> you have to digress from the norm to be relevant while staying within the lines to be part of the genre, and eventually you end up with garbage. > nobody's g

> you have to digress from the norm to be relevant while staying within the lines to be part of the genre, and eventually you end up with garbage. > nobody's giving awards to derivative and boring, so guess what you're going to see lots of. I get what you are saying about incentives here (I think). But this may be too cynical and simplistic a way to look at pressures in art creation. There are lots of artists simply trying to find their way and make new work that contributes to the ongoing development of their medium. At one point harmony itself was frowned upon in Western music. Many of the great classical composers wrote music that was controversial at the time because of how they extended the use of harmony beyond the comfort level of the previous generation. I'm not saying you have to like all the modern stuff, but it's possible to approach it with much less cynicism. Many of our favorite historical composers were pushing the medium in their day. We might have a bit of selection bias too in that it is mostly the music that became culturally accepted that we still have access to. Lots of modern art and music doesn't land for me, but sometimes it really does and I'm grateful for it.