Great Article on the State of Music

Sp8ctre said:
This is a good read IMO.

www.theatlantic.com

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 www.theatlantic.com
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Well yeah
the old music had attention to detail.
There was a professional recording engineer, producer, studio musicians, lots of quality controls.

New music
recorded in home studios, no professional engineer, producer ad hoc, etc.

And so the quality of the older recording (alone) was much higher, and much more expensive to create.

It's kind of like "dark side of the moon."
One of the best selling albums ever created.
Sold more albums than the Beatles, but received almost no airplay at all.
I think people bought that because the quality was much higher, but also showed that airplay wasn't so important.
 
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Amp Mad Scientist said:
Well yeah
the old music had attention to detail.
There was a professional recording engineer, producer, studio musicians, lots of quality controls.

New music
recorded in home studios, no professional engineer, producer ad hoc, etc.

And so the quality of the older recording (alone) was much higher, and much more expensive to create.

It's kind of like "dark side of the moon."
One of the best selling albums ever created.
Sold more albums than the Beatles, but received almost no airplay at all.
I think people bought that because the quality was much higher, but also showed that airplay wasn't so important.
Click to expand...

But, some of the old music wasn't recorded on stellar equipment, or even decent equipment in many cases...I'd wager it's more about skill.
 
It's all on the radio/media programming directors' shoulders. They could easily draw from many independent labels, and promote so much new music. Yet, they don't. They look at advertising dollars, and who they can sell advertising to, and what they need for a soundtrack to sell said advertising. They are not going to sell millions of dollars of advertising when their playlist includes Roadsaw, Murcielago, Nebula, Sasquatch, Necromancers, Orange Goblin, and many other new fantastic rock bands. They are going to stick with the worst schmaltz available, such as Steve Miller, Bruce Springsteen, and non Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, and the fvcking Eagles. I'm glad that I live in an area with dozens of college radio stations, and can hear the real latest and greatest. It's one of the reasons I would never move from the Boston area. I've listened to radio around the rest of the country while traveling for work. I'm happy that I live here. I an SOOOOOOOO FVCKING HAPPY to be able to turn on the radio, and know I am not going to hear the Eagles, or any other top 10 AOR dreck.
 
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SG John said:
It's all on the radio/media programming directors' shoulders. They could easily draw from many independent labels, and promote so much new music. Yet, they don't. They look at advertising dollars, and who they can sell advertising to, and what they need for a soundtrack to sell said advertising. They are not going to sell millions of dollars of advertising when their playlist includes Roadsaw, Murcielago, Nebula, Sasquatch, Necromancers, Orange Goblin, and many other new fantastic rock bands. They are going to stick with the worst schmaltz available, such as Steve Miller, Bruce Springsteen, and non Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, and the fvcking Eagles. I'm glad that I live in an area with dozens of college radio stations, and can hear the real latest and greatest. It's one of the reasons I would never move from the Boston area. I've listened to radio around the rest of the country while traveling for work. I'm happy that I live here. I an SOOOOOOOO FVCKING HAPPY to be able to turn on the radio, and know I am not going to hear the Eagles, or any other top 10 AOR dreck.
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I like schmaltz...
 
SG John said:
It's all on the radio/media programming directors' shoulders. They could easily draw from many independent labels, and promote so much new music. Yet, they don't. They look at advertising dollars, and who they can sell advertising to, and what they need for a soundtrack to sell said advertising. They are not going to sell millions of dollars of advertising when their playlist includes Roadsaw, Murcielago, Nebula, Sasquatch, Necromancers, Orange Goblin, and many other new fantastic rock bands. They are going to stick with the worst schmaltz available, such as Steve Miller, Bruce Springsteen, and non Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, and the fvcking Eagles. I'm glad that I live in an area with dozens of college radio stations, and can hear the real latest and greatest. It's one of the reasons I would never move from the Boston area. I've listened to radio around the rest of the country while traveling for work. I'm happy that I live here. I an SOOOOOOOO FVCKING HAPPY to be able to turn on the radio, and know I am not going to hear the Eagles, or any other top 10 AOR dreck.
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Wow SG when i saw the word Orange < i thought you were going to talk amps. Now i'm dissapointed...
 
Amp Mad Scientist said:
Well yeah
the old music had attention to detail.
There was a professional recording engineer, producer, studio musicians, lots of quality controls.

New music
recorded in home studios, no professional engineer, producer ad hoc, etc.

And so the quality of the older recording (alone) was much higher, and much more expensive to create.

It's kind of like "dark side of the moon."
One of the best selling albums ever created.
Sold more albums than the Beatles, but received almost no airplay at all.
I think people bought that because the quality was much higher, but also showed that airplay wasn't so important.
Click to expand...
There is a ton of new music being professionally recorded, and released by many independent labels. It will never break into the current structure of CBS owning most of the radio stations, and only playing what is directly owned by it's subsidiaries. The days of 1970s independent FM stations breaking new territories in music programming is gone forever.
 
Robert Herndon said:
But, some of the old music wasn't recorded on stellar equipment, or even decent equipment in many cases...I'd wager it's more about skill.
Click to expand...
Some of the greatest songs of all time were recorded with one mic in the middle of the room. Anything recorded by Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, or Carl Perkins at Sun Studios was recorded that way. Same goes for Chess Records, and Motown, and so much other stuff until four track recording came along in the mid sixties. Are You Experienced was recorded on a four track machine, as were many other great records. Multi-tracking has done nothing but create laziness, sterile recordings, and lackluster performances. It's taken away the "edge" that live recordings had.
 
There are few places where you get exposed to new music. When you had to go to a store to purchase music they usually had new albums playing. Now most people’s exposure to music is controlled by algorithms. There is very little randomness. I used to find a lot of excellent music on YouTube by randomly clicking on suggestions from YouTube. Even that has gone downhill with very little variety. It wants to give me what I’ve already listened to.
 
I am wondering if the way we purchase music has anything to do with this.

Follow me on this.

Growing up I would go to my favorite record store and they had a rack with all the new release albums. If you wanted older albums you need to go to the back and look through the wooden bins for what you wanted. If it was really old, you needed to shop around for it.

Today, you can just go to your favorite download or streaming app and get anything you want and unless you are up to date on the music scene, you'll never know what new albums came out.

Heck, if it wasn't for that "New Release" rack, I would never have heard of some of the bands I grew to like until they were old news.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this might in some part contribute to this.
 
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