How will music evolve?

Post Reply New Topic

Music has always been in evolution. I think we're at a point where it is unclear where the next phase of evolution will come from. What's clear is that something's going to overthrow rock music, if it hasn't been the case already.

These days, there is no shame among "hip" people in admitting you like pop music. The shame these days is admitting you like the "dinosaur" rock music of your father. Among music elitists, there seems to have been a lot of talk about destroying the rock canon and replacing it with a more inclusive, "poptimistic" canon. Within the 2000s, we saw rock throw its fists in the air for its last hurrah, and I think the 2010s will be marked by rock music becoming a niche, underground genre.

I know about indie music, so I can use indie music as a microcosm of what's happening. When I started college in 2008, it seemed most of the Pitchfork-style buzz bands were still rock bands in scraggly beards playing loopy guitar riffs. Pitchfork hyped some electronic stuff like LCD Soundsystem and Justice but in the end those bands use rock building blocks and are very album-based. Between 2008 and 2011, when I graduated, there seemed to be a linear decline in that kind of rock music, and Pitchfork-type hipsters went on to hype chart pop, indie hip hop, and electronic music. At my university's radio station it was the same -- by the time I graduated I was apparently the go-to person for rock music in general since nobody else seemingly listened to much of it anymore.



This is very true. There seemed to be a little uptick in political music in the late 2000s, but it was like a blip on the radar. It's like we've admitted to ourselves that the purpose of music is escapism, and we're going to use music merely as a vehicle to escape what's around us. We seem to think we've seen everything and everything's been done before.

I mean, music doesn't need to have a message, or be deep -- this is one of those rockist mantras I don't necessarily subscribe to -- but music as pure escapism is tough for me to accept as a future.

I just pray that it doesn't end up going further into electronics and autotune, essentially taking the musician out of music. I see music progressively becoming more superficial and generic and I really hope that we break out of that trend soon.

Today's youth seem to be narcissists

Like a G6 actually has a pretty nice beat. I could do without the lyrics though. The breathy female vocalist on the "chorus" (such as it is) reminds me sort of like a cheap version of that woman whose name I can't remember who did vocals for the 80s synthpop band Berlin.

The weird thing about current music is there's no rebellion in it. The 60s had Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, the 80s had punk, the 90s had "conscious" rap and grunge, late 90s/early 2000s had rave music which was more rebellious than people realize, but today's youth don't seem to be rebelling against anything. You'd think that they'd be in full blown rebellion against the system which screwed them, but they're not. Today's youth seem to be narcissists, totally wrapped up in materialism and slaves to technology.

Gen X had the cyberpunk movement that tried to use technology in unapproved and system-screwing ways, but today the youth use technology to bully and toot their own horns. Today, people associate hacking with stealing money, when the original hackers simply wanted to liberate information. Read the Hacker Ethic, that was the original goal of the hackers, but nowadays hacking is all about identity theft and stealing money and the Chinese collecting intel for cyberwar. It's really sad.

Maybe the generation that follows the Millenials, sometimes called "Gen Z" (they are still little kids, so they haven't named themselves yet), will rise up and battle the system. The Millenials grew up in a debt bubble and they thought the good life could be had without effort, since the bubble gave the false appearance of wealth.

Sorry but that's an old stereotype. Literally every generation has called the generation after them narcissistic.

Good article on the matter.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national ... kIs.reddit

This.

I just pray that it doesn't end up going further into electronics and autotune, essentially taking the musician out of music. I see music progressively becoming more superficial and generic and I really hope that we break out of that trend soon.

I'm actually surprised rap lasted this long. I thought it was just a gimmick because there were no musicians involved. Coulda fooled me! I also never thought I'd see DJ's become like rockstars with huge adoring crowds. They're not even musicians! I guess since music reflects the times, electronic music will be around forever. Some will be uptempo dance, some atmospheric chill. I guess rap will be around for a while too because it's where we are as a culture. Hopefully, rock will come back with a vengeance.

We're rebelling against the idea that we should be rebelling!

I am a millenial. I listen to music from my parent's generation. I am not proud of that.