Vinel Eyez Old Technology Is Cool Again
Updated at 5:twenty p.1000. ET on January 31, 2022.
Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market place, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known equally the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music marketplace is really shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.
The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly business relationship for less than 5 percent of full streams. That rate was twice as loftier just three years ago. The mix of songs really purchased by consumers is fifty-fifty more than tilted toward older music. The current list of almost-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.
I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the greenbacks register was singing along with Sting on "Message in a Bottle" (a hitting from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days before, I had a similar feel at a local diner, where the entire staff was nether 30 but every song was more than than 40 years old. I asked my server: "Why are you playing this old music?" She looked at me in surprise earlier answering: "Oh, I like these songs."
Never before in history have new tracks attained hitting condition while generating so niggling cultural impact. In fact, the audition seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was ever brusk-lived in the music business organisation, simply at present fifty-fifty new songs that go bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.
Only songs released in the by eighteen months go classified as "new" in the MRC database, and so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-quondam songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I uncertainty these old playlists consist of songs from the yr before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture manufacture, which is almost entirely focused on what's happening correct at present.
Every calendar week I hear from hundreds of publicists, tape labels, ring managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new affair. Their livelihoods depend on information technology. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. Equally a music writer, I'grand expected to do the same, every bit are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with pare in the game. Yet all the prove indicates that few listeners are paying attention.
Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn't run across a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual issue in new music had been put on hold. That'due south ominous.
Can you imagine how aroused fans would exist if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would anarchism in the streets. Merely the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices.
The declining Goggle box audience for the Grammy evidence underscores this shift. In 2021, viewership for the ceremony collapsed 53 percentage from the previous yr—from 18.7 1000000 to 8.8 million. Information technology was the least-watched Grammy broadcast of all fourth dimension. Fifty-fifty the core audience for new music couldn't be bothered—near 98 percent of people ages 18 to 49 had something ameliorate to do than watch the biggest music celebration of the year.
A decade ago, twoscore one thousand thousand people watched the Grammy Awards. That'south a meaningful audience, just at present the devoted fans of this event are starting to resemble a tiny subculture. More people pay attention to streams of video games on Twitch (which now gets xxx million daily visitors) or the latest reality-Television receiver testify. In fact, musicians would probably do better getting placement in Fortnite than signing a record deal in 2022. At to the lowest degree they would accept access to a growing demographic.
Some would like to believe that this trend is merely a short-term blip, possibly caused past the pandemic. When clubs open upwards again, and DJs start spinning new records at parties, the world will return to normal, or and then we're told. The hottest songs will again exist the newest songs. I'k non and so optimistic.
A series of unfortunate events are conspiring to marginalize new music. The pandemic is i of these ugly facts, but hardly the only contributor to the growing crisis.
Consider these other trends:
- The leading expanse of investment in the music business organization is old songs. Investment firms are getting into bidding wars to buy publishing catalogs from aging rock and pop stars.
- The vocal catalogs in nigh demand are by musicians who are in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen) or already dead (David Bowie, James Dark-brown).
- Even major tape labels are participating in the rush to old music: Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and others are buying up publishing catalogs and investing huge sums in erstwhile tunes. In a previous time, that money would have been used to launch new artists.
- The best-selling physical format in music is the vinyl LP, which is more than lxx years old. I've seen no signs that the record labels are investing in a newer, better alternative—because, here likewise, old is viewed as superior to new.
- In fact, tape labels—once a source of innovation in consumer products—don't spend any money on inquiry and development to revitalize their concern, although every other manufacture looks to innovation for growth and consumer excitement.
- Record stores are caught up in the same time warp. In an earlier era, they aggressively marketed new music, but at present they brand more coin from vinyl reissues and used LPs.
- Radio stations are contributing to the stagnation, putting fewer new songs into their rotation, or—judging by the offerings on my satellite-radio lineup—completely ignoring new music in favor of old hits.
- When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the run a risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the "Blurred Lines" jury decision of 2015, and the result is that boosted cash gets transferred from today'due south musicians to old (or deceased) artists.
- Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form—via holograms and "deepfake" music—making it all the harder for immature, living artists to compete in the market place.
As record labels lose interest in new music, emerging performers desperately search for other ways to get exposure. They hope to place their self-produced tracks on a curated streaming playlist, or license their songs for use in advertisement or the closing credits of a Television receiver show. Those options might generate some royalty income, but they do little to build name recognition. You might hear a cool song on a Telly commercial, but do you fifty-fifty know the name of the artist? You love your workout playlist at the health social club, only how many song titles and band names exercise you recall? You stream a Spotify new-music playlist in the background while you work, but did you bother to acquire who'due south singing the songs?
Decades ago, the composer Erik Satie announced the arrival of "furniture music," a kind of song that would alloy seamlessly into the groundwork of our lives. His vision seems closer to reality than e'er.
Some people—especially Baby Boomers—tell me that this reject in the popularity of new music is but the event of lousy new songs. Music used to be improve, or so they say. The sometime songs had better melodies, more interesting harmonies, and demonstrated genuine musicianship, non but software loops, Auto-Tuned vocals, and regurgitated samples.
There will never exist some other Sondheim, they tell me. Or Joni Mitchell. Or Bob Dylan. Or Cole Porter. Or Brian Wilson. I nearly expect these doomsayers to pause out in a stirring rendition of "Quondam Fourth dimension Rock and Roll," much like Tom Cruise in his underpants.
Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em past myself …
I tin sympathize the frustrations of music lovers who get no satisfaction from current mainstream songs, though they try and they endeavor. I too lament the lack of imagination on many modernistic hits. But I disagree with my Boomer friends' larger verdict. I listen to two to three hours of new music every day, and I know that plenty of infrequent young musicians are out in that location trying to make information technology. They be. Just the music manufacture has lost its ability to observe and nurture their talents.
Music-industry bigwigs take enough of excuses for their disability to discover and adequately promote not bad new artists. The fear of copyright lawsuits has made many in the industry deathly afraid of listening to unsolicited demo recordings. If you hear a demo today, you might get sued for stealing its melody—or peradventure just its rhythmic groove—five years from now. Try mailing a demo to a label or producer, and watch it return unopened.
The people whose livelihood depends on discovering new musical talent confront legal risks if they take their job seriously. That'southward merely one of the deleterious results of the music industry's overreliance on lawyers and litigation, a difficult-ass approach they once hoped would cure all their issues, but now does more than harm than good. Everybody suffers in this litigious surroundings except for the partners at the entertainment-law firms, who savor the arable fruits of all these lawsuits and legal threats.
The problem goes deeper than but copyright concerns. The people running the music manufacture have lost confidence in new music. They won't admit it publicly—that would be like the priests of Jupiter and Apollo in ancient Rome admitting that their gods are dead. Fifty-fifty if they know it's true, their chore titles won't let such a humble and abject confession. Withal that is exactly what's happening. The moguls have lost their faith in the redemptive and life-irresolute power of new music. How pitiful is that? Of course, the decision makers demand to pretend that they even so believe in the futurity of their business organization, and desire to observe the next revolutionary talent. Just that'south non what they actually think. Their actions speak much louder than their empty words.
In fact, nothing is less interesting to music executives than a completely radical new kind of music. Who tin blame them for feeling this way? The radio stations will play just songs that fit the ascendant formulas, which oasis't changed much in decades. The algorithms curating so much of our new music are even worse. Music algorithms are designed to be feedback loops, ensuring that the promoted new songs are virtually identical to your favorite old songs. Anything that genuinely breaks the mold is excluded from consideration about as a rule. That's actually how the current arrangement has been designed to work.
Even the music genres famous for shaking up the earth—stone or jazz or hip-hop—confront this same deadening manufacture mindset. I love jazz, but many of the radio stations focused on that genre play songs that audio nigh the aforementioned as what they featured 10 or 20 years ago. In many instances, they actually are the same songs.
This state of affairs is not inevitable. A lot of musicians effectually the world—especially in Los Angeles and London—are conducting a bold dialogue between jazz and other contemporary styles. They are even bringing jazz back as trip the light fantastic music. But the songs they release audio dangerously different from older jazz, and are thus excluded from many radio stations for that aforementioned reason. The very boldness with which they cover the future becomes the reason they get rejected past the gatekeepers.
A country record needs to sound a certain way to go played on most country radio stations or playlists, and the sound those DJs and algorithms are looking for dates back to the prior century. And don't even get me started on the classical-music industry, which works hard to avoid showcasing the creativity of the current generation. Nosotros are living in an amazing era of classical limerick, with 1 tiny problem: The institutions controlling the genre don't desire you to hear information technology.
The problem isn't a lack of good new music. It's an institutional failure to discover and nurture it.
I learned the danger of excessive caution long ago, when I consulted for huge Fortune 500 companies. The single biggest problem I encountered—shared by virtually every large visitor I analyzed—was investing also much of their time and money into defending old means of doing concern, rather than edifice new ones. We even had a proprietary tool for quantifying this misallocation of resources that spelled out the mistakes in precise dollars and cents.
Senior management hated hearing this, and ever insisted that defending the erstwhile business concern units was their safest bet. Afterwards I encountered this embedded mindset again and again and saw its consequences, I reached the painful conclusion that the safest path is commonly the virtually dangerous. If you pursue a strategy—whether in business or your personal life—that avoids all hazard, you might flourish in the curt run, but yous flounder over the long term. That's what is now happening in the music business organization.
Fifty-fifty so, I pass up to accept that nosotros are in some grim endgame, witnessing the death throes of new music. And I say that because I know how much people crave something that sounds fresh and exciting and different. If they don't find it from a major record characterization or algorithm-driven playlist, they will find information technology somewhere else. Songs can go viral nowadays without the entertainment industry even noticing until information technology has already happened. That will be how this story ends: not with the marginalization of new music, merely with something radical emerging from an unexpected place.
The apparent dead ends of the by were circumvented the same way. Music-visitor execs in 1955 had no idea that stone and curlicue would before long sweep abroad everything in its path. When Elvis took over the culture—coming from the poorest state in America, lowly Mississippi—they were more shocked than anybody. It happened again the following decade, with the arrival of the British Invasion from lowly Liverpool (again, a working-class place, unnoticed past the amusement industry). And it happened again when hip-hop, a true grassroots movement that didn't requite a damn how the close-minded CEOs of Sony or Universal viewed the marketplace, emerged from the Bronx and South Cardinal and other impoverished neighborhoods.
If we had the time, I would tell you more about how the aforementioned affair has always happened. The troubadours of the 11th century, Sappho, the lyric singers of ancient Greece, and the artisan performers of the Middle Kingdom in ancient Egypt transformed their own cultures in a similar fashion. Musical revolutions come from the bottom upwards, not the top downward. The CEOs are the last to know. That's what gives me solace. New music always arises in the to the lowest degree expected place, and when the power brokers aren't even paying attention. It will happen once more. It certainly needs to. The decision makers controlling our music institutions have lost the thread. We're lucky that the music is too powerful for them to kill.
Due to an editing error, this commodity originally stated that Erik Satie had "warned" of the arrival of "furniture music." Satie didn't oppose the idea of furniture music; he was just announcing its inflow.
This story was adjusted from a post on Ted Gioia's Substack, The Honest Broker. When you lot buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Cheers for supporting The Atlantic.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/
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