Husker Du Zen Arcade(1984) does not sound old at all to me. Low production value, very raw. Still sounds fresh. Also it hasn't been played on the radio and stadiums for years like the hits from Ten and Nevermind. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I know. That's why I said you're talking about different things. "Dated" does not mean "irrelevant."

lol, Zen Arcade sounds extremely fucking '80s. I mean, the opening drums alone are a dead giveaway.

Vs. sounds slightly dated but it stands the test of time overall. It's raw enough, more variety in the songs than Ten or the average band from any era. Vitalogy and No Code I don't think will ever sound dated.

The Replacements Tim is an album that was overproduced(1980's sounding) thus making it sound dated but its still a great album.

I feel like everyone is applying value judgments to "dated" that were never implied in the OP. Saying Zen Arcade sounds '80s or Vs. sounds '90s (which they absolutely do) does not diminish them in any way.

Sad part of it all is Nirvana and to a far lesser degree pearl jam, are only held in such regard because it was the last time rock music was in some way innovative on what came before.

I constantly hear rap and r n b (they don’t even understand the genre but use the title anyways) is the only ‘new’ music.

Bullshit.

It’s a disolved nebulous game now where every kid in his bedroom can make music of any kind.

The only ones getting acclaimed are Gaga and Beyoncé.
Both steal blatantly from their betters.
And both produce music that dates and expires almost immediately

Most music sounds dated but we know teenage boys will enjoy Led Zeppelin and then Pink Floyd when they turn 18/19.

If they are lucky they will hear about the Velvet Underground and The Stooges before they're too old.

I dunno, man -- Vitalogy sounds pretty damn '90's to me. Less so than Ten or Vs, perhaps, but I think you can absolutely still pick out which era it comes from.

That said, LV is spot on here:

Music only sounds dated in relation to when you first heard it.
So that’s a Year by year generational shift. With different influences.
It’s all about perception and time.

This is wildly untrue. Just because I may not have heard an album before, that doesn’t mean it’s era of creation won’t be identifiable when I do hear it.

I think there are probably always things that give a recording away, because even when there aren't obvious production gimmicks or of-the-moment trends that are easily identified, there are always recording/mixing/mastering techniques that may reflect the available technology or preferred playback methods of the time, such things which are difficult to replicate deliberately later on without it sounding forcefully contrived (I'm thinking of someone like Jack White's obsession with antique recording methods, or a modern artist who may favor the warm sound of an analog recording which they then master for iTunes or Spotify or something else which inadvertently moves the final product further away from how the original "authentic" version of that sound would have come across).

That said, I think there is a difference between music sounding dated and a recording sounding dated, and I think in general the stuff that is most likely to evade the label would be genres like jazz, bluegrass, maybe certain forms of classical music, etc. i.e. not exactly mainstream but not exactly niche things that have existed for a long time on the periphery of popularity, but are beholden to their own traditions as much as anything. LV alluded to metal as well, which I know less about but which seems like it would reasonably meet the same criteria. There are certainly offshoots of all of these things where you can clearly pinpoint its era -- jazz/rock fusion like Weather Report, for instance -- but by the same token, the Brad Mehldau album that came out last year doesn't sound much different from a Keith Jarrett album that came out in 1975; both of them just sound like someone playing the piano. You can also look at stuff like, say, "Blood Money" by Tom Waits -- something like that feels "timeless" to me, in the sense that it has the recording quality of something that made in 2002, yet musically seems more reflective of something that would have been written and performed in 1922. You can argue whether something like that is "timeless," but I would contend that it is not easily dated -- or, perhaps more accurately, runs low risk of ever sounding outdated.

I also think that, even in popular music, there are wildly varying degrees of how firmly entrenched something is in the sounds of its era. "Blood on the Tracks," for instance, was believably recorded in 1974, but a recording of that same arrangement made today would sound different only in that it would sound newer and would adhere to different production/mastering standards; there aren't a lot of affects or gimmicks that make the music itself feel like "a product of the era." Compare that to, say, Paul McCartney's "Red Rose Speedway," an album recorded (I think) the same year, and something like that feels completely a product of its time; soft-rock schlock ballads like "My Love" would be rendered entirely differently if recorded today, in addition to all the recording/audio stuff.

In my experience, these dating criteria have the potential to add history, charm, and sonic novelty to a song/album, but depending on the situation, can also steer the music in the direction of cliche or parody, particularly after time has passed and the tropes of a specific era become entrenched in our perception. This is kind of how I was registering that Miles album I was listening to this morning; to me this album ("Decoy") sounds like an old man struggling to keep up with hot trends, where an album with similar production values by Michael Jackson does not come across this way to me, even though the baseline "sound" of the album is very similar. Perhaps this is just what I know about the state of each artist's career at the time, but I don't think it's quite that simple.

The answer is orchestra hits.

I think music sounds dated when the songs aren't quite up to par and there is an over reliance on current production techniques in an attempt to make up for the songwriting. They can also sound dated when production is used that doesn't suit the music, usually in an attempt to make it more mainstream.

You’re making my point for me.
It’s not about some identifiable era.
It’s about whether a song or album can last and exist beyond that period.

Go back to Kanye.

Actually don’t. He’s not a musician or a songwriter.

Go anywhere else.
You’re embarrassing yourself until you do.
You know absolutely nothing about music and how it works.
But by all means continue if you insist

What the hell are you even talking about

Do you...do you know what the word “dated” means?

I do as it happens.
Your entire mindset and posting.
It’s dated.

You’re right everyone else is wrong.


Go back to 1995 where you belong. Were you even born then? You have no idea what you’re talking about.
You have never been in a band.
You have never written a song.
You definitely do not understand music outside your shit little frame of reference.
You’re a loudmouth arsehole clearly hurt and projecting that on everyone you can. projecting poorly by the way.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. But you want to be heard.


Therapy. It’s right there. Go get it