The music (or movie) industry keep pushing the same artist. And so, for reasons, those artists stay popular.
The whole “were in a cultural stagnation” from the article make no sense. New music is written everyday, each years see amazing artist with novel ideas and approach. But there is a whole industry that’s so risk adverse that it prefer recycling the same old shit than to innovate.
Stop watching Netflix, listening to Spotify, going to that big chain theater, ect. Experiment with small music venue, indie movies festivals, etc. It’s uncomfortable to watch a movie that doesn’t follow the mainstream canvas, sometime it suck, sometime it’s amazing!
Oh yes, recently took the plunge and cancelled my Spotify subscription (member since invite days 2007~) turning to bandcamp instead and God, what a a fresh breeze of air it’s been so far. Tons of great new music from mostly “no names”. Somewhat worried that Epic games who recently bought Bandcamp will introduce some NFT crap and or gameify the whole thing into mehh (missing the word ATM haha).
The Spotify algorithms had sort of trapped it self into some loop and I kept being bombarded with good old comfortable music which I’ve heard thousands of times. If it dared to try and introduce something new it was extremely dumb trying to shill some youngster pop crap seemingly straight from the top 100s.
Ho no. I had forgotten about bandcamp buy.
Unfortunatly, Spotify fit into the way most people listen to music most of the time. Like a perpetual soundtrack curated for your activities and mood (there is a great article about this but i cannot find it from my phone), replacing the radio, ubiquitous, always with you. It’s really powerful.
I don’t know what offer you have on the FM but in my city there are an university and an associative radio with awesome programs. I’ve discovered great artists and genres like that.
Radio is abysmal here in Stockholm. All of it Clear Channel BS, no edge, all vanilla.
Radio is terrible all over Germany.
Same in my country. I actually get annoyed when I hear someone turn on the radio, because it feels like listening to the same five songs all day long.
he, that sucks.
if you’re fine with a bit of french https://www.radiopanik.org/
I don’t think it is as simple as that. In the end the industry also reacts to wider market trends and is only partially responsible for the decline of innovation supply side.
And that old, rehashed cultural ideas (music, movie what ever) are more popular then ever does carry cultural and societal significance.
Let’s talk in real term and not in abstraction “industry”, “market trend”.
Netflix and spotify are two huge cultural corporations. Their products are basically complexes recommandations engines. Netflix even drive scenaristics choice with AI. An algorithm do not seek risk, novelty, surprises, it is optimized for satisfaction of the audience.
On nostalgia in culture I would recommend reading retromania by Reynolds
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/retromania-by-simon-reynolds-book-review.html
Well, old catalogues are now financial investments owned by hedge funds. All thanks to copyright.
Every big budget movie this year is either a reboot, sequel, prequel, remake, or brand extension.
Yup, stopped going to the movies exactly because of this, the last movie I saw in a cinema was Demon Slayer lmfao, hey at least that’s new, but even that’s part of a francise…miss original movies, miss them a lot.
On the music end, I haven’t listened to new music in so long, outside of new releases from bands I’ve been listening to. But I think the idea that big pop hits are the same old same old is something that’s been explored.
Oh, no! It’s possible and easier than ever to listen to both new and old music!
Wait, do you mean to tell me people mostly listen to stuff they like and know already? And that young people sometimes explore tunes from the past? How unexpected! How awful! Creativity is dead! Our culture is in decline!
The whole bit about cinematic reboots is a different and worse trend, but ultimately a separate issue, because they are new works.
I’d hate to tell the author that people like watching the same movies and shows they have already seen year after year, too.
