The future of music

[Mozared]

Greetings fellow Escapists,

I was just surfing the webs for no apperant reason and came across a wikipedia page on Avant-garde metal. After reading the intro about it I figured that "Ah, so it's basically progressive metal". One scroll down was a header saying "Differences with progressive metal". Apperantly, progressive metal (Dream Theatre being a prime example band) experiments with complicated riffs and weird time signatures. Which sets it apart from Avant-garde metal (Best known bands in the genre are [according to the wiki] Meshuggah, Strapping Young Lad and Dillinger Escape Plan), which experiments with the instruments rather than the music - like fiddling with the guitar tuning pegs while playing a note, or using experimental instruments. Simply said, progressive metal tweaks the software, Avant-garde tweaks the hardware.

This got me wondering - as you all know music has evolved over the ages. I'm not sure if it is actually known what we men listened to during the roman ages, but it slowly tweaked over into classical music in the 1600's up to the 1900's when we started to see blues, got tribal influences in our countries and had a complete explosion of new styles (from blues and rock & roll eventually came things like rap, metal, ska, dance, etc). If you look at it this way, we are only at the start of the musical evolution.

And so I ask you, Escapists, what you think the musical evolution is going to look like over the next couple of 100 years. Will bands like the Beatles take the position Mozart has in our current society? Has avant-garde metal got the future in experimenting with instruments, or is progressive's idea of "the instruments are good, lets change the music" spot on? And what will we all be listening to 100, 500 or 1000 years?

Tell me what you think.

 

[Lord George]

I'm pretty sure postmodernist punk is the next big thing.

 

[Insanum]

it will be a subgenre/transition of what we have now, Which will become popular.

 

[Blackadder51]

ok, turn on your radio, tune until all you hear is "snow" or static

Your now listing to the future of all music

 

[Mrsoupcup]

I don't care unless Clasic rock is involved.

 

[Pimppeter2]

It will be motion controlled

 

[BonsaiK]

I'm pretty sure postmodernist punk is the next big thing.

Any type of punk, postmodern or otherwise, is dead commercially and will definitely not be the "next big thing". As a music industry insider I can tell you first-hand that labels aren't caring about new punk bands of any kind. Even hybrids of punk and other styles aren't doing that well. It's all as unpopular right now as glam metal was in 1995. If you're starting or thinking of starting a new punk band in the next ten years my advice is that you should go for it if that's what turns you on, but I hope you're happy with just playing to your friends and people in other bands.

It will be motion controlled

Stelarc did this in the early 1990s, making music incorporating motion sensing with robotics and remote muscle control but he's kinda moved on to other things now.

ok, turn on your radio, tune until all you hear is "snow" or static

Your now listing to the future of all music

More like the past. Merzbow has at least 50 albums that sound more of less like that, but he obviously got bored and has gotten a litte more melodic these days (at least by his standards). White-noise is almost kind of 'retro' now.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I'm not even gonna take a guess on that one, but I'm all for progressive metal...

 

[ethaninja]

Thats so weird, I'm listening to Dream Theater just now =D

 

[The Random One]

It will be motion controlled

Theremins all the way!

 

[Lullabye]

it will simly get more and more complicated, and hopefully better too. i miss good music. i dont search around enough though so im sure its out there somewhere. i ope jazz and blues stay true too.

 

[Seldon2639]

Wow. I'm as much of an indie music snob as the next guy, but holy god. Can we stop knocking popular music?

Not everyone enjoys complex guitar riffs, or an exceptionally intricate drum fill. Nor does everyone enjoy experimentation. Let me give you an example:

There's a reason you don't like whatever genre you don't like (let's say you don't like Belle & Sebastian-style indie music). And there's a reason people don't like whatever genres you do (prog-rock, metal, whatever).

If there's a reason for you to dislike my music, and me to dislike yours, isn't it reasonable that someone would find both of our musical tastes (and everyone else's) to be horrendous, and want to listen to something safe? Nice rhythm, steady beat, auto-tuned, simple rhymes, no distortion/screaming/ect.

Mainstream music is no better or worse inherently than any other genre, it's all about what you like. I like Belle & Sebastian (and Sondre Lerche, and Pavement, and Carbon Leaf). I don't like progressive or avant-garde metal, or any other metal. How is my taste or your taste superior to the tastes of someone who doesn't like Belle & Sebastian or metal?

Remember: de gustibus non est disputandum. There's no accounting for taste.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Mainstream will continue to suck, and underground will continue to hit a small select audience. Simple as that. and in about 50 years, there will be tons of elderly people bitchin that "todays rap isn't rap at all! back in my day, we listenned to good music and...."

 

[Hollock]

I want to see these punk kids rolling around being total rebel badasses in big brass bands.

 

[Hyperactiveman]

Dethklok has already invoked the Metalocalypse (Season 3)... It's only a matter of time until all forms of music become inferior to Death Metal!

Nah I'm joking... But seriously the future of music is doomed!

 

[cleverlymadeup]

i think a lot of the time when people start saying Progressive-InsertGenreHere or Avante Garde-InsertGenreHere, they have no idea what they are talking about and are just applying terms that seem to fit.

as someone who listens to everything but pop, techno and country, i'll have to say that given half a chance EBM, Synthpop and Futurepop (it's an inbetween of the two) and Industrial to some extent, could really have a good chance of making it big. simply because it takes the dancey beats of techno/dance music, the epic sound of a metal song and the lyrics of a well written song, all in one nice package and frankly there's a ton of moods you can get from it and any instrument can really be used in it. my friend likes to refer to the genre as "intelligent dance music", which funnily enough is what some EBM/Synthpop guys call their type of music or IDM for short.

i really think a lot of music is becoming stale, the American based metal is over produced and they've really lost their way for the most part. actually most majour American label music is over produced and not as good as it used to be, cept for maybe Nettwerk but they're Canadian.

i honestly think we will go more electric as time goes on but there will also be a non-electric side to it as well, much the same way that we still have people composing classical music today

 

[whitelye]

I think for anything to survive it has to get picked up by academia. I don't think the Beetles could be categorized alongside Mozart, though. They didn't actually revolutionize the way music was written, though certainly how it was performed (damned throngs of screaming girls).

It is important to note that Mozart wrote popular music (dance music, actually) and that we only think of him as a genius because people with doctorates slobber all over him (and the fact that he was a genius probably helps). The Beetles could be around in a hundred years, so long as someone starts legitimately studying them, but I very much doubt we will care in five hundred years.

Most people don't even care about music of the present day, much less about music of the past. And who can know the future, anyway. Honestly, I hope future generations study the complex rhythmic patterns and word play of Sir Mix-a-Lot. That would make my burned bones very happy.