Let’s talk about it

yes

background content is what sells now

i feel like earlier albums have time by their side, on top of being some of the first of their kind

2020s haven’t had 10-20 years to cook for people to look back on yet in retrospect

I also think that the mainstream does lack innovation, risks, and genre pushers.

I think the ever present algorithm and LLM industry has plugged us into a never ending stream of zeitgeist and opinion

I think that as a result people in general just don’t have the everpresent opportunity to unplug and incubate things in their own mind like we did in the past. Everything is ambiently informed down to its last detail unless you really, truly opt out of it

And even then, what are the chances a collaborator is not unplugged?

I think there was a sweet spot where the easy access into the mainstream (think like SoundCloud era) but still made people have to essentially crowdsource what would be popular. This still gave artists the freedom to grow while curating a natural audience. All of that seems absent these days. I’ll admit I’m not in tune like I once was but names pop up overnight and it’s like where did they come from? What have they done to garner this popularity? I think people who know much more than me have talked about it on here but nothing seems organic anymore and just seems like as long as they are profitable they can make anything work which de-incentivizes artists from honing their skills

These democratized applications were novel in and of themselves

It’s the fact that commercial viability was realized through algorithms and personalized content feeds rather than “raw spread” (pause) aka reposts and likes and link shares that killed the vibes

It also doesn’t help that all of our previous generation artists seem more omnipresent than ever. There was no clear transition period by people that could take the mantle. Now we’re just in a really weird space where we’re relying on 30+ year olds to carry a modern sound for people that can relate to them less and less

100%. Nothing is organic now that algorithms have been dialed in to a science. When that’s all you know you’re less incentivized to discover things on your own because you’ve been spoon fed all the stuff you listen to

not at all but non-innovative music is what is being pushed much more than anything else yes

I think pinkpantheress is somewhat innovative and got a billboard #1 so

If you consider PP innovative then yes we’re more innovative than ever

Well yeah. Recorded music is a relatively new medium so innovation would inevitably bottleneck innit

the exception proves the rule but i don't think her music is innovative much at all, even if i like a lot of the early stuff, and even if id rather listen to her stuff than pretty much anything else on the charts, so agree to disagree. she's also been around for years atp and came out when all of this was just starting and wasn't nearly as bad as it is now

Yep. Big artists need to take their s*** off streaming services asap