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

[Dave24]

too many industry plants. music isn't organic enough or from grassroot sources. too many fabricated hits based on copying. because entertainment value is subjective and is hard to quantify and predict popularity even for different songs made by the same artist, people treat music (or art in general nowadays) more as a hustle with a pyramid scheme/Ponzi scheme/trickle down economic/marketing dynamic instead of evaluated as a true artform.

once inner city schools lose funding or when those schools let too many delinquents into the school, the music teachers are the first to get cut or supply a subpar music education where the students basically hang out and learn nothing and whatever sound these new artists create is a reflection of that. even black musicians back in the michael jackson/quincy jones/prince era used to play an extraordinary amount of instruments and know chord progression themselves before school's budget got cut and now we can't play those instruments or know music theory anymore and have to resort to sampling and paying expensive clearances/royalties. those who can still make music mostly get their knowledge from a musical family background or from playing the church organ or singing in the church choir.

the music industry itself is a fukked up 360 deal to get into and you need to be young, naive, or have a conceited ego to even sign one of those contracts, which are basically marked-up million dollar loans with expensive studio/hidden fees to pay back. you have to pull a lot of world star/street credibility stunts out of debauchery, controversy, death, or ignorance to even get popular for social media to react to it, and that has nothing to do with the integrity of the music. most people don't make it thru their contracts, get shelved, or get stuck with a huge deficit to their name to even get resigned for another record company to make more music to even pay back those debts. artist have to release 4+ albums to even renegotiate their contract for a bigger record deal and budget, but by then, most of their better songs and ideas are already wrung out of them and it's harder to make hits when there are copycat artists and fans already expect you to make this type of music and you become 'predictable' with your output

when artists remain independent, there's no machine to push for their popularity so they remain relatively unknown unless they hustle youtube/soundcloud, become a meme, sexualize themselves, or make music supporting the LGBT community to get a shyt ton of streams to even earn a living, but by then, you are basically what the fans make of you in terms of being a caricature ventriloquist of yourself if you have any soul or humanity left within you to make the type of music that you want and not be pressured to be puppetted by perception or demand to sell out and make generic ass microwave radio friendly music.

music can be a profession but society's infrastructure and industry treats it more as a low wage commodified past-time where acts are considered interchangeable or replaceable, the most qualified musicians are paid peanuts compared to their talent, and only a select few get extremely popular with outside endorsements, side products/hustles, and tours to become wealthy

Well thought out post

@Hathaway

 

[Cladyclad]

These dudes are writing paragraphs about how diverse rap music was in the 90s

I tell this to people rap is more diverse than it’s ever been. It’s just the lyrical miracle dudes can’t make a hit at all. Hell they struggle to make just a good song now. That’s where hip hop is lacking. imo Cole & Kendrick even with superstar success. They just not it.

Drake couldn’t hold it down by himself. I never thought I would say Drake carried hip hop but he did. Well he tried

 

[IIVI]

The funny thing is, music is actually very organic at this point.

Too many people can make a beat and folks can record over it and upload it right away that very day and people can decide if they like it or not right there and then.



shyt, you may even see it like "updates" if some people upvote/downvote a song and ask the artist to update or change it then they can upload a new version like software

 

[Love Sosa]

without even getting into the quality or sound of the actual music, the game just isn’t the same. Back in the day, every time the public saw/had access to an artist, it was crafted or approved by the label. Now your celebs will have 30 Instagram stories up at once of them just doing random shyt. So social media automatically takes the “larger than life” factor out of it. Not to mention labels have much much smaller budgets these days for promotion and development.

I could go on, it’s literally no one reason it’s just the way the world is now. Maybe people will learn to adapt but there definitely has been a shortage of “stars”

 

[FeverPitch2]

1 - yes, there is an "it" factor, no one is denying that, but every star didn't/doesn't have the "it" factor, and yet still had a major run - toni braxton is someone i'll say wasn't overly charismatic or a person you'd point out and know that's "the one" but she still had wild success, someone like bey on the other hand stood out from jump and/or def by DC's second album as a solo star

2 - many stars get their look/style from a label/a label sending them to a stylist - puffy and jodeci come to mind, and pretty much every "glow up"

3 - this is subjective, TBoz was clearly a star with TLC, she was not talented at singing, yet their handlers/label got them the right sound

4 - addressed with TLC, but Rihanna is a case of this too, they first had her ride the 00's island wave, they then got her with Dream and Tricky

5 - addressed

labels give you 2-5 on that list, occasionally you get an erykah badu who comes to you with their own style that's a winner or an alicia keys who comes up with nearly an album worth of music between her and her production partner from before the major label sign, but that's beyond rare.

and no, a label being behind you doesn't guarantee you'll be a star, but no person without major label resources becomes a star. an independent chick like goapele does not become erykah badu without a major label push, resources and packaging. bone thugs n harmony does not become what they were in the mid 90's without priority, jill scott isn't who she was before her major label deal.

Sidebar convo:
Toni came to LaFace with four of her sisters in a group.


In your opinion, why didn't LaFace sign the group?

TLC was originally Tionne, Lisa, and Crystal.
In your opinion, why did Pebbles give Crystal the boot?
Why was T-Boz the lead singer? Why not put a girl who could blow in the third slot?

Fun fact: T-Boz sang Wanna Get With U by Guy at their audition.

 

[CourtesyFlush]

Girl in red is fire with her weird looking gay ass



I love this song man

Nikka wut

 

[FeverPitch2]

The funny thing is, music is actually very organic at this point.

Too many people can make a beat and folks can record over it and upload it right away that very day and people can decide if they like it or not right there and then.



shyt, you may even see it like "updates" if some people upvote/downvote a song and ask the artist to update or change it then they can upload a new version like software

This is a prime example.
There's nothing "crazy" about this beat.
Everything about it is generic and has been done to death.
Let's not even get into his vocal performance.
While it takes some talent to do this, it doesn't take a lot.
This lazy shyt is saturating the space.
Whether this would sell 10 copies or 10 million copies backed by the resources of a major label, people would forget about it in a matter of weeks or months.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

Sidebar convo:
Toni came to LaFace with four of her sisters in a group.


In your opinion, why didn't LaFace sign the group?

TLC was originally Tionne, Lisa, and Crystal.
In your opinion, why did Pebbles give Crystal the boot?
Why was T-Boz the lead singer? Why not put a girl who could blow in the third slot?

Fun fact: T-Boz sang Wanna Get With U by Guy at their audition.

re: the group, i'm sure there's real interviews on why - i've never read up on them. but i'll assume it's because toni had the most unique voice, i remember the braxtons when they dropped in like 96, tamar has a nice voice, but it's not unique, and a huge personality maybe it was too much for execs back then, i can see her being divisive, so i can see why she didn't get the solo deal, one of them was weird looking, and the other was prettier than toni IMO, but i'll assume she wasn't special outside of that

crystal is another two sides, one side said she couldn't sing (pebbles), crystal said it was the contract. i don't know. as for the third slot, chili can sing really well IMO, so they did add a real singer to round things out. t-boz being the lead, no clue why other than again, going for the unique vs traditional sound (like pam fronting total or slim fronting 112). it's also the early 90's and pebbles in charge, there may have been colorism at play

 

[010101]

it's only entertainment ha*

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

3 - this is subjective, TBoz was clearly a star with TLC, she was not talented at singing, yet their handlers/label got them the right sound

ehh... TLC was very charismatic. most artists would kill to have their stage presence and the aura they had in their videos and interviews. They needed help to reach superstardom but there's a reason why they outsold most other female groups 10x over and that was not just the sound but the presence.

 

[IIVI]

This is a prime example.
There's nothing "crazy" about this beat.
Everything about it is generic and has been done to death.
Let's not even get into his vocal performance.
While it takes some talent to do this, it doesn't take a lot.
This lazy shyt is saturating the space.
Whether this would sell 10 copies or 10 million copies backed by the resources of a major label, people would forget about it in a matter of weeks or months.

I agree, and the fact that that doesn’t sound much different from most of what is released today is why music is pretty much in the spot it is right now.

Can you honestly point out a timeless melody from the last few years?

Any song come close to this yet?


Problem is the second one song comes out pretty much everybody else copies it and releases a million songs that sound completely like it.

shyt gets copied and stale at record speed.

Let's keep it real further:
W.A.P pretty much still hasn’t been topped.

 

[CrimsonTider]

I agree, and the fact that that doesn’t sound much different from most of what is released today is why music is pretty much in the spot it is right now.

Can you honestly point out a timeless melody from the last few years?

Any song come close to this yet?


Let's keep it real: W.A.P pretty much still hasn’t been topped. shyt has gone stale everywhere.

By melody do you mean song?

 

[Nigerianwonder]

Now and days you can have a "hit" without a real fan base. You can top the charts with a song going viral on a tik tok challenge but those aren't real fans. They won't spend money on you and are not invested in the artist. They really don't care for the artist that much. They care about the tik tok challenge. That's why these new artist struggle to tour. Streaming records is "free" ( with your subscription). No real investment from the listener. Back in the day even if you were a 1 hit wonder people had to actually pay money to buy the single on CD or cassette.

 

[IIVI]

By melody do you mean song?

Specifically melody - the main part that is recognizable if somebody hums or whistles it.

Blinding Lights is probably considered timeless. Somebody starts vocalizing that main line and everybody going to know what that song is.

I'd say before that probably Black Beatles.
Then before that One Dance and Work but all three of these songs are actually coming up to being nearly 10 years ago

 

[Nero Christ]

The music is akin to Walmart...mass produced, low quality, and cheap

It's hard to create something enough people on a global level care about when we can all hear it's low quality, it's lack of artistic creativity and on top of that, having to find it amongst a sea of mediocrity.

Simply, there's too much to choose from and most of it isn't good enough for most to want to keep searching through to find the gems.