Why Music Has Lost it’s Charms (Article)

Great thread!

I think popular music suffers today and has for about 20 years, give or take. One of the problems is barriers to entry. Every artist can make their own album on a laptop. With the increase in artists, it’s harder to find the musical standouts. In the 1930s through 1970s, for instance, the cream easily rose to the top.

Lack of physical media doesn’t help. On the one hand, it’s great to stream and have access to nearly everything. On the other hand, young folks don’t have as many memories about music partly due to quality and the diminishing importance of music in their lives, and partly due to the fact that they listen not even on Spotify/Tidal, etc., but on Youtube. My daughter and her buddies do this. Such a far cry from my collection of 45s, making mix tapes, and collecting albums.

Public taste has changed too. While their are certainly tons of live shows/events, in the "old days" people used to go out to hear music frequently. People used to listen to music more on a regular basis. There was no Netflix, Amazon Prime, binge TV watching, on demand, etc. Who remembers having 3-4 VHF channels and a couple of UHF?

On average, I personally believe people just don’t care or value music in the same way they did 40+ years ago.

What’s interesting to me is that the ability of those who play instruments has increased. I’m leaving creativity aside. Just physical ability. There are so many exceptionally skilled instrumentalists out there. I have personally met a bunch. Most of these folks though aren’t on the radio or playing key roles in major bands.

While I generally agree that the more things change, the more they stay the same, I do think we are in a different popular music landscape than we saw in the 20th century.

Sometimes when I hear someone or a group who I think is pretty talented and has something musical going on I think, Man, I wish T Bone Burnette would produce your next album.

Sorry for the rambling...

Thanks for your always kind words...

Yes there is parallels between popular music now and then...

But "commercial" music exist only with Edison invention...

And popular crowds reaction deont change with time, what changed for the worst in " commercial music" is the diffrence between a "product" to sell, the performer itself, and the artist status and creative talent...

For sure art and beauty is participated by a minority in every ciltures at any times...

But "commercial" music is recent... And most of the time "ugly"...And i speak about commercial music here being ugly,  not popular music... Bob Dylan is a poet and great musician ....So are many others popular artists...A popular artist can be and is also a commercial produt for sure, but not all commercial products are real creative artists...

@mahgister ...If ever in your company, I will happily listen to your setup and your music. Even if it happens to be here than there....Just made a typo, ’hear’ for ’here’....interesting, that... ;) Classical forms were supported by the 1%’ers of those times and places.
They were also subject to rude crowds and fistfights post-debut....
Pardon if I don’t see much differences, other than the centuries between. 😏

@parker65310

"There is an incredible variety of great music still being created all the time. One just has to keep an open mind and be curious and willing to put the time in to search it out." 

The fact that we have to search it out rather than have it presented to us on the radio or some other medium is the problem in a nutshell. It's the people who are choosing what to present to us on the radio or some other medium who are the problem because they aren't willing to expand their searches and fall back on the simplistic, routine, and boring garbage that makes it onto the radio today. I have no problem saying there is likely great music being created today. I also have no problem saying that most of what makes it onto the radio or onto other media today is drivel.

I have no problem saying there is likely great music being created today. I also have no problem saying that most of what makes it onto the radio or onto other media today is drivel.

Great post!

It is this radio or other media most of the times crap i called "commercial" music...

Very good  popular music  all across the world is unknown in traditional media...

Artists are boycotted  .... They are not enough usable "commercial" products..

There is more artist creators in music today than ever, but corporations rules not art...

They made music because they were paid to whether by church or as often nobility. For money, the definition of commercial. No one else could afford such frivolities to commission work. However, it was also consumed by the masses .. so popular and commercial though of what competition I can't speak. 

Best not to post about things you apparently know next to nothing.  Ever heard of patronage and the patron system?  Patronage isn't commerce or commercialism, nothing close.  And to say music for the courts of the nobility was consumed by the masses is so self-evidently wrong it isn't even funny.