Old Songs, New Songs, Keep On Singing . . .

Ted Gioia, a music writer, recently caused a stir with his article in The Atlantic, "Is Old Music Killing New Music?" Gioia noted that most songs streamed on the Internet are old songs, with tracks 18 months old or newer accounting for only about 5 percent of all songs streamed.  Record stores - those that are still left - market classic rock and classic soul LPs over new releases, while radio stations stick with the tried and proven in their formats.

Gioia has even made a provocative statement regarding artists and repertoire agents at record companies - they're too afraid to sign new artists who might shake things up not just because they're too afraid to take chances but they're even afraid that any demos they send in could feature music sounding very similar to something that's already out there - and provoke copyright lawsuits. You can read the whole article here.

Gioia does point out that many new artists are out there, offering an alternative to the pop records on the radio today that young audiences supposedly crave, but that they're simply hard to find because they don't get promoted.  I agree with that.  I've heard several new artists on public music stations and on Sirius XM who ought to be more popular than they actually are.  And I've noted before how I've seen young people on the street walking around wearing T-shirts of bands that broke up long before they were born.  If more record companies signed bands and solo artists that made the same kind of music that fans of "classic" pop like - the sort of music that grabs you and sticks with you for a great guitar riff or maybe a cool lyrical phrase - the record business would be better off.

I'd go farther than Gioia, of course, in explaining the lack of interest in new music.  I'll come right out and say it - today's hit music, the music that actually gets on the charts, is mostly mass-produced, lightweight, auto-tuned pop and rap that is devoid of all melody and musical expertise . . . but we're not allowed to say so because of political correctness.  Rap, still popular after forty-odd years, remains a mostly black pop form, while mainstream pop is dominated by post-feminist divas who present an image of independence and strength, White males who don't like any of that crap won't call such performers out on their musical charlatanism because if they do, they'll be seen as racist or misogynistic.  Boy "bands" (they actually don't play their own instruments) were always good to finger as a reason for the decline and fall of popular music, but now the latest such act is from South Korea, so no one wants to be seen as having an anti-Asian bias.  Oh, for the days when we could pick on New Kids On the Block or the Backstreet Boys without fear of being accused of bigotry!

And even though I could cite several non-white and or female artists I like because they make substantial music that isn't merely meant to be a backdrop for offensive promotional videos or for dance clubs - in fact, I've done so here before - I won't, because I'll be accused of "rockism," that lame theory that any criticism of music made with synthesizers and autotuning with, say, six songwriters and eight producers (or vice versa) for a single or for a whole album by a pop idol is a form of musical elitism.  Heck, if the Backstreet Boys were around today and I bashed them, someone would still accuse me of being "rockist."

I don't know how we save popular music going forward.  The Internet is going to continue to allow new musical artists to put their work online without making much money, and no one is going to help promote them.  Perhaps record companies would take more chances looking for new music if they weren't so big.  Perhaps if they had more taste, they'd give us performers worthy of their signing bonuses rather than scam artists who put out any old bit of noise for a fast buck.  We need more George Martins and Clive Davises if we're going to get more Paul McCartneys and Janis Joplins. We need another Berry Gordy to find the next Smokey Robinson.  But then, the Beatles, Janis and Smokey are more profitable these days than new artists, as are numerous singer-songwriters of yore; why do you think Bob Dylan and Paul Simon sold their songwriting catalogs for spectacularly large sums? 

The most obvious sign that music fans don't care about what's current is the continuously declining viewership of the Grammy Awards.  The ratings have fallen so much over the past several years that when COVID delayed the 2022 Grammys to April, no one cared.  Which makes sense, considering the most memorable moments at the Grammys of the past decade.  When you tune in to the Grammys, you might see an obnoxious female rapper turned TV actress officiate a mass wedding.  You might see Kanye West walk onstage to protest when a white male artist wins an Album of the Year Grammy (assuming a white guy even gets nominated for Album of the Year Grammy anymore, never mind wins).  You might see Hillary Clinton make a cameo appearance on film to read a passage from a book about Donald Trump.  You might get the kind of obscene burlesque that Cardi B and that horse chick Megan performed together last year.  You certainly don't experience any moment having to do with . . . the music.

I hope good new music - what there is of it - will rise to the top like cream . . . or Cream.  Or Traffic.  But until then, I think I'll just entertain myself with repeated listenings of Sirius XM's Beatles Channel or my copy of Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, thank you very much.