Clickbaity titles on videos or news sites is the new standard. I watched it. The point he’s making is basically that music was harder to make/produce some 50 years ago, so there was more incentive to “make it worth the effort”, compared to today. And the 2nd point he makes is that music consumption is now so easy as well (listen to whatever you want instantly) compared to when you could only listen to something when you bought the physical album, that there’s also less incentive for the listener to really get involved into some albums.
Personally I think these are valid points on the surface but they are not “the answer” to this kind of multi-faceted question. They’re at best a factor but we don’t know how big these factors are. Also I think one big reason he thinks that way is because he grew up in that environment and so he has a bias for “owning physical copies of albums”.
I also think music hasn’t gotten worse, the market is just simply over-saturated because there’s just way too much music, you’ll never be able to listen to it all. And there are absolutely hidden gems or really good bands/artists forming even today, it’s just much harder to find them. Generally a problem of today’s age: it’s likely that what you’re looking for already exists, you just have to find it within a whole ocean of content.
If you’re looking for innovative or non-standard stuff, you can always look at smaller artists or the indie scene, same is true for movies, games, music. The big producers always have a tendency to stick to what works and what’s proven to be popular so everything becomes similar. But smaller artists do not have to care about such things, they are ready to risk much more and in doing so, you might just create a real gem or something that was never or almost never tried before.
The crux of his argument was that scarcity serves as a catalyst for the perception of value. Constrained access to music prompted people to appreciate and savor it more intensely, leading them to invest greater time in its enjoyment, analysis, and sharing. This phenomenon also resulted in people incorporating their musical preferences into their self-identity, as their selection of albums conveyed significant information about their character.
Anyone have a summary? I don’t want to watch a video.
IMO, music isn’t getting worse. Maybe popular / radio music, but not music in general. There’s so much good music from smaller artists these days, you’ve just gotta look.
Old man shouts at clouds hating on democratisation of music production tools and digital distribution, while sitting in his $x00,000 studio, wanting to consume music that uses laborious methods of manufacture and distribution and seeing it has no value if it doesn’t.
If a video title or headline claims that there is one single reason for xyz then most of the time it’s clickbait.
Just about every video that pops up on my feed with a title like that or “is this ________ now?” gets “not interested” or “don’t recommend channel” clicked.
I don’t care if the content is good. The fact is that we do judge books by their covers - that’s the business model.
Sounds like neither of you watched the video. Fortunately, I did so here’s a quick summary. The thesis is that music is getting worse, for a few reasons. Author argues:
- Auto tune and other modern digital sound production tools are overused to correct pitch and timing, making music too synthetic. Real music has imperfections that makes music just sound more artificial. Basically, taking the human element out of it.
- Streaming has cheapened the value of a single song because of how easy it is to skip to another song. So arguably it is not technically just worse music, it’s our appreciation for it.
The first point has been touched on by many other people. It’s a common trend in a lot of places outside of music too. People are replaced with machines and processes in a lot of settings especially in corporations and commerce, and while that’s great for efficiency and predictability, it creates a sterile landscape devoid of human expression. This is not to say all music has this. But mass market music is a chief culprit.
The other point really resonates with me with videogames and videogame sales. You can get a dozen great steam games for the same price as a single Nintendo title, yet I probably put 10x the time into that one Nintendo title than all the other steam games combined. Had to get every bit of value out of that expensive Nintendo purchase. YMMV on this point though. I don’t stream music so I can’t say how it has affected me personally.
Rick Beato’s video titles have got too hysterical compared to the actual content and he’s doing himself a disservice (e.g. when he listens to the top ten he usually likes at least some of it, but the titles are like “This is pop music now?”). I see titles like this and just lose interest.
Everyone who doesn’t think music isn’t getting worse should post examples of recent good music they like. As a lot of people who claim this often like generic shitty music.
IMO metal has gotten much better. For example, I think bands like Serpent Column and Blood Incantation are doing amazing things for black metal and death metal respectively.
I feel similarly with Hip Hop. But I admit both genres are oversaturated with bad music.
I’m pretty sure Rick Beato only listens to shitty music.
He sounds exactly like the dude who taught me guitar. He’d balk at any modern (at the time, which was the 90s so Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc) when I’d ask to learn their tracks saying I should only spend time learning the “classics” which to him meant the Beatles, Hendrix, and the like. Not saying those aren’t classics, but I’d consider the grunge era to have a lot of classics as well. Seems like Rick is “stuck” in the same era and unwilling to budge.
Man, I kind of hate this guy’s videos. He really just seems like he likes to hear himself talk more than he wants to convey meaningful information.
