Has music become stagnant (stopped moving/evolving)?
 

What do you think? I posted this question in another thread but I wanted new opinions.

Thanks!

The title has a type o. Sorry! I meant to say staGnant!

Spelling the word "typo" wrong: priceless. :laughing:

Thread title fixed though.

In answer to your question, no, I don't think music is stagnating. It continues to evolve. There has been loads of music released in the past few years that I couldn't have even imagined existing a decade ago.

Do you listen to any new music?

No because it wasnt "evolving" in the first place. Music just change because people are bored and want to "repel" thats why a lot of old people say new music is crap because it was meant to be this way. however purpose wise music is in intervals so it will probably have purpose again someday.

music always changes. even yearly. you can even tell the difference between mainstream music the year before and the current year. and all different music types have different changes all the time. Everyyear i see a huge change in underground hiphop

Evolving means changing.

maybe he is trying to say it was more de evolving than evolving?? O.O

I'm a rock fan, and rock has evolved a lot since it's origins. I think it'll keep evolving. New genres are spawning all the time, too, and i don't think that will stop either. Pop songs have always been fairly homogeneous, and as you probably have noticed, all the top ten songs today are blasted with heavy synthensizers just for them to fit in. If you are looking for something unique, try alternative.

Although I think music now is not that good like it once was back in the mid 2000s period, but music continues to evolve. For once, new music has become better. I think 2012 was a better year musically than 2011.

But "evolving" doesn't it mean it's getting better, it just means it's changing over time. To say it's "de-evolving" is kind of meaningless.

i know exactly what your saying haha, im just saying maybe thats what he tried to say even though it didnt make too much sense

It took you one sentence to say that opposite of what you just said.

Yea but used for saying that a better result is emerging, if that was the case then it is not. If it was meant for just change then still my point.

haha see i knew what you meant to say. thats also why you put evolving in qoutes

Yeah thats how much the idea of music "evolution" bugs me. :yeah:

yeah i agree for the most part evolution is supposed to be better so i know what your saying. but sometimes its not better and its still called evolution like jans was saying. it goes both ways it seems. I like to think of it in terms of pokemon. most of the time when a pokemon evolves it is better, like charmander, charmillion and charizard but sometimes they suck like a pikachu to a riachu. #ChildhoodConnectionsToRealLifeSituationsForTheWin

I don't know, but I used to be a major fan of hip-hop and I cant seem to find new artist that I like....

LOL, To be honest pokemon was in my mind :D

No, you just have to listen to new music. And to the person who said that new music isn't that good, i'd like to know which new albums you've been listening to, because a lot of the music that's been released in the last couple years has blown me away.

Music will always evolve. It may have once been more noticeable than it is now, as the creation of new genres can only become more difficult over time. Thats not to say that there can't be a natural evolution within established genres of music.

"Evolving" doesn't mean something changes for the better. It's just means something changes over time.

Well if it was regressing to paths already tread I wouldn't call it "evolving" even if it's changing, but that's not what's happening to music so... :yeah:

Maybe it's cause I've come of age around this time, but there does seem to be less genre invention/innovation than there has been in the past. Not necessarily a negative, and not indicative of the quality of music as a whole, just something I've observed firsthand.

I totally disagree with this. There's plenty of innovation going on currently. The problem is that the present is murky and hard to define because you're living in it. Some time needs to elapse before you're able to look back and discern what was innovation and what was just novelty.

Innovation, potentially. But invention? I think thats a valid statement. it isn't a negative or a criticism, but it has to be much more difficult to help create or invent a new genre of music now than it ever has been.

Well I acknowledged that I lacked the perspective of witnessing a decade firsthand, and then seeing it's influence bloom in the future. But even looking back at the early 2000's, I saw a lot less genres being developed than decades of previous.

Out of curiosity, do you honestly think all decades were made equal? It just seems kind of counter-intuitive to me to look at every decade as being just as much the 'golden age' as the last. I can still appreciate releases at all times, but I also recognize slumps.

I disagree. Genres are usually defined after the fact. Just check out what was considered "new wave" in 1980:

Wouldnt it be safe to say that it would probably be more difficult to create something unique or 'new' now than it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s etc?

That's because the early 2000s still weren't very long ago.

I guess it depends what you mean by equal. I mean, for example, there was material rationing in the 1940s that limited the production of records for a while. So that's a decade that you could point to and say that music was hampered by war, but at the same time it was the decade that gave us bebop, which in my opinion is one of the most interesting forms of music of the 20th century. So I'm not so sure I'd be comfortable labeling the decade a slump. Honestly I can't say I'd describe any decade of the mass media era as a musical slump and I feel that the kind of thinking that leads people to label them as such is the same of thinking that leads one to become a grumpy old person who thinks nobody makes real music anymore.

Why would that be safe to say? There were thousands of years of human creativity prior to the 60s, it's not like they started with a blank slate.

I'll just say that the more genres there are, the more opportunities there are for combining them. For example, there are great artist combining electro/house with rock/metal. And, on the other hand, the more technology there are, the more potential there is of making good music. So, logically, the more there is, the more can be created. But is it happening? I'd say yes. Because, even not very famous, there are artist who make absolutely every kinds of music. The problem is that the most commercial music is only one style, but when it wasn't like that?

I know that but personally I would have said that as music has become a bigger industry, as the way are access and are exposed to it has changed, as each new genre of music is established, the room in which to create something new that can't be categorised by the genres we have, it would likely become harder to make something that hasnt been done before.

Not impossible, just harder.

Meh. I think the context and technology keep changing though. So there's always room for new categories.

Well, thats true. Technology does keep changing and, as has been mentioned since my post, the more genres you have, the more room there is for them to overlap and crossover. Both very good points, in my opinion.

I really don't know. As you say though, Jans, I could be listening to something today I would file away under a certain genre but over time it could come to be considered as something else altogether. It's quite difficult to foresee.

The genres established in the early 90s were pretty clearly defined in the early 2000's.


Does that sound like how I'm approaching it? I'm not intentionally avoiding listening to new music.

I can think of hardly any classic r&b, blues, and jazz albums that were released in the last decade.

This and this. End of story. With age comes experience and wisdom.

[QUOTE=Rock N' Roll Clown;1259945]I'll just say that the more genres there are, the more opportunities there are for combining them. For example, there are great artist combining electro/house with rock/metal. And, on the other hand, the more technology there are, the more potential there is of making good music. So, logically, the more there is, the more can be created. But is it happening? I'd say yes. Because, even not very famous, there are artist who make absolutely every kinds of music. The problem is that the most commercial music is only one style, but when it wasn't like that?[/QUOTE]

an example would be Deathgrips, theya re a mixed genre and its innovative... but all my friends who only listen to radio stuff think ALL hiphop is like the stuff on the radio and would never imagine anything like deathgrips to be considered "hiphop" cus its so innovative

What genres would those be?

I'm not saying you are. I'm just saying that having the mindset that all the creative times are behind us is the first step to being the kind of person who disregards all new music as you get older.

Not sure what you mean by this—and I think generally you need more than a decade to go by before you can determine if something is a classic or not—but I can certainly think of a few jazz albums from the past decade that are fantastic.

So glad you're back. :beer: