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.
Note that my comment regarding “new and improved” said it was *deemed* to not be that. That’s the listeners making that decision, not me.
I certainly sympathize with the comments about exciting music being made lots of places that are not “mainstream” in the US.
The comment about “active listening” vs
being sprayed by "acoustic wallpaper” is
onto something. There is little encouragement of engagement when playlists are used (possibly unconsciously)
precisely to avoid the need to engage.
This *could* be exacerbated by the ubiquity
of “background muzak” - acoustic wallpaper designed for purposes other than active listening. Some people may have come to like having non-silence and familiarity may be a way scratch that itch with minimal distraction. As was also suggested, this could be a statistical artifact caused by the inability to detect difference of purpose in sessions:actively engagement vs space-filling ambience.
I agree. This was precisely my thought as well. With the amount of streaming services and different ways to find music these days, people get lazy or just plain apathetic about searching and so end up playing through the same playlist or stack of “liked” songs all the time.
The time we would go to a store and spend hours flicking through records never seemed like a waste of time, but spending hours scrolling through websites or music apps on your phone can feel like your life is just slipping away. I might be over dramatising but I’m sure you see what I’m getting at.
I’d love to listen to the radio more to hear new stuff but the adverts and frankly unimaginative slush that gets churned out alot of the time, is just depressing.
There’s so much amazing music out there, you just need to look for it…
Do you know the platform Pandora and the “music genome project” they are using? This is a lazy way to play new music that is not based on “likes” but on your listening preferences without genre-restriction…
100% agreed! There is a lot of new music around…it is just “distributed” on different channels. Quite regular I find smth I really like on some social media…and you cannot buy it as vinyl record, CD, file and you don’t even find it on Spotify or other streaming platforms!
You don't have to tell Mr. Gioia that there's good new music out there - in his job as a reviewer, he has listened to 800 new albums this year. And it's only May.
Thank you for your kind remark. I have a very high opinion of Mr. Gioia’s knowledge and understanding of the music business. You say he listened to 800 new albums this year…I think you missed the fact there is tons of new music that doesn’t know the album format. Music that doesn’t come as CD, or any physical media. Music that you won’t find on streaming platforms like Spotify. Music that you ONLY find in computer games, in TikTok Videos or mobile apps…
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.
See BTS + A.R.M.Y. for a "religious experience," LOL.
Why do these surveys - and so many commentators - ignore the biggest trend in the world ... KPOP?! Music consumers gobble up KPOP - especially 'digital natives' (Gen Z). BTS sold out 4 nights in LA in 24 hours (50,000+ per night along with thousands at overflow live stream in theatre next door). They sold out 4 more Las Vegas concerts last month the same way. The one night streaming of their Seoul concert in March was estimated to have 1.4 million people attended the live viewings in theaters worldwide (fewer than 1000 theaters - that racked up highest earnings ever for a one-night showing).
BTS are phenomenal performers (see Grammys?! Time magazine story on HYBE?); have been performing for over 10 years; are expected to do another world tour soon; and will be around for a LONG time to come.
Hey, I had a lot of fun in Green Bay! And I’m not doubting the current popularity or talent of contemporary artists. But I very much doubt that Harry Styles or Taylor Swift (both of whom I like) will be selling out 60,000 seat arenas 40 years from now. Who’s a more (relatively) recent act that has a couple decades of longevity? Foo Fighters come to mind. Counting the Nirvana days, Dave Grohl has been going for 30 years. But, yeesh, nowadays, Nirvana is played between The Doors and The Who on classic rock radio!
Coldplay formed in ‘96 and Parachutes—which was everywhere that year—came out in ‘00. I’m satisfied by that. Pretty much beside the point, which was that last generation rock acts are touring and selling out arenas in 2022.
. Parachutes was their first album - that's when they entered the cultural conversation, not when they were formed. 2000's are not nineties. It matters because the music style shifted. The Chilli Peppers are emblematic of the 90's. Coldplay is emblematic of the 00's. Different eras. It may be beside the point of the article, arguably, but it wrankles music fans to lump one era of music into another.
Remember how the Grateful Dead almost never charted yet seemed to sell tons of albums? There is no shortage of popular music right now but it exists in a world where bands upload to Bandcamp and hope for donations, or simply hand out their music for free to get people to buy tickets for their shows (admittedly not the best business model during the pandemic).
These charts simply document the decline of the old guard while not measuring what's happening now. Historically charts show you what kind of music was popular earlier and is now being copied by everyone. Now that "the kids" are hearing music as it's released, they're ahead of the charts (which they probably don't even know exist).
Thank you for "falling typewriter sales." I've been using "buggy whip sales" all my life but it's hopelessly out of date as a descriptor of things that are out of date.
At the risk of repeating myself, there is a lot of great music from Africa, Brasil, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba et al that might not be "new" but it will be for those who have never ventured outside of the USA and Canada for new sounds. Well worth the effort.
"What does it mean when this forward-looking art form unexpectedly turns around and decides it prefers the past?"
In this case it means that the dominant method for playing music to people has a strong bias toward old music. Algorithms are currently optimized to pick old music for people because old music is the music the algorithms have data on (less risky financially and statistically). The newer the music, the less data, the less effective the algorithm. Changing this would require a completely different type of algorithm, or not using an algorithm to choose your music for you (the horror!).
"Surely that is a sign of some broader cultural change that is coming at us."
Yes, algorithms being used to herd everybody into predesignated marketing segments within which peoples tastes and opinions will be highly stereotyped.
That doesn't seem exactly right. One can turn on a "new music" playlist anytime, or a "current hits" or curated new music playlist in a given genre for more targeted new music. This would delete any bias to old music with one stroke, no?
One could easily generate a playlist that only has songs that came out this month too, but that isn't how people (here I mean the majority of music listeners) currently interact with their music distribution services. People that actively seek out new music are a pretty tiny minority (and always have been). Also most "current hits" and "new music" playlists typically have a very long tail (lots of older songs).
Ah but there you gave the lie to Ted's thesis - that it is the technology rather than the consumer that is the deciding factor here. Your bracketed "(and always have been)" statement sneaks in the truth and highlights the key fact that Ted ignores - new music afficionados have always been the exception, not the rule.
Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what exactly Ted's thesis is. You are certainly correct that new music aficionados have always been the exception, not the rule. My thesis is that the changes Ted points out are driven by technology; culture follows technology in the way conservatives like to argue that "politics is downstream of culture". The "forward looking art form" was certainly not always forward looking, it became that way because new distribution methods arrived that made it more profitable for a new form of gatekeeper to promote new music over old. Now we have another new technology it has produced a new form of gatekeeper that finds it more profitable to promote old music over new. I'm not sure how bad or good this is for the continued production of great new music, but I expect it will lead to very homogenized mass music and "siloing" of different genres. It will probably reduce musics ability to drive culture, but it might lead to greater creativity and diversity on the musical fringes.
Someone I know works for a market research company in Europe. They just realized that they made a serious mistake when determining listening rankings, for a whole country, for the last 5 years. No one noticed throughout the whole period. This is data that has directly impacted royalty payments.
I bring this up because it makes me wonder about the reliability of studies such as these.
Trusting the average music listener with choosing new music to listen to is like trusting a monkey with matches and dynamite. hey are used to having music presented to THEM and not at all prepared to actually go and seek it out.
Bandcamp is an awesome source of new music. And GOOD music. I never in my life looked to Billboard magazine or ANY "Top 100" charts to choose what I listen to. Music is personal and shouldn't be taken flippantly.
Maybe quality music frightens the average listener. Maybe the only exposure they get to new music or new performers is "The Voice" or "American Idol". THAT is a sad commentary.
I am no expert on statistics, but I think a sample of 1.000 people is not big enough to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions on a topic like this. The population of the US is around 320 million, and that of Canada is around 35 million. Perhaps the fact that the list has changed so little during 4 years just evidences a glaring sampling error. How many users are there in total in their Strategic Music Test platform, what are their demographics (not just age), etc.?
There is a personal sense of everything such as "novelty," or 'tragedy," and a global sense, e.g. "last week I went to a funeral–slipped and turned my ankle, and it lent a somber air to the entire occasion." In this Age Of Simultaneity–where all possible musics are available at one's beck and call, there is no longer anything that one can call "old music," or "new music." In fact, when one first hears any music, it is "new music" by definition (personal), whether it is a Bach Oratorio or Brian Eno aural wallpaper piece (hear Satie here). Current box office proves this assertion to be true. It certainly isn't surprising that music that was popular at one time will not remain so forever (global). Newness is in the ear of the hearer . . . only people (like me) who have been around a long while might be tempted to think otherwise.
Yes just before the Mongol Invasions, the rise of the Ottomans, and the Tennis Court Oath the charts took a surprising turn even with remarks like "Dick I don't give a shit whether I can dance to it or not, there's a revolution coming Bro'."
Five years is old? I just got a solicitation from Sirius XM for a Who world tour. What stuck me most about the list is that it was nearly all white people. Shouldn't Beyonce be there somewhere? Kanye? JayZ? If we were in 1958, would a list like this be dominated by Perry Como and Patti Page rather than Chuck Berry?
Recently, people on the XTC fan page were bemoaning the lack of new work from Andy Partridge. I commented that an album with just him and a guitar would sell well on Bandcamp. People replied “Meh, he probably just doesn’t want to release a bunch of demos online.” Um … a simpler recording released on a digital platform IS what new music means now. People waiting around for a fully produced object delivered by trusted cultural gatekeepers will just keep getting another Glenn Frey show at the casino.
Can a possible reason for older music doing better is that the overly-produced pop music of today, created by teams writing hooks, etc. might just not be as good as earlier pop music? And not to sound like a cranky old person, but there is a lot of good music that is coming out today: Sarah Jarocz, Leyla McCalla--to name a few, but they will never be marketed in the same way as 95% of the spectacles shown on the Grammys, etc.
Are we sure we understand how lag and short term nostalgia works as we’re interpreting this data? Had such a survey been done in day 1980 might we see a similar dominance by big tracks from the preceding 5yrs?
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.
Note that my comment regarding “new and improved” said it was *deemed* to not be that. That’s the listeners making that decision, not me.
I certainly sympathize with the comments about exciting music being made lots of places that are not “mainstream” in the US.
The comment about “active listening” vs
being sprayed by "acoustic wallpaper” is
onto something. There is little encouragement of engagement when playlists are used (possibly unconsciously)
precisely to avoid the need to engage.
This *could* be exacerbated by the ubiquity
of “background muzak” - acoustic wallpaper designed for purposes other than active listening. Some people may have come to like having non-silence and familiarity may be a way scratch that itch with minimal distraction. As was also suggested, this could be a statistical artifact caused by the inability to detect difference of purpose in sessions:actively engagement vs space-filling ambience.
I agree. This was precisely my thought as well. With the amount of streaming services and different ways to find music these days, people get lazy or just plain apathetic about searching and so end up playing through the same playlist or stack of “liked” songs all the time.
The time we would go to a store and spend hours flicking through records never seemed like a waste of time, but spending hours scrolling through websites or music apps on your phone can feel like your life is just slipping away. I might be over dramatising but I’m sure you see what I’m getting at.
I’d love to listen to the radio more to hear new stuff but the adverts and frankly unimaginative slush that gets churned out alot of the time, is just depressing.
There’s so much amazing music out there, you just need to look for it…
Do you know the platform Pandora and the “music genome project” they are using? This is a lazy way to play new music that is not based on “likes” but on your listening preferences without genre-restriction…
Thanks Frank. I know of Pandora. I’ll check it out. I hear the quality is less than ideal…
100% agreed! There is a lot of new music around…it is just “distributed” on different channels. Quite regular I find smth I really like on some social media…and you cannot buy it as vinyl record, CD, file and you don’t even find it on Spotify or other streaming platforms!
You don't have to tell Mr. Gioia that there's good new music out there - in his job as a reviewer, he has listened to 800 new albums this year. And it's only May.
Thank you for your kind remark. I have a very high opinion of Mr. Gioia’s knowledge and understanding of the music business. You say he listened to 800 new albums this year…I think you missed the fact there is tons of new music that doesn’t know the album format. Music that doesn’t come as CD, or any physical media. Music that you won’t find on streaming platforms like Spotify. Music that you ONLY find in computer games, in TikTok Videos or mobile apps…
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.
See BTS + A.R.M.Y. for a "religious experience," LOL.
Why do these surveys - and so many commentators - ignore the biggest trend in the world ... KPOP?! Music consumers gobble up KPOP - especially 'digital natives' (Gen Z). BTS sold out 4 nights in LA in 24 hours (50,000+ per night along with thousands at overflow live stream in theatre next door). They sold out 4 more Las Vegas concerts last month the same way. The one night streaming of their Seoul concert in March was estimated to have 1.4 million people attended the live viewings in theaters worldwide (fewer than 1000 theaters - that racked up highest earnings ever for a one-night showing).
BTS are phenomenal performers (see Grammys?! Time magazine story on HYBE?); have been performing for over 10 years; are expected to do another world tour soon; and will be around for a LONG time to come.
... yet they are still dismissed as "boy band".
https://www.kbcs.fm/2022/04/15/the-power-of-the-bts-army-relationship/?fbclid=IwAR2ocORD8N7KdaWiMTT32v-KU8igklqE6cmilugAYVuoperBsUjnMIOgee0
Hey, I had a lot of fun in Green Bay! And I’m not doubting the current popularity or talent of contemporary artists. But I very much doubt that Harry Styles or Taylor Swift (both of whom I like) will be selling out 60,000 seat arenas 40 years from now. Who’s a more (relatively) recent act that has a couple decades of longevity? Foo Fighters come to mind. Counting the Nirvana days, Dave Grohl has been going for 30 years. But, yeesh, nowadays, Nirvana is played between The Doors and The Who on classic rock radio!
Coldplay is not a nineties band. They came up in the early 2000's.
Coldplay formed in ‘96 and Parachutes—which was everywhere that year—came out in ‘00. I’m satisfied by that. Pretty much beside the point, which was that last generation rock acts are touring and selling out arenas in 2022.
. Parachutes was their first album - that's when they entered the cultural conversation, not when they were formed. 2000's are not nineties. It matters because the music style shifted. The Chilli Peppers are emblematic of the 90's. Coldplay is emblematic of the 00's. Different eras. It may be beside the point of the article, arguably, but it wrankles music fans to lump one era of music into another.
Remember how the Grateful Dead almost never charted yet seemed to sell tons of albums? There is no shortage of popular music right now but it exists in a world where bands upload to Bandcamp and hope for donations, or simply hand out their music for free to get people to buy tickets for their shows (admittedly not the best business model during the pandemic).
These charts simply document the decline of the old guard while not measuring what's happening now. Historically charts show you what kind of music was popular earlier and is now being copied by everyone. Now that "the kids" are hearing music as it's released, they're ahead of the charts (which they probably don't even know exist).
Exactly. Ted’s stats are really like seeing the end of some outmoded technology. Falling typewriter sales.
Thank you for "falling typewriter sales." I've been using "buggy whip sales" all my life but it's hopelessly out of date as a descriptor of things that are out of date.
You seem to be right about that. I think we've been slow to discover where the new leading edge of music is at right now.
At the risk of repeating myself, there is a lot of great music from Africa, Brasil, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba et al that might not be "new" but it will be for those who have never ventured outside of the USA and Canada for new sounds. Well worth the effort.
"What does it mean when this forward-looking art form unexpectedly turns around and decides it prefers the past?"
In this case it means that the dominant method for playing music to people has a strong bias toward old music. Algorithms are currently optimized to pick old music for people because old music is the music the algorithms have data on (less risky financially and statistically). The newer the music, the less data, the less effective the algorithm. Changing this would require a completely different type of algorithm, or not using an algorithm to choose your music for you (the horror!).
"Surely that is a sign of some broader cultural change that is coming at us."
Yes, algorithms being used to herd everybody into predesignated marketing segments within which peoples tastes and opinions will be highly stereotyped.
That doesn't seem exactly right. One can turn on a "new music" playlist anytime, or a "current hits" or curated new music playlist in a given genre for more targeted new music. This would delete any bias to old music with one stroke, no?
One could easily generate a playlist that only has songs that came out this month too, but that isn't how people (here I mean the majority of music listeners) currently interact with their music distribution services. People that actively seek out new music are a pretty tiny minority (and always have been). Also most "current hits" and "new music" playlists typically have a very long tail (lots of older songs).
Ah but there you gave the lie to Ted's thesis - that it is the technology rather than the consumer that is the deciding factor here. Your bracketed "(and always have been)" statement sneaks in the truth and highlights the key fact that Ted ignores - new music afficionados have always been the exception, not the rule.
Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what exactly Ted's thesis is. You are certainly correct that new music aficionados have always been the exception, not the rule. My thesis is that the changes Ted points out are driven by technology; culture follows technology in the way conservatives like to argue that "politics is downstream of culture". The "forward looking art form" was certainly not always forward looking, it became that way because new distribution methods arrived that made it more profitable for a new form of gatekeeper to promote new music over old. Now we have another new technology it has produced a new form of gatekeeper that finds it more profitable to promote old music over new. I'm not sure how bad or good this is for the continued production of great new music, but I expect it will lead to very homogenized mass music and "siloing" of different genres. It will probably reduce musics ability to drive culture, but it might lead to greater creativity and diversity on the musical fringes.
Yes, to echo Ms. Martiniz, perhaps it's possible that older songs are simply more musical?
Someone I know works for a market research company in Europe. They just realized that they made a serious mistake when determining listening rankings, for a whole country, for the last 5 years. No one noticed throughout the whole period. This is data that has directly impacted royalty payments.
I bring this up because it makes me wonder about the reliability of studies such as these.
Trusting the average music listener with choosing new music to listen to is like trusting a monkey with matches and dynamite. hey are used to having music presented to THEM and not at all prepared to actually go and seek it out.
Bandcamp is an awesome source of new music. And GOOD music. I never in my life looked to Billboard magazine or ANY "Top 100" charts to choose what I listen to. Music is personal and shouldn't be taken flippantly.
Maybe quality music frightens the average listener. Maybe the only exposure they get to new music or new performers is "The Voice" or "American Idol". THAT is a sad commentary.
I am no expert on statistics, but I think a sample of 1.000 people is not big enough to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions on a topic like this. The population of the US is around 320 million, and that of Canada is around 35 million. Perhaps the fact that the list has changed so little during 4 years just evidences a glaring sampling error. How many users are there in total in their Strategic Music Test platform, what are their demographics (not just age), etc.?
Old tech challenged guy here. Not even sure how to access new music.
There is a personal sense of everything such as "novelty," or 'tragedy," and a global sense, e.g. "last week I went to a funeral–slipped and turned my ankle, and it lent a somber air to the entire occasion." In this Age Of Simultaneity–where all possible musics are available at one's beck and call, there is no longer anything that one can call "old music," or "new music." In fact, when one first hears any music, it is "new music" by definition (personal), whether it is a Bach Oratorio or Brian Eno aural wallpaper piece (hear Satie here). Current box office proves this assertion to be true. It certainly isn't surprising that music that was popular at one time will not remain so forever (global). Newness is in the ear of the hearer . . . only people (like me) who have been around a long while might be tempted to think otherwise.
Yes just before the Mongol Invasions, the rise of the Ottomans, and the Tennis Court Oath the charts took a surprising turn even with remarks like "Dick I don't give a shit whether I can dance to it or not, there's a revolution coming Bro'."
Five years is old? I just got a solicitation from Sirius XM for a Who world tour. What stuck me most about the list is that it was nearly all white people. Shouldn't Beyonce be there somewhere? Kanye? JayZ? If we were in 1958, would a list like this be dominated by Perry Como and Patti Page rather than Chuck Berry?
Recently, people on the XTC fan page were bemoaning the lack of new work from Andy Partridge. I commented that an album with just him and a guitar would sell well on Bandcamp. People replied “Meh, he probably just doesn’t want to release a bunch of demos online.” Um … a simpler recording released on a digital platform IS what new music means now. People waiting around for a fully produced object delivered by trusted cultural gatekeepers will just keep getting another Glenn Frey show at the casino.
Can a possible reason for older music doing better is that the overly-produced pop music of today, created by teams writing hooks, etc. might just not be as good as earlier pop music? And not to sound like a cranky old person, but there is a lot of good music that is coming out today: Sarah Jarocz, Leyla McCalla--to name a few, but they will never be marketed in the same way as 95% of the spectacles shown on the Grammys, etc.
Are we sure we understand how lag and short term nostalgia works as we’re interpreting this data? Had such a survey been done in day 1980 might we see a similar dominance by big tracks from the preceding 5yrs?