Real Music?

[anaxcrosswords]

In my early teens music was always real instruments because we didn’t have sequencers and drum machines. The electronic thing – Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Soft Cell and the like – was a welcome late teens thing because it was very different and so obviously electronic.
Then came the late 80s and, suddenly, electronic music became something else. The technology improved to the extent that, sometimes, it was hard to work out if you were listening to real drums, real bass etc etc. Listening back to it now, it’s awful (to me anyway). When Mamya runs her Night Night Song threads I sometimes go onto YouTube and call up songs which I thought were great at the time, and I find myself hating them. Even a great musician like George Benson has his wonderful guitar and vocal over instrumentation which is all programmed and sequenced.
So I’m wondering. Musicians can easily discern the fake stuff, but as a casual non-musician listener can you tell what’s real and what’s programmed, and does it matter to you? Is the end product more important?

[Mamyalynne]

Bad boy, I'll be up all night now!

[RandyMarsh]

Thank you!