The future of music

[Mozared]

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.

The question is though, will future music be mainstream? To be honest, I think that it'll start off really really small, become mainstream for a bit and then become 'classic'. Which is what happened to Mozart. I don't think the big companies will dictate the way music is going to go simply because while people do prefer easy listening sounds, the future has been and always will be made by a smaller amount of bright minds who come up with something truly revolutionary. In that light I think Whitelye is right about the Beatles; Mozart (for as far as I know his music) causeda true revolution of music. The beatles were one of the first bands who took new ideas and turned them into mainstream-fit, which is ultimately what caused them to become popular. Or so I guess, anyway - to be honest I don't know a lot of Beatles songs.

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.

I think I can say my "job" is to predict it. In this particular case though, the subject is way too large for me to even get a good guess; hence why I'm asking escapists.

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.

Care to elaborate on that? Or: is there a proper thought behind saying this, or are you just one of those musical elitists who has to show off how well he knows all his subgenres? I never said I'm an expert in those genres, it's just that I happened to stumble upon one of them, read some information on it and decided to turn it into an open question.

NB: I'm actually sincerely asking you that question and am not trying to troll or insult you - if I was sure the latter guess was true I wouldn't have responded to your post. I'm just thinking there might be more to it.

 

[BonsaiK]

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...."

This is already happening. If you would like to hear a conversation like this, get any person who has been a rap fan for more than 5 years in a conversation about Soulja Boy.

The question is though, will future music be mainstream?

Depends what you mean by "future music". The way I look at it, any music made in the future is "future music" regardless of sonic content.

I don't think the big companies will dictate the way music is going to go...

Actually, they never have. Yes they do control what gets exposure, but for that to happen, someone in a chair in an office somewhere needs to listen to something and go "hey, I LIKE that". You'd be amazed how little power the music industry has to stop really good music from getting out there. The main reasons why fame doesn't happen for most people is because of several other factors, including but not limited to:

* Excessively self-sabotaging drug and alcohol use, unlawful behaviour etc by the groups, because they stupidly think "this is how rock stars should behave"
* Groups refusing to put effort and discipline into their activity, prefering to sit back and whine that everyone is ignoring them instead of building a network and spending a little money on some promotion
* Groups worried about being perceived as having "sold out" if they get big, so they pass up useful promotional opportunities, won't gig with certain other groups, etc

and the BIG ONE:

* The music actually isn't all that great but no-one is willing to tell the group that the emperor is wearing no clothes, instead falsely propping up the group's ego, so when they finally DO get told the truth that their music just isn't good enough, they don't even believe it or take it on board (you can see this happen all the time on those Idol, X-Factor shows etc).

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.

Care to elaborate on that? Or: is there a proper thought behind saying this, or are you just one of those musical elitists who has to show off how well he knows all his subgenres?

Most music sub-genres don't actually exist in any meaningful way. They certainly don't exist on any ethnomusicological level, which is the real test of any genre's validity. Most of this stuff is just made up by overenthusiastic fans of their little "pet style". Bottom-line - if you don't see it filed that way in a music store, it's probably not a real sub-genre.

And because you're interested in what might be happening soon, here's my picks for upcoming trends based on what I'm observing inside the music industry right now. Of course I could be wrong:

* R&B and Rap will being to separate completely, for once and for all. A 'retro' movement will start in R&B, which will appropriate more of the sound and style of soul and funk from the 60s and 70s while also attempting to remain chart-focused (this is already beginning to happen). "Underground" rap will go the other way and become even more musically processed than it is now with greater use of Protools plugins and high-production tricks as these things become more accessible to bedroom studios. "Scratching" on the other hand will become a boutique interest for the rich, as logistical problems with vinyl and digital distribution models eventually combine to make it an unviable and cumbersome tool for non-financial up and coming artists.

* Obviously auto-tuned vocals will stay huge for the next 5 to 10 years before falling completely out of use for the next 30 to 40. Heavy use of auto-tune will become "that gimmicky thing you do to a new record to make it sound like it was recorded way back in 2010", just like excessive use of digital reverb on drums these days gives away a record as being from the early 1980s.

* Country music is going to start to get very weird. Right now "country" just means "pop with slide guitar and someone wearing a hat" whereas so-called "alt-country" just means "what mainstream country actually sounded like 30 years ago". Sometime over the forthcoming decade we will see a REAL "alt-country" emerge, expect to see country music being combined with everything under the sun - reggae, emo-core, classical, speed metal... maybe even all at once. And getting on the charts. You've been warned.

* Over 95% of mainstream high-profile multi-million selling artists currently active across every genre of music will release something with a symphonic or chamber orchestra in it between now and 2025. Yes, including rappers. On the other hand there will be no new, commercially significant innovations at all in the field of purely orchestral music in the 21st century. Most orchestral composers will continue to do what they do now, which is make film scores, but less for movies and more for computer games.

* The next big "punk" movement will be based around singing, and will essentially be a reaction to the culture of Idol, X-Factor and competition singing in general. Expect a singer who can't sing in the "traditional" sense, and flaunts this rather than trying to hide it with auto-tune etc, but gets hugely successful anyway purely off the back of incredible charisma and great songs. I know what you all will say, "this has already happened, just look at [insert your most hated singer here]". But no it hasn't. Not the way that I mean it. This person won't appear for a little while, the music industry (as I mentioned before) just isn't quite ready for another "punk" movement yet.

* Metal will do everything it can to distance itself from metalcore. Expect to see plenty of self-consciously retro bands cropping up over the next ten years, reviving and combining every single metal style you can possibly imagine EXCEPT metalcore. Metalcore on the other hand will get more and more pop-based. Don't be surprised if you see Taylor Swift or someone of that type of super-commercial nature incorporating metalcore vocals and riffs into their sound.

Keep in mind that this is just my opinion and is quite liable to be wrong, but if any of this stuff hapopens, remember that you read it from me first.

 

[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.

Care to elaborate on that? Or: is there a proper thought behind saying this, or are you just one of those musical elitists who has to show off how well he knows all his subgenres? I never said I'm an expert in those genres, it's just that I happened to stumble upon one of them, read some information on it and decided to turn it into an open question.

well for most part i've found too many bands that are trying to say they're doing something "new and different" but end up sounding like every other band of that genre. i also think that stuff like "progressive" and "avantgarde" just so they can seem cool, when really they aren't that at all.

i don't care for all this fracturing of the genres, even tho bands want to seem cool and unique for the most part they aren't. a lot of them just make up a sub-genre to seem different, when really they sound like several other bands.

if you want to see some real Avantgarde bands then check out stuff like :Zoviet France:, Die Form, Fantomas, Coil, Merbow, Mr Bungle or Hemophiliac

for the most part stuff like Avantgarde is a very misunderstood term and i think that people abuse it too much in order to sound cool and edgy

 

[Raven's Nest]

In terms of main musical genres I don't really see any cropping up in the next 50 years. It'll only be some existing sub-genres which are given main genre status.

I think musical instrumentation needs to evolve for new kinds of music to be established, then will come the inevitable mixing with traditional instruments, then orchestral and world instruments to make many more sub-genres.

In my opinion, there's only so many revivals we can handle, Punk doesn't need to come back at all. Boybands looked like they might for a while but thankfully not. I think they'll be lots of "ethnic" music to come. More eastern european styles will creep into mainstream pop.

In reaction I forsee a lot of new British bands starting to revive Brit-Rock. This will be popular because it always is, but for now in Britain it's called indie.

I'm hoping Jazz will make a popular come back given our fixation with Jazz and Soul style singers. I can only hope some one finds a way of modernising swing as it's full of class.

 

[Mozared]

The question is though, will future music be mainstream?

Depends what you mean by "future music". The way I look at it, any music made in the future is "future music" regardless of sonic content.

Touché. Technically, that means all possible kinds of music will eventually come into being, and that is true. When I'm talking about 'future music' I'm thinking about what will A) become mainstream/the next big thing, B) happen to current bands ("will they turn into modern versions of Mozart?"-example) and C) what kind of new styles do you think will be popping up within 100, say 500 years.

Most music sub-genres don't actually exist in any meaningful way. They certainly don't exist on any ethnomusicological level, which is the real test of any genre's validity. Most of this stuff is just made up by overenthusiastic fans of their little "pet style". Bottom-line - if you don't see it filed that way in a music store, it's probably not a real sub-genre.

I'm either mistaking your post, or I think you're wrong. As I see it, a (sub-)genre is a 'label' given to a specific band. You can't say "that genre doesn't exist". If there is a band that I call that way, the genre obviously does exist (because I'm using it). Hence my reply to cleverlymadeup; I've seen plenty of people whine about the fact that for example Finntroll is called "Trollmetal". They scream and cuss saying that it's actually Vikingmetal>Folkmetal. While that's true, shouting about it is completely pointless. Finntroll is named Trollmetal because it does a better job at distinguishing the band from Vikingmetal while still retaining obvious ties to it. Simply said, it's a better way of describing what Finntroll is rather than just saying "Finntroll is Folkmetal" (or even "Finntroll is metal") - which doesn't give you any information at all but just throws it on a massive heap of other bands.

As for your futureview, I have to say I found it fairly interesting what you came up with. One thing I really recognized was your idea about country - I too think that the first step in the 'musical evolution' will be the mixing of all existing genres with all other existing genres.

if you want to see some real Avantgarde bands then check out stuff like :Zoviet France:, Die Form, Fantomas, Coil, Merbow, Mr Bungle or Hemophiliac

for the most part stuff like Avantgarde is a very misunderstood term and i think that people abuse it too much in order to sound cool and edgy

Am I right in what I posted about Avant-garde, though? If not, will you enlighten me? Regardless of whether I was or not, it doesn't change the topic of discussion, but if you think Avant-garde means something different than I do I'd love to hear it.

On a sidenote, Mr. Bungle and Fantômas are actually mentioned in the 'list of notable avant-garde metal artists' on wikipedia, which is where I got my information and bands in the opening post from.

In my opinion, there's only so many revivals we can handle, Punk doesn't need to come back at all. Boybands looked like they might for a while but thankfully not. I think they'll be lots of "ethnic" music to come. More eastern european styles will creep into mainstream pop.

I need to note here that something like punk will never die, though. Punk is the sound of someone spitting in the face of his alledged "superior". I think people will always want the raw noise of protest, no matter how much music changes. Maybe in the future instead of overdriven electric guitars we'll have overfluxed hypocapacitators, but noise in protest won't ever vanish. It might go more underground if our society changes for the better (which I'm thinking and hoping it will), but it won't die out. Whether it'll come back as heavy as in the ~80's is another question though.

 

[Chaos Theory]

I think there is just so Many possibilities for music in the future.

However piracy could bring down the music industry if it keeps getting worse and worse like it seems to be.

 

[Dark Knifer]

When system of a down rejoin it be awsome and all the evil in the music world shall be purged.

 

[Russian Redneck]

Does no one release that popular music trends [mainstream and indie (popular relative to the underground crowd *urr durr*)] change every ten years?

 

[UltraParanoia]

Dear peoples of the universe, metal is metal.

Stop incrementilizing it.We don't need thousands of subgenres when it all has something that sounds good.
Stop saying that a band isn't [insert newest genre here] metal, even though they sound exactly like every other band that is in this genre.
Stop saying the originators of metal suck, without them, you would not have the shit you listen too.
Find what you like to listen to, listen to it, and shut the fuck up.

Last two are kinda irrelevant, but it's been annoying me all night, so I gotta put it somewhere:

Dear Last.fm, please quit throwing club mixes and british rap into my thrash station.
Dear youtube commentors, please go die. This was going to be about how you turn every comments section for a music video into a pissing match about two or three bands and which is superior(the megadeth/metallica horseshit comes to mind), but you need to die for so many other reasons upon that.

 

[Mozared]

However piracy could bring down the music industry if it keeps getting worse and worse like it seems to be.

Why do you think so? Imagine piracy goes on into extremes - the music industry will be ruined and some other form of it will rise seeing as artists will never cease to exist and they will want to gain money for their cause. It might even be in the form of "free songs for everybody, the government subsides artists", which I think would be a great system.

Does no one release that popular music trends [mainstream and indie (popular relative to the underground crowd *urr durr*)] change every ten years?

We do? That's basically assumed knowledge for any reply to this thread.

@Ultraparanoia: go read the part I wrote about subgenres a few posts up, then come again.

 

[UltraParanoia]

I missed it, sorry bout that, my girlfreind walked out to get a drink and she happens to be distracting in her nightclothes
I think most of my rage was focused at my last two points to be absolutely honest.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Will bands like the Beatles take the position Mozart has in our current society?

They already have. What Mozart is to Classical, Beethoven is to early Romanticism, Beatles are to modernist Pop - the quintessential. Were there peers? Of course. Were they as good? Debatable. But the influence is what will pass on to future generations.

Based on where it's going now, popular music is destined to become some horrid bastard child of happyhardcore within the next 20 years.

BRB KILLING MYSELF

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

Fixed for people who aren't familiar with Pitchfork.

OT Technology will continue to strangle the humanism from music, forcing composers to explore in progressive trends while performers will struggle to keep the heart and soul of human expression intact. Any resulting genres will be the result of external influences such as industry, media, and fashion.

My hope is that punk rock goes back to being a form of folk music instead of a fashion symbol, anything else that happens is just a distraction to me.

 

[Mozared]

Very well then. Rage-release is always good, though you're better off releasing it in another form, I think *nods at UltraParanoia's nightclothed girlfriend and winks*

Will bands like the Beatles take the position Mozart has in our current society?

They already have. What Mozart is to Classical, Beethoven is to early Romanticism, Beatles are to modernist Pop - the quintessential. Were there peers? Of course. Were they as good? Debatable. But the influence is what will pass on to future generations.

I don't think you can say that, really. The beatles are what, nearly 60 years old? They have influenced a number of modern bands and continue to do so, thought I don't think you can *really* say Soulja Boy was inspired by the Beatles. Of course you have a point, but I think the Beatles to modern music are far from what Mozart is/has been to it.

OT Technology will continue to strangle the humanism from music, forcing composers to explore in progressive trends while performers will struggle to keep the heart and soul of human expression intact. Any resulting genres will be the result of external influences such as industry, media, and fashion.

My hope is that punk rock goes back to being a form of folk music instead of a fashion symbol, anything else that happens is just a distraction to me.

Basically, you're saying music will become completely electroniziced and a complete 'product'? I think but very much hope you're wrong there.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Dear peoples of the universe, metal is metal.

Stop incrementilizing it.We don't need thousands of subgenres when it all has something that sounds good.
Stop saying that a band isn't [insert newest genre here] metal, even though they sound exactly like every other band that is in this genre.
Stop saying the originators of metal suck, without them, you would not have the shit you listen too.
Find what you like to listen to, listen to it, and shut the fuck up.

Last two are kinda irrelevant, but it's been annoying me all night, so I gotta put it somewhere:

Dear Last.fm, please quit throwing club mixes and british rap into my thrash station.
Dear youtube commentors, please go die. This was going to be about how you turn every comments section for a music video into a pissing match about two or three bands and which is superior(the megadeth/metallica horseshit comes to mind), but you need to die for so many other reasons upon that.

"the last two" were not irrelevant at all. that was 100% gold! (the shiniest metal!)

 

[madcap2112]

I don't care unless Clasic rock is involved.

It will if I have something to say about it.

 

[riskroWe]

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.

I disagree. Avant-Garde music is experimentation with both, and is therefore superior.

And the difference between Avant-Garde and Experimental music is that in an Experiment, the outcome is not known. Avant-Garde music is created by the musician, Experimental music is merely incited by the musician.

 

[Mozared]

I disagree. Avant-Garde music is experimentation with both,

So far so good...

and is therefore superior.

Wait, what?

And the difference between Avant-Garde and Experimental music is that in an Experiment, the outcome is not known. Avant-Garde music is created by the musician, Experimental music is merely incited by the musician.

That sounds fair to me. It's still somewhat close to my original guess; that Avant-Garde simply fiddles around and sees what happens while Progressive consciously tries new things with the end already in mind.

Now that I just typed out, I'm beginning to see arguments for your 'and is therefore superior' statement. Me and a couple of others have been trying to host a new type of school for a couple of months, and our main comment on other 'modern schools' is that they in fact aren't really renewing seeing as they keep their end goal ready in sight. Which is exactly the same as the difference between Avant-garde and Progressive we're setting apart here.

 

[Trotgar]

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

Heh, I'm listening to "A Change of Seasons" right now =D

OT: I think that mainstream music might change, but there willl always be music for everyone.

 

[Valiance]

Technology is one of the many mothers of invention.

I think with computer software, we'll be seeing more and more electronic modification and sequencing of songs until music that is physically unplayable by humans becomes the most interesting.

Considering how easy it is to create music today, perhaps in a few hundred years you can sort of just imagine what you want, mix and match a genre, and be good and have a created song in minutes.

 

[Svenparty]

A Nuke will bring all our music back into the roaring 20's and 30's

(I pray every day this happens while listening to "Puttin' on the Ritz" )