New music shrinking in popularity

Precisely. There are so many people, even on this forum, who somehow have fixated on music as the source of their happiness when they were younger, and have conflated the two things (music and youthful joy.) Everything was going great for a spell, the dopamine was flowing freely, coincidently Led Zeppelin was spinning on the turntable. And then presto, they've spent the next 50 years believing that they are major music fans, and yet struggle to find that dopamine trigger in any subsequent music - not wanting to do the work, which might show them that it could have been a dozen other things going right in 1973 that was really the cause of the feel good neurotransmitters. It wasn't music, it never was, it never will be, and yet they've created and lived an identity as the biggest music fan in their social groups.

Then there are those, who have similar origin stories, but who felt great sources of dopamine putting together their record collections. Perhaps realizing at some point, it is the buying and collecting, and not the actual content that brings them happiness. They'd have the same experience with trading cards or comic books.

The perverse sense of confirmation bias that people seem to get here when someone publishes and article deriding new music and or cultural trends dismays me to no end.

 

Something easy to forget in these discussions of new vs old music: in the old days, old music would actually go out of print. There was only so much space in record stores and in record company warehouses so an old record that not many people bought the first time might not be available for several years in a row. Record guides in the 70s, 80s, and 90s took note of this, and often only reviewed records that were in print. Old music was easily confined to the dustbin. But now old music is always there and always available and every day another (x) thousand albums on Spotify that came out 18 months ago officially become “old music.” All of which to say is there are a great number of variables and almost no granular data on consumption from more than 10 years ago so it’s very hard to say exactly what has changed and when.

 

Ok, Zep maybe. But what about Foghat?

 

What is poor taste, exactly?

 

Another thing they do here is jump straight into a thread without reading the article or the dozen posts already saying that they’re merely referring to music that’s 1 1/2 years old as old. Anything to get the new music sucks jabs in.

 

Anything past 1979 or before 1966 except Beatles and Stones. And all that other stuff in between those years that is weirdo music.

 

Exactly, they seem to revel in their own ignorance.

 

Most new music is like cheap clothes from China.

 

Yes I do like some current artists. Overall, I think the current music scene is terrible though.

 

I haven't heard it therefore it sucks.

 

There is certainly nothing wrong with having an exclusive preference for one style and era of music.

However, there is definitely something twisted about the compulsion to announce it at every turn, and declare all music outside the approved personal choice to be worthless.

 

Well, 1.000.000 artists/bands all recording the same 3-chord songs using the same software, plugins, autotune, melodyne everything just sounds the same. Oversupply, and everything is basically free thank Spotify & Youtube etc. Why would anyone bother listening to new music anymore?

 

Because there is an endless flow of other music on the planet outside the box of artists doing poor imitations of music you like.

 

Hah !! Chapeau, monsieur !

 

Pardon me, I'm only 66 years old, so maybe I missed it...when exactly, was there a trend of old music going out of print?

Are you perhaps referring to, "old music you were looking for at that particular moment", going out of print...?

 

and who's the blame for this?

 

You realize that hundreds of millions of people listen to new music, right? And that Bad Bunny has the biggest year for streams of any artist with 10.3 billion streams. With new albums this year from Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Beyonce, it will also be interesting to see the catalog vs. new music numbers for 2022. Also, maybe you jumped into the thread late and/or didn't read the MRC study, but the "old" music is in the study is catalog music, meaning 18 months old or more, so, you know "Dance Monkey" and "Shape of You" and "Old Town Road" and "Bad Guy," that kind of "old music."

 

that was never a creed I followed.

 

Go ahead, just blame The Who.

 

When they take a popular song and run it through computer software that extracts the "good bits", then endlessly copies those "good bits" into new songs figuring the public will like them too, you have a problem.

 

You certainly do have a problem if you think that is what all "new music" is.

 

Sometimes I genuinely feel like some SH members hear like 2 songs off the Billboard top 100 in the span of a year and go "this must be what all new music sounds like"

 

NEW music in the USA is shrinking in popularity largely I believe because of media giants. The best NEW music is not being made in the USA currently.

I like lots of new music

 

Number of solo hits Peter Cetera had in the 1980s: more than one.

Number of solo hits Peter Cetera has nowadays: less than one.

According to this metric, which is the most accurate metric I can think of, today’s music is actually superior to yesterdays!

(but seriously - I’m just glad I’m not living in the era where Bay City Rollers or Air Supply were having hits. Some of y’all need to lose the rose-colored glasses.)

 

Yep, I feel like a lot of em stop listening & don't bother to expand their horizons.