I have been saying this to anyone will listen. It's the McDonalds-ization of music. Cutting costs, cookie cutter, assembly line, and understanding the lowest common denominator ways they can poke pleasure centers in people 's brains. This is why mainstream music today (mostly) sucks, but there is a wealth of great artists in alternative/indie/underground circles. The artists who care about their art, who want to maintain their creative control aren't signing with mainstream labels.

This is an important point. The shift away from human judgement and towards analysis and data. Modern spiritual sickness.

The same issue has drifen out creativity in American cinema. Frank Zappa said the record industry was better when it was run by old guys who didn't understand the music, and took a chance on an artist if they thought the kids might dig it. A&R departments trying to second guess audience taste ruied the industry in his opinion.

The word "PRODUCT" says all.... If you don't give a fuck about making money or becoming famous the problem does not exist. The pure joy and depth of creativity is in essence a playing child that's discovering and renewing all the time. Creativity isn't a formula. .. ...

One big event that helped destroy both competition and quality of popular music was the Communication Act of 1996. It allowed a few corporation to buy up multiple radio stations in muiltiple markets across the U.S. Before this law was enacted a DJ might promote an artist or multiple artists from their home town or local area. Each radio station would create its own play lists. This allowed local flavor of different areas to flourish. An artist might become big in their state or geographic area long before gaining national success. Today a handful of people; maybe less than a dozen, decide the playlists for virtually every commercial radio station in the U.S., because just a few companies own almost every commercial radio station in America. And it can even get worse as A.I. may soon replace those few people who make these decisions today.

As a musician, it's frustrating knowing that there is a professional team collaborating on every 3-minute pop song, with up to 5 producers and 5 songwriters, even using AI, while I can't seem to find anyone to listen to my homemade music which I create and perform as a human being.

The Beatles appeared as kings of The Golden Age of Rock. Taylor Swift appears as the queen of The Golden Age of Mediocrity. Kali Yuga, man.

Today, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If that formula had been enforced with the Beatles, Yesterday, Michelle, Eleanor Rigby, etc, would not have been released. Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys would not exist, no Stairway to Heaven, no Bohemian Rhapsody ...........

As an independent musician, singer, songwriter, guitar player, I can tell you unequivocally, that these streaming services do only one thing. They get you heard but nothing more. You can have 250,000 plays and only make $25.00 bucks getting paid less than a cent per stream. You can have 250,000,000 streams and only make $250.00 bucks! It's effing maddening. And venturing into touring when you've already made so little ti finance it is a non- starter. The music industry today is as much of a ripoff as it was 40 years ago. Everyone makes money but the artists.

Pop music & Nashville, too; designed by marketing departments based on consumer habits rather than artists' ideas. I love the moneyball analogy!

This guy is spot on. It's all about market analysis & number crunching now instead of judgement. MP3 Science instead of trying to come up with new ideas. People are so worried about AI but what AI does is not much different from what record company execs have been doing for decades. Scraping from the existing catalogue for maximum efficiency & predictable content.

Noel Gallagher said that the music industry doesn't like mavericks, today it's full of people who only care about profit and listen to whatever the companies tell them. In the 90s you had bands like Oasis, Primal Scream, Blur or Manic Street Preachers, in the 70s you had bands like Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, T. Rex, Pink Floyd and David Bowie, in the 60s you had the Beatles, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Jimi Hendrix, etc. All of them experimented, changed, weren't afraid to go out of their comfort zone, now it's not like that, they just want people like Taylor Swift or Harry Styles, they tell them "wear that dress and shut it. Wear this, sing that and go home"

This situation exists throughout the entertainment industry. Large, risk averse corporations control much of the market for movies, music, literature, and video games. The result is a lot of dumbed down, safe, lowest common denominator stuff that has nothing new to say, and specifically in video games, there are gambling mechanics and microtransactions to rip people off. These companies pursue whatever is likely to generate a short term profit for the least amount of effort and risk. Artistic quality doesn't enter into the equation. It seems like most consumers have been conditioned to desire whatever is safe and familiar. I think this is natural on some level - if you like something, you will want more of it - but a lot of people have lost the ability to get out of their comfort zone and explore new things. Decades ago, there were a lot of small operators in music. There were tiny local record labels, independently owned radio stations, and record stores. A record that somebody made in a nasty old garage could potentially be picked up by the local radio station, get noticed by a wider audience, get noticed by other radio stations, and eventually blow up into a big regional, national, or international hit. Today, this mode of discovery and distribution is gone. It seems like the only way something like this can happen now is for somebody to post their music on the internet, and maybe it will go viral if they are massively lucky. There are still a lot of musicians floating around, and recordings that don't fit within the bland, corporate space are out there, but it takes some digging to find them. Similarly, there are independent artists in movies, literature, and video games who are taking risks and going for an artistic statement rather than a corporate money machine, but it is hard for them to get noticed. Those of us who don't like the current state of pop music need to put in some effort. Search around, find the higher quality music that is sitting out there in the underground, and support the artists by buying their music.

Moneyballing in music has been around for a long time: Tin Pan Alley, teen idols in the 50s with professional songwriters... I'm not disagreeing with your point, I'm just saying it has been like this for a long time for mostly "disposable" music (decades later we only remember the classics, but in the time of the Beatles the charts were full of throwaway pop too). The change is that is has become a lot more dominant and calculated.

When comparing music, I sometimes look at it this way. There are roughly two kinds of hit songs. First there are those that are hits for their time, but gradually fade away and are mostly forgotten. Then there are songs that enter the public consciousness and retain a lot of popularity for decades or longer. The Beatles had a lot of songs in the later category. Michael Jackson had a fair number too. On the other hand, I have to confess that I don't know a single Taylor Swift song. I listened to a few but I wasn't particularly impressed and I quickly forgot them. I just remember them sounding very stock to my ears. But that's just me, and I'm squarely in the boomer category. The point is, if people are still listening to Taylor Swift songs as they do Beatles songs, 30+ years from now, I would call those great songs, regardless of if I like them or not. However the jury is still out on that.

Payola, corporate control, and a general lack of curiosity on the part of the masses to search for anything better. Jim Morrison said most people are content with what they're given, and he was so right.

Comparing Taylor to The Beatles is an insult to the great band

I've been around for a while, going back as far as when Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Sly Stone, David Bowie, Bob Marley, and Queen were in their prime. What's changed is that the record companies trusted these pioneering artists to create "musical art" and still sell great numbers for their record labels. Record companies have always been about the money ultimately. It is, after all, a music business. Today, talented artists are shut out for the manufactured, easily controllable, corporate pop star "industry plant," who will follow the corporate musical and visual script given to them. The labels don't want the difficult artist who wants to innovate and go on a magical mystery tour of music ideas that may not sell very well. The industry really needs an Elvis Presley, Beatles, James Brown, Hendrix, Sex Pistols, Nirvana, or NWA-someone who will bust the door down again on a seismic scale, from the street level all the way up to the corporate doors.

In engineering terms, we call that a "local maximum". You can thoughtfully experiment and maximize any outcome, but what you often end up with is the world's best piece of crap.

People used to buy music. That’s the big difference. You put your money where your mouth is. Now people are just clicking for a monthly fee. There’s no way you can compare these 2 formats.

Thank you for your clear and concise analysis. Rick Beato has reacted to the same article.

Comparing Taylor Swift and The Beatles is beyond apples and oranges. Popular music is a business for sure but at least in the case of The Beatles, the purchaser got a lot for their money - it still sounds as good today and is as memorable as ever. Viewing music through an economic lens is a non-starter in my book.

Every kind of music grew after The Beatles opened up the gates to what could be. They brought us the 70's. Why do you think the music of the 70's was so diverse & well produced?

The Beatles rule!

One of my favourite bands, Moody Blues, produced 7 albums in 7 years, wrote the lyrics, composed the music themselves whilst touring. They maybe never had so many songs that made it into the lists, but left a string of great full length albums each with different themes each innovative and inspiring. T Swift uses a brigade of song writers that makes most of the job and what they do is just produce simple chord repetitions to which it is just to write lyrics. This music leaves nothing to your imagination. (I sometimes hear about (Swedish) “artists” that are to release a single and that is the greatest event that year … a single?! 🙄)

The main reason is that musicians of the past were free to express themselves in music. So, not only people decided what they'd like to listen, but musicians as well. Every time when some truly amazing art- or prog-rock masterpiece came out it dramatically changed people's minds, forcing them to develop to understand such music. Today, those times have far gone, and it simply doesn't work this way anymore, unfortunately.

When great art is subsituted for product that is geared solely for financial gains is becoming the norm, then we are sadly on a slippery slope. Dont be a part of it and make want you want to make because it moves you and leave that world behind. Thanks for the video . you make a very strong point here. Thank you

This was a spot on analysis related to the financialization of the music industry. During the late 60's and early 70's , bands were given much more artistic freedom. Starting with the release of Frampton Comes Alive, big business were impressed with the profits that album made. Big business became much more involved since then and it has been downhill ever since. There was a blip of hope with Nirvana but that was soon brought back under control by big business. You are right about the dehumanization of music today and you are correct that it is only going to get worse.

Taylor in 2024 sounds much like Taylor in 2016. Compare ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘Rain’ and then realize only three years separate those songs.

The variable not discussed is the most important: The Listener. Companies react to market demand. If people demanded more, the music would change. How people use music has changed, they don't care about music the way previous generations did, there was a social dimension that doesn't exist anymore because people are into their own thing via phones, etc , they aren't asking for given qualities be present in music . . . and more. So, selling to a customer who uses the product for vastly different reasons, reasons that are simple, very unsophisticated, many don't know names of songs or artists, etc. . . . selling elevator-like music is simple in that market. Yes, there are those who demand certain things, some think technique equals musicality - for example, and other hyper focused things, but generally people don't interact with the product as earlier generations did. A less knowledgeable, variation-demanding, etc. customer wants basically the same thing all the time, and that is what companies are reacting to to make money. They are not looking to offer what isn't wanted by the market, and the market doesn't care about - or is sensitive to - experimentation, quality of musicians, etc. This continues until they just blindly accept what's in the market because their focus is on other things. Again, companies react to market demand. If people demanded more, the music would change. If they wanted real, un quantized, no pitch correction, less formula-based music, etc., businesses would provide it, they'd hunt for bands, musicians, song writers, etc. that tried new things. But the market cares nothing for such things in many ways, so Money Balling is possible in new ways. People have become predictable. That's scary. That hurts art.

I think in the past, there was a bigger focus on selling albums. Over time the focus was selling singles and now it is more about views/plays. Having a great album gets you more intimately involved with an artist. If someone has an album you can just play from beginning to end, that artist will have true fans. I have never really listened to a Taylor Swift album but she does have great singles. Singles have evolved to be very catchy, short, simple, and to the point. At the same time it has lost some of the depth and quirks of the songs of the past which seemed to have a more unique quality about them. There has always been a drive to create the perfect single but the truly great artists have great albums and use the singles to get you to buy the album and through the album you develop a deeper connection to the artist.

There will never be a new genre of music again. There’s hasn’t been anything new in music since the nineties. America as the creative innovator is dead.

Taylor Swift is like fast food whereas the Beatles are a meal prepared by a chef. No comparison.

A dumbed down society makes for crappy pop culture. In 2024, people are told what is good and they are pummeled by that message by the music industry. The industry has no care about the songs or musicianship, just image and product to flood the market. Do you think Janis Joplin would have been offered a contract in 2024? Highly unlikely. There is no joy or memorable musical aspects in today’s pop music. Just narcissistic banter and crude sexual content. Nothing clever.

The ONLY reason the BEATLES in the UK and the Beach Boys in the US were ALLOWED to experiment BECAUSE they were HUGE. However, IF Pet Sounds or Rubber Soul/Revolver had NOT SOLD Sgt. Pepper's would have NEVER been green lighted.

its so great for someone to give an explanation for this sort of thing that isn't just 'its because musicians these days all make bad music and younger audiences don't care' - sure maybe that is a small part of it but lets be honest its more because the big industries don't advertise anything that they didn't create and the big industries create mediocre, 'safe', marketable music

This is great, very educational. I hope your channel grows greatly!

Motown Records was based on the vehicle assembly line and yet it still produced classics. The country labels invented the music assembly line where the writers, instrumentalists and singers were different people. I believe there are a couple of reasons. One is there is no money for song writers as a solo profession. Fewer song writers putting out just as many songs as the past not only creates a sameness, but ultimately they will run out of ideas. There are also no gatekeepers such as MTV, Soul Train and American Bandstand. The idea that cream rises to the top only applies if there is a container. With the internet there is no container. Pop music just means the most popular music which might not be that popular. For instance, Beyonce's last album has sold about 300,000 equivalent copies and Taylor Swift's last album sold about 1 million equivalent copies. Other pop artists are doing worse than Beyonce in terms of album sales. Such niche pop acts means the music isn't for the majority and are made for a specific fan base. The music doesn't sound good because the listener is not part of the fan base. When there were gatekeepers, the gatekeepers would find and promote acts with broader appeal and the top pop stars today came from the gatekeeping culture.

People also need to be aware that pop music is no longer a sonic experience but visual. As such, if the artist cannot turn their audience on visually, they will not get airplay. Loretta Lynn has said as much regarding country music.

Back in the day music flowed, now it's forced. Just a thought, I could be wrong.

damn true that no arguement here. Just to add a color to money balling, it is maximized based upon the Mass who don't want anymore MUSIC but PRODUCT.

Imagine Taylor Swift doing something like "Happiness is a warm gun" or "Hey Bulldog". I can't.

There's one small fly in the ointment of the corporate dream of reducing everything down to numbers and algorithms. The people who buy the product are flesh and blood and ultimately respond to real flesh and blood creators once they catch on to the numeric manipulation they are being subjected to. A backlash is forming and is already becoming apparent in the movie industry. Disney has been one of the chief users of this "moneyball" approach and it worked well for the early part of the 2000's but the wheels are beginning to fall off. They've also been one of the companies interested in the possibilities of using AI to replace creatives. Unless these corporate "geniuses" can figure out how to have their wonderful algorithms can be the customer as well this whole direction in the long run is going to be a disaster. As statisticians more and more replace creatives music and movies are going to become more uniform, bland and just plain shitty. Ultimately statisticians put out crappy music and crappy movies. But I'm sure the executives and the accountants will be too stupid to know the difference.

The human voice has already been "dehumanised" by pitch correction and autotune software. Even historic recordings are now altered by pitch correction when transferred to on online platforms. It's quite telling when you watch younger people reacting to recordings of the 1960s and 70s being pleasantly surprised at the high level of musicianship and how natural sounding music was back in the day.

My dad used to say all the time that football is just a business now. I would counter that yes well everything is a business where people need to get paid for their work. He was right though because we now very rarely talk about the sport itself but instead the money surrounding it.

Moneyballing is definitely a huge thing in social media. I was in ads at Twitter, before the elmoing, and even in the non revenue side of the company they had their KPIs which were definitely at odds with what the users actually wanted.

Your analysis is always on point. Great job.

too much technology (auto-tune, clicktracks, loudness, etc.) have taken the humanness out of music. Our bones, the hair on our arms, etc. can hear the difference

See Tom Petty's album the last DJ. It didn't resonate that much with when it came out over 20 years ago, but I find a lot of it pretty compelling (both musically and lyrically) today.

Moneyball created by Billy Beane manager of the Oakland A's destroyed the team. A lot of managers now are going back to using the eye test. Hopefully music will get back to the ear test.

When music NEEDS dancing floor show , you know the music is horrible😮

Great analysis - focusing on the datafication and commodification that's been accelerating over the last 50 years. across all industries. I would even take it a step further to highlight the centralization which transcends even profit motive and seeks to control every aspect of society.

Moneyballing is focusing on short term while ignoring long term and is, ultimately, self destructive. The movie industry is a prime example. While the first couple of waves of Marvel movies were good and raked in box office cash, after Endgame it went to total crap. Why? The data said that the people loved superhero movies so movie studios started cranking them out as fast as possible not caring about the plot or characters. Well, that killed it. The folks who love superhero moves love plot and characters not repetitive SFX and current social trends. The movie industry is in a free fall because they got greedy and didn't understand their customers. The same will happen with all art forms. TV is already dead. Movies are in the tank. People are starting to abandon popular music for small performers on alternative media. While the age of super-rich superstars is virtually over, the age of more and more folks being able to make a living doing music is just spinning up.

Biggest difference is that the Beatles wrote their own music and created their own style. Taylor decides what style she wants to record and finds the best people that create that type of music to provide the songs to her.

Like so many other things in our society, we've removed the human element and replaced it with computer models. Put another way, we've taken art and turned it into science. While science is an overall good, after all it allowed us to free up our time so we could pursue the arts, it can't replace art. As someone much wiser than me once said; Art for art's sake. Art should be judged purely for its formal and aesthetic qualities and that's something no algorithm will ever be able to do.

I agree wholeheartedly. The same phenomenon in music as in movies. “Franchise” movies are dull. Today’s music is dull. It has been “optimized” to the average.

You're absolutely right about all that....but isn't that also a golden opportunity to do exactly the opposite and win that way?

Brilliant and much appreciated analysis brother! Gen Z Beatles super fan here!

Love the intelligent commentary. You have given this Gen X food for thought - and you are right, I now see the common thread with the era of autotune and endless superhero movies. It has always been about money, no shit Sherlock, but somehow the creativity, the human touch has been factored out of the cost analysis. Bravo, sir!

People have been moaning about the "current" music scene for as long as I can remember. I remember in the late 70s people were whining about disco and how it was supposedly killing off "real music". Then in the 80s all the synth pop bands like Spandau Ballet and Culture Club appeared and people moaned about them Then the late 80s with the Stock Aitken & Waterman generic dance pop stuff.

great insight as usual , really enjoying your work

Great talk. My heart believes that AI can never touch the genuine heights of creativity. This is coz AI is always consuming data, algorithms and the input is churning into an output that is highly derivative. So one can have a derivative kind of music but true musical breakthroughs/genres/sounds erupt only from the restless chaotic landscape that our collective human soul is.

We used to have a culture of music, but over the 20th Century music became a commodity. Taylor Swift is a symptom of the phenomena. Before Thomas Edison put a tin horn with a need to a wax cylinder, if you wanted to listen to music, you had to play it yourself. Popular music had to be simple, so regular folk can play it, and Classical music was for professional. Jazz was for punks, and came up through Vaudeville, so it was part of a circus. Jazz was more musicians having fun than performing for the audience, so it wasn't too long, before the audience started wanting something more exciting, and the easiest way of doing that is simple and loud. From there, Rock'n Roll progressed, and the Beatles were phenomenal, because they were excellent song writers and performers, while only Ringo and George were much in the way of instrumentalists. Well, by Rubber Soul, Paul was laying out bass lines on par with Mo-Town, so it's not like anyone in the band was any less than competent. They wrote fairly simple Pop music, and comodotized it by making extraordinary recordings, with constant retakes and experimentation. When the Beatles broke up, musicians of the quality that used to play Jazz started in where the Beatles left off. By the end of the 1970's, playing music was only for professionals. A culture of music had turned into a culture of selling music. Since the 1980's, music has turned into selling more product made more cheaply to people that don't know the slightest thing about making music. Of course, this leads to the dilemma of an industry that only has crap to sell, so how many performers do they need? Taylor Swift is a pretty girl that can keep time. That's not nothing, but it certainly isn't the Beatles.

Taylor Swift would have never made it in the analog days

All great points. Very well explained. Everybody needs to see this video.

I don't know if pop music is worse today. But as I'm now 58, I'm an old geezer, so it's just natural for old geezers complain about younger people's music. Just like in 1964 when old geezers complained about the Beatles. My only problem with Taylor Swift is that's she's inescapable. Not all of that is her fault, but the celebrity-obsessed media.

We just came out of a 15 year era where the biggest pop stars were just spoiled high school mean girls reading off their burn books and passing that off as "music". What's followed is an EDM grunge era. We haven't had good pop music since about 2006 or so.

You had me at money ball. In the 1980's there was a "band" called Milli Vanilli and it was discovered that they lip synced their live act. That was the end of their career. The same is not true today.

I've thought about this for the last several years but never thought to use the Moneyball analogy--very interesting! But, yes, Taylor, Drake, Marvel movies, Star Wars, etc are all Content™ driven by algorithms. It's interesting that the Swiftie default argument whenever someone criticizes her music is: "she's a billionaire and has the most streams, therefore she's the GOAT." Similar thing you see with Drake fans (or at least up until recently lol). Marvel movies as well. It's always "well, this thing makes the most money, therefore it's the best." Which is like saying McDonald's is "objectively" the best food because it's the biggest fast food franchise. And you're 100% right: before technocapitalism took over and infected everything with its algorithms, artists were keen on experimentation. Everyone from The Beatles to Miles Davis, Prince, Bowie, Madonna, Kate Bush, Metallica--all of the truly transcendent artists who came up pre-Silicon Valley all experimented and went through phases and one could argue this experimentation was a big part of why their legacies endure to this day. Even Michael Jackson incorporated everything into his sound: soul, R&B, disco, pop, rock/hard rock ("Beat It" solo), etc. I'm sure someone will say "But Taylor went from country to pop" but those are two of the most commercial genres and there's a ton of overlap there. She and her team probably crunched the numbers and made a moneyball call and figured she could even be bigger by going pop. I'll never forget this anecdote from Imogen Heap about working with Taylor: she said she came up with some off-kilter melodies to add a little variety to a song they were working on and Taylor immediately went, "yeah, I think I'm gonna lose them with that" meaning the audience. And Imogen was just like "and that's why you sell millions of records and I don't" lmao. Fascinating insight!

Excellent video..great analysis.

Thank you for your video (my first time visiting your Chanel). This was very informative and made sense regarding why popular music these days is not exciting. I feel it doesn't move me or touch my soul the way the music of the past did. I'm so grateful for all the past greats I got to listen to (Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Queen, etc)

Thanks for your analysis! Very informative to instruct on the business side of the "Music Business." It is not about "Likes" as much as it is about driving a product. One suggestion on your presentation if you don't mind. Please keep inserting the text version of key points on the screen as you had on this video. Case in point. When you said, "ROI" I heard "Edelweiss." Not sure why. :) But, seeing the text "ROI" appear on screen really helped me to tune into your point with proper context. Thanks! Great job again on the analysis! As one fellow guitarist to another. Cheers!

I think you are 100% on the Moneyballing of Music. I see it happening everywhere. What you can do with a DAW is amazing. Very well said as always. Your video's are informative and educational. Keep up the good work Utkarsh!!!

Maybe I'm just old , but it seems to me, that thinking Taylor Swift is anything like the Beatles, is ridiculous.

Excellent analysis Utkarsh! Much appreciated!

Excellent analysis. And the next phase, AI, will take banality to a whole new level. We see the same thing in architecture; all our cities look the same, except a few token “preserved” buildings, maybe a special street.

Nice video, but I feel our analyst has it rather wrong. There was money-balling with the beatles. With Queen. With Michael Jackson. And I am not sure the current industry is really so numbers-driven compared to then. He overestimates how highly evolved and sophisticated it is, these days. In my view, the core reason why popular music is what it is today, and why it was what it was back in the sixties too is the state of the technology and what comes cheap and easy. People invented electric instruments? Out with the big band, in which the rock band, because four could do the work of 20. And then you could use an existing record and just rap over it? And then you could just program some booming beats? And then you could easily produce this stuff at home? Or over the internet, with 130 tracks, with 9 collaborators and Taylor only needing to strum one chord? All that gives rise to new genres and what is the 'way' the cookie gets baked, at a certain moment. If sophisticated methods were to all show that you'd get most audience-satisfaction with a full classical orchestra, they would still be working as they are now, because that just way easier.

First Indian guy I see on KZfaq who isn’t talking computers. Subscribed.

Some decades ago you saw some passion in mass media (music, comic, movies). They were advancing, experimenting with new technologies, trying to express their inner thoughts, showing something they believed was exciting. From 20 years everything is a lot more safer, the personal and artistic expression has mostly gone away. I think there was a lot more amateurism in every field of popular media back then, more adventuring, and less money on the table too. They were mainly works of passion and the money would come later, now it's the other way around.

Great points. I just want to point this out: before the Beatles, almost all popular music was kind of 'money balled' and specialized. There were song writers, orchestra/band leaders, arrangers, and specialized studio musicians who laid the foundation for Sinatra, Martin, Bing, etc. to be pop stars (30's through early 60's). The British Invasion made it so that the band itself took all those roles and became a complete, creative package (60's through early 80's). What we've been seeing for the last decade-ish is just a return to the way it was before with hyper-specialized 'producers' who are just here to work on 1 track at a time that can become the next single in an album of optimized singles. I'm old enough to remember the singer-songwriter days of Taylor Swift and must wonder how many people she now involves in her songwriting process.

You do not have to buy music. It is within you. There is so much good music out there at pubs n clubs. Music will find you if you want it. And you will know. Swifties are not fans of music, as such, they are part of a group. It's the sense of belonging. That's not to say that her music is bad. Music is not about winning or being the best, unless you want it to be.

In a few years, mainstream pop will just be a big bass kick, finger snap snare, and auto tuned variants of “yea, girl, oooooo, youuuu, club, smoke and baby” and you’ll hear it blasting loudly at your job, super markets or one out of every five cars passing by.

The most popular music today isn't all that is out there. The most popular music in a data driven world will be average. The data that drives music production is all prior data, so music evolves to becomes more bland, more similar, more average. The average person will respond. There is plenty of creative music out there - wildly disparate styles all have a home if you take the time to find it. But, sadly, no longer does one station play Elton John, Earth Wind & Fire and Led Zeppelin back to back. Now Led Zeppelin would be in the "Blues influenced heavy rock with psychedelic elements" category, while Elton John would be in the "Piano based, lyrically dense, singer songwriter category". The thing is, it was the crazy, boiling, tumult of styles that led to creativity. Bachman Turner Overdrive trying jazz chords, Queen throwing in some opera, or the Beatles trying absolutely everything. Modal shifts, key changes, weird arrangements, it all happened - some succeeded and floated to the top, much failed. Now it Max Martin's endless boring parade of 1/6/4/5 chords, trap beats, millennial whoops and autotune. Many music "producers" can't play a note - they just buy software packages with chord structures, rhythms, loops all premade, then build "music" like a lego project. This appeals to the average, so it sells, The more it sells, the more that gets produced. Jack Harlow anyone? Awful....

Wow! All the way from Singapore,while im in a small town in Kentucky so cool my man thx!!

I think missing in the equation also is the consolidation of media. Less competition in all areas: fewer labels, fewer outlets, fewer physical media makers. The consolidation of radio in particular has erased regional differentiation and the varied pool of artists that are promoted.

Chess has the same problem, and it's right around the corner for Basketball: working toward a solution for a game makes the game better, but eventually you figure it all the way out, and once a game has been solved, nobody wants to play anymore.

Yeah, it's not just music obviously, but it's everything. The internet sucks more as unchecked capitalism plus more and more data analytics work together to maximize profits. We wind up with a billion nearly indistinguishable albums and movies and books and whatever else and everything is designed to be as appealing as possible to as many people as possible to maximize profits--so nobody takes risks and everything is designed to be easily digestible and to minimize risk, not to be interesting or novel or challenging.

Art (including music) is meant to be slightly provocative as well as attractive. It could therefore be argued that giving the audience exactly what they anticipate rather than challenging them is not what should be happening. Throughout the 1960s, The Beatles threw curveballs at us, with each new release bringing something different and unexpected. Other bands began being more experimental too and the music scene continued to blossom through the early 70s. It all seemed to change with the next generation though. Perhaps that was due to there being so much music around and, by that time, people were just taking it all for granted.

As far as popularity and sheer earning power - sure. Quality of music, songwriting, cultural significance, etc. - not even close.

I completely agree. Although some bands are starting to find ways around the system. Check out the history of the band The Warning. They were basically a family operated enterprise until 2022. They negotiated for months and refused to sign unless they kept full creative control. Finally, a guy with an ear at Lava Records realized the potential and gave them what they wanted. They are up to 1 million plays a month on Spotify and just about to explode. All with talented people, not the algorithm. A breath of fresh air in a moribund industry.

Someone said "chasing what worked yesterday" is the MO of all corporate executives and then called them all cargo cultists. Spot on IMO.

You brought a very good point that I have been thinking about lately. Specially in sports. The moneyball concept. The problem is that doing that makes them function like manufacturing facilities thus robbing the sports and other areas like music of the true human element.

For a long time now, record companies have employed accountants to look over what bands, artists or even styles of music have made the most profit in the last 3 or 5 years. The decisions as to which artists, or even what styles of music to invest in, have become based on what has given maxmimum profits over the last 3 or 5 years. All of this means that Popular Music is stuck within certain (now rigid and narrow) styles and frameworks, and has become very, very, PREDICTABLE. There is a brilliant UK-based band called Screaming Maldini (and NO, they do NOT scream!) - a band which has a wonderful, unique sound all of it's own. But they don't stand a cat in h*ll's chance of getting a recording contract. Why? Because they don't conform to the 'tried and tested' formula which the music industry now demands.

Comparing Taylor Swift with the Beatles is like comparing candy floss with a good steak.

i enjoyed this commentary and analysis. i'm an obscure musician and am happy with that. the music business has always ripped-off the musicians and now it's worse. it's all about the shareholders. i'm on a small label and that's fine. i also make my own recordings, cds, and do solo gigs for fun. but yes, the '60's & '70's was a great period of experimentation, and capitalism and numbers hadn't yet destroyed that.

This is true of so many things and I’ve been saying it for years. The only way to fight this is to make business decisions based on considering for others and intuition. Those of us that do just that will hopefully offset some of the damage optimization culture is doing to humanity.

Thanks for the insight

Who is Taylor Swift?

Excellent points sir, but I feel in this meta across the board, something has been lost

Worth pointing out, I think: the actual quote from the xtian bible is "The _LOVE_ of money is the root of all evil." That one word makes a big difference in the meaning of the phrase.