When Music Died

I am writing this blog post where I am going to be potentially polarizing and perhaps even controversial. I am going to give my honest opinions on the state of music. First and foremost, I know that everyone has their own peak period of music and their own specific point where they feel music started to decline. For me personally, music peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Basically, everything after 2015 has sucked.

My top two albums of all time illustrate this timeline perfectly. My number one favorite is Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold, which released in 2010. My number two pick is Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Nightwish. That second one was released in 2015. That year marks the distinct cutoff point for me. Even bands I love have struggled to cross that line. For example, Avenged Sevenfold released The Stage in 2016. While there are a few good songs on it, I do not really listen to them. Metal simply has not been good in quite a while.

To further emphasize how important that 2010 to 2015 window was, I look at the unique phenomenon of Brony music. I call this BronyCore, though I use that term more as a genre tag than a primary genre definition. While I do not listen to it very often anymore, I still have a soft spot for it. I genuinely consider it good music, and it serves as another example of the creativity that existed in that specific era before the drop-off.

The situation is much worse when we look at pop music. Pop feels like a collection of wealthy, famous people trying to appeal to the masses by pretending they are just like us. They try to convince the audience that they have the same problems, like depression, to sell records. I am fairly certain that a small group of ghostwriters have written every pop song for the past twenty years. It lacks soul. In my opinion, the last true, good pop artist was Michael Jackson.

This issue of manufacturing extends to Christian music as well. I believe Christian music should be viewed as a subject matter rather than a genre, but the industry treats it like one. Consequently, it suffers from the exact same problems as secular pop. It feels formulaic and repetitive, often losing the message because it is trying too hard to mimic the sound of modern radio hits.

Country music has fallen into a similar trap. Modern country is essentially pop music with an acoustic guitar. The themes are painfully repetitive. All they talk about is girls, beer, your farm, and your truck. Maybe they will throw in a mention of a tractor or a horse, but that is about it. Like pop, it feels written by a handful of ghostwriters rather than the artists themselves.

Then there is the state of rock. I live in Austin, where our local rock station is 101.5, also known as 101.X. It seems that every single song they play now is just pop. It forces me to ask what rock even is these days. Is it just pop with an electric guitar? It feels as though everything is slowly becoming pop.

Finally, regarding Rap and Hip-Hop, I do not really hear them very often. From the little I have heard, it actually seems fairly innovative compared to other genres, but I do not know for sure since I mainly listen to metal.

Ultimately, looking at the landscape of commercial music, the quality dropped off a cliff after 2015. Whether it is the lack of authenticity in pop, the formulaic nature of country and Christian music, or the dilution of rock, the industry is not what it used to be.