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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[–] [deleted] ago (edited ago)
[–] Whitemail [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I found a British band called Random Hand. They've got a few songs I really like, and the same label has the New Town Kings. They sound pretty good, but I could see the band members being a bunch of liberal faggots, though. The singer is a Jamaican in the UK. That song is about fake news, but it sounds more like it's focused on tabloids rather than BBC and CNN.
[–] Whitemail [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Alright. I'll check it out. I still like quality musicianship and also it sucks to hear good music with a terribly bad recording. It's getting pretty cheap and common for people to make acceptable recordings now, so you don't hear a lot of really bad stuff these days. You might have to pay someone who knows what they're doing to mix it and master it right,