[quasisphere]

Perhaps a bit misleading title since the predictions were mainly (with a few exceptions) about the future of music industry instead of music itself.

It is an interesting question how much music itself can advance while still staying enjoyable by a significant number of people. For instance much of the popular music nowadays appears to be rather simplistic in terms of rhythms and harmony, and the innovation has been happening more on the timbre.

In classical music more modern approaches such as atonality never seemed to gather such large scale interest as the stuff from older masters. Time will show if e.g. microtonal music will make a breakthrough at some point, but it is hard since the new harmonies sound just 'wrong' until the listener learns them. (Of course for some native listeners the same could presumably be said about western music.)

I guess it's not a completely unreasonable guess to say that there are some optimal thresholds of complexity for a human brain and that's why simple regular clapping and singing in thirds and fifths will continue to evoke the strongest emotions for the majority of people.