Is Old Music Killing New Music?
I ran across this Atlantic magazine article on another music forum. It asks the question if old music is killing new music. I didn't realize that older music represents 70% of the music market according to this article. I know I use Qobuz and Tidal to find new music and new artists for my collection, but I don't know how common that actually is for most people. I think that a lot of people that listen to services like Spotify and Apple Music probably don't keep track of what the algorithms are queuing up in their playlists. Perhaps it's all becoming elevator music.
@stuartk - Noted. Didn't mean to suggest that all new music is inferior, just responding to the overall generalization from the article's author that old music was a threat to new. To your point, the author's focus might have overlooked great music in the categories you mentioned. IMO |
You are correct. There is fantastic new music being released. We just have to work to find it. The record companies are lazy and only push what is easy to sell - nostalgic tunes and trendy instagram stars. The good new music seems to be released on smaller labels or else directly to their fans. Take Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) for an example. He is a phenomenal musician and song writer, but he gets no publicity outside his own fans. I learned of him four years ago in Reddit after looking for new progressive music groups. I also realize that most people want to listen to the same music that their friends are listening to that month. They want to be part of something popular. A lot of us in this forum have eclectic tastes and will have to work to find new music that we like. |
I find it incredible that people find dearth of new music that is worthwhile. But then I see the threads listing music played last night and no longer incredulous.
I'd say my streaming listening sessions split pretty much 50/50 between old and new, but then I listen to virtually every genre of music known to humankind. So many talented wonderful contemporary artists out there, a shame audiophiles don't support them.
Based on my observations, audiophiles in general not adventurous in regard to their musical proclivities. For sure I listen to many older recordings, and certainly there are many old recordings still new to me, but music evolves and I like at least some of this evolving music.
For the vinyl only guys this proclivity for older recordings makes sense as so few new recordings available on vinyl relative to streaming. But for streamers, virtually no work required to find adventurous new music and new forms/genres of music, you're just not trying. And yes, my vinyl listening sessions are much different from streaming sessions, older vinyl recordings predominate.
I just guess I'm an oddity in that I'm boomer that enjoys both reminiscing and evolving in my musical appreciation.
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@femoore12 - good to see you're a Steven Wilson fan (Porcupine Tree tix for US shows go on sale this week), but it's surprising that you're a prog rock fan and didn't hear of him until 4 years ago; both with Porcupine Tree and his own bands, he's been doing massive world tours playing venues usually holding 2000 or more for 15 or 20 years now, and was playing and touring on a smaller level before that. |
