No, Not Everything Was Better Yesterday

My friend’s daughter Molly was working on a research project for her English class: “Why modern music is so bad.” Since I spent a couple of decades working in radio in NYC, she figured I’d have something useful to say.

She started with that question, and I told her flat out, “It’s not.”

Every Generation Thinks Their Music Was the Best

I’ve lived through a lot of musical trends – 80s pop, 90s grunge, and the boy-band boom at the turn of the century. And every time the sound changed, people asked the same thing: “Why is modern music so bad?”

It’s a knee-jerk reaction to change. The stars of the 80s – Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Cyndi Lauper – followed the rock-and-roll renaissance of the 70s with the Eagles and Led Zeppelin. Grunge rebelled against pop with flannel and distortion. Then came boy bands, swinging the other way—fun, dramatic, and full of frosted tips.

We take “live in the now” a little too seriously. Because we’re living in the moment, we judge in the moment. And if it’s happening right now, we assume it’s terrible.

Working in radio, I heard it nonstop. My career began during the boy-band explosion, and people never stopped saying how bad the music was. But 25 years later, songs like the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” are considered pop classics.

Back then—poop emoji—if emojis had existed.

Viral Before “Viral” Existed

Molly asked another good question: “Do you think artists today are trying to go viral instead of making good music?”

I told her that 20 or 30 years ago, artists weren’t chasing virality, but they were chasing singles. The lead single in the 80s or 90s was the viral moment of its time, the song that made you buy the whole album. Record executives always said, “Love the album, but I don’t hear a single.” The single was the gone-viral of its day.

Then she asked, “Do you think artists rely too much on technology to make music now?”

That complaint isn’t new either. People said the same thing when Bob Dylan went electric, when Van Halen used synthesizers, and when DJs started making hits on laptops. Every generation calls the new tools sacrilegious—until the next one comes along.

The “Better Back Then” Trap

So, no, not everything was better yesterday. Every era has its noise and its magic. What sounds overproduced or disposable today might be someone’s nostalgia soundtrack in 20 years.
The same mindset shows up everywhere, not just in music.

People say politics used to be more civil, but go back and read the campaign ads from the 1800s—they make Twitter look polite. They say journalism used to be objective, but newspapers were once proudly partisan, each shouting from its own corner. They say movies used to be better, but every decade has its share of flops, remakes, and sequels.

We only remember the good stuff because time photoshops it for us.

Pop culture works the same way. We love to say there will never be another Springsteen, Oprah, or Seinfeld. But there’s always someone new redefining what success looks like. It’s just harder to see when you’re in the middle of it. Nostalgia blurs the rough edges, and suddenly everything old feels pure, while everything current feels cheap.

That’s why “the good old days” are such a sexy story. They’re finished. We know the ending. The songs already charted, the leaders already elected, the movies already classic. There’s no uncertainty in the past. The future, on the other hand, is still being written, and that makes people uncomfortable.

So when someone says, “Things were better back then,” they’re not really talking about quality. They’re talking about comfort.

About the feeling of knowing where the world fit, who the stars were, and how the soundtrack went.

History tells the same story over and over. The new thing always looks worse until time decides it was good. And every generation thinks they’re living through hell, when they’re really watching the next chapter begin.