Your premise here hits close to home as a performing artist. Specifically as a tap dancer, the only dancing that survived the 20th century was whatever was filmed, photographed, or remembered in stories. Too many amazing dancers never made it into film and so their craftwork, body of work, and personalities are lost to history. Those who witnessed them kept memories alive, but often didn't have a place to put them, either. Some of the stories made it to print (as documented oral histories), but reading about dancing isn't the same as bearing witness to the dancing in real life. For years I've worked on trying to solve for this challenge: how do you support an oral tradition in a culture that isn't organized around oral traditions? Still working...in the meantime, thanks for the reminder that the good stuff lasts, precisely because people care about it, and to be an encourager of what is good, not just an identifier of what is bad. That's something I can do right now.
@Andrew Nemr you are so correct about tap. My youngest son became enamored with the dance after watching “Tap,” “Cats,” the “Nutcracker,” and a host of lesser-known tap, hoover ( his favorite) and ballet performances on WHYY, our local PBS.
Insisted that was his “sport.” As the last of three, and being eight years younger than the first, I was thrilled (I'm a jazz musician). I enrolled him in a reputable dance school, and he took to it! Gregory Hines and Savion Glover had area shows when he was about 6. He took his shoes, and surprisingly got on stage with both during an open call.
As the only child (and as a boy) both men took special interest in him. He told Glover he wants to be a “black hoover!” And with Glover, he lifted my son on stage at the Academy of Music and did an improv routine.
But the most poignant moment was when Mr. Hines sent word for that little boy to be brought to him after the show. We waited, and Hines seemed tired, dressed in a sweater. We held back, and let them do the talk.
The last thing Mr. Hines said to our son was,, “Good job. Keep the dance alive.”
Soon after that—Within a year—Mr. Hines died from liver cancer,
He was a brave, passionate artist who truly gave it all to his craft.
What a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing. Gregory was a very special person. Not sure if your son is still dancing...regardless you both might enjoy this unique resource (memories of Gregory recounted by his bandmates): https://taplegacy.org/gregoryhines/band/
Thank you; sorry I'm late getting back. Life of a writer on deadline. Nah, Joe isn't dancing anymore, but he is still a huge fan and I'll catch him doing steps in the kitchen. As a jazz sax player, I was often in the band and will dive into your reference now!
Edit: That's yours! And a treasure trove! Saving for those evenings when I can fully concentrate and enjoy. Sharing w my bandmates. Thank you again.
About twenty five years back I thought the low brow direction country and rap was heading wouldn't last, but it got much worse. So did just about every other genre overall. Since there has been a thing called the music industry things have never been close to as bad as they are now.
The masses are in a low state and resonating with music in a low state. Sure, good music will come back someday, but that day doesn't seem like it's anytime soon. Until the emotional intelligence of audiences improves the music and art overall will suffer. This is what a cultural gutter feels like. Tunes for Biff world brought to the real.
The "music Industry" began as a money laundering business for the mob. There is plenty of great music if you know where to find it, not everyone is an emotional idiot.
I didn't suggest everyone was an emotional idiot. Just most people are out of touch.
And to be blunt, some version of "There is plenty of great music if you know where to find it" is said at least a few hundred times a day by apologists, and it's not true. At least if you're looking for good stuff over the past decade or two in the US.
It is true, tho'. You just need to take the corporate spoon out of your mouth and get near the genre of your choice. Your slagging off the good artists working today makes it harder from them to crack through the wall of indifference they're confronted with at every turn. So you wind up getting even less of what you want, as the good artists give up in frustration. A perfect vicious cycle.
It definitely is not easy especially when for example like me I where I lived in SE Asia at the time , only had access to whatever mainstream radio was churning out at the time but if you wanted to get good music , you invested a lot of time , research and money to get the music you actually wanted to listen, maybe even play along to ; I used to to go to a cd outlet back in the 90’s and ordered music from a catalogue with a down payment and wait 4 weeks for the cd to arrive
Compared to now where there’s a glut of music online on multiple platforms but it is definitely hard to find gems over the sludge that passes for music nowadays and as a musician , it’s something that I have to figure out how to to promote the music that I make as well so I understand the feeling of it
This is definitely true. With AI it's just going to get worse because for every human-generated song there's going going to be 5...then 10...then 100 AI-generated songs. Which will only make finding the good ones even harder.
Whether you agreed with Beach Hippie's comment or not, you decided an "ad hominem" was the best response. That reflects upon YOU. It doesn't tell me all I need to know about you(HUGE LOGICAL FALLACY) but it's enough information to know that whatever you write on substack is of no interest to me if that's how you handle disagreement. Bad marketing, and critical error within social media landscape. Lastly, a postulate isn't a statement of fact. Most of us know most of the digital venue's, capable of surfing through tons of music (using energy and time to locate what we deem as "good"
What is clear and objective is that the level of musicianship/instrumentalist, from guitar, piano to trumpet and kazoo is greater than it was in previous decades and they are becoming younger. This has been validated by musicologists and cursory observation. Better technical players doesn't necessary equate to better music (new genre's, innovation etc...) Mostly, it's a new generation playing old styles of music and young kids who can shred but not necessarily innovative in anyway. There are popular exceptions...Jacob Collier has extended harmonic vocabulary to a large group of listeners. I can't afford to spend hours and hours seeking out this music if it exists EVEN if I know where to look. That means, popular culture overruns any form of innovative music until it comes to the awareness of the general public through some form of media. This is why I read people like honest broker who spent their time doing this research and distilling it for his reading audience.
Whatever you say. "I can't afford to spend hours seeking out this music even if it exists." Hmmm.. that's the joy of being a music fan. You talk to your other music listening friends and trade information sort of like the old days. I'll start you off. Give "Sex Before Cigarettes" a listen.
As far as your attack on me goes... who cares what you think? Another ad hominem attack by someone seeking to school me. And, we still don't know what Beach Hippie thinks is good music.
Exactly how many people are attempting to school you? Maybe there is a good reason for it. Your follow up didn't exactly redeem you in the eyes of other readers.
Your inability to read tells me a lot about you. You apparently can't understand poetry or obvious satirical writing, which hits you over the head if you would have read the end.
And in regards to this "actually talk to people who like music"...F off with that condescending crap.
People who grew up in the 50's said the same thing about music in the 70's and 80's. Dismissing 20 entire years of music as "bad" or "low state" as you say is, IMO, lazy. I'm in my late 50's and my favorite music is definitely from the 70/80/90's. But that's mostly bc I was young then and that's the music that shaped my youth. Most people are like that; ask anyone their favorite bands / movies / TV shows / concerts and the answers will almost always be something that was around when they were young.
I still find a lot of contemporary music that's high quality. You seeming to think it doesn't exist says more about you than the music.
It's true. Check your ego at the door and actually talk to people who listen to music. "Good stuff" says about all anyone needs to know. I'm no apologist, but you've got me wondering what you consider to be "good stuff" as opposed to "bad stuff."
Like what you like. I don’t care about the prestigious awards or earthly success when it comes to an artist. If it resonates with me, then I support them. Authenticity in music shines ✨
You're just not listening to the "right" current music! Your example of country & rap music not lasting just proves my point.
There will always be good music & there will always be bad music, regardless of the genre. You start sounding like an old fuddy-duddy when you say things like "back in my day" music was better.
But you do realize that this is precisely the point that Gioia's essay is making, right? For a person living in the early 1950's, the "overall trend" would have been novelty songs and crooners. Longtime jazz fans would have looked at the stuff being played and wondered why it had degenerated so much from the highs of the big band era.
And so the takeaway from that is precisely the point other folks are making in this thread. There will always be lots of dross, and there's great stuff around if you keep your ears open for it. For my part, I think it's EASIER than ever to find thanks to streaming services.
I don't know what era of music stands as the last great one in your opinion (though I might venture a guess based on your handle), but I bet if you went back and looked you'd find plenty of crap popular alongside the good stuff, and the crap was probably mostly outselling the classics in the aggregate. Which, again, was precisely the point of the essay.
Vast majority of people generally think "everything was better" when they were young. They usually think it has to do with the "everything" around them but it's moreso due to them being young.
There's simply no way a new musical artist could hit me today the way hearing 2112 by Rush when I was 12 hit me. Not bc the new music today can't be as impactful, but because I can't be experiencing the huge emotions I did when I was 12. Add the fact that 12 YO me knew little music and XX year old me has a vast knowledge of music.
I fear a lot of it is because it's not resonating so much as pulsing. All about the bass and beat throbbing loudly, giving them a rhythm to move to. They're feeling the music in their bones far more than in their ears, it's why so much popular music seems to be more about the dancing choreography by the lead singer, who often needs a huge team of other dancers, rather than the melody and stellar musicianship. Half the time the rhythm section ain't even real, it's sampled. But it makes listeners move. Everybody move your hands, everybody say yeah.
And it's def getting worse. We're in deep doo-doo. We always wait for the pendulum, but there's no guarantee it's coming. The folks who control the $$$$ are more entrenched than ever.
That 100,000 songs are uploaded daily could be seen as a cause for celebration. That so many people are partaking in music-making is potentially a good thing. However, I've always wanted to know how those numbers break down: how many are bands, what are the genres, and where are they being uploaded from? etc.
Most music doesn't last, but that doesn't mean it has no musical or societal value. Every music venue in the world would go out of business if they only hosted bands and artists that would be listened to in 100 years.
What concerns me, is the sifting process with this mass of music. A lot of music criticism focuses on the identity of the artist and the vibe of the music, but not technical aspects of the music. Institutions that help develop audiences, such as BBC Radio 3 (which I would argue is the world's best music radio station) have been accused recently of dumbing down. Marina Hyde commented recently on her podcast that screenwriters are being asked by streaming platforms to make their work more 'second screen' (i.e., for people who are simultaneously looking at another screen). Then you have slashes to music education worldwide, which damages audience development.
So if the music cannot be located in the time is created because of cultural noise and a diminishing audience with an appetite for challenging themselves, then we are in trouble. This hit home to me last year when American composer Andy Akiho released the exemplary album Sculptures, which was bought only by a handful of people, has very few streams, and was overlooked by music critics. Without funding, there is no way to continue creating such music. So it won't just be forgotten, it won't be written — and there's the chill for me.
Ted, you champion new challenging music and keep people engaged and interested in the art form. Thank you! However, I see a lot of people complaining that culture is stagnant and always wonder if they are doing the challenging work to bring about a vibrant culture. Somewhat — ask not what my culture can do for me, but what I can do for the culture.
Dom Aversano says, "What concerns me, is the sifting process with this mass of music."
I agree completely. Ted's Steiner quote is true, but that doesn't help new music or literature get noticed. In fact, quite the opposite. Artists are flooding the airwaves and digital or paper distribution venues, while listeners and readers are fewer and fewer. And those listeners' and readers' attention spans are becoming shorter. Even attention itself is being subverted and fractured.
The above reality means that bad literature and music will disappear, yes, but so will much of the exemplary material since it's buried in mountains of dreck. Every once in a while it's good (as reviewer or critic) to take a swat at the air thick with flies, and take down one or two, just to keep one's sanity, even though it has very little effect on the larger problem.
There's another problem with being sanguine about bad art not surviving. The same fate awaits almost every artist since evaluative approaches are increasingly belittled, the stance now more about participation trophies and the leveling and complete subjectivity of assessment.
And sure, greatness can be, and has been, noted after an artist's death, but what good does that do the artist? Everyone has an ego, and understandably wants to feel like he or she has made a difference in this life. It's a feeble (and mostly incorrect) hope that writers and composers on their death beds hold out for the supposition that they'll be discovered and lauded 80 years down the road. Recognition matters in this lifetime.
I completely agree. Furthermore, art doesn't get created in a parallel world. It's not like Beethoven would have sounded the same had he not been recognised. To return to my example of Andy Akiho - how long can he produce music for large ensembles without a serious audience? And what music would he be composing if he was recognised beyond a few devoted music listeners? It's amazing that people can keep going for so long without support, but far from ideal.
Dom, you mention trying to find the breakdown of those 100k songs/day. Not sure if you’re familiar with Chris Dalla Riva, but his Substack “Can’t Get Much Higher” is very heavy on data as it relates to the world of music. If anyone could create a breakdown like you mentioned, it would be Chris!
But listen to the majority of those 100,000 "songs" ... the 100,000 "Newsletters" , the 100,000 "works of art" - on & on & on & so forth. Every day. An absolute flood of mediocrity , now that it all has been "democratized". What percentage of that 100,000 would even be considered Quality or Memorable ? As you say , the dreck just seems to disappear ,usually very quickly
What might be an interesting encore to this post is - how was it that Bach, or the others, were rediscovered a generation or more later? What was that process? And is that process still possible today?
The understanding in my music history courses is that there were a few reasons. First, Bach remained a "composer's composer" even during the time that he fell away from the public eye. To learn counterpoint, you studied Bach. Second, the simplicity of the Galant fell out of fashion, and the public became receptive to hearing complexity once again. This revived interest in the Baroque.
And a third reason, as Ted mentioned, is that during the Galant, his sons were famous. So he was never forgotten by the public in that sense. He was still remembered as CPE and JC's dad.
Composer Felix Mendelssohn re-introduced J.S. Bach in March 1829 when he revived Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Berlin for three concerts. At least he started the ball rolling. I remember a story in music school about Papa Bach confronted by his composer sons to write less complicated music, i.e. pop music. He told them to find something else to do. And to this day, we listen to J.S. Bach, and hardly at all to his sons' music.
Fantastic column. I'm a professor of music - an ethnomusicologist - and what you say flies in the face of much of what ethnomuscologists tend to say, which emphasizes the social constructedness of 'genius' and how institutions tend to create it. And yet, I must admit I'm changing my tune and am starting to support your argument. Here's one point to support it.
Since 2016, the rapper Aesop Rock (not Asap Rocky, that's someone else) has made a string of albums that people are calling some of the best hip-hop records of all time. He's made them in his 40s, which is virtually unheard of in popular music. They skirt recent trends in hip-hop. A study showed that earlier in his career, he used more unique words in his first 40,000 words than Shakespeare or Melville - but his music was very hard to listen to. His later work has kept the deep lyrical content but smoothed out the music and flow. His most accessible record is 2016's The Impossible Kid. The other albums are Spirit World Field Guide, Garbology, and the recent Integrated Tech Solutions. Try his song "Pizza Alley" about traveling in Peru (while reading the lyrics - just google the YouTube lyric video) or "Jazz Hands", which is about protests in Portland (he's got hundreds of songs with lyrics as good as this). He's done this with essentially no promotion, and he now has a career stretching back almost thirty years. His success has been all word of mouth, and he might just win the long game with no hit songs. Genius survives. Maybe.
But I think such artists need people from their generation who are fans to spread the word to other generations. Aesop Rock plays indie hip-hop, and he is part of my micro-generation (late Gen-X, early millennial) - we have the smallest birth rate. The good stuff survives even if the genre is esoteric and dies out, at least, that's what Gioia seems to be telling us. I think this perspective romanticizes the role of the critic and musicians, but it's not wrong.
What is very important in this realization is that culture is not about holding on. Not to be kept in vaults for keepsake. Culture is kept alive through loving action alone. By listening, studying, reading, living it, practicing the damn thing. Love is a practice. Art must be renewed again and again. Invented anew by each generation. I must not just take your word for it but judge for myself. Become a better and more reluctant and loving judge over a lifetime of loving and doing... If I do not love and do, I have no right to judge. If I do love and do there is no need.... Thanks Ted, great piece.
Freddie de Boer thinks there's too much "poptimism": lots of positive music reviews and not enough negative ones. That's exactly what Gioia recommends, but de Boer's complaint is that the music being praised isn't actually good.
Are they both right? Is music criticism too positive when it comes from the entertainment press and not positive enough when it comes from amateurs online?
The music press's "optimism" is really just functioning as an extended PR firm for the music. The issue de Boer is making is that it's not criticism. Gioia is saying critics should focus on emphasizing the reasons why good work is truly good, and otherwise ignore / decline to write about other work entirely. In other words, both of them are aligned that music journalism should stop writing positive reviews of bad music, the difference is whether it's worth the time to write negative reviews of bad music.
Good point. I think the problem is what the press is praising and why - chart stuff that's already very popular and doesn't need their help, in order to boost their reputations. Whereas what critics need to do is unearth stuff no-one knows about and praise that, in order to boost the *music's* reputation. Ted is great at using his platform for that, and showing the rest of us that it's possible to hold onto a reading audience that way.
I wouldn't waste time reading music reviews. Anyway you cut it, they're slanted: either by the press who have an agenda and/or get paid by the record companies to shill, or by fans who all have very subjective tastes (including me)...and also have agendas (me as well). But that's OK...because it's America and we all have the right to listen to whatever music we want.
"Although bad music will disappear, not all good music survives."
This point cannot be overemphasized. Beyond the (correct) point that much of the great art that comes down to us largely originated in an extremely narrow social strata that wasn't experienced by 99.5% of the population, there's a simply mind-boggling amount of chance involved in works surviving in the long term. The only reason we have Beowulf is sheer luck - the sole manuscript was nearly incinerated in the 18th century. We have the plays that we do of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides because the Byzantines thought they were excellent examples of dignified Attic Greek (this is also why we have barely any of the burlesque Satyr Plays that we know all three also wrote).
The question of a work physically surviving is less pressing in the era of mass media, but now the issue is, as you note, being noticed amidst the flood of other works. I suppose the real duty of the consumer is to develop a discerning ear (or eye) and try to distinguish not just between the good and the bad, but between the great and the good. Both by reading critics and learning the criterion that critics use.
This is an excellent point – history is littered with horrific losses of art and culture. But I would disagree that "the question of a work physically surviving is less pressing in the era of mass media." Less pressing, perhaps, but we shouldn't think that it isn't still a very real issue. Look at the Bamiyan buddhas or the Universal warehouse fire. And digital media isn't necessarily better. I think there's a popular misperception that digital media is indestructible, but this is far from true: storage formats change, hard drives are destroyed, passwords are lost after a death... And even if some things are archived, there are discoverability issues that are perhaps even more challenging than they are for physical media.
Which is why the first sift is still really important. Great works need to be copied and kept to survive, and artists need to be supported to reach their potential, and that all happens in the early going.
The sheet music reads "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" and I can see why that one is forgotten, even our esteemed author changed the title to "The Spaniard Who Blighted My Life" - no one should have to endure ungrammatical song titles, even for a minute.
As for the tunes from '52, I have heard the names of the artists involved. but clearly, those were not their big hits. "Jambalaya" was written by Hank Williams, and his version still gets played, and "High Noon" is a nice tune associated with a popular movie, but most of the rest of them are rightfully forgotten.
The Durham Bulls, a triple A baseball team in Durham, NC, are doing their part to keep the sterling musical legacy of Sam the Sham alive - they play "Wooly Bully" at every game. You can't buy that kind of publicity!
A singer told me, when I was very young, that the right notes go on forever, any slips or mistakes disappear. I'm not sure if she was talking of the music of the spheres, or just encouraging me, but your post makes a lot more sense! And, of course, Bach (JS) wasn't composing for fame or fortune - it was daily work for him. The fact that he was a genius wouldn't have occurred to him, or anyone around him.
My read on cult classics is they accept the irreverence and pure audacity the medium is great for but the larger commercial industry is too chicken to risk. The problem is they have low budgets and often unpracticed talent so often you either have to look past the low production value or wrap up its badness in a career of irony to appreciate the other stuff.
"Survival of the fittest" doesn't mean that the strongest or best survive; it refers to the survival of the organisms best fitted to their environment. So it's not so much about intrinsic qualities of the organism (or music), it's about the organism's (or music's) relation to its context, or environment.
I've played Jambalya dozens of times and it's still being played everywhere country music is listened to. The others have disappeared. If your in Louisiana that jambalaya and crawfish pie is still going strong.
I'm sure that if I was out there giggin' I'd be required to still sing & play it somewhere, sometime. It could be mildly fun, depending on how much energy I was putting in to it at any given time. And also depending big time on who you were playing with at the time.
That and how much you could change it to make it new. It could use a whole different rhythmic concept. Sort of a New Orleans 1/2 time funk feel would work.
First, this entire discussion presumes that music has some objective criteria against which varying degrees of “quality” exist. Says who? Complete nonsense.
Second, this discussion presumes that legacy is important and is something that should be pursued or nurtured. Legacy is a ridiculous concept. I recently heard a sports commentator suggest that LeBron James stop playing now because he’s ruining his legacy. WTF? To pursue or be concerned about what future generations think of anything makes as much sense as pursuing or being concerned about what your contemporaries think. Artists hone their craft to express whatever it is inside them that is longing to get out. And, whether or not “it” resonates with an audience (now or in the future) is of no concern to anyone other than that audience - the audience that is presently interacting with the work.
This is just tired old relativism. Obviously no one person “says” but history’s judgment is final. And yet, contra Fukuyama, we have not reached the end of history. Granting contingency of judgment doesn’t mean accepting your nonsense (after all, who you made YOU an authority?) that, well, quality just doesn’t exist.
Good music is out there. Bad music sucks. And we—past, present and future humans—do the best we can, in the time we are in, and with varying degrees of sensitivity, to distinguish one from the other. I count myself one of the lesser lights here, and look for critics who can illuminate the path. And avoid those who claim there is neither light nor path.
I understand and, despite my post, I am sympathetic to the sentiment—there is sometimes an unfortunate overlap between recognizing and appreciating quality, and being a cranky old stick-in-the-mud who thinks he has seen and knows it all. I try to find, and be, the former!
Thanks, Ted, wonderful column. I'm a bigger fan all the time. I'm 71, lifelong songwriter who is still putting out music of various genres. Portland has a reasonable number of good studio guys to play things I don't, and I call friends in Nashville for tracks sometimes. Like many, the algorithm has led me to concentrate on synch licensing, another difficult needle to thread. But I'm getting closer, and am still creating, and still in the game. We're just finishing a record that took a few years (covid), and we're actually going to put some vinyl out for the first time. I stay positive, and enjoy what I'm doing. I appreciate your work very much, and find solace in it to boot.
Your premise here hits close to home as a performing artist. Specifically as a tap dancer, the only dancing that survived the 20th century was whatever was filmed, photographed, or remembered in stories. Too many amazing dancers never made it into film and so their craftwork, body of work, and personalities are lost to history. Those who witnessed them kept memories alive, but often didn't have a place to put them, either. Some of the stories made it to print (as documented oral histories), but reading about dancing isn't the same as bearing witness to the dancing in real life. For years I've worked on trying to solve for this challenge: how do you support an oral tradition in a culture that isn't organized around oral traditions? Still working...in the meantime, thanks for the reminder that the good stuff lasts, precisely because people care about it, and to be an encourager of what is good, not just an identifier of what is bad. That's something I can do right now.
@Andrew Nemr you are so correct about tap. My youngest son became enamored with the dance after watching “Tap,” “Cats,” the “Nutcracker,” and a host of lesser-known tap, hoover ( his favorite) and ballet performances on WHYY, our local PBS.
Insisted that was his “sport.” As the last of three, and being eight years younger than the first, I was thrilled (I'm a jazz musician). I enrolled him in a reputable dance school, and he took to it! Gregory Hines and Savion Glover had area shows when he was about 6. He took his shoes, and surprisingly got on stage with both during an open call.
As the only child (and as a boy) both men took special interest in him. He told Glover he wants to be a “black hoover!” And with Glover, he lifted my son on stage at the Academy of Music and did an improv routine.
But the most poignant moment was when Mr. Hines sent word for that little boy to be brought to him after the show. We waited, and Hines seemed tired, dressed in a sweater. We held back, and let them do the talk.
The last thing Mr. Hines said to our son was,, “Good job. Keep the dance alive.”
Soon after that—Within a year—Mr. Hines died from liver cancer,
He was a brave, passionate artist who truly gave it all to his craft.
Hoofer, not hoover. Didn't catch damn autocorrect
I was tracking with you!
What a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing. Gregory was a very special person. Not sure if your son is still dancing...regardless you both might enjoy this unique resource (memories of Gregory recounted by his bandmates): https://taplegacy.org/gregoryhines/band/
Thank you; sorry I'm late getting back. Life of a writer on deadline. Nah, Joe isn't dancing anymore, but he is still a huge fan and I'll catch him doing steps in the kitchen. As a jazz sax player, I was often in the band and will dive into your reference now!
Edit: That's yours! And a treasure trove! Saving for those evenings when I can fully concentrate and enjoy. Sharing w my bandmates. Thank you again.
WHYY Philadelphia! ✅💙
Ah, Channel 12 ❤️
About twenty five years back I thought the low brow direction country and rap was heading wouldn't last, but it got much worse. So did just about every other genre overall. Since there has been a thing called the music industry things have never been close to as bad as they are now.
The masses are in a low state and resonating with music in a low state. Sure, good music will come back someday, but that day doesn't seem like it's anytime soon. Until the emotional intelligence of audiences improves the music and art overall will suffer. This is what a cultural gutter feels like. Tunes for Biff world brought to the real.
The "music Industry" began as a money laundering business for the mob. There is plenty of great music if you know where to find it, not everyone is an emotional idiot.
I didn't suggest everyone was an emotional idiot. Just most people are out of touch.
And to be blunt, some version of "There is plenty of great music if you know where to find it" is said at least a few hundred times a day by apologists, and it's not true. At least if you're looking for good stuff over the past decade or two in the US.
There's some, but it's not easy to find.
It is true, tho'. You just need to take the corporate spoon out of your mouth and get near the genre of your choice. Your slagging off the good artists working today makes it harder from them to crack through the wall of indifference they're confronted with at every turn. So you wind up getting even less of what you want, as the good artists give up in frustration. A perfect vicious cycle.
It definitely is not easy especially when for example like me I where I lived in SE Asia at the time , only had access to whatever mainstream radio was churning out at the time but if you wanted to get good music , you invested a lot of time , research and money to get the music you actually wanted to listen, maybe even play along to ; I used to to go to a cd outlet back in the 90’s and ordered music from a catalogue with a down payment and wait 4 weeks for the cd to arrive
Compared to now where there’s a glut of music online on multiple platforms but it is definitely hard to find gems over the sludge that passes for music nowadays and as a musician , it’s something that I have to figure out how to to promote the music that I make as well so I understand the feeling of it
This is definitely true. With AI it's just going to get worse because for every human-generated song there's going going to be 5...then 10...then 100 AI-generated songs. Which will only make finding the good ones even harder.
"Are you a valid person" tells me all I need to know about you.
Whether you agreed with Beach Hippie's comment or not, you decided an "ad hominem" was the best response. That reflects upon YOU. It doesn't tell me all I need to know about you(HUGE LOGICAL FALLACY) but it's enough information to know that whatever you write on substack is of no interest to me if that's how you handle disagreement. Bad marketing, and critical error within social media landscape. Lastly, a postulate isn't a statement of fact. Most of us know most of the digital venue's, capable of surfing through tons of music (using energy and time to locate what we deem as "good"
What is clear and objective is that the level of musicianship/instrumentalist, from guitar, piano to trumpet and kazoo is greater than it was in previous decades and they are becoming younger. This has been validated by musicologists and cursory observation. Better technical players doesn't necessary equate to better music (new genre's, innovation etc...) Mostly, it's a new generation playing old styles of music and young kids who can shred but not necessarily innovative in anyway. There are popular exceptions...Jacob Collier has extended harmonic vocabulary to a large group of listeners. I can't afford to spend hours and hours seeking out this music if it exists EVEN if I know where to look. That means, popular culture overruns any form of innovative music until it comes to the awareness of the general public through some form of media. This is why I read people like honest broker who spent their time doing this research and distilling it for his reading audience.
Whatever you say. "I can't afford to spend hours seeking out this music even if it exists." Hmmm.. that's the joy of being a music fan. You talk to your other music listening friends and trade information sort of like the old days. I'll start you off. Give "Sex Before Cigarettes" a listen.
As far as your attack on me goes... who cares what you think? Another ad hominem attack by someone seeking to school me. And, we still don't know what Beach Hippie thinks is good music.
Exactly how many people are attempting to school you? Maybe there is a good reason for it. Your follow up didn't exactly redeem you in the eyes of other readers.
Your inability to read tells me a lot about you. You apparently can't understand poetry or obvious satirical writing, which hits you over the head if you would have read the end.
And in regards to this "actually talk to people who like music"...F off with that condescending crap.
Nice mouth. Yer mama would be so proud. Poetry? HAHAHAHAHA... good one.
Good talk.
People who grew up in the 50's said the same thing about music in the 70's and 80's. Dismissing 20 entire years of music as "bad" or "low state" as you say is, IMO, lazy. I'm in my late 50's and my favorite music is definitely from the 70/80/90's. But that's mostly bc I was young then and that's the music that shaped my youth. Most people are like that; ask anyone their favorite bands / movies / TV shows / concerts and the answers will almost always be something that was around when they were young.
I still find a lot of contemporary music that's high quality. You seeming to think it doesn't exist says more about you than the music.
Apologists of what?
It's true. Check your ego at the door and actually talk to people who listen to music. "Good stuff" says about all anyone needs to know. I'm no apologist, but you've got me wondering what you consider to be "good stuff" as opposed to "bad stuff."
Like what you like. I don’t care about the prestigious awards or earthly success when it comes to an artist. If it resonates with me, then I support them. Authenticity in music shines ✨
I tell my husband this all the f-ing time.
Hi Cathy, 👋👋
You're just not listening to the "right" current music! Your example of country & rap music not lasting just proves my point.
There will always be good music & there will always be bad music, regardless of the genre. You start sounding like an old fuddy-duddy when you say things like "back in my day" music was better.
I'm talking about overall trends. Not the entirety.
But you do realize that this is precisely the point that Gioia's essay is making, right? For a person living in the early 1950's, the "overall trend" would have been novelty songs and crooners. Longtime jazz fans would have looked at the stuff being played and wondered why it had degenerated so much from the highs of the big band era.
And so the takeaway from that is precisely the point other folks are making in this thread. There will always be lots of dross, and there's great stuff around if you keep your ears open for it. For my part, I think it's EASIER than ever to find thanks to streaming services.
I don't know what era of music stands as the last great one in your opinion (though I might venture a guess based on your handle), but I bet if you went back and looked you'd find plenty of crap popular alongside the good stuff, and the crap was probably mostly outselling the classics in the aggregate. Which, again, was precisely the point of the essay.
Vast majority of people generally think "everything was better" when they were young. They usually think it has to do with the "everything" around them but it's moreso due to them being young.
There's simply no way a new musical artist could hit me today the way hearing 2112 by Rush when I was 12 hit me. Not bc the new music today can't be as impactful, but because I can't be experiencing the huge emotions I did when I was 12. Add the fact that 12 YO me knew little music and XX year old me has a vast knowledge of music.
I fear a lot of it is because it's not resonating so much as pulsing. All about the bass and beat throbbing loudly, giving them a rhythm to move to. They're feeling the music in their bones far more than in their ears, it's why so much popular music seems to be more about the dancing choreography by the lead singer, who often needs a huge team of other dancers, rather than the melody and stellar musicianship. Half the time the rhythm section ain't even real, it's sampled. But it makes listeners move. Everybody move your hands, everybody say yeah.
And it's def getting worse. We're in deep doo-doo. We always wait for the pendulum, but there's no guarantee it's coming. The folks who control the $$$$ are more entrenched than ever.
This perfectly captures.....a very small percent of music being made.
That 100,000 songs are uploaded daily could be seen as a cause for celebration. That so many people are partaking in music-making is potentially a good thing. However, I've always wanted to know how those numbers break down: how many are bands, what are the genres, and where are they being uploaded from? etc.
Most music doesn't last, but that doesn't mean it has no musical or societal value. Every music venue in the world would go out of business if they only hosted bands and artists that would be listened to in 100 years.
What concerns me, is the sifting process with this mass of music. A lot of music criticism focuses on the identity of the artist and the vibe of the music, but not technical aspects of the music. Institutions that help develop audiences, such as BBC Radio 3 (which I would argue is the world's best music radio station) have been accused recently of dumbing down. Marina Hyde commented recently on her podcast that screenwriters are being asked by streaming platforms to make their work more 'second screen' (i.e., for people who are simultaneously looking at another screen). Then you have slashes to music education worldwide, which damages audience development.
So if the music cannot be located in the time is created because of cultural noise and a diminishing audience with an appetite for challenging themselves, then we are in trouble. This hit home to me last year when American composer Andy Akiho released the exemplary album Sculptures, which was bought only by a handful of people, has very few streams, and was overlooked by music critics. Without funding, there is no way to continue creating such music. So it won't just be forgotten, it won't be written — and there's the chill for me.
Ted, you champion new challenging music and keep people engaged and interested in the art form. Thank you! However, I see a lot of people complaining that culture is stagnant and always wonder if they are doing the challenging work to bring about a vibrant culture. Somewhat — ask not what my culture can do for me, but what I can do for the culture.
Dom Aversano says, "What concerns me, is the sifting process with this mass of music."
I agree completely. Ted's Steiner quote is true, but that doesn't help new music or literature get noticed. In fact, quite the opposite. Artists are flooding the airwaves and digital or paper distribution venues, while listeners and readers are fewer and fewer. And those listeners' and readers' attention spans are becoming shorter. Even attention itself is being subverted and fractured.
The above reality means that bad literature and music will disappear, yes, but so will much of the exemplary material since it's buried in mountains of dreck. Every once in a while it's good (as reviewer or critic) to take a swat at the air thick with flies, and take down one or two, just to keep one's sanity, even though it has very little effect on the larger problem.
There's another problem with being sanguine about bad art not surviving. The same fate awaits almost every artist since evaluative approaches are increasingly belittled, the stance now more about participation trophies and the leveling and complete subjectivity of assessment.
And sure, greatness can be, and has been, noted after an artist's death, but what good does that do the artist? Everyone has an ego, and understandably wants to feel like he or she has made a difference in this life. It's a feeble (and mostly incorrect) hope that writers and composers on their death beds hold out for the supposition that they'll be discovered and lauded 80 years down the road. Recognition matters in this lifetime.
I completely agree. Furthermore, art doesn't get created in a parallel world. It's not like Beethoven would have sounded the same had he not been recognised. To return to my example of Andy Akiho - how long can he produce music for large ensembles without a serious audience? And what music would he be composing if he was recognised beyond a few devoted music listeners? It's amazing that people can keep going for so long without support, but far from ideal.
Dom, you mention trying to find the breakdown of those 100k songs/day. Not sure if you’re familiar with Chris Dalla Riva, but his Substack “Can’t Get Much Higher” is very heavy on data as it relates to the world of music. If anyone could create a breakdown like you mentioned, it would be Chris!
I loved the clever ask not what my culture can do for me but what I can do for the culture and that is true 💯
But listen to the majority of those 100,000 "songs" ... the 100,000 "Newsletters" , the 100,000 "works of art" - on & on & on & so forth. Every day. An absolute flood of mediocrity , now that it all has been "democratized". What percentage of that 100,000 would even be considered Quality or Memorable ? As you say , the dreck just seems to disappear ,usually very quickly
What might be an interesting encore to this post is - how was it that Bach, or the others, were rediscovered a generation or more later? What was that process? And is that process still possible today?
The understanding in my music history courses is that there were a few reasons. First, Bach remained a "composer's composer" even during the time that he fell away from the public eye. To learn counterpoint, you studied Bach. Second, the simplicity of the Galant fell out of fashion, and the public became receptive to hearing complexity once again. This revived interest in the Baroque.
And a third reason, as Ted mentioned, is that during the Galant, his sons were famous. So he was never forgotten by the public in that sense. He was still remembered as CPE and JC's dad.
And so PDQ was like a great great nephew?
A mighty fine nephew!
Composer Felix Mendelssohn re-introduced J.S. Bach in March 1829 when he revived Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Berlin for three concerts. At least he started the ball rolling. I remember a story in music school about Papa Bach confronted by his composer sons to write less complicated music, i.e. pop music. He told them to find something else to do. And to this day, we listen to J.S. Bach, and hardly at all to his sons' music.
I wondered about that also.
Fantastic column. I'm a professor of music - an ethnomusicologist - and what you say flies in the face of much of what ethnomuscologists tend to say, which emphasizes the social constructedness of 'genius' and how institutions tend to create it. And yet, I must admit I'm changing my tune and am starting to support your argument. Here's one point to support it.
Since 2016, the rapper Aesop Rock (not Asap Rocky, that's someone else) has made a string of albums that people are calling some of the best hip-hop records of all time. He's made them in his 40s, which is virtually unheard of in popular music. They skirt recent trends in hip-hop. A study showed that earlier in his career, he used more unique words in his first 40,000 words than Shakespeare or Melville - but his music was very hard to listen to. His later work has kept the deep lyrical content but smoothed out the music and flow. His most accessible record is 2016's The Impossible Kid. The other albums are Spirit World Field Guide, Garbology, and the recent Integrated Tech Solutions. Try his song "Pizza Alley" about traveling in Peru (while reading the lyrics - just google the YouTube lyric video) or "Jazz Hands", which is about protests in Portland (he's got hundreds of songs with lyrics as good as this). He's done this with essentially no promotion, and he now has a career stretching back almost thirty years. His success has been all word of mouth, and he might just win the long game with no hit songs. Genius survives. Maybe.
But I think such artists need people from their generation who are fans to spread the word to other generations. Aesop Rock plays indie hip-hop, and he is part of my micro-generation (late Gen-X, early millennial) - we have the smallest birth rate. The good stuff survives even if the genre is esoteric and dies out, at least, that's what Gioia seems to be telling us. I think this perspective romanticizes the role of the critic and musicians, but it's not wrong.
> social constructedness
If we banned use of that word from the academy wouldnt we be much smarter?
We’d certainly be far better off.
Thanks for sharing - from a fellow “late-GenXer”
What is very important in this realization is that culture is not about holding on. Not to be kept in vaults for keepsake. Culture is kept alive through loving action alone. By listening, studying, reading, living it, practicing the damn thing. Love is a practice. Art must be renewed again and again. Invented anew by each generation. I must not just take your word for it but judge for myself. Become a better and more reluctant and loving judge over a lifetime of loving and doing... If I do not love and do, I have no right to judge. If I do love and do there is no need.... Thanks Ted, great piece.
Freddie de Boer thinks there's too much "poptimism": lots of positive music reviews and not enough negative ones. That's exactly what Gioia recommends, but de Boer's complaint is that the music being praised isn't actually good.
Are they both right? Is music criticism too positive when it comes from the entertainment press and not positive enough when it comes from amateurs online?
The music press's "optimism" is really just functioning as an extended PR firm for the music. The issue de Boer is making is that it's not criticism. Gioia is saying critics should focus on emphasizing the reasons why good work is truly good, and otherwise ignore / decline to write about other work entirely. In other words, both of them are aligned that music journalism should stop writing positive reviews of bad music, the difference is whether it's worth the time to write negative reviews of bad music.
Good point. I think the problem is what the press is praising and why - chart stuff that's already very popular and doesn't need their help, in order to boost their reputations. Whereas what critics need to do is unearth stuff no-one knows about and praise that, in order to boost the *music's* reputation. Ted is great at using his platform for that, and showing the rest of us that it's possible to hold onto a reading audience that way.
I wouldn't waste time reading music reviews. Anyway you cut it, they're slanted: either by the press who have an agenda and/or get paid by the record companies to shill, or by fans who all have very subjective tastes (including me)...and also have agendas (me as well). But that's OK...because it's America and we all have the right to listen to whatever music we want.
"Although bad music will disappear, not all good music survives."
This point cannot be overemphasized. Beyond the (correct) point that much of the great art that comes down to us largely originated in an extremely narrow social strata that wasn't experienced by 99.5% of the population, there's a simply mind-boggling amount of chance involved in works surviving in the long term. The only reason we have Beowulf is sheer luck - the sole manuscript was nearly incinerated in the 18th century. We have the plays that we do of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides because the Byzantines thought they were excellent examples of dignified Attic Greek (this is also why we have barely any of the burlesque Satyr Plays that we know all three also wrote).
The question of a work physically surviving is less pressing in the era of mass media, but now the issue is, as you note, being noticed amidst the flood of other works. I suppose the real duty of the consumer is to develop a discerning ear (or eye) and try to distinguish not just between the good and the bad, but between the great and the good. Both by reading critics and learning the criterion that critics use.
This is an excellent point – history is littered with horrific losses of art and culture. But I would disagree that "the question of a work physically surviving is less pressing in the era of mass media." Less pressing, perhaps, but we shouldn't think that it isn't still a very real issue. Look at the Bamiyan buddhas or the Universal warehouse fire. And digital media isn't necessarily better. I think there's a popular misperception that digital media is indestructible, but this is far from true: storage formats change, hard drives are destroyed, passwords are lost after a death... And even if some things are archived, there are discoverability issues that are perhaps even more challenging than they are for physical media.
Which is why the first sift is still really important. Great works need to be copied and kept to survive, and artists need to be supported to reach their potential, and that all happens in the early going.
Truth!!
The sheet music reads "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" and I can see why that one is forgotten, even our esteemed author changed the title to "The Spaniard Who Blighted My Life" - no one should have to endure ungrammatical song titles, even for a minute.
As for the tunes from '52, I have heard the names of the artists involved. but clearly, those were not their big hits. "Jambalaya" was written by Hank Williams, and his version still gets played, and "High Noon" is a nice tune associated with a popular movie, but most of the rest of them are rightfully forgotten.
The Durham Bulls, a triple A baseball team in Durham, NC, are doing their part to keep the sterling musical legacy of Sam the Sham alive - they play "Wooly Bully" at every game. You can't buy that kind of publicity!
My hometown shines as always
Jambalaya was officially written by Hank Williams, but Moon Mullican likely had more to do with it!
A singer told me, when I was very young, that the right notes go on forever, any slips or mistakes disappear. I'm not sure if she was talking of the music of the spheres, or just encouraging me, but your post makes a lot more sense! And, of course, Bach (JS) wasn't composing for fame or fortune - it was daily work for him. The fact that he was a genius wouldn't have occurred to him, or anyone around him.
“No stupid literature, art or music lasts.”
But bad B movies are forever.
And TV
My read on cult classics is they accept the irreverence and pure audacity the medium is great for but the larger commercial industry is too chicken to risk. The problem is they have low budgets and often unpracticed talent so often you either have to look past the low production value or wrap up its badness in a career of irony to appreciate the other stuff.
Thanks for the article -- one quibble.
"Survival of the fittest" doesn't mean that the strongest or best survive; it refers to the survival of the organisms best fitted to their environment. So it's not so much about intrinsic qualities of the organism (or music), it's about the organism's (or music's) relation to its context, or environment.
Carry on!
I've played Jambalya dozens of times and it's still being played everywhere country music is listened to. The others have disappeared. If your in Louisiana that jambalaya and crawfish pie is still going strong.
I'm sure that if I was out there giggin' I'd be required to still sing & play it somewhere, sometime. It could be mildly fun, depending on how much energy I was putting in to it at any given time. And also depending big time on who you were playing with at the time.
That and how much you could change it to make it new. It could use a whole different rhythmic concept. Sort of a New Orleans 1/2 time funk feel would work.
Two things.
First, this entire discussion presumes that music has some objective criteria against which varying degrees of “quality” exist. Says who? Complete nonsense.
Second, this discussion presumes that legacy is important and is something that should be pursued or nurtured. Legacy is a ridiculous concept. I recently heard a sports commentator suggest that LeBron James stop playing now because he’s ruining his legacy. WTF? To pursue or be concerned about what future generations think of anything makes as much sense as pursuing or being concerned about what your contemporaries think. Artists hone their craft to express whatever it is inside them that is longing to get out. And, whether or not “it” resonates with an audience (now or in the future) is of no concern to anyone other than that audience - the audience that is presently interacting with the work.
This is just tired old relativism. Obviously no one person “says” but history’s judgment is final. And yet, contra Fukuyama, we have not reached the end of history. Granting contingency of judgment doesn’t mean accepting your nonsense (after all, who you made YOU an authority?) that, well, quality just doesn’t exist.
Good music is out there. Bad music sucks. And we—past, present and future humans—do the best we can, in the time we are in, and with varying degrees of sensitivity, to distinguish one from the other. I count myself one of the lesser lights here, and look for critics who can illuminate the path. And avoid those who claim there is neither light nor path.
Peace JimmyB. Just my opinion.
Not sure why anyone would care about history’s judgement.
As soon as the artist concerns him/her/their self with what others think, the work is no longer genuine.
And also to you.
I understand and, despite my post, I am sympathetic to the sentiment—there is sometimes an unfortunate overlap between recognizing and appreciating quality, and being a cranky old stick-in-the-mud who thinks he has seen and knows it all. I try to find, and be, the former!
Thanks, Ted, wonderful column. I'm a bigger fan all the time. I'm 71, lifelong songwriter who is still putting out music of various genres. Portland has a reasonable number of good studio guys to play things I don't, and I call friends in Nashville for tracks sometimes. Like many, the algorithm has led me to concentrate on synch licensing, another difficult needle to thread. But I'm getting closer, and am still creating, and still in the game. We're just finishing a record that took a few years (covid), and we're actually going to put some vinyl out for the first time. I stay positive, and enjoy what I'm doing. I appreciate your work very much, and find solace in it to boot.
Are Jo Stafford and Vera Lynn really forgotten? I must be living in another world then.
I think he meant those specific songs. Not the musical artists.
But still, You Belong To Me is one of Stafford's most famous songs.
Everybody leave Jo Stafford out of this, I’m in love with her…