The music industry has become utter shit, and I will present you with the reasons why.
One of the major changes to the music industry is that they now use computer programs to determine two factors in songs.
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Is the song catchy?
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Is the song sticky?
Catchiness is based upon an analysis of hits of the past. Most hit songs have a chorus that rises to a VI or vi (if you know chord representations). I'm sure there are several other factors.
Stickiness refers to how comfortable a song is. If a song is uncomfortable, people tend to turn that shit off. In the right context, this means switching stations.
This computer analysis method has produced a highly controlled music industry that is boring and predictable. Combine this with using a small portion of writers that feed their cookie-cutter garbage to professional performers who perform very well and generally look good. You also have a similarly small portion of producers. This results in music where most of the idiosyncrasies that really make it diverse and interesting are filtered out in favor of a uniform, predictable set of songs that zombie-like listeners are perfectly okay with.
This industry has been created by a love for money, and the desire to remove risk and failures from the industry. All of the best studies and tools are used to make the perfect music industry that never pushes a lame song, yet there is no study and no tool but the human experience that testifies to the destructive effect this has. It is akin to considering what will happen to baseball if batters never miss. You might say it is good; you might say it is bad. Ultimately, it is certain that baseball will never be the same again.
I didn't even mention the loudness wars and the destruction that has produced. You can search for loudness wars to verify this. This was based on the studies that mindless radio listeners prefer songs that sound louder. So in order to produce this loudness sound, there is a one click process applied to entirety of the song to increase the levels of everything. The RHCP albums get this loudness boost now. It actually isn't that bad for them since their instruments stay pretty distinct from each other for most of the song. During the loud parts my car's speakers tend to get all rattly from this overproduction method. Compare this to high quality recordings of the 80s that tended to put the sound at a low position. This enabled the sound to be clear and dynamic by allowing sounds to be quiet as well as loud in comparison to typically moderate sound levels. Perhaps the base moderate level has been increased in more modern albums without receiving the loudness treatment.
When Axl was recording Chinese Democracy with whoever was in on the project at the time, there was a someone who created 3 different versions for them to sample. One of them was left as is. The other two had the loudness adjustment, one moderately and one fully. When sampling these three different versions, all the musicians present agreed that no loudness increase sounded the best to them.
Pop music, country, popular rock, popular rap. They're all genres that have been manipulated to be perfect for music zombies with no real refinement. The presence of music as opposed to silence, the motivation to dance, and the love of musically-enhanced, emotional words is what drives these people to turn on the radio. They have no refined or informed appreciation for music and musical creativity. They are responsible for this monstrosity that is the modern music industry. Such people should fuck off.
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[–] wahala 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Very well said, although I do agree with @Nofatpeople's caveat that it's commercially produced modern music that sucks. Indies are still out there and know how to play their instruments. It's just way, way harder to find.
It feels like more and more, I am subjected to advertisements (mostly during live sport events, which can't be fast-forwarded) that contain a ton of shitty (what I thought were) jingles. Then later on I'm in the grocery store or a waiting room and hear the 'jingle" but it turns out that it was a full song. Apparently it's a thing now to cross-promote "pop" songs through the ads for beer, cars, etc. Hyper lame.
I read an article along these same lines relatively recently that studied the structure of modern music, which showed that instrumental introductions to songs are diminishing. See: Has music streaming killed the instrumental intro?
And auto-tune can die right now. Die, auto-tune, Die!
[–] Whitemail [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I don't listen to enough shitty pop music to notice the lack of musical intros. To me I find it unusual to start singing right or away or after a short bit of music. That is also the first song on the album, so you turn it on, and he's singing within seconds.
[–] Whitemail [S] ago
There aren't any musical instruments or technology that I think are inherently bad. Synths in the 80s and auto-tunes in recent decades have been abused by shitty pop musicians. On the LIVE (the band called LIVE) album Distance to Here there is one part of one song where auto-tune is used, when it was something new. That was perfectly fine to have one or two lines auto-tuned into some kind of distinctly different sound from the rest of the singing on the whole album. After that the pop musicians got a hold of it and turned it into some retarded fad. Shitty musicians and people who can't sing kept using it until it was something detestable.
A lot of advertisements use songs from a specific generation to catch the attention of the target audience. Modern pop songs have been too expensive to use, though.
[–] wahala ago
Good point on LIVE. I loved that album when it came out. Thanks for the reminder on that.
I was also being a bit facetious when it comes to auto-tune. I completely agree synths and other electronic means of music can be amazing if used musically and not as a substitute for music. For example, when Jerry Garcia would break out the MU-TRON, aww yeah.
I disagree that modern pop music is too expensive for ads. Right now, Fitz & The Tantrums 'Hand-Clap' is being used in a Fiat ad. A Phoenix song is being used in a Calvin Klein ad. Honda is using Empire of the Sun's 'The Dreamer: Fantasy' in their current ads. I could go on, but I think you see where I'm going with this. They cross-promo on purpose.
When it comes to formulaic music, just give me a nice I-V-vi-IV and I'm good. Please tell me you've seen this - Axis of Awesome, 4 Chord Song