Is Old Music Killing New Music?


I ran across this Atlantic magazine article on another music forum. It asks the question if old music is killing new music. I didn't realize that older music represents 70% of the music market according to this article. I know I use Qobuz and Tidal to find new music and new artists for my collection, but I don't know how common that actually is for most people. I think that a lot of people that listen to services like Spotify and Apple Music probably don't keep track of what the algorithms are queuing up in their playlists. Perhaps it's all becoming elevator music. 

Is Old Music Killing New Music? - The Atlantic

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Showing 2 responses by sns

If one is not streaming they'll have a difficult time discovering new music today. I quit listening to mass consumption music after early 70's, only place to hear more ambitious music was the underground/freeform fm and university stations. After undergound/freeform stations went away, left to university stations and a few specialty shows on commercial fm for this up until I discovered streaming.

 

While I have at least 2500 cd's and 3,000 albums from all eras and most genres I was losing interest in music constantly rotating the usual suspects of collections. Streaming is like having unlimited underground fm and university stations, and I get to be the DJ!

 

Going to see Beach House this weekend with my older brother and his son. The typical concert I go these days pretty much devoid of boomers.

 

 

I find it incredible that people find dearth of new music that is worthwhile. But then I see the threads listing music played last night and no longer incredulous.

 

I'd say my streaming listening sessions split pretty much 50/50 between old and new, but then I listen to virtually every genre of music known to humankind. So many talented wonderful contemporary artists out there, a shame audiophiles don't support them.

 

Based on my observations, audiophiles in general not adventurous in regard to their musical proclivities. For sure I listen to many older recordings, and certainly there are many old recordings still new to me, but music evolves and I like at least some of this evolving music.

 

For the vinyl only guys this proclivity for older recordings makes sense as so few new recordings available on vinyl relative to streaming. But for streamers, virtually no work required to find adventurous new music and new forms/genres of music, you're just not trying. And yes, my vinyl listening sessions are much different from streaming sessions, older vinyl recordings predominate.

 

I just guess I'm an oddity in that I'm boomer that enjoys both reminiscing and evolving in my musical appreciation.