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Is Old Music Killing New Music?
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Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#12Pro Tools and Auto Tune destroys new music. Is the verse repeated somewhere? Just fly the first verse over. Engineers and producers will quantize the song and just put things where they want them. Timings are microsecond perfect every time. It's bare, lifeless and completely sterile. If a new artist wants to, even slightly, disrupt this paradigm they are going to have a hard time making the rent.
Even many live performances are put through the tools. It's pretty sad.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#13Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
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Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#14Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
I can understand why you'd get that impression by only looking at the top 40, there's a thriving middle ground of artists that are popular enough to do national/world tours but don't get radio play. Rock and folk are hugely popular (under the "indie" label). The metal scene is thriving. There are young musicians pushing the boundaries of jazz. Electronic music is huge and has more subgenres than anyone can count. The cost of creating and distributing music has fallen massively in the last two decades. More music is being made now than ever before, and small artists are able to reach audiences that would never have been possible just 10-15 years ago.
There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to identify what will be have long-term impact in the moment. To cherry pick a couple examples from those lists, nobody was talking about Nick Drake in 1969. I want to say he sold something like a total of I'd also add that the 2021 list doesn't even seem like a great representation of what was popular last year. It pretty much entirely ignores hip hop which has been one of the most commercially dominant genres behind pop the last few years and produces a huge number of hits.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#15Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
Except the previous thread doesn't seems to support this narrative.
My view is that Good Music are timeless, and Good music we have over time are cumulative. Which means as we progress, new good music will have to compete with old good music. And the bar are set a little higher, which reduce the amount of good music we can make. But then a lot of music revenue are made by cult / era / marketing following. So in theory there should always been a market for new music.
Someday may be we have old music operating on digital freemium model. And then Old music will truly be competing against new music.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#16I suspect that the recommendation engines have a lot to do with this. Old songs have a lot more likes that new one so they are recommended at a higher level. Additionally, more likes begets more likes that again increases the recommendations of already popular music. The whole system is built to favor old music.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#17Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
Music sampling has had an impact on the differentiation of music. It's a lot easier to use a liked sample than to come up with a new ones so a lot of the post 2000's music sounds the same. So what's the point of trying to find new music when it all sounds similar.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#18Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
Indeed, accountants and the internet provided the one-two punch. I recognize the historical bias of "new music sucks." However I remember iconic hit songs dropping every single week in the 80s, from multiple genres. Now I hear a trickle of a few a year. Most pop tracks seem to be just vocals and beats, better to fend off lawsuits I suspect. Another important milestone in the legal environment folks might have forgott…
> However I remember iconic hit songs dropping every single week in the 80s, from multiple genres.
That's probably survivor bias more than anything. Or maybe the '80s just happened to be a strong decade for music. But again, that's dependent upon one's biases- I seem to remember the '90s to be a great era saturated with iconic hits, even if it coincided with accelerated corporatization of the music industry.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#19Pro Tools and Auto Tune destroys new music. Is the verse repeated somewhere? Just fly the first verse over. Engineers and producers will quantize the song and just put things where they want them. Timings are microsecond perfect every time. It's bare, lifeless and completely sterile. If a new artist wants to, even slightly, disrupt this paradigm they are going to have a hard time making the rent.
I'd argue that advanced and easily-accessible software tools is doing this to most mediums. Personally, I'm very jaded by amazing cinematography, at least physical landscapes, in films these days. It's too easy to go on location (well, less that part), shoot some breathtaking scenery, and after the IMAX footage is digitally processed, make a macOS wallpaper. Or even a smartphone background. Everything looks glossy and spectacular to the point of banality. One of the reasons I was less than overawed by Dune.
Technical perfection is too easy to achieve these days, and music is just but one example.
Re: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
#20Maybe the takeaway is that most new music just sucks? It's been the case for at least a decade. Multiple genres overrun by celebrities (vs talent) and endless re-hashing of the same ideas, samples and arrangements. Every year there is only a handful of artists that stand out. EDIT: A little experiment taking random past years: - 1969: Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fletwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Creedence…
I can understand why you'd get that impression by only looking at the top 40, there's a thriving middle ground of artists that are popular enough to do national/world tours but don't get radio play. Rock and folk are hugely popular (under the "indie" label). The metal scene is thriving. There are young musicians pushing the boundaries of jazz. Electronic music is huge and has more subgenres than anyone can count. The…
Also, Pink Floyd released two albums in 1969, and they sold well, but it was nothing like the success they had starting in 1973 with The Dark Side of the Moon.