. And objectively, of course some of their music has dated poorly! However once again I couldn't name an older artist who hasn't produced some degree of poorly aged music.

The way I look at it is this, we are now in 2018. Almost all of The Beatles material came out over 50 years ago - that's more than half a century. Yet to this day I still see a good number of people my age who very much enjoy their music and listen to it, wear their merch, make references to them and what not. If you can produce work that is still well respected and enjoyed by the youth more than half a century on, I think you've got a very, very solid future to say it the least.

Something reinforced this for me when I was extremely lucky to go up and see Paul McCartney when he came to New Zealand back in December. Naturally, the crowd was heavily populated with adults, but there were a very good number of young adults my age (also judging by the Instagram posts afterwards) and I did see young children sprinkled throughout the crowd too. Nearby I noticed a few children who, when Paul first came on, paid little notice and kept playing on their parents iPhones. Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't know who Paul was, but I can't blame them as I didn't know who or what The Beatles were at their age either. Some time later on I saw that they were now paying attention to him, and then even later when Hey Jude came on and the whole crowd was chanting the iconic "NaNaNaNaa's" in unison, they were on their chairs and swinging their arms about too having the time of their life. I also saw this 70 year old man, you know grey hair and what not. He was dancing around like he was decades younger, as if nothing else mattered in this world. That's the power of The Beatles and their music, man. It doesn't matter whether you are 7 or 70, it's just simply great music and it's going to live on.

It is harsh to read, but I think you are right. 2000 watts almost has a 1998 Backstreet Boys/Nsync type feel to it, it is even dated by 2001 standards. Like a lot of 1999/2000 dance music songs such as Mambo #5 by Lou Bega, Livin La vida Loca by Ricki Martin, Backstreet's abck, Thong song by Sisqo, Who let the dogs out by Baha Men and stole my sunshine by Len. Aargghhh!!!

You're correct in the musical shift away from guitar driven music and rock'n'roll presently, but I feel if you're going to try and discount The Beatles influence on music because of that, you're going to have to discount so many major musicians work and influence from this era and before. I also say presently because music goes through trends. For all we know, in 2027, hip-hop/RnB might not longer be king in the mainstream and we might have gone back to more traditional instruments. I think of how the mainstream music world went crazy and over-the-top with digital instruments, synths etc in the 1980s but by the 1990s they were back to more traditional instruments for a good while there. Nothing stopping us.

It's important to note that you don't have to emulate an artist's sound to be influenced by them. I remember Frank Ocean, one of the most critically acclaimed RnB artists of this decade, single handily thanking The Beatles a year or two back for single handily getting him out of writers block (they were later referenced/sampled a few times on his 2016 album Blonde). If you take anything from this novel or don't want to read on, that alone shows that their influence just crosses genres, and that artists don't need to be making rock'n'roll or something with a guitar to be influenced by them.

But let's focus on hip-hop/rap for a bit, given it's predominancy today. For starters, The Beatles and their music continue to be referenced in songs by modern day rappers. Certainly I've picked up on references in songs by Kanye West/Kid Cudi/Raekwon, Jay Z, Frank Ocean, Lil Wayne to name a few. One of the biggest songs towards the end of 2016 was the heavily referencing Black Beatles, which inspired the viral mannequin challenge, which in turn popularised the song even more. Hell, even Paul took part in the craze and the video itself went viral too. When you have songs that heavily reference The Beatles 50 years on, in a genre that seems like a polar opposite to their music just shows their continuing influence. If they weren't still influential, why on earth would they be written about by some rapper, 50 years on from their height y'know? 

Then you have sampling, which is one of the most unique characteristics of hip-hop - some consider it the backbone of the genre itself. If an artist samples something, it's obvious that piece  has moved and influenced them enough to not only incorporate that into their work, but also build upon it. The Beatles have been sampled in over 800 songs across multiple genres, many songs of which are rap and hip-hop, which is actually exceptional given that rock'n'roll and rap are quite polar opposites when it comes to music. Artists who have sampled them include, but are not limited to: Frank Ocean, Wu-Tang Clan, Lil Wayne, Danger Mouse, The Beastie Boys, RZA, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller to name a few. There's also been a number considerable and highly successful mashups between huge rap artists and The Beatles, such as Danger Mouse's mash up of JAY Z and The Beatles (both of which were well received by the two artists) as well as Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Magical Mystery Tour Chamber.

Don't get me wrong either, I'm not trying to overplay their influence by saying HUUUGE massive influence right, because realistically the genres are different and that is going to limit their influence to a degree, but seriously think about it. Hip hop/rap is very different from rock'n'roll - so why are these massive rap artists from a completely different genre still continuing to reference them alongside sampling and mashing-up their music for their own creations decades, if not half a century on? It shows The Beatles influence is still there, and frankly I find it impressive it's crossing genre's like so.

If we branch out from hip-hop and rap, the influence of The Beatles actually be felt across multiple genres to this very day simply because they contributed a great amount to the actual production of music in the studio. It's widely known how innovative they were in the studio and along with their engineers they pioneered a great number of new sounds and techniques that have essentially become standards in music ever since and widely used. There's literally an entire Wikipedia article dedicated solely to it, and even then it doesn't cover everything. The Beatles and their engineers played with a crazy number of ways to produce new sounds and manipulate old ones - sounds, techniques and ideas of which are now very easily replicated within mere clicks in audio editing software. Even if some of these techniques weren't invented by them, The Beatles' heavy use of these techniques turned them from often obscure, rarely used into what is now heavily popular and standardised techniques in the recording world since.

Through that alone, you can essentially indirectly hear The Beatles influence in completely unrelated music all because modern day artists employ these techniques that The Beatles innovated in and popularised. I think a comparison could be similar to how those in early filmmaking like Georges Méliès pioneered techniques that would be later utilised by and expanded by future filmmakers and artists in their films decades later. Even if these filmmakers don't directly acknowledge Méliès (or whoever), or are even aware of him popularising those techniques, they are still influenced by him indirectly simply because he popularised those techniques that they were using. Certainly that's the way I see it (of course this opens up the fact that every artist is influenced by hundreds of influencers before them, but I think that's true anyway). Even just in general, when I think about how The Beatles have been extremely influential on many of the biggest names across multiple genres over the past 50 years, how these artists shaped their music after hearing The Beatles, and then current artists look to those artists, shape their music after theirs which was Beatle-influenced, that technically means they were indirectly influenced by The Beatles. It's very much a flow-on effect and that encompasses all degrees of art.

So yeah. I'm not saying they're the biggest influence on the current biggest genre, no, but their influence is still very much felt to a degree because they continue to be referenced in titles and lyrics, their music has been sampled and mashed up in hip-hop/rap/rnb many times over the years and the fact they popularised and standardised certain studio techniques that lead to indirect and even unintended influences on modern day music. I think that's actually relatively substantial for an artist in a completely different genre, and then I think if you combine that with what I mentioned in my old post, you know still very heavily streamed for a pretty old legacy artist by younger crowds, lots of Beatles references in everyday life/popular culture, it's pretty clear that even if they face periods where their influence may fluctuate, they're very safe in the long run. Great music is immortal.

Absolutely. I really, really love this quote by him and since I heard it in a fan edit years ago, I've never forgotten it:

"Great music and great melodies are immortal. Fashions change, culture changes, customs change. Great music is immortal. We still listen to Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Any of them. Great music is like a great piece of sculpture of a great painting. It's forever. For generations upon generations to appreciate forever."

In 500 years time when society looks completely different to what we have now, people are going to be admiring his work the way we admire Shakespeare's today.