Honza

I don't really know what I'm talking about, so bear with me.....lol.

It seems as though music goes through phases. Those phases usually start with a musical innovation or breakthrough; such as The Beatles started modern pop or rock, or the Sex Pistols started punk etc. (generally speaking of course).

The last big innovation that I can think of was the Dance Music craze of the late '90s and the noughties. However Dance music seems to have died a tortured death.

So where do you think the next big innovation or step forward will happen? Is it already happening? I reckon that electronic music could go places we haven't been before. I think it has a lot of potential for the future.

Or will the next big trend or step forward happen in another category of music? Thanks for your thoughts!

Soulflower

Are you talking about innovation in musical genres or the next groundbreaking musical act?

I say no to both. There is not going to be any innovation any time soon the way the mainstream music industry has been going over the last 15 years.

The music industry of today is a business. It doesnt care about quality music, talent, innovation etc. It just cares about making as much money as possible. Its always been a business but nowadays you dont really need talent or a quality record to be a superstar. The industry is geared toward marketing and promotion and the public doesn't have much input on how successful a song becomes like they once did.



At this point, I am more concerned about the quality of music and talent versus innovation because everything has already been done already. Todays artists are just repeating sounds and music that has already been done (not that that is necessarily a bad thing either).

I like to see the industry give more creative artists a platform to shine instead of the corporate puppets. Thats why it seems the industry is so small because they constantly shove the same boring artists down our ears. If they marketed someone like Jack White and gave him a platform I'm sure he would be more popular. His music might would start a trend for other artists. I liked to see him and Janelle Monae become bigger acts because I think they have it in them to do something original and they just make creative music which industry needs right now.

Honza

Either would do.

What about the independent record labels.....surely they allow for innovation? Maybe the big corporations control the pop music, but there is a lot of music which is not under their control being produced on the sidelines. Like the GlobalUnderground label for Dance music. Or Nuclear Blast label for Rock/Metal etc. Both of these labels released innovative records.

There is even a record label called Paganscum which release Omnia albums, who are very original and are beyond any control.....lol.

Honza

I think that is just how it seems; but surely everything has NOT already been done. Who knows in what new directions music may turn in the future?

RoxyRollah

Freebase Dali's new single....will blow yer ****in mind....Can you say chart topper?

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Sculptor

I say music that will help in the spiritual awakening and just really positive and energetic music.

Trillian

The music industry has always been a business, and most of the innovators have been underground artists/not very well known at the time. You could pull out examples like The Beatles and say that they were innovative and extremely popular at the time, but The Beatles got popular because they started out making lowest common denominator pop music. They only started experimenting once they had gained popularity. Most innovators aren't well known when they're creating the best stuff because the majority of casual music listeners don't want to hear something challenging, they want to hear something they can sing along to. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just music made with a different goal in mind.

I mean, the casual music listener didn't know about the Velvet Underground when they were actually making music, but now I'd venture to say that anyone who listens to music much outside of top 40s stuff has heard of them jsut because so many bands list them as an influence. Innovators usually gain notoriety way after the fact because innovators tend to inspire other artists to further develop genres, not casual music listeners. It's usually too far-fetched for a casual music listener.

And as far as getting more creative artists into the mainstream, I don't really see Jack White or Janelle Monae as being unusually creative. I really enjoy their music because both of them do what they do very well, but as far as a breakthrough? Neither of them are really doing anything groundbreaking. And I'd also say that both of them are pretty popular already. Maybe not as popular as One Direction, but I'd say when you can get whole football stadiums to sing the riff to Seven Nation Army you're pretty popular. And Janelle was on SNL not too long ago.

There always have been and always will be corporate puppets in the mainstream, we just don't remember the puppets from a long time ago because they didn't have a huge impact on music. And now that effect may be slightly more pronounced because the internet has allowed innovative independent artists to become popular that way, so we don't have to rely on the radio to give us good music. We can discover and diversify our interests on our own, which I think is 100 times better than having to wait forever for someone decent to gain mainstream recognition.

Honza

Great post Trillian, thanks......

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Whatever the next innovation in popular music will be, it won't be very popular/mainstream, because the majority of people prefer simpler music they can understand. When the "innovations" were still relatively simple things, then they were fairly popular. Once they became more complex (no where else to go), they increasingly went to the fringe.

Think of Beethoven being popular even compared to simpler Mozart and Bach, but once it got to atonal modern classical music, its popularity waned. Same pattern has already been happening with pop music.

It's why Adele is really popular, but Animal Collective isn't.

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Stop and find a pretty shell for her
Beach Boys vs Beatles comparisons begin here

Tristesse

Slough will be known around the world for its music in the next few years, I guarantee it. A lot of good songwriters came from ****holes and had awful childhoods, so it's only a matter of time.

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