The Downfall of Modern Music
How Simplicity Killed Creativity
Over the years, there has been a significant decline in good, quality music.
Whereas the charts were filled with extraordinary songs from various artists back then, nowadays it seems as if only the top 10 songs are nearly as good.
Being a musician and music enthusiast myself, it seems as if this downfall was doomed to happen. Let’s dive deep and find out why.
Technological Advancements and Ease of Production
In the past, becoming an artist was quite hard.
You had to have great connections with people who knew how to play the instruments you needed to carry out the song very well, as well as having a ton of money to pay for studio costs, paying to have your song play on the radio, and a lot more.
And all that, the thousands of dollars and the hundreds of hours of playing, just for 1 song.
Snapping back to the modern day, technology has revolutionized music creation. Software like Auto-Tune, digital audio workstations (DAWs), and sample libraries allow anyone to produce music with minimal musical knowledge.
From having to pay thousands of dollars for one song, you can now buy a digital audio workstation such as Cubase, buy a 50 euro synth and a crappy microphone, get some samples from the internet, and boom, you magically become a music producer.
The issue with that, though, is that the people who produce this kind of music don’t have the proper musical knowledge to do complex ( and much better sounding) stuff.
The result? Crappy four-chord-progression songs, with bad lyrics and a catchy rhythm.
When everyone is a musician, no one will be
-Syndrome, probably
Aside from that, there is another, much more important issue that music production faces, which makes everything even worse.
Spotify, TikTok, and short attention spans
Back then, there were only 2 ways to get more people to listen to your song:
- Give money to, for example, a restaurant owner to put your song in the jukebox
- pay a radio station to play your song more often
Nowadays, by doing none of that and just putting your song on Spotify, you reach 99% of your potential audience.
Platforms like these have revolutionized how we consume music, but they have also profoundly impacted the type of music produced.
Algorithms that are designed to maximize user engagement favor catchy, loud, repetitive songs. Songs that get you instantly “hooked”.
Songs that fit into basically every playlist, generate more plays and consequently give the creator more money, leading artists and producers to create music that caters to these preferences.
Short-form content made this phenomenon even worse. Because of short-form content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, not only is the human attention span getting worse day by day, but it also severely impacts music production for the worse.
You see, when you are an artist and you are trying to make it big, your best shot at that is for your song, your “sound” to go viral.
Since short-form content typically spans 25–40 seconds, it’s safe to assume that artists will make a “hook” that lasts about that time to “make it Big”
Conclusion:
In an era where music production is the easiest it has ever been, lowering the entry barriers for artists, one that incentivizes artists to make small, crappy songs instead of long, quality ones, in an era where our attention spans got so fried we can’t enjoy quality stuff anymore, is there any hope?
Feel Free to share your view in the comments.
Peace Out, See ya in the next one
