Is Old Music Killing New Music? – by Ted Gioia (substack.com)
The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.
There’s good music every decade but it’s true that the 70s/80s/90s are kind of peak quality because it was in those decades that the “music industry” was the most powerful and cared about music, developing artists, sounds, etc.
The industry cared because music in those decades music was like video game skins today: shit was hot and lucrative as hell. They would gamble on a new artist and immediately sold out his/her/their albums.
Now? Music executives have to make up pointless numbers with streams, which are a useless metric. The “industry” doesn’t exist much or let’s just say that music is everywhere and doesn’t really need a strong business arm like before. Artists sell on different platforms, people consume from free to subscription-based to buying vinyls. Whatever.
But yeah, a 4mn song with four chords or more, a bridge, a duet of voices and about 20 different instruments, has a lot more leg than a 2mn beat on a 15s loop with one high pitched chopped voice sample and one auto-tuned line. skrrt.