Tony Bennett Comes Out Swinging: Says Today’s Music “Terrible”’

Tony Bennett

Legendary crooner Tony Bennett made his feelings on today’s pop music very clear late last week: he thinks it’s “terrible”!

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s “Today Programme”, the 87-year-old singer pulled no punches, flatly stating that: "The songs that are written today, most of them are terrible,” and that "It’s a very bad period, musically, throughout the world for popular music."

And if anyone is in a position to know, it’s Bennett – a 50+ year veteran of the music business with over 50 million records sold. But Bennett – always the gentleman – laid the blame for today’s sorry state of pop music squarely on the record companies, not the artists.

"The corporations took it over and they want to make so much money and they don’t care whether the public likes it or not," he said. "They think the public is ignorant, so their attitude is, 'Don’t give them anything intelligent, because it won’t sell.' 

“I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs.” Bennett continued. “Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that’s rather silly.

“They’re missing out on thousands of people that would love to buy records but they don’t buy them because they don’t have a lasting quality."

But Bennett’s disappointment with the state of today’s music biz isn’t stopping him from staying current – or planning an upcoming collaboration of jazz duets with Lady Gaga later this year.

“I still have a lot to learn,” He said. “I’m concentrating on learning a lot more about music.”