As someone who grew up with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd on classic rock radio, I still find it bracing when it now plays Pearl Jam and Radiohead. But now maybe there will be a cut off. Will future classic rock stations ever play anything from the 10's?
Very interesting subject. Maybe we feel “safer” with things we already know in a time of insecurity in a pandemic and deep political unrest. I look forward to more on this topic.
Interestingly, I just spent the past hour looking at all the interesting responses to your original post. I love the conversation. Congratulations on the heat you've generated.
One of my friends who read this article (a technologist who used to work at google) shared with me that the majority of youtube playbacks are “older” videos also. As he said: “why would music be any different, now that on-demand is becoming the new default?”
I wonder if it's so much about old songs being better as much as old *sounds* - which sound more natural (and aren't mastered to the heavens).
Rick Beato does have a video where he traces *melody* and does come to the conclusion that older songs possess more melody compared to newer songs which have only a few melodic lines with perhaps a focus on beat and bass.
Just some things to think about for your next article.
I think you're seriously underestimating the size of the sharing market, and how the absence of "hipsters" deforms the industry charts and numbers. You're trying to understand popular music through the lens of capitalism (a monocle, of course) which keeps you from seeing what many people are listening to.
Music is not doing anything. It's being created in voluminous amounts by countless artists in myriad ways. Thanks to capitalism/copyright industry going full buggy whip on digital, many artists abandoned labels in an effort to stay relevant to their audience (or hooked up with one of the countless new labels that doesn't freak out over file sharing). The metrics you use are skewed because they only "see" some of the data because the music industry only cares about the music from which they get a cut. Industry metrics measure copyrighted music that legally must be purchased or rented. Music streamed/downloaded through channels (most far more obscure than Spotify) where almost all the money clings to the artist is not music that's being measured by the industry and therein is where you lost the thread. Your stats/charts measure the death of a superfluous industry, not a decline in new music.
I like your point. You can see how this plays out exactly in the publishing industry. The big publishers are bemoaning the idea that people aren't reading anymore and pointing to their numbers to 'prove' it. What's actually happening is that there has been a slow and steady takeover of indie authors (authors who publish their books directly to marketplaces like Amazon without going through an agent or a publisher) They are not household names like Stephen King, but their audiences can range into the millions of readers. They are 'unknown' because they don't get the constant media attention that older authors get, but are often as or more successful and reach the same number of people.
Part of the reason for this movement has parallels in the music industry. Gatekeepers who are no longer interested in finding and nurturing new talent because it is 'safer' and cheaper to promote a handful of authors with an established track record. Fixed ideas on what sells in a genre, and which genres sell best. Rejecting new ideas and niche genres because 'we don't know how to market this.' Then companies like Smashwords and Amazon came along and made it possible for anyone to publish. They had to overcome the stigma of a 'vanity press' (companies that will take your money and print 1000 copies of your book that you can then store in your garage -- though Anne Rice got her big break that way) but once they did and indie authors figured out how to market, that stigma disappeared. Few readers look at the publisher of the ebooks they love because they don't care and why should they?
The lessons that new musical artists can take away from publishing are myriad. Your audience is out there and they way to find and keep it is to make the music that you love, that makes you feel something because that's why people seek out art of any kind -- to feel. If the music sucks, then the best ad campaign still won't sell it. Network with as many other artists as you can -- even if their music might be in a different genre because you'd be surprised at the crossover -- and promote each other. Share your successes and failures with each other and don't be afraid to talk numbers -- this is a business. Make albums and EPs even if you think it's all about singles (similar to writing a series vs. a standalone book -- series are much easier and more profitable to sell) And give away free music always -- I cannot stress this point hard enough. I'm an indie writer and have seen my sales consistently go UP when I offer a free book.
I’m in complete agreement with what Mark and Olivia are both saying here.
The yardstick that is often used in these articles by Gioia is often so bizarre that I sometimes wonder where the real analysis disappeared to. I can’t say that it’s an “old guy” thing because were practically the same age, but it’s really (way past) time to stop looking at big business Capitalist models as saviors of “industry” (god, I hate that term) when the real joy comes from artists who have realized that recordings are now (and have really always been) just audio business cards.
I do agree, being in Dallas, that Krys Boyd is a real treasure. I think the first time I was hooked was when she spent a whole hour discussing the history of the banana. Hopefully, on Tuesday, she’ll point out the huge amount of overwhelmingly great music that can be found outside of any Billboard chart measurement.
BTW, one obvious new musical movement that arouses fervent fandom and has widespread popularity is K-pop - but when I've tried to listen to Korean pop songs, I can't but help but be reminded of the old familiar pop (particularly Eurodance) standards on the radio when I was young in the 90s. At least it's obvious they're more melody-based than current Western pop. Maybe that's an attractive factor?
A quick note of thanks for being so thoughtful in your writing. I love this post because it starts a conversation by noticing something right in front of us. I’m intrigued by a comment below that suggests that new music is perhaps as strong as ever, but not reflected in the charts or data collected by the formal industry. That’s an interesting line of inquiry, and I don’t think it negates how interesting it is that the formal industry is skewing in a certain direction. I’m a 31 year old who finds myself gravitating not so much towards the older music (although I do find it worthwhile to explore and discover the older songs for the purpose of integrating their songwriting approaches into my own) but towards the ‘older’ formats of vinyl and cds. I’ve mostly assumed that to be a function of my desire to more deeply and intentionally interact with the music of my generation rather than anything else, but I’ll be thinking more about that going forward. At any rate, I’m grateful for what you write and for the way that it stimulates my own curiosity about my entanglement with all aspects of music today.
It was a provocative question, with a lot of substance and evidence behind it. I personally feel like I’m still catching up on music I missed in the past, and am not up to the present yet. The shows that I’ve seen on Tv featuring music were more choreography than soul and substance. I mean, how far can you go with: “I took the top off my Maybach…whoo…”?
Digital technology has made available the entire catalog of recorded music. I think young people are aware of that and they don’t want to limit themselves to listening to new music only.
New songs aren’t as good? That is BS. Taylor swift can write. Jason Isbell can write. Sharon Von Etten can write. The Drive By Truckers can write. The Hold Steady can write. Phoebe Bridges can write. And all of them have their song recorded well too. That is just off the top of my head in America. Record companies just won’t spend the money or time because it is all no. Music people running them with nothing but an eye on the bottom line.
As a recovering Wall Street technology stock analyst, I was struck when reading 'Music: A Subversive History' of the parallels I had encountered years ago reading Clayton Christensen's 'The Innovator's Dilemma; When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail.' The big difference, though, was the element of time - in the world of hardware, there is an element of physics at play (things need to be developed, produced, distributed, sold and deployed, so just as nine women can't produce a newborn in one month, there's a built-in governor on the speed of displacement). But in the creative/intellectual realm, the physical limitations are secondary to cultural limitations. As a result, it gets back to the fundamental tug-of-war between greed and fear .
Be that as it may, the similarity between the two books is the focus on the significance of the disrespect shown to the upstart. In 'Dilemma' the point is stressed that the benefits of change work to favor the smaller and faster-growing elements, while the older, more-entrenched competitors are slower (and often dumber due to their vested interests). This is akin to the work of the late, great Air Force Col. John Boyd, who stressed his OODA loop - observation, orientation, decision, action; pilots who had tighter OODA loops would invariably triumph over their slower competitors - as well as his Energy/Maneuverability Theory. I believe that the problems you've identified in music are different only because the innovators can be temporarily trampled by the status quo - right up to the point when they rise up in volcanic fashion to totally disrupt the landscape.
Because entertainment (in general) and music (specifically) are gaseous in nature (they rapidly expand to fill available volume, but compress quite easily), they tend to grow very fast. While beneficial, that rapid growth also means that they encounter the problems of maturity and the effects of technological change are revealed that much faster. These industries are to business what fruit flies are to geneticists - they tend to demonstrate what happens to everything else, just on a much-shortened time scale.
If there's anything that music shares with a host of other elements of the business world right now, it is the detrimental effects of excessive capital -the entrenched are more so, and the availability of so much money means that a lot of really crappy ideas are getting funded along with the usual amount of good ones. The result is that the next wave of greatness is confronted by a two-fold problem (irritatingly poor competition and frustratingly stupid vested interests. But not to fear - this situation will correct. The longer it takes to occur, the more dramatic the correction/inflection point is likely to be. And it's likely to be obvious only with benefit of hindsight.
Sorry for the length of this comment - as usual, you provoke a bunch of thinking. Thanks for that. And I started reading John Mauceri's 'For the Love of Music: A Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening' yesterday, so the pump was primed!
Thanks Ted for more incisive reflections on music. On this topic, I remember I upset my Gen X colleague about music "these days". Maybe I should have been more considered but I had to add the creativity in any field isn't linear and there are "Rennaisances" where there are rushes of works produced. It's a long game and hopefully we will get a new wave of popular musical work. Rod from Australia
My husband and I have co-hosted The Basement Tapes with Nick and Bootsy for 12 years. We started on local FM (Rolla, MO) and played original music by local artists. Several years ago, we started streaming online from home. Over time, we realized that EVERYBODY is local to somewhere and as a result, we expanded our range to local music Earth and have played music from across the globe. There is some AWESOME new music out there in a variety of genres. On our show, it’s been increasingly hard to share songs online without getting hit with copyright strikes even when we’re playing songs that we got directly from the artist, their management/promotion team or independent label. We’re very small players in a very big game, one that’s getting harder and harder to play.
Since algorithms are deciding … Does that mean bands should write and perform new music that sounds like old music?
As someone who grew up with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd on classic rock radio, I still find it bracing when it now plays Pearl Jam and Radiohead. But now maybe there will be a cut off. Will future classic rock stations ever play anything from the 10's?
Very interesting subject. Maybe we feel “safer” with things we already know in a time of insecurity in a pandemic and deep political unrest. I look forward to more on this topic.
Interestingly, I just spent the past hour looking at all the interesting responses to your original post. I love the conversation. Congratulations on the heat you've generated.
Music: A Subversive History was the best book I read last year. Thank you Ted.
Me too !
What a great photo!
One of my friends who read this article (a technologist who used to work at google) shared with me that the majority of youtube playbacks are “older” videos also. As he said: “why would music be any different, now that on-demand is becoming the new default?”
I wonder if it's so much about old songs being better as much as old *sounds* - which sound more natural (and aren't mastered to the heavens).
Rick Beato does have a video where he traces *melody* and does come to the conclusion that older songs possess more melody compared to newer songs which have only a few melodic lines with perhaps a focus on beat and bass.
Just some things to think about for your next article.
I think you're seriously underestimating the size of the sharing market, and how the absence of "hipsters" deforms the industry charts and numbers. You're trying to understand popular music through the lens of capitalism (a monocle, of course) which keeps you from seeing what many people are listening to.
Music is not doing anything. It's being created in voluminous amounts by countless artists in myriad ways. Thanks to capitalism/copyright industry going full buggy whip on digital, many artists abandoned labels in an effort to stay relevant to their audience (or hooked up with one of the countless new labels that doesn't freak out over file sharing). The metrics you use are skewed because they only "see" some of the data because the music industry only cares about the music from which they get a cut. Industry metrics measure copyrighted music that legally must be purchased or rented. Music streamed/downloaded through channels (most far more obscure than Spotify) where almost all the money clings to the artist is not music that's being measured by the industry and therein is where you lost the thread. Your stats/charts measure the death of a superfluous industry, not a decline in new music.
Agreed, that's how it is with my music.
Put better, rather with the music that I truly enjoy.
I like your point. You can see how this plays out exactly in the publishing industry. The big publishers are bemoaning the idea that people aren't reading anymore and pointing to their numbers to 'prove' it. What's actually happening is that there has been a slow and steady takeover of indie authors (authors who publish their books directly to marketplaces like Amazon without going through an agent or a publisher) They are not household names like Stephen King, but their audiences can range into the millions of readers. They are 'unknown' because they don't get the constant media attention that older authors get, but are often as or more successful and reach the same number of people.
Part of the reason for this movement has parallels in the music industry. Gatekeepers who are no longer interested in finding and nurturing new talent because it is 'safer' and cheaper to promote a handful of authors with an established track record. Fixed ideas on what sells in a genre, and which genres sell best. Rejecting new ideas and niche genres because 'we don't know how to market this.' Then companies like Smashwords and Amazon came along and made it possible for anyone to publish. They had to overcome the stigma of a 'vanity press' (companies that will take your money and print 1000 copies of your book that you can then store in your garage -- though Anne Rice got her big break that way) but once they did and indie authors figured out how to market, that stigma disappeared. Few readers look at the publisher of the ebooks they love because they don't care and why should they?
The lessons that new musical artists can take away from publishing are myriad. Your audience is out there and they way to find and keep it is to make the music that you love, that makes you feel something because that's why people seek out art of any kind -- to feel. If the music sucks, then the best ad campaign still won't sell it. Network with as many other artists as you can -- even if their music might be in a different genre because you'd be surprised at the crossover -- and promote each other. Share your successes and failures with each other and don't be afraid to talk numbers -- this is a business. Make albums and EPs even if you think it's all about singles (similar to writing a series vs. a standalone book -- series are much easier and more profitable to sell) And give away free music always -- I cannot stress this point hard enough. I'm an indie writer and have seen my sales consistently go UP when I offer a free book.
Good luck! I want to hear some amazing new music!
I’m in complete agreement with what Mark and Olivia are both saying here.
The yardstick that is often used in these articles by Gioia is often so bizarre that I sometimes wonder where the real analysis disappeared to. I can’t say that it’s an “old guy” thing because were practically the same age, but it’s really (way past) time to stop looking at big business Capitalist models as saviors of “industry” (god, I hate that term) when the real joy comes from artists who have realized that recordings are now (and have really always been) just audio business cards.
I do agree, being in Dallas, that Krys Boyd is a real treasure. I think the first time I was hooked was when she spent a whole hour discussing the history of the banana. Hopefully, on Tuesday, she’ll point out the huge amount of overwhelmingly great music that can be found outside of any Billboard chart measurement.
BTW, one obvious new musical movement that arouses fervent fandom and has widespread popularity is K-pop - but when I've tried to listen to Korean pop songs, I can't but help but be reminded of the old familiar pop (particularly Eurodance) standards on the radio when I was young in the 90s. At least it's obvious they're more melody-based than current Western pop. Maybe that's an attractive factor?
A quick note of thanks for being so thoughtful in your writing. I love this post because it starts a conversation by noticing something right in front of us. I’m intrigued by a comment below that suggests that new music is perhaps as strong as ever, but not reflected in the charts or data collected by the formal industry. That’s an interesting line of inquiry, and I don’t think it negates how interesting it is that the formal industry is skewing in a certain direction. I’m a 31 year old who finds myself gravitating not so much towards the older music (although I do find it worthwhile to explore and discover the older songs for the purpose of integrating their songwriting approaches into my own) but towards the ‘older’ formats of vinyl and cds. I’ve mostly assumed that to be a function of my desire to more deeply and intentionally interact with the music of my generation rather than anything else, but I’ll be thinking more about that going forward. At any rate, I’m grateful for what you write and for the way that it stimulates my own curiosity about my entanglement with all aspects of music today.
It was a provocative question, with a lot of substance and evidence behind it. I personally feel like I’m still catching up on music I missed in the past, and am not up to the present yet. The shows that I’ve seen on Tv featuring music were more choreography than soul and substance. I mean, how far can you go with: “I took the top off my Maybach…whoo…”?
Digital technology has made available the entire catalog of recorded music. I think young people are aware of that and they don’t want to limit themselves to listening to new music only.
New songs aren’t as good? That is BS. Taylor swift can write. Jason Isbell can write. Sharon Von Etten can write. The Drive By Truckers can write. The Hold Steady can write. Phoebe Bridges can write. And all of them have their song recorded well too. That is just off the top of my head in America. Record companies just won’t spend the money or time because it is all no. Music people running them with nothing but an eye on the bottom line.
As a recovering Wall Street technology stock analyst, I was struck when reading 'Music: A Subversive History' of the parallels I had encountered years ago reading Clayton Christensen's 'The Innovator's Dilemma; When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail.' The big difference, though, was the element of time - in the world of hardware, there is an element of physics at play (things need to be developed, produced, distributed, sold and deployed, so just as nine women can't produce a newborn in one month, there's a built-in governor on the speed of displacement). But in the creative/intellectual realm, the physical limitations are secondary to cultural limitations. As a result, it gets back to the fundamental tug-of-war between greed and fear .
Be that as it may, the similarity between the two books is the focus on the significance of the disrespect shown to the upstart. In 'Dilemma' the point is stressed that the benefits of change work to favor the smaller and faster-growing elements, while the older, more-entrenched competitors are slower (and often dumber due to their vested interests). This is akin to the work of the late, great Air Force Col. John Boyd, who stressed his OODA loop - observation, orientation, decision, action; pilots who had tighter OODA loops would invariably triumph over their slower competitors - as well as his Energy/Maneuverability Theory. I believe that the problems you've identified in music are different only because the innovators can be temporarily trampled by the status quo - right up to the point when they rise up in volcanic fashion to totally disrupt the landscape.
Because entertainment (in general) and music (specifically) are gaseous in nature (they rapidly expand to fill available volume, but compress quite easily), they tend to grow very fast. While beneficial, that rapid growth also means that they encounter the problems of maturity and the effects of technological change are revealed that much faster. These industries are to business what fruit flies are to geneticists - they tend to demonstrate what happens to everything else, just on a much-shortened time scale.
If there's anything that music shares with a host of other elements of the business world right now, it is the detrimental effects of excessive capital -the entrenched are more so, and the availability of so much money means that a lot of really crappy ideas are getting funded along with the usual amount of good ones. The result is that the next wave of greatness is confronted by a two-fold problem (irritatingly poor competition and frustratingly stupid vested interests. But not to fear - this situation will correct. The longer it takes to occur, the more dramatic the correction/inflection point is likely to be. And it's likely to be obvious only with benefit of hindsight.
Sorry for the length of this comment - as usual, you provoke a bunch of thinking. Thanks for that. And I started reading John Mauceri's 'For the Love of Music: A Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening' yesterday, so the pump was primed!
Thanks Ted for more incisive reflections on music. On this topic, I remember I upset my Gen X colleague about music "these days". Maybe I should have been more considered but I had to add the creativity in any field isn't linear and there are "Rennaisances" where there are rushes of works produced. It's a long game and hopefully we will get a new wave of popular musical work. Rod from Australia
My husband and I have co-hosted The Basement Tapes with Nick and Bootsy for 12 years. We started on local FM (Rolla, MO) and played original music by local artists. Several years ago, we started streaming online from home. Over time, we realized that EVERYBODY is local to somewhere and as a result, we expanded our range to local music Earth and have played music from across the globe. There is some AWESOME new music out there in a variety of genres. On our show, it’s been increasingly hard to share songs online without getting hit with copyright strikes even when we’re playing songs that we got directly from the artist, their management/promotion team or independent label. We’re very small players in a very big game, one that’s getting harder and harder to play.