Theories in why mainstream music has declined since the 50's-90's

Droppersneck

Ex-Bluelighter
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In the 90's talent came first and looks were a plus but not necessary and now its the opposite.
 
Things go in cycles. It's a theory in the sense that gravity is a theory. What was it like right before the 90's?
 
I think there has probably always been cookie cutter mainstream bullshit out there, ever since marketing and technology has been around together. I think the talent is what gets remembered down the line.
 
The entire concept of 'mainstream' has changed. I think it's becoming more irrelevant. Artists who would have had almost no exposure in the 50s-90s can get 10 million Youtube hits and use that publicity to start making studio-quality music, on equipment that costs a fraction of what it did even a few years ago.

In a sense, music is much more democratic now. The barriers to entry have been lowered, thanks to P2P and the internet. This is a very exciting time to be a real artist, making real music.
 
^ This x100000

I think I'll just copy and paste your post in all future "Why does music suck now?" threads. We have ludicrous amounts of music (both old and new) just sitting at our fingertips, just a click or two away, and people still say that "today's music sucks". C'mon now.
 
Call me old but i miss the days when i could turn on the TV , switch the channel to much music and watch either Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Oasis or the other countless acts going around in the early to mid 90's. But as CYC explained the music industry itself has changed to the point where mainstream hardly even exists unless you just count the top 40 shit out now.

Also for everyone saying the 60's was a great area of music well it wasn't that great if you factor in all the crap for every good band their was. For every band like the Beatles or Rolling stones there where 100 acts that sang sunshine and lollipops or some such shit.
 
The entire concept of 'mainstream' has changed. I think it's becoming more irrelevant. Artists who would have had almost no exposure in the 50s-90s can get 10 million Youtube hits and use that publicity to start making studio-quality music, on equipment that costs a fraction of what it did even a few years ago.

In a sense, music is much more democratic now. The barriers to entry have been lowered, thanks to P2P and the internet. This is a very exciting time to be a real artist, making real music.

You would think but here in America they still dont want talent. My theory is they prefer cookie cutter b/c they can take a larger slice of the pie. I am talking about mainstream here NOT anything on youtube etc... Your argument is precisely what I was hoping would happen but you still got your nickelbacks out there goin strong.

What really grinds my gears are people that think just b/c you can sing you are great. Writing = 90% of good music. Life on mars would be a crap song if it were set to a I-IV-V prog. Bowies musical writing genius is what made that song great imo
 
I don't know what you're listening to, Droppers. Mainsream means nothing when the entire world can click a mouse button and listen to whatever they want. If people want to listen to Nickelback, that doesn't affect me in the slightest.

You want to know what I think of today's music as a 30-something, cynical, seretonin-depleted, cracked out ex partying, over-educated adult?
It's amazing. Fucking incredible. I'm floored by new songs every week, more than I've ever been in my life. I feel privileged to live in such a time where so much quality music is available to me.

Music has never been better and I'm confident that it will only continue to get better with time.

You're right about Bowie though..
 
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In a sense, music is much more democratic now. The barriers to entry have been lowered, thanks to P2P and the internet. This is a very exciting time to be a real artist, making real music.
As long as you don't want to make a living out of it.
 
^ How so? The internet is practically the best way to advertise your band. The more people exposed to your music, the higher attendance rates at your concerts. Live performance is every musicians bread and butter - album sales are a relatively small part of a bands income.
 
Cyc has the right idea. I agree with his sentiments completely.

As long as you don't want to make a living out of it.

And it was easier to make money out of music before the internet, how? Maybe people were more inclined to buy music before the internet. But they all bought the same music, by the same artists. TV and radio were not very practical filters when it came to finding quality music as an individual. I know the indie music scene existed before the popularisation of the internet. But I think that the internet has made pursuing indie music (both as a consumer and an artist) easier.

People like the talk about the halycon years when commercial music didn't suck. Like Cyc has said in this thread, we're living in the halycon years now, when commercial music doesn't matter.
 
Too many legit artists are stuck on the techno bubble. It is bursting all around the world. Things are about to break.

In short, everyone is "too" "connected" and are worried about not being nice enough. Let lose anarchy.
 
saying that you can't make money off of making music now is naive. back when people were worked up into a frothy fury about the coming monster of a napster dominate world, musicians already understood (well, the ones who don't suck like metallica) that you don't make money off of albums, you've got to do it in different ways. Billy Corgan and Courtney Love were the first ones to understand this, iirc, and 'labels'/booking/whatever companies like LiveNation stepped in. Alternative models like LiveNation, or Radiohead's pay-what-you-will, or Prince's give-half-of-it-away ideas work and end up being huge windfalls for bands.
 
the reason "mainstream" music is so universally awful at the moment is the same reason that people are having trouble making a living from playing music (it's not just a myth - it's true):

the record industry is dead.
that's not music or all of the music business, but it is a large component of the music business.
why is it dead? because people don't buy records any more. not like they used to. the digital age has rained so many blows (peer-to-peer, torrents, you tube, cd burners etc etc etc) upon the music business that it is just a shell of its former self.
who spends money buying cds any more? sure, there still seems to be a market for vinyl, but the whole way people consume and listen to music has changed hugely in the last 10 years. it's great, but it's had a range of effects on the reality of the music business.

the big record labels have taken a massive, massive hit in the last decade. bankruptcies, mergers, huge job losses. the same goes for record sales - they've dried up. an industry that made a killing for 50+ years ceased to be relevant or sustainable.
now, it still exists - that's where all this...shit i don't even know, because i ignore it - all the phoney, flat, slick auto-tuned shit - that's where it comes from.
we still have these commercial radio stations and charts playing the "latest hits" but the whole apparatus that fuels it - the behind the scenes stuff where record labels discover and help create careers for talented artists - has disappeared or been stripped back to a minimal amount of people. so there are no talent scouts or A&R staff like in the 'good old days' where the big companies had plenty of money to toss around looking for the label's next great act.
so we have these cheap, trashy reality TV shows to put lazy pre-fab pop bands together.
not only does it save the record biz from doing any real work to find artists (they just create artists) but it cashes in on the whole process in the meantime by televising it in all its banal glory and ruins any potential mystique that once existed.

but the main point to me is - the records that get released and promoted by big record companies these days are universally SAFE. no artistic risks are made with potentially dangerous artists or anything challenging or subversive - the only danger in pop music these days is contrived and unoriginal. the lyrics might be obscene or dirty, but never challenging - except in inviting censorship.
stars are made. we're not talking about great artists being nurtured to make great records - it's just a cheap mass-produced image machine these days, churning out barbie dolls and the like.

the steep decline of popular music is just a symptom of a greedy, exploitative industry that managed to prosper for half a century in spite of its excess and corruption. we're just seeing the spasmic death of an industry that fucking deserved it anyway - we should be celebrating, and staying the hell away from the radio or those fucking shopping malls where they blast that crap at you.
i don't take it personally, i just ignore it with a religious intensity.

it isn't all doom and gloom though - i find amazing music everywhere. sure, i have to go looking for it, but it is easier than ever to find music you are interested in, with countless ways to stream, download and source it. sure, sometimes it means musicians can't make money from selling their product in record/cd form - and this is frustrating because i have this old fashioned notion that good artists should ideally be able to make a living from their work. maybe you can't put a dollar value on music, maybe music means more than a plastic product shilled to the masses

on the other hand, it means people are touring more because they end up having to make a living from ticket and t-shirt sales. and it means that live music is valued more (which i think is always a good thing) and it mean that listening to music is a shared, communal thing.

all of the young musicians who have only played in this post-record industry era have a whole new ethic in music making. people don't talk about "getting signed" any more - their goals are more interesting and less career-driven. the move away from people trying to be "professional" and talking about music making as a "career" is a wonderfully refreshing, liberating idea. it's been too long since we've had music-for-music's-sake. artistic goals are starting put above those of popularity/career/money - thus, people are making great music....you just need to put more effort into finding it, but it is there.
for this reason, small and independent music scenes in lots of places are flourishing. if not in your local area, at least these days they can be easily found online.

music is democratised in the sense that recording is something practically anyone can do in their own home these days, whereas a "recording artist" used to be a profession.
the songs in the top 40 might all be the same now, but there are albums available from a virtually infinite number of performers and tastes. the mainstream has shrunk, but the lake it flows into is now a thousand times bigger.
the digitial revolution is leaving casualties in its midst as well as having a lot of great benefits - sometimes you just need to try and balance out the good with the bad, or something. great music is everywhere, you just have to adapt the way you're finding it.
apologies for the essay-rant:/
 
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You're not just selling an idea or music, you're selling a whole package. Bowie did it best and it can always be done again.
 
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