Too Many Songs, Not Enough Hits: Music Is Struggling to Create New Stars

[GoldenGlove]

too many industry plants. music isn't organic enough or from grassroot sources.

I stopped reading your post after this line. The article literally has veteran music executives crying about how Tik-Tok is unpredictable when determining what goes viral and what doesn't on the platform.

You realize that's the exact opposite to how you kicked off your long ass post?

 

[GoldenGlove]

When they replaced Physical media with this Streaming bullshyt, It cheapened the value of music which creates a disconnection from knowing who the artist truly is. The liner notes, the artwork, the sample references and even the thank you notes gave you a chance to see who they are. Plus alot of people are lazy and would much rather go on IG and post their thoughts instead of expressing it through the music.

Yal just be saying anything.

So let's unpack your post. We used to have a deeper connection with who an artist "truly is" because of the liner notes, artwork and thank you's they put in their physical releases... and that gave us a better idea on how they are MORE than social media does?



Really? That makes no sense.

 

[Ghost Utmost]

A large part of it is that artists know that their time is limited, and that their fanbase is fickle.

If you drop a hit and take too long to follow-up on it's success, it's essentially a wrap. And too long can literally be a month because there are plenty of artists that are either in your lane, or ready to drop a song that "takes inspiration" from yours.

So, in order to not be another statistic, kats will drop songs that sound similar to their hit, or something generic. Kats don't really get enough time to be unique.

A hit

Not necessarily a song that is popular from it's release date til 3 months later..

But a joint that clicks with most people that hear it. A year later. 20 years later.

It's that X factor.

So called popular music these days only "hits" for a short time right after it drops.

Think: We Will Rock You. Electric Relaxation. Fukc the Police. I Will Always Love You.

Songs that will always speak into the forseeable future.

Most new rap doesn't have the quality to last like that.

 

[GoldenGlove]

Our brains were not ready for this technology. You know how many times I go from HBO, to Netflix, tk prime and feel overwhelmed by the number of choices Available?

Only to watch something familiar because I don’t want to take a chance on some garbage.

Same thing is happening in music. 85% of all streamed music is old music.

Gate keepers were a necessary evil. The average person doesn’t have time to be sifting through all this trash content to find some gems.

Yeah, sometimes, I'll open up every streaming service I have before I pick something. Then instead of starting a movie or show, I'll just end up putting on Youtube because I don't want to invest the time into something that could be a waste of time.

I’m crying at the idea of “the cream rising to the top” when on a Thursday and Friday, you can have 17 albums drop, and that’s not even including lesser known artists. As somebody that listens to a lot of artists that I’m sure people haven’t even heard of (to which I randomly make threads about), I can legit be interested in 20+ albums in 1 weekend, and it’s to the point to where I’ll forgot something came out even if I was looking forward to it beforehand.

I used to curate a weekly playlist to keep up with shyt that I thought was dope. And to keep track of the good music/artists I came across throughout the week. After doing that for a while, I realized how much of a microwave the industry was in. It's basically a week to week checkpoint.

Streaming platforms changed how the masses consume music. It took some time, but there has been a huge behavior change in how we all listen to music due to how the DSPs work. The experience eventually gets back to a variation of radio IMO. Once the algorithm gets it's teeth in you, you'll notice that it feeds you the same songs over and over every day. (I guess I'm talking mostly about Youtube Music)

That's why I think Tik-Tok is fukking their heads up because there's no rhyme or reason to it like these other platforms.

 

[HabitualChiller]

A hit

Not necessarily a song that is popular from it's release date til 3 months later..

But a joint that clicks with most people that hear it. A year later. 20 years later.

It's that X factor.

So called popular music these days only "hits" for a short time right after it drops.

Think: We Will Rock You. Electric Relaxation. Fukc the Police. I Will Always Love You.

Songs that will always speak into the forseeable future.

Most new rap doesn't have the quality to last like that.

You're describing a "classic".

And part of that is because the generation that consumes the majority of modern music (Gen Z) is still young. When we get older, you'll start hearing the classics of the generation.

Here's a few for Gen Z though:

Love Sosa
Don't Like
Marvin's Room
Mask Off
Crew Love (Kinda a Cult Classic, but whatever).
Matter of fact, you can add most of Take Care.

In short, it's too early to tell what the classics of the modern rap era will be. Give it a decade like the list above. No one thought that Chief Keef would be looked at as an icon like he is now.

 

[JustCKing]

Agreed I think Tink is an even better example than Dreezy. There really needs to be a scholarly dissertation on Tink and her song Treat Me Like Somebody. It shows the clear problem with social media’s effect on artistry. Tink herself as a personality and also looks (no bbl) doesn’t hit the female algorithm for vitality but it’s clear some of those same audiences liked a song of hers enough to run it up to 300 million views. But even after the song went viral, Tink the artist still didn’t receive the consummate recognition and success not even as much as your typical one hit wonder would see.

Tink just didn't hit. Can't quite put my finger on what it is, but Tink isn't resonating. Even when Timbaland was trying to sell her as this second coming of Lauryn Hill and this dream of Aaliyah saying she was "the one", I didn't get that. I felt like he was over selling her.

 

[Complexion]

This is a real good thread. It shows how much passion The Coli really has for music, no matter how it may come off with the hateration (warranted) seen in many other topics or generally being stuck in the past.

On the flip side of the game the labels are in a great position as its no money down, no development, no long term investment but 1080 contracts none the less and then its on to the next. Its like Patrice said about people lining up to get in the belly of the beast:

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The shift to net methods was an adaptation because of piracy and no more CD sales. The movie industry suffered in a similar way which is why you'll never see movies like Rocky getting made again and various other low budget/off brand ideas that went on to become huge because they used to take a chance on titles to fill out the space between tentpole releases because they knew they'd recoup on DVD/Blu Ray sales.

Thats gone so all you get is big IP sequels, reboots or the same movie as last year but with new actors. Gaming is the same as well as is virtually every other outlet from books to art. Too much noise, not enough signal and only one chance to get a bite of the apple.

This is why I'm saying you're going to see a huge shift in your lifetime, no matter how odd it may seem to hear or how entrenched the current thing is. Watch, it'll happen and it'll be real quick as well.

Just look at how many people in here have said they rewatch old things instead of something new as there is simply too much choice, fake reviews/online hype or it just looks crappy from the generic art design using blue and gold like everyone else. We've seen an immense amount of homogenization as the whole world is just riding the jock of whatever is hot with minimal variation. You can hear the same trap song with the same flow and same production with the same visuals in a hundred different languages! Babylon System must be proud...

We are in the Peak Disco era currently, just replaying digitally:

The change of which I'm speaking won't just be in terms of decentralization but also in how the actual product is funded, built, presented and everything else and this is what the industry wants to suppress and prevent because it will slide them clean out of the picture, forever. The window for this all happening is between now and the time your kids get their new iPhone installed directly in their iris hence Siri, get it? After that its a wrap and the Game of Souls goes into hyperdrive for its last lap.

 

[StoneColdSteveAustin]

can't lie i'm kinda happy to see major labels struggling

 

[trillanova]

Man what !!!

These old writers are making stupid bread with the likes of Kpop.

K-Pop is horrible. It sounds so bad

 

[JustCKing]

In this era, the music is disposable because the industry has given no incentive or real reason for anyone to invest in these artists. Why should we? All of this music (past and present) is available within our fingertips. Don't even have to subscribe to a platform when it's there on Youtube. Then there's the streaming subscriptions which allows access to every song available on the platform for a fee. Previously, you had to watch videos, interviews, or read the magazines to even know what an artist looked like. Now you can just Google and even pull up their IG or Twitter and actually interact with them or at least someone connected who runs the account. New releases were like holidays even if you weren't copping the physical. You waited like Christmas morning for an album to drop (or even for it to leak).

The reason why there are no real stars is because now literally anybody can be a celebrity. It's all about going viral. The signifcant others of entertainers were pretty much anonymous. We didn't know who they were unless they were an actress, singer, or a supermodel. Now, there's an entire industry where the significant others of entertainers are whole celebrities and in some cases a bigger celebrity than the entertainer they are connected to.

 

[Tribal Outkast]

this article and thread is talking about stars, staying power, chart toppers. Not just music getting to an audience, which is clearly not an issue right now, but we are not making generation defining stars with lasting legacies. Songs pop, artists don’t

And that ain’t really representative of dreezy, her album no hard feelings is more her true style.

I hear so many songs that I think are dope and new, them shyts be like 5 years old and shyt smh. So many artists have been robbed of possible great careers.. or at least being household names

 

[Tribal Outkast]

how can u be "out of touch" tho if the audience for something is small? A band or rapper has a couple thousand "listeners" but i've never heard of them.. i'm out of touch?

other young people have never heard of them.. are they out of touch? Something has to be popular first for you to be out of touch.. because the very idea of being out of touch would mean the artist has a strong following to begin with

That’s a great point! 100% on point post

 

[DaHNIC82]

Yal just be saying anything.

So let's unpack your post. We used to have a deeper connection with who an artist "truly is" because of the liner notes, artwork and thank you's they put in their physical releases... and that gave us a better idea on how they are MORE than social media does?



Really? That makes no sense.

You nikkas love trying to be contrarian thinking you have something to argue about and sound this stupid as a result. Basically what I'm saying is you have no true identity of who the artist is these days and streaming turned music like fast food purchasing ..Folks just drop music and it's forgotten in days because they have no true connection to the audience like that.

Physical media gave you a insight of who the artist is. Fron the artwork, booklets, sampling(which helped me educate me about who did the production, the liner notes, even the lyrics in the booklet. It's why Griselda makes a killing off physical media and why they have a cult following.

at you bringing up social media like that means shyt. Tell that to Boosie who had 10 million followers but only sold 5k of his last album. You nikkas funny as shyt.

 

[blackslash]

Our brains were not ready for this technology. You know how many times I go from HBO, to Netflix, tk prime and feel overwhelmed by the number of choices Available?

Only to watch something familiar because I don’t want to take a chance on some garbage.

Same thing is happening in music. 85% of all streamed music is old music.

Gate keepers were a necessary evil. The average person doesn’t have time to be sifting through all this trash content to find some gems.

This 100%

 

[Tribal Outkast]

I feel like relying on the machine to find out who to listen to is lazy now considering all of the outlets we have available to us as consumers. I’m discovering new artists on a regular basis and listening to new music all the time. I couldn’t care less about if it’s “popping” or not because consuming music should be a personal experience before it’s a shared one.

Labels are relying on luck just as much as the artists now because the amount of media available is overwhelming.

I mean we have access to millions of songs and artists, but there’s still a small amount of stars out here.. You have the artists that will stay around for years and the interchangeable one hit wonders. I mean there are so many artists with talent that have been left behind, it happened back in the day also, but you’d think it would be better now. We have people saying in threads that “r&b is dead” and all that.. Man there’s some amazing r&b being made right now.. You’d never know it though until you come across that music in an algorithm years after the great music drops.






I found these artists with the “there is good music, you just have to find it” method that people talk about here. Imagine if people like this had a song played on radio, or was put on one of these big playlists.. They could be outta here.