Turned up in my feed. Maybe this is old news to members of this forum… I found it to be an interesting autopsy in any case, if a little rear-facing. Interested in any thoughts you might have on where the money should be flowing…
So 30% of music consumed has been released in the last 18 months. I’m surprised it’s that high.
I mean, yeah, it’s down a chunk from the year before, but the pandemic’s buggered up stats on everything, hard to call it a trend til things settle down and people can start touring/properly promoting their music again.
11 Likes
Is Old Music Save Us From New Music ?
4 Likes
Funny and kinda interesting article.
Still think it’s strange to consider 50 years old stereo recordings as “old” : pop is pop.
…that’s old major labels last stand…
backcatalogs are profit…for a certain amount of time…
many old and big acts were selling their backcatalogs in the recent years…
some even bought them back, also…
u can’t make that much money out of music in realtime…especially these days…but over years and decades, a backcatalog can do wonders…
it’s never been that much money in the overall musicbiz as there is NOW, ever…
and it’s never been ending up in the “wrong” hands in such vast amounts as NOW, also…
BUT…
as said…that’s about to change…slowly but surely…time will tell and show…
right now, it’s the last stand of big money making big money on the backbone of those who really should profit instead…
never sell ur master rights…just sayin’…
2 Likes
I wonder whether there is some influence from the current trend of investment companies who are purchasing large back catalogues for vast sums.
It would definitely be in their best interests to maintain a focus on older music. I imagine that plus the ease with which people can now find old songs that flew under radar etc could be a factor
3 Likes
Another mechanism that could be at play (in part): as more older people move from listening to their CDs to listening to the music they are familiar with on streaming platforms, overall streaming shifts towards older titles…
4 Likes
it might be the “new music” is less innovative, more about marketing, and gimmicky…mucic during the 80s 90s and early stage of 2000s( pre massive social media ) was progressive, and continued to be experimental…my impression now is current music benefits from quality fidelity otherwise not too impressed in term of “new ideas”. just a bias opinion of mine.
6 Likes
good question
Id be happy to see this trend continue as modern pop is full of garbage with sh*t messaging.
5 Likes
or it feels like it is heavily FX affected…which is ok by me but the more listenable ones are those that are “old music” inspired eg. Dub.
Yeah, it was all fields round here when I was a lad…
6 Likes
Old music is not killing new music. It might be that new music is killing itself but these headlines sound like click bait speculation to me rather than really understanding how the industry has changed and how musicians and the tools for production and distribution have changed over the decades.
imo there’s a hell of a lot of excellent new music but the market is incredibly saturated - which you would expect really as production of it must be exponential - it’s certainly not dipping anywhere.
I think the abundance is also understandable when you think about how ‘anybody’ can produce their own music and distribute it pretty easily now. I also think this is a great thing and we all celebrate that here on a regular basis.
I’m an old fart and I do really love a lot of ‘older music’ - it has more value to me than a lot of newer music but the reason’s for that are nothing to do with it being older. It’s a common psychological predisposition regarding personal affinities, security and the warmth of nostalgia and everyone has that and develops it with age. You cannot help yourself.
The music of today will be old for Gen Z’rs before they know it and they’ll all be saying the same shit over again.
5 Likes
Is old Music killing new music. The short answer is yes. It is a trend that started a long time ago though and maybe not in the way most people would think. In music I suspect you can see a slow upwards trend from the moment the focus in classical music shifted from new music to canonised music. It’s basically symptomatic of the post modern condition we all live inside. Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher is a good read dealing with the subject.
1 Like
There is still loads of great, new music out there, it’s just much harder to find.
When we had valued curators like JockeySlut and other sources with the space and time to explore the corners, we could be turned on to something new and bubbling much quicker.
The fractal nature of todays media and the democratisation of music making and sharing makes finding the gems feel like wading through a ton of poop. However if you step back, look at the charts in any era, there was mainly tosh for consumption.
I suppose my argument is that nostalgia has always been a (big) thing (re-mastered catalogues for cd, mini-disc, streaming + next format?). I have always had to wade through to find my ‘thing’ and that it is harder to keep up these days (sounding old).
1 Like
Because were living by numbers😄
1 Like
I’m surprised the new music is that high.
I heard from streaming statistics that 80% of people mainly listen the same music that they were listening when they were teenagers. Sounds pretty real from the people i met outside a musical context.
1 Like
the internet is really true to its personification as a web, whereas free to air radio and tv still do serve the same function as they did back when the ‘old’ music was coming out, as a very single, one way channel.
In some ways, I think TV and radio remain the mainstream arbiter of what is relevant or hot. And in general they are pretty bad at picking up on indie tastes - particularly today which can come across as a really sharp, slick mainstream look. everything is all shiny and very perfect at the moment. there isn’t much roughness in focus, nor anger. if u do dig around in new pop music, outside of the dance stuff, u do tend find stuff that is pretty gentle and soft. chill, I suppose. at least that’s what I come into contact with. I think folk is in, like in a 70’s nick drake kinda way. so is synth stuff too of course.
songs that find there way onto ‘classic, gold hits’ radio stations probably need to fit a certain criteria, and those types of stations are global phenomenon, so it’s not surprising most people know queen or police lyrics, it’s been literally shoved down our throats for life wherever there’s a spare space of public air.
that has more to do with what is socially inoffensive, nobody in the consensus wants to have to raise an eyebrow at the supermarket when an experimental piece of art music comes on
but the article does raise perhaps another interesting issue around this safety, and around socially accepted sound. different cities have different flavours. some are more commercial than others and others have their pulse more on the underground. it’s not a uniform thing, and there’s nothing wrong with the classics, but breaking open and widening the social palette for more expansive and accepted forms of music in public space is always something worth scratching at
plus the absence of of alternative and underground radio station. It used to be an influence in finding music. we have a democratized space now where it has robbed the influence of local scenes ( eg. Bristol sound, Berlin, trench town etc…) too much
2 Likes
I’m confused and maybe I’m misunderstanding these numbers…
Wouldn’t it make sense that the songs from 2021 would make up less of the consumption than 2020 considering 2020 is now part of the percentage of music that isn’t 2021?
And are these numbers claiming 2021 songs make up 23% of what’s consumed? Cause that a lot of we’re tasking into consideration the history of recorded music that’s now available to stream.
Take this paragraph:
Just consider these facts: the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It was twice that rate just three years ago. And the mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted to older music—the current list of most downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the last century, such as Creedence Clearwater and The Police.
200 most popular tracks now - which is maybe songs from the past 2 months - make up five percent of the history of music consumed? And Credence and the Police are, what, fifteen years apart with a far bigger fanbase?
I’m not seeing these numbers back up the arguments.
4 Likes