music industry
Is popular music getting worse?: Structural analysis
The room In 2023, ten writers had co-written the majority of Billboard Top 40 hits across pop and country. They worked in rooms — literally rooms on Music Row — where two to six writers assemble a track in a single session, each contributing a hook or cadence optimized for a... Is popular music getting worse?: The Story
Three chords, sixteen weeks Morgan Wallen’s "Last Night" was the number-one song in America for sixteen weeks in 2023. Three chords. No key change. Dynamic range of 6 dB — the loudest moment and the quietest are about as far apart as two people talking at slightly different... Introduction to Drivetime
International Recording Artist Drivetime nominated for the HMMA award and winner of the 2025 Silver Global Music Award has become recognized around the world with back-to-back singles and CD’s for over twenty years.... What are your thoughts on the Grammys?
I do not think the voting members of the Recording Academy are accurately reflecting who is really listening to and enjoying the music out there today. They may be industry insiders, but most of us are not.... Payola is killing indie artists
Payola poses a significant danger to the integrity of the music industry! When financial transactions overshadow true talent, it erodes authentic artistry and robs listeners of genuine voices. We must demand transparency and fairness in music!... Yeah, we are gonna be alright but it’s gonna take more. I like em... but the bar for "conscious Hip Hop" is very low. You're only gonna get truly revolutionary bars that challenge the system from artists that the corporations are scared to touch.
There are quality MCs out there, keeping the skills alive. Like its been mentioned tho, the bar is so low and the market is so flooded, "casual" listeners dont have the same standards as those immersed in the culture.... IP is a boomer concept in the age of abundance. This is a hot take that really has me thinking.
I generally feel negatively toward Kyle for a myriad of reasons, but this is a really interesting proposal.I’m still noodling on it. Thought I’d share so others can join me in the noodling.
If the AI knows who to replicate, it knows who to compensate. Spotify compensates the artists who put their music on spotify. AI companies are sitting on piles of cash, directly replicating art via specific consumer demand, and it would be very simple to provide compensation to... benefits of not valuing paying more for quality services? . Was thinking about AI contributing to lower service rates by humans. I feel tension around this inevitable happening and had an insight that since we are moving toward lower costs, this could help usher in Universal Basic Income, a world where we don’t need to worry about how much we are making anyways. Does this make sense? It’s longterm though and there’s still a current today ouch to it all.
It’s kind of like how the music industry had to find new stability when there was free access to songs (Napster, Youtube…) and there was a need to find a new way to relate to marketing and sales. It feels like that. Where’s the new ground here? That’s the ouch.... I want this tech for music. I have such specific tastes in music, I want to be able to find the people who also find stuff I dig. Like the ultimate version of Pandora. But also the ability to collaborate on music, like the way producers alter songs to the flavor they like, but a bunch of folks could do that process on a song to crowdsource cool songs.
Like what Rick Rubin does. As far as I know he has never written or recorded a song of his own, but he has been a key part of the creation and recording process of an incredibly wide range of genres and a stunning number of the best albums of their time....