Is Old Music Killing New Music? (4 Viewers)

[Bayouboy]

I'm almost fitty and can say that I truly loved the era of music I grew up in. I've BEEN caught in a time wrap. I haven't listened to "new" music in over a decade. Can't beat the stuff we grew up listening to. Every now and then, I'll get out of my lane and listen to swamp pop (Saturday mornings) and I like old school Motown when around a fire sipping dranks.

Funny enough, I'll listen to a few urban tunes from today. My son is into that stuff & there's a few that I like. But nuthin' like 80's/early 90's music.

 

[texasjefe]

Listening to "new" music takes time and effort, and is usually genre specific to one's likes. I have always liked indie rock. If you want to hear new music, best thing to do is to do what always had to be done - listen to college radio. I enjoy streaming college radio stations from Univs. of NC State (WKNC), LSU (KLSU), Texas (KVRX), and Georgia (WUOG). Hear a song, and pop over to a streaming service to find it, (I'm on Apple Music), and listen to their catalog, and build playlists. If you want to go even deeper into it, go to Bandcamp where young artists can publish before they take the next step. My heart goes out to young bands who had their bigger source of income - touring - shut down by the pandemic.

The old music is great - songs are a time capsule to memories of youth, but I'd rather hear the musical art of young folks than old folks.

 

[saintmdterps]

There's a finite number of melodic combinations that the human ear would find pleasing. We will, eventually, run out of "good" music.

Yes, but I’ll be able to listen to Dire Straits, Rory Gallagher, Bob Marley, and UFO ‘til I kick the bucket

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Listening to "new" music takes time and effort, and is usually genre specific to one's likes. I have always liked indie rock. If you want to hear new music, best thing to do is to do what always had to be done - listen to college radio. I enjoy streaming college radio stations from Univs. of NC State (WKNC), LSU (KLSU), Texas (KVRX), and Georgia (WUOG). Hear a song, and pop over to a streaming service to find it, (I'm on Apple Music), and listen to their catalog, and build playlists. If you want to go even deeper into it, go to Bandcamp where young artists can publish before they take the next step. My heart goes out to young bands who had their bigger source of income - touring - shut down by the pandemic.

The old music is great - songs are a time capsule to memories of youth, but I'd rather hear the musical art of young folks than old folks.

good call WTUL (Tulane's station) is a great place to hear new music (as well as oodles of other deep cut genres)

 

[texasjefe]

I interned at TUL 13 centuries ago, and I grew up on the Tulane campus, in the upstairs house that is now a Finance Office on Freret, two doors down from the library. Great station for sure but their alternative shows are fewer because of New Orleans' great history and diversity of genre in music.

If you ever drive or walk past that house, with the upstairs screened in porch, know that alot of puffs the magic drag on, and little jackie paper burned down up there.

And The Mushroom is a must-visit when I'm in town

 

[faceman]

Honestly has there ever been a greater guitar riff ,screaming vocal and a keyboard run in one song?. Thats what rock n roll
is all about

 

[saint_drago]

what Chuck says, but i think a major factor in the continuing presence of 'old' music is needle drops on tv shows
it's something that's been in play for movies (GotG is a mixtape with action scenes built around it) and tv for decades but it was something Breaking Bad was particularly noted for
now every showrunner looks for the perfect song that can help move a story along or is the perfect punctuation on a scene

also video games

This is a huge factor. When I heard that opening guitar of "Baby Blue" on the Breaking Bad finale it gave me chills. A lot of people who didn't know anything about Badfinger were exposed to that song and absolutely loved it. They rushed to iTunes to buy it. The MCU is pretty much the biggest thing ever and they've had some of the best needle drops I've seen. "Moonage Daydream" in Guardians, "Dear Mr Fantasy" in Endgame, "Immigrant Song" in Ragnarok just to name a few. I've heard people say that Marvel is too on the nose with their song selection but it works for them.

And commercials expose people to so many great songs, past and present. I've discovered so many artists because of some song I heard on an Apple commercial.

But if you drill down far enough I think it comes down to one thing, modern pop music has style but no soul. Everything is over produced and pristine. They have a formula and they stick with it. It's about time for another Kurt Cobain to come along and destroy the formula.

 

[sfidc3]

Honestly has there ever been a greater guitar riff ,screaming vocal and a keyboard run in one song?. Thats what rock n roll
is all about

You should see them do it live with Steve Morse on the guitar....insanity....

This is a huge factor. When I heard that opening guitar of "Baby Blue" on the Breaking Bad finale it gave me chills. A lot of people who didn't know anything about Badfinger were exposed to that song and absolutely loved it. They rushed to iTunes to buy it. The MCU is pretty much the biggest thing ever and they've had some of the best needle drops I've seen. "Moonage Daydream" in Guardians, "Dear Mr Fantasy" in Endgame, "Immigrant Song" in Ragnarok just to name a few. I've heard people say that Marvel is too on the nose with their song selection but it works for them.

And commercials expose people to so many great songs, past and present. I've discovered so many artists because of some song I heard on an Apple commercial.

But if you drill down far enough I think it comes down to one thing, modern pop music has style but no soul. Everything is over produced and pristine. They have a formula and they stick with it. It's about time for another Kurt Cobain to come along and destroy the formula.

Same here, I love Badfinger....another example is a show I grew to like "How I Met Your Mother", one of the higher ups on that show really liked Elliott Smith because they did alot of his songs in the background, some covers others not....

 

[faceman]

You should see them do it live with Steve Morse on the guitar....insanity....



Same here, I love Badfinger....another example is a show I grew to like "How I Met Your Mother", one of the higher ups on that show really liked Elliott Smith because they did alot of his songs in the background, some covers others not....

Agree, but its s still our jobs to teach these young bastages and beaches how to rock, If we don't everything we've
done in life is a failure

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

we teehee at David Robbins
Then we become David Robbins

 

[faceman]

Agree, but its s still our jobs to teach these young bastages and beaches how to rock, If we don't everything we've
done in life is a failure

Ian Gillliiam Ritche Blackmoe arre all over 70 years old. Rock on you sons of beaches

 

[Super44]

Good article from the Atlantic

I've always preferred older music - 60's and 70s make up 95%+ of what I buy and listen to, and have for 30+ years when I first got into music (and not just listening to the same songs over and over - though I do plenty of that, I'm constantly looking for 60s and 70s songs, albums and artists I haven't heard before, and what draws me to 'new' music is when it sounds like 60s and 70s music
================================

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: “Why are you playing this old music?” She looked at me in surprise before answering: “Oh, I like these songs.”

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as “new” in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now.

Every week I hear from hundreds of publicists, record labels, band managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new thing. Their livelihoods depend on it. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. As a music writer, I’m expected to do the same, as are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with skin in the game. Yet all the evidence indicates that few listeners are paying attention.

Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn’t encounter a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual event in new music had been put on hold. That’s ominous.

Can you imagine how angry fans would be if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would riot in the streets. But the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices..............

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.

www.theatlantic.com

And riots in the streets; would that be a new thing? People riot for anything and everything. That being said, I do not believe, fans would be that upset to riot in the streets, if the NBA finals and or the Super Bowl were delayed. They both are simply over-hyped.

 

[Super44]

Bach is the greatest composer of all time (I will brook no argument)
People our age probably knew Bach from Firing Line
Today people more than likely ‘find’ Bach from tv shows and movies (or Xmas)
There are TONS of great songs/music that just have not been pulled forward

The quality of music alone is not the reason some last and some don’t (there’s no quality reason Beethoven is present and precious few know Marin Marais)

I have no clue who Marin Marais is. I have heard of a Marrin Morris. So yeah, I am down as one for not knowing one Marin Marais.

I know there is a street named after Marais, but not one named after Morris. So someone knows of him.

 

[faceman]

we teehee at David Robbins
Then we become David Robbins

His last post said I'm about to become homeless. Please pray for him.

 

[Sun Wukong]

A lot of it the fragmentation of how we consume media. When something was a hit in the 60's-90's it was massive. It was everywhere. It was impossible to avoid. It became ingrained in the broader culture for better or worse.

Now? I teach middle school and do not hear any of the music my students talk about. I would have to go out of my way to seek it out. That concept of a universal presence (constant radio rotation, top 40 countdowns, acts doing the rounds on major TV shows everyone watched, massive presences in music magazines, etc.) doesn't exist anymore. Sure, radio still exists but no one listens to it anymore. Things like SNL and the Late Night talk shows still exist, but at a micro fraction of the former audiences they used to pull. A musical act doesn't become known overnight through those avenues anymore. You could play SNL and Fallon in the same week and nobody would care. There are no major cultural touchstone music publications anymore. Rolling Stone exists in a zombie incarnation, but nobody is reading it in major numbers.

That said, I have no trouble finding new music. But it's also very niche. We're increasingly all existing in a series of cultural and media bubbles that are sort of floating around next to one another but not really merging together. Some bubbles are bigger than others and there is definitely still a "mainstream" of media, but it's a much smaller bubble than it used to be.

For example, last year Variety did a cover that called Olivia Rodrigo a "voice of a generation." (Gen Z, specifically). But at best, I only have this vague understanding that Olivia Rodrigo exists as as a performer, and I genuinely do not know if I've ever heard one of her songs and could certainly never name one or even explain what it sounds like. Why? Because I don't listen to the radio (no one does anymore), because I no longer watch any kind of TV show she would be performing on (very few people do, compared to the past), and if I have been in a situation where a song of hers has been playing (say an advertisement or movie or TV show) it would never have been identified as such and it would have had to compelled me enough to go seek out who was responsible for it, and that's never happened.