Originally Posted by Skaligojurah

Well, mainstream has been playing it extremely conservatively recently. Generally, only pushing pretty girl, and boy pop acts, and cliche riskless hip-hop. My theory is that the music industry itself has had a massive chunk taken out of it's ass due to it's inability to control/compete with the Internet.

People are sitting on their computers, and not going out and seeing shows. So, music will become more, and more, studio focused. Live shows more focused on repeating what's heard in recordings as a duplication(more pre-sampling), and apart from the biggest of money making acts, music will become even more regional.

Personalities will sell more than units so focus on building the personalities behind music will continue. Remember, most of the music loving audience has turned to the Internet for it's eclecticism, and ability to allow one to seek his or her own individual niche. Record producers need to push acts that are "easy to listen to"(IE... Incredibly simple yet incredibly over-produced) that are paired with an assisting set of visuals so the listener feels he or she actually understands what the music is "saying" better.

Themes will be generally inoffensive from a political/social point of view. Taking safe viewpoints that attack collectively unpopular. Most of these pop stars will pretend to be 15 year old girls even in their mid to late twenties. It'll all be about image, selling, and image.

Essentially, we'll have more, and more, and more Britney Spears of the future. Music not focused on mentally stimulating, but creating a sort of spontaneously impulsive, inoffensively undynamic, safely predictable set of repetitions that immediately catch the listener not forcing the listener to listen all too hard.

The industry is going to crash even further down, but it's not all bad. The best bands going now rarely charge 25+$ for tickets, and the potential for regional more communal music communities grows as the mainstream - terrified of losing it's throne - sticks to the safest most conservative money making formulas.