[ttjjtt]

Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing.

My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather than dig into new music of her generation, but I can hear the problem when she plays me both the underground and pop stuff her friends are listening to. It’s tame.

There have been profound infrastructural changes to cultural production and distribution, lead by SV and VCs. These have served to massively boost stock valuations of centralising digital platforms. The music they produce is affected by these changes. The faux meta genre “hyperpop” even exploits this (boringly imo). It’s reassuring to believe the kids are alright but the problem is not the kids.

[itsanaccount]

I want to summarize because I feel like it cant be repeated enough on this site:

The endless march of optimizing profits by investors who control an ever lopsided share of wealth destroys everything.

[bazoom42]

What you describe is pretty common - a segement of younger people preferring older music, typically the music of their parents generation. This is nothing new either, not every young person liked Elvis either.

[ttjjtt]

I know. but what’s atypical is the tame-ness, the lack of energy and lack of community participation and shared experience in new music, and its sharp decline of perceived cultural value by the younger generation. I think the changing valuation and changing qualities are not wholly unrelated.