Why Is New Music Dying?

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matt72582's Avatar
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Check out the entire article (I'm just pasting some of it)
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/is-o...ling-new-music


All the growth in the market is coming from old songs. 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams.

Consider these other trends:

The hottest area of investment in the music business is old songs—with investment firms getting into bidding wars to buy publishing catalogs from aging rock and pop stars.

The song catalogs in most demand are by musicians in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, etc.)—if not already dead (David Bowie, James Brown, etc.).

Even major record labels are participating in the shift, with Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and others buying up publishing catalogs—investing huge sums in old tunes that, in an earlier day, would have been used to launch new artists.

The hottest technology in music is a format that is more than 70 years old, the vinyl LP. There’s no sign that the record labels are investing in a newer, better alternative—because, here too, old is viewed as superior to new.

In fact, record labels—once a source of innovation in consumer products—don’t spend any money on research & development to revitalize their businesses, although every other industry looks to innovation for growth and consumer excitement.

Record stores are caught up in the same time warp. In an earlier day, they aggressively marketed new music, but now they make more money from vinyl reissues and used LPs.

Radio stations are contributing to the stagnation, putting fewer new songs into their rotation, or—judging by the offerings on my satellite radio lineup—completely ignoring new music in favor of old hits.

When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the “Blurred Lines” jury decision of 2015—with the result that additional cash gets transferred from today’s musicians to old (or deceased) artists.

Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form—via holograms and deepfake music—making it all the harder for a young, living artist to compete in the marketplace.



I'd like to add that it's worse than the numbers show

Many older people don't use streaming to listen to music. I talk to a LOT of people (just like here), and many still play their records, and others I know took their CDs and burned/digitized them into mp3's (some flac) so they can move them wherever and never have to purchase them again.

Simple answer: 60/70s > last 40 years, and it's no contest....

People can accidentally come across any kind of music on YouTube, and even the young people aren't going to deprive themselves of pleasure, despite the dumb pejoratives, like calling a 22-yr old a "dinosaur" (which happened today)



I attribute it to the advent of rap "music".

It redefined music so as to say "music" no longer needed either melody or harmony (only a beat); singers no longer needed to be able to actually sing (to be in pitch, understand musical notes, modulate flats & sharps, harmonize with each other or carry a tune) all they needed was to be able to talk fast and in an angry fashion, often utilizing obscenities and vulgarity.

Rap became so pervasive (which was real torture for people who didn't like it) that even commercials with the Flintstones felt forced to utilize it.

And, of course, reams have been written on the derogatory effects "rap culture" had on society with its inherent misogyny, homophobia, violence, promotion of crime, illegal drugs, sexual assault, and calls to attack & destroy law enforcement.

The music world always had it's good & bad, and there has always been a place for music that questions social conventions, confronts outdated cultural constructs and which rebels against authority, but rap music and the hate-filled crime culture that it inspired was like a spreading cancer of violent ill-will and negativity that infested and took over popular music as whole

Let the flaming begin!



As mentioned in the article, I believe that some of the problem is that new popular music is very poor quality. It's dull and repetitive. I'm a poor one to complain because I don't listen to ANY new popular music, and very little popular music of any type.

But to me rap/hip hop --if not killing new popular music-- put a huge hitch in it. The reason? It's not music. It's boring chant with rhythmic background.

What tickles me in re the production companies is, if they're worried about being hit by copyright violations, they SHOULD be embracing true new music. If it's unique and innovative they're not going to have to worry about litigious gold diggers.

But something will come along irrespective of the current drought-- it always does. After all if you hear something often enough it becomes popular.

And country music? It's gone. Every song pretty much sounds like every other one. I'm sure they're composed using algorithms. It all sounds like the drek that's played over the speakers in convenience store rest rooms...



I didn't read the article the OP posted and I don't know squat about new music. I don't even listen to new music unless you count the homogenized, assembly line music they play in J.C Penneys stores while I'm shopping. So this is a wild guess, or maybe an educated hunch why new music isn't growing...

I blame the Baby Boomers. Well not them personally but they made up this huge generational group of people who came to age during the 1960s and 70s and grew up with rock music. Now that the Baby Boomers are older they still listed to the same older music and so do a lot of their kids and grand kids.

I've heard people here say their kids and grand kids are into Black Sabbath or Rush which is mind boggling because when I was in high school and a kid those bands were at the start of their careers. But as a youngster I wouldn't have dreamed of listening to music from 40 years in the past and yet that's common place today.

Last time I was into new music was the 1990s grunge and techno, but especially grunge as I live in the shadow of Seattle and the northwest music scene.

OK that's all I got



My suspicion is that older music tends to be more popular and profitable because more people know it and have positive feelings or memories associated with it. They want to hear the music from concerts they grow up attending or the music they partied to in college or the music they danced to at weddings or the songs from their favourite classic films. I think it likely takes time to appreciate newer music. There is good and bad music in every generation and every time period and every genre. That's my theory anyways.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Is it too much to ask that people who don't like 'rap' can at least call it music?
Yes. [2]
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
They still make music?

I wouldn't call it that.



But to me rap/hip hop --if not killing new popular music-- put a huge hitch in it. The reason? It's not music. It's boring chant with rhythmic background.

.

And the actual music is mostly funk/soul from the 70s, which tells me something -- they couldn't create their own, so they leech off some poor musician, knowing they'll take any amount of money. And the really sad thing is, people attribute the creation to the most popular thing, usually the cover. I watch basketball, and they take every song, and put a "drum machine" on top, and sometimes, not even to make it more dance-friendly.
My suspicion is that older music tends to be more popular and profitable because more people know it and have positive feelings or memories associated with it. They want to hear the music from concerts they grow up attending or the music they partied to in college or the music they danced to at weddings or the songs from their favourite classic films. I think it likely takes time to appreciate newer music. There is good and bad music in every generation and every time period and every genre. That's my theory anyways.

You'd be surprised. On a huge music board, after scrolling through the hundreds of messages, as well as the board in general, I'd say the average age is about 25.. I asked someone else who works at a record shop, and I guess there's a huge sub-culture of people who love records. There's less compression, for there can't be that many audiophiles.... I'll add that the game is actually titled toward new music, because of the future possibilities.. Dead musicians won't be having future concerts or future albums. But, because of something like YouTube, someone can accidentally listen to something, and if they like it, chances are good they'll listen to their other songs and other albums. It would be like if your new school or work cafeteria had a new cook and the food is great. No one is going to care about the age of this cook - they just love the food.

Here's a really cool documentary I saw years ago. Alan Zweig isn't popular for some reason, but I've loved almost every one of his documentaries.





...
Here's a really cool documentary I saw years ago. Alan Zweig isn't popular for some reason, but I've loved almost every one of his documentaries.
That album picture at the beginning of the video is from Unconditionally Guaranteed by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band from 1974. It was probably our worst sounding album although it had a few good songs.



1. MTV/Radio - MTV stopped playing music which means music wasn't being curated and promoted to mass audiences. Radio also died...when I was a boy we had 5 or 6 stations for new music now we really just have one per genre if the distribution market doesn't exist...it kills the industry.

2. Record Labels - Record labels are really just money markets I don't think they do anything but sign content deals to streamers at very low prices. They make money but the artists don't.

3. Genre death - Rock N Roll is dead, it's been dying since 1995 the bands that come out are stale corporate shills (Nickelback, Coldplay, Maroon Five).

4. Market Saturation - 60's Rock, Motown, New Wave, Grunge, Gangster Rap they all still exist. Do I need to listen to the mumblings of Travis Scott when I can listen to Dr. Dre or Public Enemy



Is Rap Music? Um.....yeah.



1) Outside of the early records of The Last Poets, I find virtually nothing in the entire 50 year history of hip-hop which should have us comparing what MC's do to 'chanting'. Chanting generally is about pure repetition, often remaining in the same one or two tones. Rapping plays with different rhythm, incorporates melody, often includes versus/chorus/prechorus/bridges. It is frequently the opposite of chanting, even if it sounds as if it is simply being spoken. But even if we want to reduce it to nothing but chanting, how does this play towards the argument that it 'isn't music', as chanting is clearly very much a party of the history of music. It is the root of a lot of aboriginal music. It is by any definition music. Unless we are in a position here where we are also going to throw the music of other cultures into the 'non music' dust bin (maybe we should do the same to classical Indian music while we are at it), maybe we should try and have some kind of open mind about how music from different cultures operates, and not close ourselves off because it doesn't sound like what played on the radio when we were kids. Just because it is unfamiliar or different to YOU doesn't mean it stops being music FFS



2) The music involved in hip hop is not simply a rhythmic background. It is generally integrated with the flow of the MC. It does frequently use repetition (but so does no end of modern classical composers which is music, last time I checked), but it doesn't exclusively lock into these repetition. There can be either subtle variation in this repetition as the music progresses, or it can out right move along with the structure of the verses much in exactly the same way that much popular music has done all through history. Or maybe the rhythmic musical background to A Hard Day's Night doesn't qualify as music either. It's very rhythmic and also technically in the background.



3) Sampling isn't simply stealing. In absolutely lame cases (like a good deal of Puff Daddy's biggest hits) I might agree that it is. But taking elements of other songs and recontextualizing how they are used, editing them to change their effect or meaning, or manipulating speeds and pitches so as they blend into their new musical environments is a musical skill set that can be just as rigorous as learning an instrument. There can maybe be arguments to be made about the physical demands of DJing vs mastering live instrumentation, but both take considerable amounts of sweat and musical knowledge to make work well. I would like to think in 2022 the argument that sampling is simply theft, without any creative (or musical or artistic or philosophical) contribution being made by the DJ, would have been rendered moot by now as its pretty clear that nearly all music (and all art) is about taking what is old and readjusting/repurposing it. While a sample may seem more blatant in how it does this, we don't start talking about how Led Zeppelin or Bob Dylan are 'musicians' for building their careers on lifting songs, lyrics and guitars lines. And they did it pretty ****ing blatantly too. They, like DJ's, simply molded what they took into their own image. Sampling isn't all that dissimilar in what its function is.


4) The notion that rappers don't need to sing or worry about pitch is just flat out wrong. There is a long history of MC's who can both sing and rap. And if you tell me someone like Rakim or Big Daddy Kane aren't worried about pitch, you should probably listen a little closer. And this isn't even getting into all the varieties and different styles of rapping that have evolved since old school hip hop came into play, and to act like what they are doing with their voice is of no consequence to anything you can consider musical, is on its face laughable.



5) Focusing on anger or vulgarities as our dividing line to why rap is bad and other music is music, is disingenous and ignores the endless stream of artists who are completely clean and have exclusively positive messages. If we are picking and choosing artists to discredit an entire genre, we all already know we can do that to attack every single genre. Give me a ****ing break here.


6) If we are going to talk about artist who do talk about violence and anger and use vulgarity, while I think it is fair game to criticize these particular artists, and I don't expect people to have to get on board such messages as they are purposefully confrontational and controversial and maybe even sometimes not particularly great culturally, maybe for a second it could also benefit us to try and understand WHY there is such anger and violence in these. elements of this musical culture. If we want to take a specific example, and look at the hysterical overreaction that greeted **** tha Police back in the 80's, instead of looking only at what through one lens may be promoting violence against law enforcement (which I also would disagree with), we can try and deepen our understanding of what is being said by considering whether or not the men and women in these communities that were targeted by police during this time had reason to be fed up with how they were being treated. Even if we don't agree with the ultimate product of their anger, can we at least try and acknowledge they might have a reason to be angry in the first place? And if their reality is mired in a world where they feel they can't get a leg up, and the police are constantly knocking them down, should we not expect at least some artists to put a voice to this reality? Did working class rock and rollers simply pleasantly sniff the crotches of police, or did they some times rebel as well in their lyrics (Um...Black Flag anyone). And if they did, why do we only remember and still get angry over one genre of musics anti-authority articulations?



7) Criticizing a musical culture, by drawing a direct line to those who participate in that culture, and then using that to associate them with crime and vulgarity and every other unsavoury thing we can think of, is frankly gross. Unless we still want to talk about all the juvenile delinquency Bill Haley and the Comets are mucking up, maybe we want to step back from saying hip hop (and those who like it) has been the cause of a hate-filled crime culture. Because, it was a completely ridiculous argument in the 1950s, and it still is.



I don't listen to newer music, nothing newer than the early to mid-90's really, and it doesn't matter the genre. I have no idea if other people feel this way, but the small amount of newer music that I am unfortunately exposed to screams look at me. I don't want to look at you and I don't care about you. Make some music that everyone can relate to. This attitude is not just in music, it's everywhere.



Interesting: WABC AM radio has been conservative political talk for decades now. But in recent years they've been talking about how they started out as a music station and have started to return to those roots on the weekends. They've taken on Cousin Brucie who spins "oldies" (as he always has), they've got Tony Orlando hosting a variety music / talk show that plays mostly hits from his heyday era, and they've got Joe Piscapo (SNL alumni) hosting "Sundays with Sinatra" - fielding calls from listeners & spinning hits by ol' blue eyes.



I haven't planned this post in any way, so sorry if it's merely rambling.

First, I agree that memorable, recognizable, and unique artists seem scarcer every year. That seems counter-intuitive considering how much easier it is to self-publish these days. For years now, there's been only a handful of new albums each year that I've felt like revisiting multiple times, and only a few have stayed in heavy circulation. The rest are just forgettable, bland mass.

So, why is that? I blame, at least partially, technology. The easier it is to fix things in post-production the less skill is needed by the artists. Auto-Tune makes everyone a pitch-perfect singer, but it also eliminates all the imperfections that would have made the voice unique. Often in popular music, it's almost like listening to a robot instead of a human. The production is often optimized for poor portable players, making everything sound flat and loud. Instruments use "perfect" sampled sounds to a point where everything sounds the same.

I believe that the average skill level of new musicians is lower than 30+ or 40+ years ago. I don't mean just the technical level of playing (there surely are modern virtuosos) but the understanding of music on a theoretical level. Popular music is becoming simpler all the time. At times I feel like the whole of humanity is on the decline.

Oh, and I stay away from that rap discussion. I don't need more private messages from Yoda
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In response to @crumbsroom's last post: you make a lot of good points. And I'm not trying to play semantics police or even style-classification police.

But since you mentioned hip-hop, I kind of draw a distinction between rap and hip-hop (although the line, admittedly is a thin one). I see (or rather hear) hip-hop as a style that incorporates aspects of rap along with funk, soul, jazz and R&B.

You will hear melodies in hip-hop and sometimes even harmonies which are, for the most part, devoid from most typical rap music (there, I said "music")!

Of course, every genre expands into others at some point depending on the song & artist.



A system of cells interlinked
Love Rick Beato (Bee-at-o), thanks for posting that video, @matt72582.

For more on the subject at hand, here is an interesting video on the science behind the simplification of music, as well as some other thoughts on the subject, by Thoughty2.

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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Love Rick Beato (Bee-at-o), thanks for posting that video, @matt72582.

For more on the subject at hand, here is an interesting video on the science behind the simplification of music, as well as some other thoughts on the subject, by Thoughty2.
Very revealing. I suspected that these techniques were being used. The business aspects have way overtaken the artistic, whereas it used to be a joint circumstance.