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When do we stop finding new music?

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Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#461

Post by criley2 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #281
criley2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm a little puzzled as you're describing a music stylist on skin colour, black vs white You may not realize this, but in the 1930-1950 era being described in America, there was something called "Segregation" where black people were considered legally inferior to white people. As such, there was a very hard line between "black" and "white", a line that was aggressively enforced by every level of society from lawmaki…

You should be able to describe the sound differences if the music is that distinct.

>You should be able to describe the sound differences if the music is that distinct.

They are and I can, however the existence of Black Swing is in no way predicated on a difference in sound only.

Consider this: white culture in America continually stole from a legally repressed black culture, including white swing which stole the black art and commercialized it. Even if a 1950 white swing song sounds similar to a 1940 black swing song, there is still a "black swing" and a "white swing".

Frankly, I think trying to reduce history of music down to "the sounds themselves" is a way to whitewash the history and destroy the true knowledge of what happened and why. The context is very important.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#462

Post by _a_a_a_ »

criley2 wrote: post #267
_a_a_a_ wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little puzzled as you're describing a music stylist on skin colour, black vs white. I presume you don't really mean that, so what distinguishes the two musical styles, black swing vs white swing? Serious question.

>I'm a little puzzled as you're describing a music stylist on skin colour, black vs white You may not realize this, but in the 1930-1950 era being described in America, there was something called "Segregation" where black people were considered legally inferior to white people. As such, there was a very hard line between "black" and "white", a line that was aggressively enforced by every level of society from lawmaki…

That's extremely patronising, I know well about segregation of that era, and that segregation functionally continued far longer than the 1950s. Blatantly there's a difference, that was what I was asking about the effect of, which you ignored. At least @ Pannoniae provided an answer.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#463

Post by lapcat »

throw5323446 wrote: post #457
lapcat wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Music is absolutely not getting worse unless you're only considering top charting music which is such a small fraction of what's out there. But there's a crucial difference between what's out there and what people are listening to. There's a lot of obscure stuff that not many people are listening to. Whereas the top charting music is what millions of people are listening to. It matters a lot what's getting marketed…

> Unfortunately, very few repliers are addressing the first point that I made in my comment: "GenZ and Millennials show a much smaller preference for their own decade's music." Seems very hard to accurately measure, could be that people don't know what was released in their decade but the stuff from the 80s is easy to pinpoint.

> could be that people don't know what was released in their decade

It seems implausible that young people don't know that new music is new.

Why would the 80s be easy to pinpoint for people who weren't even alive in the 80s?

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#464

Post by suoduandao3 »

yobbo wrote: post #436
wodenokoto wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is the reverse. 20-30 years ago, you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more. They would introduce you to music outside "your tribe" of virtue of having to play a little bit of every genre that's popular. Back then, I'd say investing in a album was always safe, not because you went to the record store and asked for a new rock album, because you had heard 1 or 2 singles (unwillingly) and read a review (willingl…

> you'd listen to radio or MTV a lot more The selection in these channels was the tribe back then. They were the "bottleneck" of pop culture. From around 2000 with broadband etc, "payola" (broadcasters being coerced by record companies to play their flagship songs "in heavy rotation") is less and less effective. As a consequence, I think the "current fashion" of music seems less defined.

I believe this is the origin of the '90s kids' meme. Not too long ago there was one culture. Then the internet came along and there was a gathering place for fans of every obscure anime and political system.

I don't miss the restrictiveness of a single culture and the expectation to fit into it, but with the benefit of hindsight I can't say it was a terrible culture, given all it had to do.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#465

Post by jncfhnb »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #142
jncfhnb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its composition. This is a very silly statement. As someone who prefers to listen the full albums and does so 95% of the time and basically never seek to play a specific single; I’m definitely not going to listen to an entire albums of new art…

>If I like a song, I’ll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I’ll listen to the discography. Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. Design decisions are often, if not always, centered around the path of least resistance. [1] 1: https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-you...

Listening to albums is a bad way of discovering albums you like. That’s my point.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#466

Post by mellosouls »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #344
mellosouls wrote: post #332

The conclusions of this study - that musical open-mindedness drops off in the late twenties - is consistent with the fact that (pop) music creators also peak in their twenties, with a rapid decline into creative insignificance afterwards. There's a lot of comforting analysis here on social and cultural development reasons why that might be, but the likely ugly truth is the same faced by creatives in some other areas…

I think there is developmental biological factor, but how quickly you’ve leapt to cognitive decline betrays an underlying ageism. First, cognitive abilities don’t drop suddenly at the age of 30, and crystallized intelligence continues to grow for at least couple of decades past 30. Second, you need to square your conclusions with the fact that the average age for the best work by classical composers was 40 rather tha…

how quickly you’ve leapt to cognitive decline betrays an underlying ageism

This is a belief I've developed over years, I used to believe the same as everybody else - that social etc factors like raising kids got in the way.

But its too universal within pop music (and I think some other fields mentioned in another comment) to be explained as anything but age-related cognitive decline - which by definition will be "ageist" if you want to resort to that sort of language.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#467

Post by mellosouls »

082349872349872 wrote: post #416
mellosouls wrote: post #332

The conclusions of this study - that musical open-mindedness drops off in the late twenties - is consistent with the fact that (pop) music creators also peak in their twenties, with a rapid decline into creative insignificance afterwards. There's a lot of comforting analysis here on social and cultural development reasons why that might be, but the likely ugly truth is the same faced by creatives in some other areas…

> (pop) music creators also peak in their twenties, with a rapid decline into creative insignificance afterwards. Die Toten Hosen and Leningrad would like to have a word. If you're reliant on the machine, then of course you'll suffer "creative insignificance" once the machine ceases to have a use for you. compare "New Kid in Town" (1976)

Like I also said, there are very rare exceptions.

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#468

Post by suoduandao3 »

hnbad wrote: post #421
goosejuice wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music is absolutely not getting worse unless you're only considering top charting music which is such a small fraction of what's out there. Even then it's highly subjective and behind almost every one of those songs or albums is a handful of brilliant writers, producers and session musicians you probably never heard of. I'd say it's never been better. Music is more accessible which means more folks get exposed to it…

FWIW most of the top charting music of the 90s, 80s and so on were also "worse" and have mostly been forgotten. Few songs remain popular or regain popularity. A lot of chart hits are really just springboarding off "you had to be there" cultural moments or experiences or simply a general "vibe" that are fleeting and trivial enough not to stick around even in nostalgia. As an extreme example, I'd argue the popularity o…

I recently encountered the term 'Tempoflavanoids' - the flavour of a particular moment in time. I love the concept, it speaks to the artist in me.

Though I thought David Hasslehoff's 'True Survivor' music video for the Kung Fury kickstarter was a banger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY

Re: When do we stop finding new music?

#469

Post by Hugsun »

redwall_hp wrote: post #181
lapcat wrote: post #168

I find it interesting that GenZ and Millennials show a much smaller preference for their own decade's music. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... The 1980s are still doing quite well among all but the oldest generation. Is it possible that music may actually be getting worse? Corporatized, consolidated, computerized. Look at Hollywood now too: everything is a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot…

Music has become more stratified. The 90s through the present have been an ongoing escalation of music being democratized more and more, from the rise of the DAW in the late 90s to iTunes and P2P sharing to YouTube and music streaming. So there is vastly more music now, and people have more opportunity to find things that suit their tastes. People listen to a wider variety of music and the same Billboard notion of po…

On that note, to me, the current year has been the best year for music for a long time. Simply because of volume and variety.
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