There is a lot to unpack here, AI, easy to make, easy to consume etc.

But what I love is the end where there is some solution. Make it a habit to actual consume and enjoy music. This process started a few years ago with me when I bought the Senjutsu Album by Iron Maiden on vinyl. I stopped, followed the lyrics and really enjoyed music.
I used to do this with 'classical' music by reading the score as I listened to a piece. I think this is why I love live concert recordings, I have to stop and listen to the whole concert, it cannot be background noise. No I cant do that all the time, but it is a start.

The Challenge: really listen to music again, be deliberate about it.

I saw this video several days ago and agree.

Recently I bought a new pair of speakers and they have given me new-found desires to listen to lot of music I haven't listened to in years.

Rick is right and it is a very sad commentary on what the music business has become and the deterioration of creativity.
Having grew up when we acquired music the same as Rick described ~ we did listen and share the experiences.
As someone that actually worked in a record store and also audio stores, it was a great time and great experience.
Yes technology changes everything and improvements in quality of sound today is amazing.
The next phase we are starting with the AI is going to obliterate not just music be everything...everything.
So I agree just sit back and "ohhh, ohhh Listen to the Music" / Doobie Bros.
I still do and will continue to do so all my life.

He is spot on. A no-talent hack can write a song. It might be crap but no one cares. He gets his residual. Do that 8 or 9 times and you have an album.

It’s one of the reasons I got rid of Tidal and am reconstituting my album collection.

The fact that everything is available by streaming isn’t really important if I only listen to a dozen different artists because I appreciate their music.

Listening to real music - lyrics that told a story, harmonies, actual musical instruments being played by actual people....

To me, it's like cooking dinner on an old cast iron pan. Somehow, it just tastes better.

I also think there’s a thing as “too perfect” when it comes to the production of instruments; they’re so well made that they don’t have the quirks and imperfections of an older guitar or the slight variations in speakers or the artifacts in vinyl… digitally produced, crystal clear audio, perfectly mixed doesn’t have that soul or wabisabi or whatever makes music /interesting”, at least in my opinion.

@Legal Beagle

I am with you 100%. That is the main problem I see with a bunch of the YouTube artist that you see being shared around. They polish and overproduce their sound till there is no soul left in the recording.

Not sure whatever over-produced even is but would charectorize being unique more a factor of "soul" in music than anything else along with "passion".

I have been following this thread, but held-off on commenting until I was able to watch the video in the OP. This is a topic I have strong feelings about. Outside of the foundational things like God and Family, the two things I give a hoot about are my gun hobby and my music hobby.

I am sure I'll come up with more to say than just this, but I'll start with the album. I listen to music album by album; not song by song. I measure a band on their ability to craft an album. I think many young(er) people are missing out on the album.

I am almost certain I represent a younger demographic, than others commenting here. I grew up listening to what my folks liked on vinyl. From there I started to listen to the music of my generation on the radio. I'd make mix tapes by hitting record on the tape deck, when a favorite song came on the radio. I'd buy cassettes and consume them as albums. I then did the same with CDs. Nowadays I listen to CDs and vinyl. I don't stream. I haven't downloaded in years. I do listen to music shared on blogs I follow, and I'll dig further into an artist of interest using YouTube or Bandcamp. That's streaming, but not in the Spotify sense.

Ultimately, that streaming is used to determine if I am going to invest in a physical vinyl or CD copy of an album. In the early 2000s, I did use some of the pirate services. Not because I didn't want to pay for music, but because I didn't want to pay for an entire album by a one-hit-wonder. I got the singles I could from the radio, onto the tapes, but if that didn't work out, or I wanted it on CD for some reason, I had to resort to the pirate outfits. Had the pay-by-the-song services existed, I would have used them. I recall getting burned more than a few times (because research was harder then) by albums that only had a couple good songs on them, so the mix tapes and occasional pirating helped me avoid that.

I know I maybe said more about my history of listening, than my opinions on the matter at hand. I'll add more as I think of it.

I think modern "artists" have given up on the album, and so have young listeners. If you can't make an album that I can listen to and think "wow, there's only one or two tracks on here that aren't awesome", then you don't have my attention or admiration.

On part one of the video: I don't really have much of a beef with this. The quality of the music depends on what the creator injects into it. The fact that music is easier to make probably means there's more good music out there than there ever has been. The increase in good music has no doubt been far outpaced by the increase in bad music, so the ratio isn't favorable, but I don't get bothered by the fact that there's a bunch of music I don't/won't listen to. If an artist's motivations are pure and/or cathartic, they'll likely make something that more than a few people will enjoy. If their motivation is to make a hit song, they likely won't.

The technology and electronic influence isn't something that bothers me. He talks about drum machines. One of my favorite bands had an amazing three-album streak that carried them from the 20th into the 21st century. They used a drum machine on every one of them. Their music is unique, inspired, and emotive. Do I think it's a slight bummer that they used a machine? Yes. I think drumming is awesome, and I hold great drummers in high esteem. However, if I didn't know it was a drum machine, I wouldn't be able to tell you it was one, and the fact that it is one doesn't change how the music makes me feel. A musician or super music aficionado and/or audiophile can likely tell, but those represent the minority of consumers, and aren't the people the OP's video is addressing.

I listen to more than a few groups that are more electronic/synthetic/digital, than they are analog. The emotion they inject, combined with their creative compositions, make for a potent, quality product.

I listen to a broad swath of genres. The influence of parents, combined with the fact that many of my friends are at least ten years older than me, means I have a respect for varied styles. I don't fiddle much with newer artists, outside of one or two sub-genres, but I think there's plenty of new music that is great. Like I said before: likely more than ever. We'd do well not to be discouraged by the torrents of crap. The folks who are meant to find the good stuff, and who have the programming to appreciate it, will.

I agree with deliberate listening. I also believe in re-experiencing and taking full advantage of discographies. For a few years, I was very into both keeping up with new releases and discovering bands that were new to me (regardless of content production time period). I have since decided that is a tedious endeavor. Over the past few years, I have re-listened to the good stuff I've already got. Once, twice, three times. I have also dug deeper into the discographies of the bands that are, for me, proven producers of stuff that rubs me the right way.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KSGM,

one thing that is interesting to me is the kids. My kid had a birthday party. There was boy there that was wearing a "SuperMario '84" shirt. so I asked him what the '84 was?

This 12 year old gave me an entire essay on Super Mario, Nintendo, the development of the Gameboy etc. I was blown away. The other kids chimed in, they are taken with 80's stuff.
My kid carries my old Sony Walkman to school, she wears it on her belt and I found her digging through the closet pulling out my old Tape and CD boxes.
Last night I introduced her to Stryper, I kind of meant it as . . . well I dont know. But today she came in and stated it was smokin and to keep those band ideas coming.
I had a professor who used to be a film producer, he would lament that the camcorder destroyed film and tv. He absolutely hated AFV.

I have already gotten to the point where if I even suspect an image or sounds were AI created I move on. But I do know that AI especially generative AI is here to stay. And it is an existential threat to the current state of the industry. But what it will look like in two years? who knows.

Music is actually thriving on the Independent side of things.

This is the radio station I listen to exclusively and they are pretty amazing, lots of new national and local musicians making really great music these days. You couldn't pay me enough to listen to mainstream/commercial radio these days:

WXPN: Vinyl At Heart

I love that this station's motto is "Curated, not Encoded".

The Home of Music Discovery.

WXPN is a nationally recognized leader in Triple A programming and the premier guide for discovering new and significant artists in rock, blues, roots, and folk.

As the non-commercial, member-supported radio service of the University of Pennsylvania offers handcrafted curation of broadcast and digital programming, events, and local music journalism.

WXPN’s mission is to connect artists and audiences, and build, serve, and engage community.

I think there are a few other reasons music has declined. I turn on the radio in this town and a bunch of stations play "80s, 90s and more" (and some 70s as well). Where are the artists from the 2000's on, like there were in those decades? Are the professionals such as singers, composers musicians, and those that know how to set up sound/mike, record, mix, etc in a studio setting still out there? I think not like there used to be; where would the money for all those people come from? Sales of recordings? Not hardly when one can stream, download, etc for a few dollars.

I saw the bottom drop out of classical music over a decade ago, especially big production opera and vocal music studio recordings. New releases just dried up compared to what they had been and recordings of live performances or total no-name singers/orchestras in backwater studios/places seemed to take over. Recording labels disappeared that had been players in classical, or decreased their classical output. I noticed a decline in top performers as well; before Sirius XM dropped the MET, it was shocking to hear some of the singers and conductors they brought in for their live performances. Suspect there are a number of reasons for this, but money has to be one of them.

My kiddo (14) loves vinyl and 70's and 80's artists.

This topic is probably too brain cell-gnawing for me. Where to start...

Since I subscribe to his YT channel I saw this vid on the subject when it first posted. Beato does have a point that it's really, REALLY easy to acquire music these days, thanks to digital formats and streaming tech. Easy to acquire, easy to marginalize.

And modern tech has made it very easy to put out a lot of schlock as well. Unoriginal content that pulls a bit from here, another bit from there, and still some from over somewhere else. And so much of it just painfully sounds the same. But Dad used to say that about MY music when I was growing up. A 'gotcha' moment if there ever was one.

This phenomenon ISN'T really a new thing. Copycat songs, copycat artists, copycat trends...this has been around since at least the start of the rock and roll era. Arguably this was even so back into the big band era. Money grabs will most certainly create this sort of activity. One song or artist gets wickedly hot, and every other recording label is desperately trying to find and get out their own version of that to capitalize before peak interest passes on by. Music bands and acts start up because they think that they can do the same thing, sometimes thinking they can do it even better. It's all old news, except it's just that with today's technology it's faster, easier and ultimately cheaper to accomplish getting all of the muddling content out to the masses.

Growing up musically in the 70s, I will say that there were some very memorable recordings and musical acts. But there were also a bunch of mediocre stuff and outright crap, most of which was looking to get in on what was hot at the time. Unlike today, where it's easy to sample and subsequently filter out the bad noise via streaming, I had to first find out what I could about a particular album...or just chance it and buy the thing. When it went right it was great. When it didn't, well that was an expense that I didn't need, especially on a teenager's minimum wage budget.

Today I personally like streaming. It suits my needs perfectly. I do have my own rotation of music that I listen to regularly. But streaming also has allowed me to be adventurous and listen to music that I otherwise would never have spent the time (and most impactfully, the money) to try. That aspect of streaming has been great. Yeah, sometimes I will dust off the ol' Victrola and play some of my platters (actually it's a Yamaha, but that bit of modernity kind of spoils the vibe ). Or move up a bit later in time and play an old favorite CD album on the Denon or McIntosh. And just groove with the music as it was meant to be experienced, and not use it as mere background noise in day-to-day life as portable electronics sort have made music turn itself into.

I saw this recently and agree with him.

I thought his point that us older folks appreciate music more because we had to "earn" it was spot on. As he described, I can remember getting my paycheck from my after-school part-time job and agonizing over whether to buy the new Led Zeppelin album, or the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or some other band.

Then, I'd get together with my buddies in one of their basements and we'd play that album over and over and over. Some of our favorite albums we'd literally wear out and someone would buy another copy.

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:
My kiddo (14) loves vinyl and 70's and 80's artists.

Same here.

My nephew likes to come over and listen to vinyl.

I have a vertical turntable mounted to the wall and a lot of picture discs. Round and round... He says that it sounds better than what is on his phone (and can still listen through Bluetooth headphones).

Most of my collection is '80s metal, but the LSO and Waylon are well represented.