Have you ever noticed how the fashion of the last few decades just seems to be static? We were watching some older 80's movies the other day and it struck me how all of the previous decades of the 20th century were so distinct but the fashions since Y2K are mostly static. Could you really look at a picture from say 2005 and tell any major difference? About the only tell-tale sign would be if they had a flip phone or a smartphone. The cars look mostly the same too.
70's were very distinct, 60's, so forth and so on. Wonder why that is?
There are a few fashion trends that will date this era-- for example, women wearing those hideous early 90s-style mom jeans again. I hate those things, so unflattering on women of
every shape and size. They'll eventually go away, and then come back to haunt us once more in 2040.
But in general I agree. And I've thought a lot about it.
Because the same thing goes for mainstream music. Growing up in the 70s, you could absolutely tell the difference in the music from two decades earlier. 50s music sounded nothing like 70s music. Same thing for the 80s, sounded nothing like the 60s. And in the 90s, it sounded very little like the 70s. But since 2000, music has been fairly static and homogenous, with few distinctive changes that would differentiate a song from 2002, from a song from 2022.
For music, I think one major driving force, is that there was a lot of technological change and advancement in instrumentation and recoding capabilities throughout the 1900s. Advances in guitars, pedals, synthesizers, sound boards, recording technology, playback technology-- all created rapid change in the way we could produce, capture, and hear recorded sound from the 1920s, all the way into the 1990s. And what went along with that, was musical experimentation and innovation and variation-- artists trying out new ideas with the new technology, and attempting to produce something original and unique. But eventually, they'd tried everything. Music couldn't really get any harder than the thrash metal and industrial electronic music of the 90s. It couldn't really get any more vulgar than the heavy metal and rap of the 90s. It couldn't really get any poppier than the boy bands and pop synth of the late 90s. Eventually, I think artists had tried pretty much everything. Modern trends of "Bro Country" with mixing more pop and heavier guitar into country music weren't new, the same thing had been done regularly in the 70s, 80s, 90s. I guess one of the more defining characteristics of the 2000s+ mainstream pop music has been the introduction of what I like to call "The Unnecessary Rap" in the middle of an otherwise extremely poppy song, but even that's not new, Blondie was doing it in 1980. So we've sort of reached this equilibrium, where pretty much all styles have been explored, all avenues tested, and although there is a massive diversity in music now compared to the 1950s, all of those various styles and sub-styles haven't changed or evolved much in 20 years.
In addition to that, I also think changes in distribution and consumption have resulted in this sort of "settling in." In days of yore, radio stations, and then MTV, were the primary drivers of what people listened to. It was all pretty homogenous but it was also a driving force-- if the radio stations decided to change the music they were delivering to you, then the very nature of what you were hearing, necessarily followed. MTV did the same thing, it actually had a pretty narrow focus on its preferred musical styles, but any time it shifted, it drove a national or even global change in the sounds people were listening to. So mainstream music had these major shifts, driven not necessarily by what the artists were doing, but by what the broadcasters were choosing to allow you to listen to. In the 80s we all had those "bootleg" tapes from our favorite bands, and they were considered a wonder, because it was a glimpse into some music that their record labels and radio stations weren't allowing us to have.
But digital delivery of media changed that. Satellite radio changed that. And most of all, the internet changed that. Instead of being forced and driven by terrestrial radio trends, or MTV, now people could directly seek out their favorite niche artists and niche bands and niche styles. There became less dominant sounds, and more variety, so there were no trends being forced onto the listening public. At first it seems like this variety should have resulted in more dynamic music evolution, but in reality I think it sort of did the opposite. More niche creation, delivery, and consumption, has resulted in less cross-pollination of musical styles. People are able to settle into whatever they like and NOT have to listen to something diverse. This isn't true across the board, some artists and some listeners crave uniqueness and seek it out. But as the definition of what is "mainstream music" broadened, the actual focus of listeners has tended to shrink. Because it can, because they're able to search out, find, and focus on very specific sounds, in a way that was never possible before.
And also, even those that desperately want to find or create new, unique styles, are running into my first point above. There really isn't much NEW, to be done, given our current technology.
Those are just some of my thoughts. I could be completely wrong. I definitely feel like my first point is a stronger driver, than my second point, but I also believe they're linked.
