The numbers say no.
Source: The New Old Guard article (Billboard Magazine March 2022, Page 21)
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.
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@lloydc - thanks for your explanation! I still disagree, but nothing wrong with that, the world would be boring if everybody had the same opinions. |
@ Larsman, I don't agree that arranged or improvised sounds that contain only one element of music, e.g. rhythm, qualifiies as music. Is spoken word with rhythmic accompaniment "music'? Then what is the difference between poetry, which has rhythm, and music? It's like Justice Stewart's definition of pornography; it may be difficult to define, but "I know it when I see it." Is John Cage's "4:33" music? I personally do not think so. It is interesting, philosophically, ONCE, but that's about all. It pretty clearly established the limits of human patience with bs and the dividing line between "music" and "not music", imo. There appeared to be a bass player and musicians at the Super Bowl, which implies a modicum of tonality. It was inaudible, and seemed to be just for show. Some percussion pieces can be considered "music"; in addition to rhythm, they can contain tonality, melody and harmony. .Are drums used for signaling "music"? They could convey emotion, they are communicative, but they lack harmony and melody and so on that we associate with "music". Is a drum solo "music"? Usually not; it is an interlude between musical sections. Gives the musicians a chance to rest and everyone else a chance to get a drink.. Even most Mid-20th century 12-tone, Schoenberg, for example, barely qualifies as "music" (but it does; it has multiple elements of "music" one would include in any reasonable definition.) They tried, it pushed boundaries. It can be interesting. It was a reasonable experiment. Like 4:33, it was an interesting intellectual exercise. But it was a dead end that didn't pan out, and hardly anyone wants to listen to it now. (I'd sell my lp collection of 12-tone stuff cheap!) I'd concede that rap, hiphop etc. can be poetic, tribal, danceable, whatever. Imho, regardless whether people like or enjoy it, it is not music. Look, up in the sky, is it a bird? is it a plane? is randomized sound without rhythm or melody, "music"? No, it is Yoko Ono. |
@larsman I know it sounds crazy that I had no idea of Steven Wilson until about 5 years ago. I actually grew up listening to Pink Floyd, Yes, ELP, King Crimson and Genesis. I loved browsing record stores and even worked in one to get myself through college. When music switched to an on-line process it lost a lot of the appeal to me. I was so used to learning about new bands from coworkers and friends. That all stopped when it switched. Also, life happened and there was a long time when I couldn't afford buying music. Thank you for letting me know about the ticket sales. The last time he came through a town near my home I was 8,000 miles away working. Maybe I will get to see him this time. |
@femoore12 - good to see you're a Steven Wilson fan (Porcupine Tree tix for US shows go on sale this week), but it's surprising that you're a prog rock fan and didn't hear of him until 4 years ago; both with Porcupine Tree and his own bands, he's been doing massive world tours playing venues usually holding 2000 or more for 15 or 20 years now, and was playing and touring on a smaller level before that. |
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.
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You are correct. There is fantastic new music being released. We just have to work to find it. The record companies are lazy and only push what is easy to sell - nostalgic tunes and trendy instagram stars. The good new music seems to be released on smaller labels or else directly to their fans. Take Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) for an example. He is a phenomenal musician and song writer, but he gets no publicity outside his own fans. I learned of him four years ago in Reddit after looking for new progressive music groups. I also realize that most people want to listen to the same music that their friends are listening to that month. They want to be part of something popular. A lot of us in this forum have eclectic tastes and will have to work to find new music that we like. |
@stuartk - Noted. Didn't mean to suggest that all new music is inferior, just responding to the overall generalization from the article's author that old music was a threat to new. To your point, the author's focus might have overlooked great music in the categories you mentioned. IMO |
"As many have mentioned, the limited talent of performers in lieu of the shtick or the talented overshadowed by over produced digital electronics, makes it difficult to embrace new music that is not very musical" I agree BUT there is plenty of excellent new music that lies outside your characterization, especially in the Americana, Newgrass, singer-songwriter, folk genres. Many highly skilled young musicians can be found working in these styles. BTW, I am a Jazz fan, as well and when I want a break from Jazz, this is where I go. .
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@mustbethemusic - thank you for replying! 👍 |
@larsman - its absolutely possible. Even though I mentioned jazz as my primary pleasure, this adventure has led me to appreciate rock music that I otherwise would have not enjoyed without the exposure. That's why I referenced the largeness of the universe of music that what may be old for some can be new for others. I don't question the worth of genres of music. but there is good and bad quality within all genres. I grew up on 70s/80s R&B. No matter how I try, what passes for new R&B is just lacking. IMO the level of real musicianship - from vocals to instruments - is just absent from new R&B, thus my preference. It's not the old music that is preventing me from enjoying new music ... it's new music.
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@mustbethemusic - out of curiosity, do you think something can be 'good', even if you don't happen to like it? You primarily enjoy jazz - great! I don't like jazz at all, but I wouldn't question its worth because of that - people have different tastes, and I would never say that one person's taste is 'better' than another's... I'd say the same about blues, country, and lots of other genres I don't like, besides rock, pop, hip-hop, and reggae, which I do like... I'm not required to like it for it to be good, but maybe that's just me. |
Let's ask a different question: Rather than ask if old music is killing new music, what if we ask "Why anything new deserves to be appreciated just because it was recently born?" I enjoy the fact that in this consumer society driven by new, new, new and how the whole purpose of Billboard and the music industry was geared around the next thing pushing a relatively "old" song off the charts drove sales - that good music doesn't fade away because of recency bias. The constant pressure that the next thing is always better than the previous great thing is great to generate desire for consumers to acquire things and keep up with the Joneses. However, when you reach a point of satisfaction whether it is your relationship with music or anything else, the need for newness fades. Even in the audiophile hobby - new may be different, more expensive, but not necessarily better. New isn't always better and the fact that we can linger in the beauty of older great music is actually a blessing that should be appreciated. I'm not apposed to new music and when I'm exposed to it I give it a try. Do I hunt for it? Probably not. But that's me. If if find a wine I like I'll keep coming back, I'm not anxious about missing out on what I haven't tried. As many have mentioned, the limited talent of performers in lieu of the shtick or the talented overshadowed by over produced digital electronics, makes it difficult to embrace new music that is not very musical. I primarily enjoy jazz - i love the old standards and the old performers. In some ways because of the longevity of their artistry. Kind of Blue is old and it is always good. I explore new jazz artists and some I have come to enjoy. Mostly because it still resonates as quality music. One of the challenges for new music is that there is so much good old music that is still new to me. When I restarted by effort to upgrade my stereo system, the added benefit I garnered the exposure to old music that was new to me. So for me "Old" music that I am hearing for the first time is the "new". From that perspective, old music isn't killing new music. Good music regardless of date stamp will always trump the bad, not matter how new it may be. Music content is not different than the rest of the content that is produced now to fill our every available minute. Video streaming - it's great to have options for streaming video. But we've all seen the number of really, truly bad content aired to fill the space. That means that there is a lot of really poor quality new stuff on the market. so when you find something really good that resonates, we gravitate toward it. The answer to the question may be: stop trying to just be new and try to be better. That will get my attention. |
Hello @femoore12 Gary performed at the Harrah’s Resort & Casino, Valley Center Ca. back in 2019 and was literally a stone’s throw away from where I live. Turned out to be more then a Trifecta. Someone who’s been on my list of top musicians whom I’ve waited patiently, small venue, new album tour "This Land" released earlier in the year, traveled blue highways to / from event, and last but not least ... huge fan. Besides, I thought it would compliment your throwing down of Leon Bridges ;-) Gotta love Howard and the no censorship. Perfect example is Gary’s performance of This Land when they were promoting the Bands new album. The 4 Track "The Bright Lights EP" is well recorded, highly recommended and Things Are Changin’, When My Train Pulls are Live/Solo acoustic. Side note: the album of first choice when my SR Purple’s arrived. Peace
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@lloydc - yes, it sure is, because RHYTHM is part of music, too. Unless you wish to discount a great deal of jazz and contemporary classical as well to be 'not music' because you can't hum it or whistle it. I really enjoyed that half-time show! 😁 |
Music forever changed with the advent of recording. It went from being largely participatory to a passive listening experience. Once producers learned they could can it and sell it, record companies became the arbiters of taste (having cut their teeth selling sheet music prior to the widespread availability of records and radio). |
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Feel free to speak for yourself. You don't know me, know what I do, so please don't speak for me. Let's talk about audio, ok? There's enough to debate there, and plenty of wild generalizing yet to try out. |
Great video. Leon has been around for a few years now and I am waiting for the breakthrough. That is, many people have simply not heard of him. He reminds me of a modern day Sam Cooke. I saw him about 5 years ago at the Beacon Theater in NY. When he puts the guitar down, he is a very dynamic performer. Check out his latest EP with Khraungbin --Texas Moon. |
The young listeners don’t have the habit of listening to the old music. Technological advancement has made it easier for the listeners to stream the music they want to listen. The listeners have the option of listening to the playlist they like, rather than listening to the tracks of one album. The music industry is adopting the new technology and so the listeners are getting the music faster and for lesser price. So the competition is becoming tough in the music industry. It has been suggested that the record labels should be given the chance to make their choice of new music and then promote it, rather than playing the music randomly. So it is killing the new music, but there are other reasons too for it. https://www.websiteee.com/buy-soundcloud-comments |
I would never blame the young. If we’re going to blame anyone, then let’s blame our unseen publicity shy puppet masters who feverishly operate behind a curtain of anonymity. We’ve had almost 70 years of continuous peace since WW2 and all the while our world has been shaped into larger and larger market place. The quest for ever new markets, ever new oil fields, resources, farmlands and economic slaves masquerading as human beings has led to great global tensions and uncertainties. What for? Just so that a few indescribably wealthy people, no not the billionaires ones you often read about, but the rather publicity averse trillionaires that you don’t, can get even more obscenely wealthy? Well, la di da! What are the young to do? What choice do they have? Force fed through tightly regulated education systems that increasingly resemble merciless indoctrination centres, what else are they supposed to do. Most of us spend the first 40 odd years of our lives running around the same hamster wheels forever chasing our tails totally unaware of the high stake money games being played out somewhere in a land far outside the eye of the both the media and all economic textbooks. It’s hardly a surprise is it, that many young people only later in life realise that they most of what they were so carefully taught was a load of old deflective nonsense?
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I'm 66 and loved the 50s doo wop, opera, rock and roll and classical music when I was a child. PRAT must have had a lot to do with my desire to hear music as the quality of the sound was mediocre from my tube record players. It wasn't until I was 13 that I finally bought a Sony TC366 RR that I started hearing good sound (and 15 when I had a beginner's early stereo). When music has a melody and PRAT that one can sing and dance to, how can one not be moved? With my high end audio systems, I can appreciate radically different music as well from rock pre-1995, fusion jazz and 20th century obscure classical music. I cannot sing or dance to Rap, Hip Hop and most pop of today. It doesn't move me. |
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I think that Alexander the Great did a better job to give peace to the world and education than US after world war 2...Think about the last 70 years of Us politic... 😁😊 Who was the victor after 1990 and what this victor made of his victory? Insane wars with insane politic...
For the generation problem i think that hilde is right... We the booming generation are the one who created this world today not the young .... And the only whining people are old people saying that they were better than the younger one today not seeing the mess we created ouselves by being passive consumers at the expanse of the world itself... Who created this world around us? Each one of us in the rich countries participate the older we are the more we are responsible...
And accusing some generation of a problem which comes more from an inherited systematic totalitarian order globally imposed are childish observations anyway.... A clue: read about Rockfeller foundations education politic and medical politic HUGE impact to understand something, and quit blaming the young....
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@hilde45, This may come as a shock to you but Archie Bunker was a caricature, someone to be laughed at. The WWII generation did more to spread peace, freedom and prosperity to more other people than any other generation or country in the history of the world. Today’s generation, and I include you in that category, only whines that they’re not being spoonfed to their liking, and we are just beginning to see the results of that attitude in music and life in general. Keep whining and see what keeps happening |
Young people inherited an hell pass on by impotent consumers who are now old... We are responsible for the world around us especially after 40 years old, not teens.... Some people awake in Canada just now, and some alien power just push war measures on us....Then some mature people can awake and change this incoming hell in something else.... The most important analysis of Totalitarian global state about the way they are put in place was by Hannah Arendt and the mechanism described by her was : The incremental banality of day by day new small measures which appear tomorrow the new normal.....like a frog unconscious of the slowly boiling waters in the pan, freedom is eroded in all aspects of life: money, democracy, health, working conditions etc... It is all around the world now this "new normality"....The "banality of evil"... Mature people can change the world for the young who will go on now with them as leaders ....Not the reverse....In canada the war measures were deployed against working adults not against teen hippies.... This apply to education and music industry.... Music tastes are like any other tastes acquired tastes by education or lack of, by environment pressure, and by control of the media by corporate powers... Thinking that our taste as adults are free is childish.... We all are the sum of the events in which we go through in our own personal history... Only crocodiles think their taste is rightful and eternal... |
@hilde45 👍
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Yeah, I won’t be deleting anything. The pressure on younger people is intense, and the article offers quite a lot of evidence on how corporate practices are squeezing them in their pursuit of sustainable careers in music. I understand the generation-based defensiveness in the responses, and though I am likely of the same age as the posters here -- I’m in my 50s -- I will not be jumping on the bandwagon that says, "Everything is the same as it was" or "Young people complain too much." I have taught young people for 30 years and have seen their lives become manifestly more difficult, due to no fault of their own. I understand what is happening in terms of political and economic power sharing, and the disadvantages they face in the music industry is just the tip of the iceberg. I won’t be discussing this further with ostriches who prefer to keep their head in the sand. And anyone who tells me I can "get off my butt" should know that I found Archie Bunker to be a sad, pathetic but funny character on TV. In real life, such ignoramus behavior is just something I find pathetic and I won't engage with it beyond suggesting where that comment could be shoved. |
@jssmith I like to watch Rick Beato videos. I've learned much about modern music from him and about guitars. I suppose I am not a Sigma. However, I never want to retire. I run a full business (which is now mostly from home, real estate rentals and equity investments) instead of my former driving 30,000 miles annually all over California for commercial real estate appraisal. High school IQ tests had me at 97 (Stanford/Binet) and 98 (Berkeley). The school informed my father than I should be in pass/fail courses. I had already achieved nearly straight A's in accelerated courses so all that remained were AP courses. It was either college instead of 12th grade or AP. They permitted me to take AP courses instead of losing student funding. By 18, I was a junior at UCLA in dual majors. I took an on-line IQ test which tested me at 129. Maybe I got better at test taking 50 years later, @larsman Yes, I agree that there is much new music which I have not heard. I also agree that so much great music was recorded in the past 100+ years just like so much great film/video was recorded. I have 550 DVDs/Blu-Rays and an avid watcher of TCM movies. Comedy, musicals and film noir are my favorites (my wife forgoes the musicals). Video is much easier to retrieve great picture quality compared to music. 4K high end LCD screens were not wallet breakers. However, I have a higher end audio system which is 15X+ more expensive than TV screens to achieve similar results. |
I'm 70 and I've always tried to keep up with contemporary rock, reggae, and pop music. I don't like jazz, blues, or country, but I like all kinds of indie rock and pop, and hip-hop/rap, metal, etc. I also like Grateful Dead music! There are so many thousands of new releases each year that nobody could ever listen to more than a fraction of it, so it's amusing to see so much of it written off as 'not as good as music from the 60's' or whenever. Sounds like people of my parents' generation going on about all rock music sounding the same - noise! - and why can't you listen to Bing Crosby and Perry Como - that's REAL music! 🤣🤣 Guess some things don't change. |
Hmmm ... don't know, but somehow I doubt it. I think you'd have to start with whether this trait makes you objective or subjective. That has a great deal to do with your system criteria and priorities. |
An interesting response to ponder. First, I'm sure you have an above average IQ. As for being a *Sigma, I can't tell from a short post. On the surface, you seem to have some traits, and a streak of curiosity to a certain level, but not to the obsessiveness of a Sigma. Sigmas don't tend to dabble in things. They become immersive. For instance, I've literally read 250+ books on economics, finance and trading. Sounds nuts, but that's a Sigma for you. And that has been just one of my many immersive hobbies. Sigmas would never say "I don't know what I'd do if I retired." Not having anything to do just doesn't register as being a realistic possibility in a world filled with a seemingly unlimited number of things to do. I can't speak for streaming in your favorite genres, however I thought it would lack with some of my obscure preferences, but it doesn't. So I sold all my LPs and all but a handful of my CDs. I haven't listened to physical media going on two years. On YouTube, Rick Beato (a former record producer) does some interesting analysis of new music quite often. To say his audience is less enthusiastic than he is is an understatement. But even he has to admit often that new music lacks creativity. His latest Grammy nominees video is a case in point.
*Sigmas can also be determined by the Myers-Briggs INTJ test result, which I took in my early twenties. |
