The Music in the future

Funny 5 years ago never listened to anything but rock. I mellowed with age and listen to other stuff, but mostly older songs.

 

There is more music today than in the past. And there will probably be more music in the future than there is today. Music is fluid and evolves into new genres over time. But the old genres don't go away. Plus, new technologies emerge. The old days of having to get a recording contract and get your song played on the radio are over. Now people are recording entire albums in their living rooms and releasing it through YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. The internet has made it possible consume music from multiple time periods from all corners of the globe. Korean pop is the biggest craze with teenagers in America right now. I imagine some of you never even had the opportunity to experience K pop when you were growing up. Not that K pop is for everyone (I don't get it) but the point being, you can go to YouTube and search of something as obscure as "Peruvian hip hop" or "Senegalese punk rock" and find 100's of songs right away

 

for the first few years after the ecopocalypse it will be mostly wooden flute, kick drums built into the floor of meeting places and poorly tuned if even tunable stringed instruments.
all acoustic and improvised. these will rapidly become more refined, but odd and unforeseen forms of small form factor public transportation will likely be restored long before anything resembling mass media.

until then, synthesizer concertos, will continue to gain in popularity. and creative quality, out pacing in both ways, more familiar and mainstream forms.

 

As a musician, I feel like I have to maintain a positive outlook on the future of music, especially my own music, because what drives an artist is the inner passion at the end of the day. And I have been able to get to the point where I can now remain positive about my music again. Sure, I often hear crap when I listen to today's mainstream music. But even some seemingly mainstream stuff can be good, and that seems to have always been the case. It's not just today's music, because generations before me would say the same thing about the mainstream music of their time. People are naturally sentimental like that, I suppose.

I think good music is always out there, but sometimes we need to go on a journey to look for it. You can't just rely on the major labels to release true listening adventure. Sometimes that comes in a form of unknown, unsigned acts. But ultimately, what matters is that good music is being made every day, somewhere in this world. What I have so far seen is that independent labels tend to be better at allowing honest musicians to keep doing what they do best, while major labels primarily focus on making profit regardless of their artists' wish to retain their creative freedom. This contributes to why so many of those super famous artists who are signed to major labels tend not to put out music that is memorable. Sure, they get tonnes of airplay. The labels spend a lot of money promoting these artists, fancy looking music videos are made, and it's not unusual for some of their songs to be featured in big budget films. But these major labels know their artists can bring them tonnes more cash. After all, that's why they've signed those artists in the first place, not to put out music that really matters, but to produce what sells.

Smaller independent labels tend not to go about things the same way. Many years ago, I spoke to the president of a particular independent label who just said, "well, we just want our artists to focus on their music. That's all". They would promote their artists, but on a much smaller scale than a major label would, and for a good reason; the company runs on a much tighter budget. But the definite advantage is that artists who are signed to a label of this nature may have a much easier time holding onto their creative freedom and the artistic integrity. I think, if anything, more and more people will start to see that the real good stuff is often found outside the mainstream scene. That's been the case for me at least.