I'm a boomer and a musician and I can tell you first hand that much of the reason for the massive decline in the quality of music is because of the companies that run it. Back in the day we wrote our own songs and said what we liked and we came up with things that were unheard of prior to our era, but over time the "industry" began to control things and tell artists what they could and couldn't do, or else.. and repetitiveness was part of their formula. which is why the chorus or refrain is up front and/or repeated endlessly. If the Beatles or the Moody Blues or the original Carpenters (In my book Karen was one of the most incredible singers who has ever lived) and dozens of other fabulous groups had been stifled we never would've been able to created what we did, nor would we have become who we did frankly because music has a profound impact on shaping people's lives. But here we are.. another mess that big business has created in the name of profit, and who cares if the quality of life suffers. I say no thank you, I'd rather sit on my porch and play oldies on my acoustic or write my own stuff, (which usually happens spontaneously and is to my mind far better than anything I hear today) or crank up the stereo to nine and rock out with some oldies for a while. Music should be joyful, creative and fun, and if it dosn't change and return to what we had and what existed before we came along, as you said there's no reason to think the race to the bottom won't continue.
The vapid slop that comprises so much Pop music today could easily have been created by AI. The transition to AI-created music will be so seamless as to be unnoticeable to its consumers.
Vindication at last. 50s thru the 70s music was based on Blues and Renaissance Masters ... todays is based on tone correction, a simple hook, repetitive lines, and beat.
This amuses me. People like you were saying the same thing about disco, then the synth pop of the 1980s, and on and on and on, especially about the lyrics. Seriously, you want to go there? I can list dozens of songs from the 1970s, for instance, with lyrics every bit as vapid as those Sabrina Carpenter lyrics. Vapid lyrics are part of pop music. It's also highly debatable if a key change necessarily equates to musical complexity. Truly stupid stuff, just old people complaining about the music popular among the youth, as old people have done going back centuries.
It wasn't just the technology that brought us here. See the great 1994 book by Martha Bayles, Hole in Our Soul. Or see some of the key posts in my NRO essay series (in the teens), Carl's Rock Songbook. Carl Eric Scott
Strong data-driven take on musical simplification. The TikTok incentive structure really nails it: front-loading choruses and creating repetitve hooks optimizes for virality but kills compositional depth. The zero key changes between 2010-2015 surprised me though, that's a longer drought than I would've guessed. Watched this happen in real-time working with indie musicians who slowly started sturcturing songs around 15-second clips instead of full listens.
I'm a boomer and a musician and I can tell you first hand that much of the reason for the massive decline in the quality of music is because of the companies that run it. Back in the day we wrote our own songs and said what we liked and we came up with things that were unheard of prior to our era, but over time the "industry" began to control things and tell artists what they could and couldn't do, or else.. and repetitiveness was part of their formula. which is why the chorus or refrain is up front and/or repeated endlessly. If the Beatles or the Moody Blues or the original Carpenters (In my book Karen was one of the most incredible singers who has ever lived) and dozens of other fabulous groups had been stifled we never would've been able to created what we did, nor would we have become who we did frankly because music has a profound impact on shaping people's lives. But here we are.. another mess that big business has created in the name of profit, and who cares if the quality of life suffers. I say no thank you, I'd rather sit on my porch and play oldies on my acoustic or write my own stuff, (which usually happens spontaneously and is to my mind far better than anything I hear today) or crank up the stereo to nine and rock out with some oldies for a while. Music should be joyful, creative and fun, and if it dosn't change and return to what we had and what existed before we came along, as you said there's no reason to think the race to the bottom won't continue.
The vapid slop that comprises so much Pop music today could easily have been created by AI. The transition to AI-created music will be so seamless as to be unnoticeable to its consumers.
Vindication at last. 50s thru the 70s music was based on Blues and Renaissance Masters ... todays is based on tone correction, a simple hook, repetitive lines, and beat.
This is about Billboard/Pop music so duh lol
(Aside: Data much appreciated tho)
This amuses me. People like you were saying the same thing about disco, then the synth pop of the 1980s, and on and on and on, especially about the lyrics. Seriously, you want to go there? I can list dozens of songs from the 1970s, for instance, with lyrics every bit as vapid as those Sabrina Carpenter lyrics. Vapid lyrics are part of pop music. It's also highly debatable if a key change necessarily equates to musical complexity. Truly stupid stuff, just old people complaining about the music popular among the youth, as old people have done going back centuries.
It wasn't just the technology that brought us here. See the great 1994 book by Martha Bayles, Hole in Our Soul. Or see some of the key posts in my NRO essay series (in the teens), Carl's Rock Songbook. Carl Eric Scott
Strong data-driven take on musical simplification. The TikTok incentive structure really nails it: front-loading choruses and creating repetitve hooks optimizes for virality but kills compositional depth. The zero key changes between 2010-2015 surprised me though, that's a longer drought than I would've guessed. Watched this happen in real-time working with indie musicians who slowly started sturcturing songs around 15-second clips instead of full listens.