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Mr. Edison's avatar

I don’t buy the idea that the quality of music has declined. A quick listen to Gioia’s best of lists in the last five years proves my point. It’s more that the passive music consumer isn’t buying what the music industry is selling. So consumers default to what they last liked when they kind of paid attention.

To active listeners, the ones who still read columns and scour Bandcamp, the amount of great music being produced is impossible to keep track of.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

A few weeks back, I went to a Journey/Toto concert here in Seattle with about 17,000 people. A very mainstream show. And I remarked that night, as I have very often over the last decade, that I can’t think of a single contemporary artist who is likely to sell 17,000 tickets in 2062. And what of The Rolling Stones, Queen, Elton John, or U2 or others who can sell out 60,000 seat stadiums? There are a lot of reasons why this is happening and we’re all going to agree and disagree about reasons and repercussions. But I think of those days in the 70s when I waited for hours (and some friends waited for days) outside ticket offices to get THOSE tickets for THAT concert. I think there was more ceremony then. It was more of a religious experience.

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