Future of music

[SactoBass]

It's funny, there's a young woman I met and became friends with, originally because she was thinking of enrolling at the college where I teach and wanted to know about the history program. She has recorded and released music out in LA and, for a while, was talking about joining up with my band Granite State Rhythm to play some gigs (her school plans wound up taking her to Scotland, so that didn't pan out). Her LA stuff is heavily processed and autotuned, to the point that the rest of the band was dubious about playing with her, wondering if she really had the chops to perform live. Then she's on social media sharing a cell phone vid of herself singing and... holy crap. She's fantastic.

I guess the point being, I despise autotune too. But it doesn't follow that the singers have no talent. It's a sound the industry pushes, which is a shame because it squelches some genuine ability smothered underneath it all.

It is refreshing to hear that singing talent still actually exists in some cases! Great story!

 

[40Hz]

Folk and rock in the 60s happened to provide a soundtrack for the movements of that generation, but it wasn't really as essential to it as all that a

I’m not talking about music being essential or providing any impetus to a social trend. I was saying the “new thing” in music tends to piggyback on broader social underpinnings when it winds up having staying power.

 

[CryingBass]

In terms of world-wide revenues, here's the top three in order:
Rap/HipHop
EDM
Rock-Pop

Also consider that Rap/HipHop is older that Rock was when Rap/HipHop first hit the scene. We're overdue for another seismic shift.

Hey - isn’t Jazz at the top???

 

[blue4]

There's so much great music out there I don't understand how people miss it. I brought up Rita Mae Young yesterday to a room full of blank stares.

 

[mongo2]

Seriously, I haven't been paying attention, too busy learning and playing. What were some of the more recent "big things" in music?

 

[Ghook]

Great question. Answer is "there won't be a big thing". The decades between 1920 and 1990 were an anomaly, where a small handful of businesses dictated what everyone could listen to.

That business model is now stone cold dead. You can listen to anything you want, find anything you might like, get it from dozens of different places. Marketing guys call this "fragmented".

It's a godsend for those of us who like variety, and poison for those who loved the idea of selling ten million, or even one million recordings. Those days are done.

I so agree with your take . Napster was the beginning of the end. You had record labels sueing customers and aggressive super groups backing that play. So what next? In my area there is some great regional music and folk performing it. Don't see many Diablos in front of the venues but I do see some folk who have done a great job marketing their bands or themselves regionally. From every thing I have read or heard the actual making of records and the contracts signed are akin to majoring in Russian Lititure and taking out massive student loans to get that degree.

I think the business is in the gutter but the music is vast, interesting and available.

A couple of acts in this area actually do it as their job.

The real question is where will public funded radio be in 10, 20 years?

 

[Bruiser Stone]

I thought it was ASMR trigger sounds on YouTube.

Phil Jones can put me to sleep every time.

 

[oZZma]

Eventually people will stop creating music, since there is no way to make money doing it.

I'm sure I won't miss any of those "artists" who make music because you can make money with that.

 

[Knavery]

I never cared for what was popular. I only cared about what I liked. One exception to that was 90s music. Coincidentally, it was super popular, and that was what I was into--still am. I don't pay attention to pop culture, because I've always thought it was shiite.

I'm still looking for new bands to listen to, but it's never mainstream. I think it's up to us and other musicians to put out great music regardless of what the next 'big thing' is, but that's my opinion.

 

[MVE]

There is no “music industry.” There is only YouTube and advertising sales based streaming services.

The closest thing to a “music industry” left is US! You and me and the other people spending their money at GC, Sweetwater and on Reverb. We ARE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. Lol

I think the next music related thing in pop culture will be reality show based serial videos of great looking “musicians” living the rockstar life, playing in bands and putting on shows and live streams.

It’s already halfway there when some starlet’s Twitter comment gets more attention than any song or piece of music they produce.

Seriously, I can’t name a single Ariana Grande song, but I sure as hell know who she is.

 

[NOVAX]

It already exists and is called hick-hop. Not joking.

It's called Crap

 

[edro]

First of all, Jiffy Pop Country having reached a level of ridiculousness where about the only thing left is to become more circus-like.... (Like a Trailer Hitch concert)

I also see a kind of modern Chitlin Cricuit situation with independent bands having their own off the main road circuit... Well they do now to an extent. I think that is gonna grow.... Kinda like Blues circuits in regions.....

Merle nailed it...

 

[Rib 13]

Spazzfucious Say:

Subjective, of course: The problem with this topic is that it is based on the importance of popular music as a central paradigm in Western culture as it appeared to those of us that lived through it...this is true for 20th Century generations, starting early in the century about WWI and rising steadily 20s...hell, between the 60s and 80s, the electric guitar was an icon where, every time you pulled it out of a case, the clouds parted, and a ray of light shot down accompanied by a choir of Handel's Messiah. Music was central to Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and some Gen Y (it was how we communicated, it was our "social media")........While music is still important to newer generations, its iconography is changing: "tech" is the central theme, removing the older guitar icon, and replacing it with the smartphone...younger generations are perfectly happy listening to music without organic origins, and tech has also injected "instant gratification" into younger generations (its too difficult and takes too long to sit down and learn an instrument...much quicker to throw loops and samples on tracks and call yourself a musician or 'producer')....like brass in the early 20th century, guitars and guitar-driven "rock styles" will never go away but, as time moves forward, less and less folks will play guitar or bass and it will be in a niche market for awhile, just like brass/swing music is still around but in a niche market.....I dont think "rock bands" will ever come back to the forefront iconic force like it was in the late 20th Century, and I am so glad I got to live through that great magical time

so,to answer the OP, the forseeable future of popular music trends is a crossfade sliding scale of less guitar music, more tech

Fortune Cookie?

 

[Liam Wald]

I am not sure about "the next big thing". What I am sure of is that there will always be an audience for quality regardless of what genre it is. To me the size of the audience is not as important as player/listener connection and how that connection influences the listener.
In the immortal words of Bertolt Brecht, "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."

 

[bass151]

Do any of you guys use autotune on your live performances. If so are they affordable and what do you use?

 

[frankie5string]

Whatever it is, it isn't going to be guitar rock - and thank goodness. That dead horse was beaten for far too long. So long, in fact, that it kept many younger musicians from even being able to be heard.

Virtually every major instrument brand has now pivoted into a lifestyle brand.

Democratization of professional recording tools is helping, too.

 

[NoSlapForYou]

I'm thinking (or maybe just hoping) that guitar-driven rock music will make a comeback. Right now, even in the indie music world so much music is electronic/heavily processed. It ends up sounding not much different than "dance pop" to my ears.

That said, there is a TON of good stuff still being made. It's mostly the means of distribution that's changed. Culture in general is much more niche and diffused. This is a product of greater access.

 

[Son of Wobble]

Spazzfucious Say:

Subjective, of course: The problem with this topic is that it is based on the importance of popular music as a central paradigm in Western culture as it appeared to those of us that lived through it...this is true for 20th Century generations, starting early in the century about WWI and rising steadily 20s...hell, between the 60s and 80s, the electric guitar was an icon where, every time you pulled it out of a case, the clouds parted, and a ray of light shot down accompanied by a choir of Handel's Messiah. Music was central to Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and some Gen Y (it was how we communicated, it was our "social media")........While music is still important to newer generations, its iconography is changing: "tech" is the central theme, removing the older guitar icon, and replacing it with the smartphone...younger generations are perfectly happy listening to music without organic origins, and tech has also injected "instant gratification" into younger generations (its too difficult and takes too long to sit down and learn an instrument...much quicker to throw loops and samples on tracks and call yourself a musician or 'producer')....like brass in the early 20th century, guitars and guitar-driven "rock styles" will never go away but, as time moves forward, less and less folks will play guitar or bass and it will be in a niche market for awhile, just like brass/swing music is still around but in a niche market.....I dont think "rock bands" will ever come back to the forefront iconic force like it was in the late 20th Century, and I am so glad I got to live through that great magical time

so,to answer the OP, the forseeable future of popular music trends is a crossfade sliding scale of less guitar music, more tech

Fortune Cookie?

Great post, and as for the electric guitar, it is already largely toast. I think Liam Gallagher is the only musician to have gotten an album with three or more songs featuring overdriven guitar into the top UK charts in the last decade.

 

[GlenParks]

Spazzfucious Say:

Subjective, of course: The problem with this topic is that it is based on the importance of popular music as a central paradigm in Western culture as it appeared to those of us that lived through it...this is true for 20th Century generations, starting early in the century about WWI and rising steadily 20s...hell, between the 60s and 80s, the electric guitar was an icon where, every time you pulled it out of a case, the clouds parted, and a ray of light shot down accompanied by a choir of Handel's Messiah. Music was central to Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and some Gen Y (it was how we communicated, it was our "social media")........While music is still important to newer generations, its iconography is changing: "tech" is the central theme, removing the older guitar icon, and replacing it with the smartphone...younger generations are perfectly happy listening to music without organic origins, and tech has also injected "instant gratification" into younger generations (its too difficult and takes too long to sit down and learn an instrument...much quicker to throw loops and samples on tracks and call yourself a musician or 'producer')....like brass in the early 20th century, guitars and guitar-driven "rock styles" will never go away but, as time moves forward, less and less folks will play guitar or bass and it will be in a niche market for awhile, just like brass/swing music is still around but in a niche market.....I dont think "rock bands" will ever come back to the forefront iconic force like it was in the late 20th Century, and I am so glad I got to live through that great magical time

so,to answer the OP, the forseeable future of popular music trends is a crossfade sliding scale of less guitar music, more tech

Fortune Cookie?

Spazzfucious Say:

Subjective, of course: The problem with this topic is that it is based on the importance of popular music as a central paradigm in Western culture as it appeared to those of us that lived through it...this is true for 20th Century generations, starting early in the century about WWI and rising steadily 20s...hell, between the 60s and 80s, the electric guitar was an icon where, every time you pulled it out of a case, the clouds parted, and a ray of light shot down accompanied by a choir of Handel's Messiah. Music was central to Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and some Gen Y (it was how we communicated, it was our "social media")........While music is still important to newer generations, its iconography is changing: "tech" is the central theme, removing the older guitar icon, and replacing it with the smartphone...younger generations are perfectly happy listening to music without organic origins, and tech has also injected "instant gratification" into younger generations (its too difficult and takes too long to sit down and learn an instrument...much quicker to throw loops and samples on tracks and call yourself a musician or 'producer')....like brass in the early 20th century, guitars and guitar-driven "rock styles" will never go away but, as time moves forward, less and less folks will play guitar or bass and it will be in a niche market for awhile, just like brass/swing music is still around but in a niche market.....I dont think "rock bands" will ever come back to the forefront iconic force like it was in the late 20th Century, and I am so glad I got to live through that great magical time

so,to answer the OP, the forseeable future of popular music trends is a crossfade sliding scale of less guitar music, more tech

Fortune Cookie?

The Tao of Glen:

All music has an organic origin.
Sampling records and looping them is what I was up to directly before picking up DB.
Instant gratification has always been.


The future of music will be best, probably, if it witnesses to its time and place. But will we prefer memories? Probably?

 

[Skillet]

I'll never forget the feeling of hope I had when OK Computer came out and I turned on to Radiohead. I thought to myself, great, dense almost orchestral rock is alive and making an impact on the mainstream. It didn't really work out though. Amnesiac and Kid A followed. I never got a call from Thom on what direction they should go.