The problem is when the people who make the choices blindly abandon the old because its old and adopt the new because it's new. Or the other way round.

There are wonderful new hymns,including some which are very simple and involve a lot of repetition, like some of Sydney Carter's. And there are others that are dire, so bad you feel they must have been written by some dedicated enemy of religion as a way of driving people out of church. Unfortunately these often seem to be the ones that get wheeled out time and time again. (They still drive people away.)

For some reason I find cheerful songs are generally particularly depressing. I think that's probably because they feel like they're lying. Life can be pretty grim at times, and you have to find a way of getting through it and a way being joyful in the face of it. Cheerful happy stuff doesn't help with that, and that's where a lot of older hymns are better - they understand that; and the good new ones do as well.