The diversity of note combination. Roughly speaking, chords plus melodies has consistently diminished in the last 50 years. Pop music is a lot louder today and melodies are becoming more and more similar relying on a much smaller use of timbres than in the past.
So many instruments are synthesized and rely on digital processing these days.
I'm not suggesting that a particular era, genre, or artist is "as good as it gets" artistically. Just pointing out a few of the differences between the production of todays music in relation to that of the past.
|