Music (meaning recordings of songs) is just becoming more and more commoditized. They need a new song everyday. Multiple new songs everyday. The more songs, the more money labels make.
It’s kind of like any other industry today where the output needs to grow and grow just for numbers sake. Then a tipping point is reached and the industry (or at least a business) has to reset and/or some businesses in the industry have to stop due to the insane output requirements.
Music is easier to make too, which constantly sets the bar lower and lower. I appreciate that anyone can make a song and share it with people, but the recording industry is accepting demos as full songs and putting them on the radio (in my opinion).
Over time this very low standard will saturate the market, and the general listener will finally complain or stop listening to that type of forced music and a renaissance will happen.
There is good new music out there today, some of it on the radio. Anomolies like Kate Bush’s song resurfacing in such a crazy way will continue to happen, and good music, with actual form, melody, orchestration, and writing will permeate the demo-level music, and more and more people will seek out that kind of thing.
Where I live, as far as live music, anyone who can strum 2 chords on a guitar or ukulele and has a semi-decent singing voice can get a gig. But they’ll gig for maybe a month or 2 until the venue and customers realize how monotonous it sounds. They may have flash and work the audience, but there’s no substance there. (I support new artists but sometimes it’s just ridiculous, the level of gigs they’re getting).
I’m not a flashy player or entertainer (I consider myself a musician not an entertainer) but the gigs I get (solo or duo acoustic style) I keep because I do a wide genre of music and have a consistent sound, show up on time, and generally do above-average difficulty songs that have more than one section/progression. I try to do different songs every gig, and over time, the staff does come to me and say they liked that new one, OMG, this other guy plays the same songs in the same order for months now, etc etc. My gigs tend to not have requests, and customers come up during and after the gig thanking me for the songs I played, good selection, good sound etc.
Not saying any of that for a pat on the back here, but that (at least where I play) the average music listener DOES appreciate quality and the work that goes into something like that. I think this would hold true in most areas of a general population.
Music is a commodity these days, and is usually treated as such. Knowing that going into recording or gigging can help with the dissonance of the performer who has practiced for years before gigging vs the listener who thinks what you do is easy, not special, and “why don’t you know this song that came out today.”
But through that sludge, there is an appreciation for quality and a good sound in there somewhere.
As technology continues to improve, and the world changes, there may not be any “huge bands” the same way we had before, but there will be quality musicians and music on some level. The “standard” in many industries has changed, and we have to adapt to it, same with music. I personally think music will be distributed through NFTs soon whether we like it or not. And with these smart contracts, the artist can actually keep more profit and keep it out of label’s hands. (You can make x% of all future sales of that song/NFT for example, yes a huge discussion, but I do think many things are headed this way.)
But in my opinion, always strive for quality when you can despite the status quo. It may not be vocalized to you every time, but it is appreciated by someone somewhere.
When I have a bad gig or unresponsive audience, I just think of Mitch Hedberg’s line - Y'know, you can't please all the people all the time... and last night, all those people were at my show.
