this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts
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I somewhat disagree.
Music seems like it's followed a similar trajectory of most things where it's become more centralized and mass marketed. Music has to appeal to the masses for studios to pick it up. So there is an incentive to find music that appeals to the most people and turns off the fewest.
Similarly, you have a handful of studios telling you what is "good" and pushing it. Even if it isn't great, it's good enough that people listen and then they can create the hype behind it where it might not organically exist.
Some music bubbles up organically from independent artists but quite a bit is mass marketed and produced by big studios. And they have the money so they can choke out smaller artists.
I think there's a categorical difference between pop and indie music and you're right about the increased centralization of pop music, however the increased ease of music production and distribution has also lead to a greater proliferation of indie music at the same time
Well, in that regard not too much changed, I think. Record labels always mostly pushed music and artists with mass appeal. They still do but have lost a lot of their power to companies like Spotify, Apple and Google (YouTube). But these players do pretty much the same with their algorithms. So I don't think that popular music has changed too much. There are still influential companies that can pretty much dictate what people listen to. I still don't think it has become much worse, since back in the day you weren't even able to produce an album without a record deal because studio time, distribution and all that was so expensive. Today you can produce everything yourself in your bedroom. Sure, it's unlikely that you will be very successful marketing your record - but at least it's somewhat possible.