Driving home tonight from work I feverishly flicked radio stations in an attempt to get a fix of some good tunes. I eventually gave up, listening to to a channel that sounded just like the others. This seems to be happening more often lately, which made me wonder if my age is effecting my music taste.
Luckily I bumped into a Slate article that suggests that today’s music is heading the same way as disco.
It turned out that home taping had not killed music. Instead, the central problem was the collapsing popularity of dance-poplively, sexy, but personality-free music whose appeal was broad but thin. They called it disco back then, and the name has never recovered from the era’s backlash. Although usually termed teen-pop, the music of ‘N Sync and Britney Spears is not unlike disco: Both are intellectually underachieving, cookie-cutter styles that have made stars of performers not known primarily for their skills as singers, songwriters, or musicians.
From “Hit Charade. The music industry’s self-inflicted wounds.“, by Mark Jenkins.
Either today’s music is bland, or Mark and I have age in common.
Mark’s article is an interesting read, giving reasons other than peer to peer file sharing for the decline in CD sales, such as changes in demographics and the state of current music genres.
