Music Sucks

Now before I start, let me just say, not all music sucks. There are some hits of today that really work well, and there are many retro songs that have held on for decades. What I mean when I say music sucks is that for the most part, it really is not as enjoyable as it used to be. One of the biggest problems music has is a lot of songs now are what I coin “cookie-cutter” songs. You take a music track that is made in a few different versions and you put some lyrics that go with the style of song you are making and then you have a “new piece of music.” Even though if you rearranged the song a little, it could actually be another song. I think this stems from the flooding of the market, so to speak, of everyone wanting to be a musician. The field is oversaturated with new music and it all starts to sound the same. That cookie-cutter thing I was talking about is worse in some genres than others. Country music for example is bad for that effect. I could literally name a dozen different country songs that if rearranged the right way would be one of the other songs. They all sound the same to me. It is a little sad for me to say that people who claim to not be country music artists can make better country music than the people who want that career. Rhett McLaughlin of Good Mythical Morning, for example, worked most of the 2022 year on an album that dealt with the deconstruction of his religion, so it was not supposed to be a country album. However, amongst some other tracks that are not necessarily country, he had some real bangers of country music. I found it interesting to find such great country music in a list on an album that was essentially a mix tape. However, that leads me into the second biggest problem that music today has: the genres of music are slowly blending together in such a way that no one knows what genre it actually is. It is something that is being termed the “Music Singularity.” Essentially what starts to happen is because the knowledge that people can obtain becomes so regular and most of the music sounds the same anyway, there will be no individual genres. There will only be “music” and every person will have to decide what music genre the song actually is. There will still be different radio stations where the producers decide to play a certain song because it is there desired genre, but that same song will also be able to be played on a completely different station. It is already happening in some music. Taylor Swift for instance has done it for years and there is constantly crossroads of artists who collaborate and make a piece of music, even though their genres are supposed to be on opposite sides of the music spectrum. It will eventually reach a point where the only distinguishing factor will be the words that are used in the song that will tell us that it is a hip-hop song, or a rock song, or a country song, etc. However, that will not last forever, because eventually trucks will be driven in the city as much as they are driven on dirt roads. It will reach a point where an artist will take a generic set of instrumentals and paste in lyrics they have drawn from a word bank to make a song. If the “Music Singularity” comes to full fruition, music will become so boring that the only way it will be entertaining is through the likes of parody music from artists like BrentalFloss and Weird Al. Which is not inherently bad, but I definitely want to give recognition to the alternative thinkers in music now who are not afraid to push a boundary or two. Because while the rest of the music world cuts and pastes to make more songs to add to the 2 actually decent songs on their album so they can fill it up, those peripheral music artists will make songs that people actually want to listen to. But that is just one man’s opinion. Thanks for listening to me ramble. I appreciate it. See you next time.