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Have we reached the end of "new" music?

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The people whose livelihood depends on discovering new musical talent face legal risks if they take their job seriously. That’s only one of the deleterious results of the music industry’s overreliance on lawyers and litigation, a hard-ass approach they once hoped would cure all their problems, but now does more harm than good. Everybody suffers in this litigious environment except for the partners at the entertainment-law firms, who enjoy the abundant fruits of all these lawsuits and legal threats.

The problem goes deeper than just copyright concerns. The people running the music industry have lost confidence in new music. They won’t admit it publicly—that would be like the priests of Jupiter and Apollo in ancient Rome admitting that their gods are dead. Even if they know it’s true, their job titles won’t allow such a humble and abject confession. Yet that is exactly what’s happening. The moguls have lost their faith in the redemptive and life-changing power of new music. How sad is that? Of course, the decision makers need to pretend that they still believe in the future of their business, and want to discover the next revolutionary talent. But that’s not what they really think. Their actions speak much louder than their empty words.

In fact, nothing is less interesting to music executives than a completely radical new kind of music. Who can blame them for feeling this way? The radio stations will play only songs that fit the dominant formulas, which haven’t changed much in decades. The algorithms curating so much of our new music are even worse. Music algorithms are designed to be feedback loops, ensuring that the promoted new songs are virtually identical to your favorite old songs. Anything that genuinely breaks the mold is excluded from consideration almost as a rule. That’s actually how the current system has been designed to work.

Even the music genres famous for shaking up the world—rock or jazz or hip-hop—face this same deadening industry mindset. I love jazz, but many of the radio stations focused on that genre play songs that sound almost the same as what they featured 10 or 20 years ago. In many instances, they actually are the same songs.

This state of affairs is not inevitable. A lot of musicians around the world—especially in Los Angeles and London—are conducting a bold dialogue between jazz and other contemporary styles. They are even bringing jazz back as dance music. But the songs they release sound dangerously different from older jazz, and are thus excluded from many radio stations for that same reason. The very boldness with which they embrace the future becomes the reason they get rejected by the gatekeepers.

A country record needs to sound a certain way to get played on most country radio stations or playlists, and the sound those DJs and algorithms are looking for dates back to the prior century. And don’t even get me started on the classical-music industry, which works hard to avoid showcasing the creativity of the current generation. We are living in an amazing era of classical composition, with one tiny problem: The institutions controlling the genre don’t want you to hear it.


The problem isn’t a lack of good new music. It’s an institutional failure to discover and nurture it.

I learned the danger of excessive caution long ago, when I consulted for huge Fortune 500 companies. The single biggest problem I encountered—shared by virtually every large company I analyzed—was investing too much of their time and money into defending old ways of doing business, rather than building new ones. We even had a proprietary tool for quantifying this misallocation of resources that spelled out the mistakes in precise dollars and cents.

Senior management hated hearing this, and always insisted that defending the old business units was their safest bet. After I encountered this embedded mindset again and again and saw its consequences, I reached the painful conclusion that the safest path is usually the most dangerous. If you pursue a strategy—whether in business or your personal life—that avoids all risk, you might flourish in the short run, but you flounder over the long term. That’s what is now happening in the music business.

Even so, I refuse to accept that we are in some grim endgame, witnessing the death throes of new music. And I say that because I know how much people crave something that sounds fresh and exciting and different. If they don’t find it from a major record label or algorithm-driven playlist, they will find it somewhere else. Songs can go viral nowadays without the entertainment industry even noticing until it has already happened. That will be how this story ends: not with the marginalization of new music, but with something radical emerging from an unexpected place.

The apparent dead ends of the past were circumvented the same way. Music-company execs in 1955 had no idea that rock and roll would soon sweep away everything in its path. When Elvis took over the culture—coming from the poorest state in America, lowly Mississippi—they were more shocked than anybody. It happened again the following decade, with the arrival of the British Invasion from lowly Liverpool (again, a working-class place, unnoticed by the entertainment industry). And it happened again when hip-hop, a true grassroots movement that didn’t give a damn how the close-minded CEOs of Sony or Universal viewed the marketplace, emerged from the Bronx and South Central and other impoverished neighborhoods.

If we had the time, I would tell you more about how the same thing has always happened. The troubadours of the 11th century, Sappho, the lyric singers of ancient Greece, and the artisan performers of the Middle Kingdom in ancient Egypt transformed their own cultures in a similar way. Musical revolutions come from the bottom up, not the top down. The CEOs are the last to know. That’s what gives me solace. New music always arises in the least expected place, and when the power brokers aren’t even paying attention. It will happen again. It certainly needs to. The decision makers controlling our music institutions have lost the thread. We’re lucky that the music is too powerful for them to kill.
Today you don't need to get a deal with a music company to get time in a studio and time with equipment recording, and records pressed and distributed. You can do it on your phone and post it for download. With that, you only need to have one song to become a "star". With such little invested, the output I believe is only a fraction of what it use to be. You don't have an album worth of stuff to pick from. And quite frankly, being old, I haven't noticed much new stuff this century, as in so much just sounds the same. And I'm surprised by how much my kids and their friends like the 70's and 80's stuff
 
Today you don't need to get a deal with a music company to get time in a studio and time with equipment recording, and records pressed and distributed. You can do it on your phone and post it for download. With that, you only need to have one song to become a "star". With such little invested, the output I believe is only a fraction of what it use to be. You don't have an album worth of stuff to pick from. And quite frankly, being old, I haven't noticed much new stuff this century, as in so much just sounds the same. And I'm surprised by how much my kids and their friends like the 70's and 80's stuff
no offense, but do you even attempt to find new music? And I'm not talking about listening to the radio. That's an old man cop out. Music didn't stop in the 70's and 80's.
 
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There’s a renaissance of old American music going on right now, particularly hot or traditional jazz, rockabilly and old time country music/ honky tonk. I’m excited to see some shows this year.
 
Today you don't need to get a deal with a music company to get time in a studio and time with equipment recording, and records pressed and distributed. You can do it on your phone and post it for download. With that, you only need to have one song to become a "star". With such little invested, the output I believe is only a fraction of what it use to be. You don't have an album worth of stuff to pick from. And quite frankly, being old, I haven't noticed much new stuff this century, as in so much just sounds the same. And I'm surprised by how much my kids and their friends like the 70's and 80's stuff
My 19-year-old son and his friends are constantly pilfering my record collection. Pisses me off (but I'm also kind of tickled they have good musical taste).
 
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no offense, but do you even attempt to find new music? And I'm not talking about listening to the radio. That's an old man cop out. Music didn't stop in the 70's and 80's.

That's sort of the issue. With the demise of meaningful radio, new music is an enthusiast's game. That's not how it used to be...people used to be regular consumers of new music without being "really into music".

Almost everybody goes to/watches new movies, even people that aren't "into film." It used to be that way with music...almost everyone consumed some new music. But the radio was the pipeline. The lack thereof means no passive consumers of new music.

And actually, I wonder if movies aren't facing the same thing, but it's just being papered over. There are very few movies being made today that aren't either sequels or a previously established IP. If you counted sequels/established IP as "old" product, I bet the amount spent on "new" movies might not be much more than that of new music.

Essentially, I'm not sure that movies are any more successful at having buyers discover and engage with new product than the music industry. But you can keep making unlimited new Spiderman movies in a way that you can't keep making new John Lennon music.
 
So...this post has really tickled my brain. I've been noodling around with the idea that came to me in the last post, that maybe this wasn't music specific, and it might also be reflected in movies.

So checking on movies, it's definitely true. This site charted top 20 grossing films from 1983 to 2018. The declining impact of original movies is stark.

sequels.jpg


And it's even worse than that. This counts something like Black Panther as "original" because it's not a direct sequel, but it's certainly not fresh IP in any way, it's a sequel in all meaningful ways. In addition, this doesn't count movies that aren't sequels, but are based on wildly popular and known IP from elsewhere...so it's not counting things like the first Harry Potter movie, the first Twighlight movie, The DaVinci Code, Fellowship of the Ring, etc.

I think we all sensed this, but it's probably more dramatic than we even thought. Basically if your movie isn't based on already established and familiar IP, and it's not Frozen, it's dead on arrival.

So then I was thinking...what about books? Turns out the book business is probably better than you thought. More books were sold last year than any year since at least 2004. But what do you know:

An important driver of print book sales last year was the continuing increase in backlist sales, McLean said. Backlist titles accounted for 67% of all print units purchased in 2020, up from 63% the year before. In 2010, backlist accounted for only 54% of all unit sales. McLean noted that the increased popularity of online shopping was a major reason in the growth of backlist, since it is easier to find backlist books than it is to discover new titles online.

The main and obvious outlier of course among the big four entertainment media is television. We have been, and continue to be, in a golden age for new television. Television seems to be violently bucking the trend in all other media, there are all kinds of new shows to watch, with plenty of discussion about them.

But is it really bucking the trend? The most streamed shows on streaming services are definitely reruns, led by The Office. But there were twice as many streams of NCIS reruns than The Mandalorian. For all the talk of new TV, there are probably fewer people watching new shows than ever before. Yellowstone probably gets half the veiwers that Webster did in 1986.

What we're NOT seeing in television is the success of old content resulting in less new content created. There are more and more TV shows, and expensive ones, all the time. That said...I'm not sure that will sustain, as I'm not convinced that anyone paying for all these prestige and buzzy television shows is actually making a profit on any of them. They're sort of a loss leader in an arms race to establish streaming services, and I could see the bubble bursting significantly when the streaming subscription wars stabilize.

So I'm not convinced that this actually has anything to do with music AT ALL. This is a trend across entertainment.

So what is behind it? My guess is it's one of two things, or more likely a combination of both:

1. Consumers are simply taking advantage of options that were never previously afforded them. Between unlimited streaming, on demand, and online shopping access to literally EVERYTHING, you simply have options for old media that weren't there for someone in 1990. For decades, vast swaths of the country could only purchase the albums that were carried at Kmart. Maybe nothing has changed with consumer taste or interest in new media at all...they're just no longer forced to consume it as a major part of their entertainment diet.

The corollary to this of course is that with consumers voting for significant percentages of old media with their wallet, producers are giving them more and more of that, almost certainly at the expense of investing in new content.

2. The death of the monoculture makes it nearly impossible to reach universal audiences any more. The decline of radio, the death of MTV, the fragmentation of television, the on-demand nature of entertainment consumption...there's no way to introduce the general public to things. There was no way, whether you were 4 years old or 90 years old, to consume any media and be unaware of Thriller or Michael Jackson in 1983.

I watch a lot of TV, listen to music, listen to podcasts, read a lot of stuff on the internet, etc...and I have no idea who Billy Eilish is. I see the name, and I wouldn't recognize what she looked like or what she sounded like. I'm only vaguely aware that she's a female. And I don't expect I'll have any idea what she sounds like, and I don't expect to until she plays a Super Bowl halftime. I haven't wrapped myself in some kind anti-Billy Elish turtle shell or anything...it's just that in the days of getting to choose everything you listen to or watch down to the second, nothing I consume crosses paths. If I would like her music, I wouldn't know, and there is virtually no way to put it in front of me other than playing it at Publix or getting it into a TV show or movie I watch, and even then I wouldn't know who it was.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
 
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I'm not a fan of new songs either, because of some only sing about drugs, sex, hate. I'm ashamed to listen to music that incites hatred and discrimination. I still got to listen to Michale Jackson and enjoy relaxing evenings with the instrumental music I listen to on flowlez.com. I'm not a fan of concerts where people kill themselves, and others scream for help, but the one on stage doesn't give a **** because he is doing live streaming. I wonder where we are going what our values are as a nation?
 
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This.
i guess if you rely on radio and corporate labels to pump you with new music, you may be disappointed.
Familiarize yourself with Independent and DIY labels and artists and a whole new musical world will open up
Proving some of the points in this thread. Back in the day when radio was pretty much our main source for music not only was new music being introduced (unless it was the "oldies" station that played your parents doo-wop music from the 50's, eww) but music over the radio was a shared cultural experience. If you were a teenager at home on your house listening to the radio or with friends cruising around in the car you were all listening to 1 of a couple stations in your market and were listening to the same thing at the same time. How many teenagers these days can say that? Pretty much none.
 
Proving some of the points in this thread. Back in the day when radio was pretty much our main source for music not only was new music being introduced (unless it was the "oldies" station that played your parents doo-wop music from the 50's, eww) but music over the radio was a shared cultural experience. If you were a teenager at home on your house listening to the radio or with friends cruising around in the car you were all listening to 1 of a couple stations in your market and were listening to the same thing at the same time. How many teenagers these days can say that? Pretty much none.

This is what the teenagers care about now ...

 
Fascinating article here:

IDEAS

Is Old Music Killing New Music?​

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.
By Ted Gioia

JANUARY 23, 2022, 7 AM ET

About the author: Ted Gioia writes the music and popular-culture newsletter The Honest Broker on Substack. He is also the author of 11 books, including, most recently, Music: A Subversive History.


Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: “Why are you playing this old music?” She looked at me in surprise before answering: “Oh, I like these songs.”

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as “new” in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now.

Every week I hear from hundreds of publicists, record labels, band managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new thing. Their livelihoods depend on it. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. As a music writer, I’m expected to do the same, as are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with skin in the game. Yet all the evidence indicates that few listeners are paying attention.

Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn’t encounter a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual event in new music had been put on hold. That’s ominous.

Can you imagine how angry fans would be if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would riot in the streets. But the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices.

The declining TV audience for the Grammy show underscores this shift. In 2021, viewership for the ceremony collapsed 53 percent from the previous year—from 18.7 million to 8.8 million. It was the least-watched Grammy broadcast of all time. Even the core audience for new music couldn’t be bothered—about 98 percent of people ages 18 to 49 had something better to do than watch the biggest music celebration of the year.

A decade ago, 40 million people watched the Grammy Awards. That’s a meaningful audience, but now the devoted fans of this event are starting to resemble a tiny subculture. More people pay attention to streams of video games on Twitch (which now gets 30 million daily visitors) or the latest reality-TV show. In fact, musicians would probably do better getting placement in Fortnite than signing a record deal in 2022. At least they would have access to a growing demographic.

Some would like to believe that this trend is just a short-term blip, perhaps caused by the pandemic. When clubs open up again, and DJs start spinning new records at parties, the world will return to normal, or so we’re told. The hottest songs will again be the newest songs. I’m not so optimistic.
A series of unfortunate events are conspiring to marginalize new music. The pandemic is one of these ugly facts, but hardly the only contributor to the growing crisis.



You’re like the dumbass that said no new patents would happen. You can’t be that effing stupid.

Charles H. Duell was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented." Most patent attorneys have also heard that the quote is apocryphal.
 
In the 50s rock n roll music was both black and white. After the Brit invasion of the 60s there was a split. Whites played rock music and blacks soul and funk and later rap ever since the split. Very bad for black and white people, bad for music imo.
 
Aside from Country & Alter Bridge, I stopped listening to "new" music about 10 years ago when Top 40 became solid pop garbage. I started collecting vinyl and it ranges from Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Queen to Jimmy Buffett.

I remember listening to Top 40 when the top songs crossed all genres. You could have Bon Jovi, Duran Duran and Run DMC in the Billboards Top 10. Rock has died in America. Most prefer Lizzo over Breaking Benjamin.
 
A lot of good new music out there, just need to look for it. 2022 had a lot of really good albums. Even if you go down through Pitchforks best of 2022 I'm sure you'll find a wide assortment of solid albums from artists you've never heard before.
 
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/starts Boston Pandora station
/Sits down to read thread
/Decides op is TL so DR
 
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