has the evolution of music slowed to a crawl?

I am an 80's kid and i remember thinking that 50's music was so much different than the music I was listening to. It seemed like it came from a different world. I liked a lot of it but it had nothing in common with the stuff i liked. it seemed like it was from another century.

Now that same music i listened to is just as many years ago as that 50's music was. but there is a difference. even though it could be cheesey, it still seems like it is in the same ball park. so have we gone about as far as we can go other than to just tweek things?

here is an example. these are the #1 songs from this day in 1956 and 1986 (30 years apart). they are about as far removed as you could get. yet the song from 1986 (30 years ago) sounds like it could almost be released today

1956



1986

 

It is a sad time for commercial music indeed, but on YouTube there is plenty of great unknown artists.

 

Creativity comes from constraints. Everything in the past built on or expanded on what was present. With the internet, there isn't a frame work that people are trying to expand on. You have exposure to all the types of music out there. It would having to paint a picture with only blue and red paints instead of all the paints. You'll probably think a lot harder when you are forced to use only two paints. Then on top of that, computers and stuff allow someone to create exactly what they have in their head instead of stumbling there and coming with a lot of new ideas along the way.

 

It's regressed into pure audio feces.

 

This is the evolution

 

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Yes, current music sucks. I couldn't tell you the last time that I heard a song or album that knocked my socks off.

 

mainstream music has fallen off

but its too be expected

 

Digital pirating killed inspiration.

Thank you, Napster!

 

I think it's a reasonable argument in terms of noises and sounds. What computers are doing now is not that novel given the advent of synths. It's cleaner, more complicated, more heavily used, but hearing things that don't sound like instruments has been going on for a while.

We've also been in a stretch of trying to recapture the past for a while now. When the Strokes came out, that was like step forward via looking backward, and that concept has permeated creativity ever since.

I mean...it's not at all easy to break ground, and it gets increasingly harder as everything moves forward...so this should be looked at as a characteristic of evolution rather than a condemnation of modern music imo.

 

Yeah, a lot of the shit I hear on the radio these days sounds like it was inspired by Gordon Lightfoot as well as other acts from the 60s and 70s. It's weird. But even in the 90s, there was this revival of hippie culture in both clothing and music.

I just can't stand all this "aaaah, oooooh, aaaah," shit that has come out where they don't even have lyrics for most of the chorus.

Also, lyrics in mainstream music have become totally pointless. They never say anything insightful, or even opinionated any more. It's like the artists are trying to alienate as few people as possible to make their music appeal to the most people possible so they make money. Although, I know there is a lot of stuff that doesn't get played on the radio that doesn't do that. But still, the mainstream music has to at least somewhat reflect the music of the day.

 

It was around 1995 when the music industry realized teenage girls were their biggest demographic and started catering exclusively to them. The result was 20 years of vapid and forgettable crapola.

 

Compared to what? Certainly not compared to the pre-1950s

1950s onwards was a time of revolutionary changes for a few decades, but that was driven by technology rather than some special musicianship (though ironically it kinda killed musicianship too so for a brief period you had tech + musos, now you just have the tech), both in the production and consumption of music. A very unique time, and you could hardly expect it to last forever. Most of the changes tracked new inventions (Tapes, LPs, CDs, MP3s; Electricity - electric guitars in the 50s-60s, then synths in the 70s-80s, then samples in the 80s-90s, then computers & ProTools from the 90s beyond, etc). Since the 80s when the last of the big tech came on stream & shaped hip hop and EDM, all the 'major' genres of pop to this day were laid down. Not many new inventions since then that aren't just gimmicks.

MP3s are great for the consumer & opened up all of recorded music history to everyone, but they sucked all the money out the biz as well, except for the most LCD of LCD acts, so nearly all that the biz is now (plus some dinosaurs from the earlier age who headline all the festivals still).

 

Technically, musicians are on a ridiculous level right now. Drummers/guitarist/bassist/vocalist etc are insanely good at their instruments now, covering ground at much earlier ages. The actual music however is a judgment call and thus subjective. I am not a fan of most current music I hear but that doesn't mean shit.