Yeah, there’s a fair amount of conclusions being drawn from numbers that can be explained in much simpler ways.
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But they heard a kid whistling “Message In a Bottle” (by Sting, according to the author), so…case closed.
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Going to go out on a cartoon limb here and speculate that Message in a Bottle garnered more in royalties last year than the sum total of all music made on Electron machines, and I wish it wasn’t so.
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People make royalties with Elektron machines? I have two and it’s never afforded me a cent. Which button combo is that?
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Naaaah.
I heard some kid in a little chef whistling Dataline’s last live set, so…
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I liked the article. Interesting read.
Tool released new music in 2019.
I was excited an “old” artist was releasing “new” music.
These were my top songs from 2021. Tool album was released in 2019. Gucci Mane was as close as it got to 2021. Layne Staley is dead.
Doesn’t really surprise me, many people fix their preferences in their teenage years and don’t branch very far off.
Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective and surely a few other large artists probably disproportionately nudge that over as a comparison even if the point remains 
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I’m possibly in the minority here but, I am finding myself going back and listening to older music but not the stuff I listened to at the time (90’s). I’m actually going back and digging in to the stuff I was aware of at the time but largely missed. Mostly east coast hip hop and strangely, things like Soul Coughing and Cornershop. Weird one hit wonders I knew through cultural osmosis but was never into at the time. I like reassessing music from the past with a new perspective. I can’t imagine listening to Nirvana and Sonic Youth for the rest of my life. I’d go insane. But I think it pays to always kind of be listening to new music because eventually that new music will have recognition and nostalgia value later. Maybe not as profound as the music Of your formative years but still it can transport you to a different time (looking at you 2001-2010). I’m rambling here.
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I feel like we are in a new golden age of underground radio, just its not necessarily in the old means of FM or pirate stations. Stations like Refuge in Berlin, the Lot in NYC, dublab in LA, Quantica in Lisbon, etc. all facilitate their own cities sound, and tuning in to each will expose you to different flavors of similar genres based on the local DJs exposure at the time. While these stations are not as big as universal conglomerates like NTS, who do more so fall into the category of one world one scene, in pretty much every city today there is some kind of little station pumping out their own unique flavors of all genres. It’s easier than ever to let anyone with a link listen to the stuff coming out of club nights anywhere in the world, its just not as spontaneous as flicking through a FM dial until you hear something crazy or waiting for Spotify to figure out a city’s sound.
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1000s upon 1000s of not shit bands / songs / albums over here:
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I understand …however, the environment and the context surrounding among the is not the same resulting in different impact and creativity.
I tried googling to find the article but couldn’t. I’d read somewhere that Gen Z tends to use video games, genres of online content (but not TV shows or movies) as ways to identify who they are instead of music.
I don’t know how that translates exactly to the OP/discussion here. Maybe they just don’t care about music as much and don’t listen to it while older generations are finally giving up their CD collections.
I’m 39 and it was only just a few years ago I stopped listening to CDs in the car and started streaming (that was, admittedly, mostly due to the fact I had no bluetooth or even an aux input in my previous vehicles). At home rarely listen to music unless I’m DJing or making it myself.
I also agree data from during the pandemic probably needs some extra analysis to be made useful. And I thought the fact that a lot of older artists are selling their catalogs and this could be influencing things was a interesting thought on the part of who posted it.
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Old music can’t tour. I don’t care what’s played on the radio or on tv shows or whatever. The underground can’t run on old music, and thats all that matters to me.
This is really poor journalism and even worse economic analysis. This dude complains in 100 different and unrelated anecdotes that the music industry is too conservative and does not invest or nurture new music. The proof? Viewership of the Grammy awards has collapsed…Jazz radio stations play old music, record stores(!) don’t promote new records and a waitress knows the lyrics to Message in the Bottle. Seriously?
Or is it a surprise that investment firms buy up the catalogs of Dylan and Springsteen and not Kendrick Lamar or Billie Eilish. Maybe because Kendrick and Billie are alive and kicking and their catalog is 3 albums not 43 and those 3 ain’t for sale?
There is a simple fact that a fluctuating but similar amount of new music comes out every year while the world’s back-catalog keeps growing. The demographic in the west (where this study gathers its data) is getting consistently older, so this trend is totally predictable.
I’m as nostalgic a boomer as the next guy, but not nearly as much as this guy. Keep watching the Grammys everybody, save music innovation!
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Why wouldn’t people listen to more old music? Yeah, we need innovation, but we’ve now got 100 years of recorded music. It makes total sense that the majority of good music available would have been recorded years ago… So much is unfairly overlooked, or ahead of its time. And the Internet has made that music widely available in a way it wasn’t before. Doesn’t strike me as strange or troubling.
What is more worthy of investigation imho is the stagnation of pop music. It doesn’t evolve and mutate as radically and quickly as it used to… maybe the decades of pop music as a socially dominant and explosively creative force are over?
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2 years worth of kids stuck at home with parents = Nostalgia x2.
When I was a kid there was a resurgence of 50’s rock. Post punk new wave rap house dance hair-metal etc was dead. Music would never be the same again, unless it was the same as 50’s rock; obviously.
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James has a few words on the subject, he has wisdom that a lot of people need to hear…
a little of his own BS, but overall great interview, IMO
Great music is timeless. And it’s purely up to the individual to decide what is great and / or timeless.
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All consumer goods are driven by fashion to a greater or lesser extent.
Music is no exception
Fashion is cyclical
Therefore, you can build a successful business around recycling old content.
BUT people love novelty!
So once you have a big conservative music industry that is recycling old hits, it is in danger of disruption by anyone who can reliably bring truly new music to the table.
Eventually the new music industry gets absorbed into the old music industry and the process repeats.
TL;DR: Things are changing. Times are good for starting new music distribution businesses, if that’s your thing.
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