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Interesting, I’d say music is a clear counterexample. I’m nostalgic for the 90s as well, but there is so much more great, diverse and wonderful music being made

Interesting, I’d say music is a clear counterexample. I’m nostalgic for the 90s as well, but there is so much more great, diverse and wonderful music being made now than ever before. Even finding it isn’t really that hard, either.

slg 3y ago
Whenever someone says a particular art form sucks now, what they are really saying is that they don't like the mainstream version of that art form. The thing about art is that people are self-motivated to make it. Sure, the financial incentives aligning with good art can help spur more of it by allowing people to dedicate their whole lives to making art. However, there is always someone making cool stuff in their free time regardless of the financial reward. There is more good art out there than any individual could possibly consume, it just becomes a little more difficult to find it when it isn't playing on the radio.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Disagree. This is a subjective dismissal for a topic that is objectively been enshitified. This isn’t “back in my day”. There is objectively less quality and massively more quantity. * With studio quality equipment being reduced to almost literally nothing anyone can be in the game. * Studios don’t need to pay to developer artists. They are entirely disposable now. * Albums aren’t at all important. There is very little in the way of major releases outside some traditional artists. Just dump a single to Spotify and walk away. * Directly from an executive that worked a major label - people that actually like music are no limited to basically just sound engineers. Everyone else has a MBA and couldn’t care less if they were making movies or music or gears. * From the same high up executive I am social with - Rap has been hit the hardest. It is objectively garbage. There are no Nas, or NWA, or Eminems coming up. The last of the actual poets that got any play at all like Kendrick for example just aren’t pushed. It comes back to quantity, but as a side note he did lament how these guys are the worst to try and deal with if they try to at all. * Automation has hit this industry with its massive influx of quantity. Basically get on Spotify and get to a level, then you’ll get an automated contact, maybe they’ll front you a few thousand at a bad deal so you can set up your own tour and make a couple dollars. If you fuck up or whatever they just move on to the next one. Literally no one cares about you until you hit a Spotify number. * previously there were things like handlers and PR. But now, as an artist you are entirely on your own. Want to do a porn or have a mental breakdown? Ok so what, you are more of a number in a system than you have ever been. There is no “guy from the label” until you are at the top Spotify tiers. * it’s not all studios and MBAs and labels. There’s a side effect going on as a culture we don’t really have a shared listening experience. Since the invention of radio, we all heard roughly the same thing at the same time. Now, kids have their on playlists and maybe they recommend some thing on that playlist to their friends, but you go one school over and they can have drastically different collections. They aren’t hearing the same song on the radio, there is no Casey Kasem‘s Top 40, everyone has been down selecting their own optimization. * trust me, if you knew my history with music, you’d be shocked as I would typically be the last person in the world to recognize any positive effects that labels and the industry had on the art. It’s strange days my man. * do you know the phrase “it takes a lifetime to make the first album, and the year to make the second”? Part of that is it your first album has so much polish. You need to hit hard to get the eye of a label. There’s no reason to hold a song back now at all, to work on it, to have versions that you’d like to hear better when you’re touring, versus on a car stereo versus in the studio… there’s no reason to polish anything anymore. You get it out you were Lisa you put it on Spotify and move along. Just like everybody else is doing. So no. Objectively, the quantity of music has grown exponentially and the overall and polish quality has gone down. I will old man shakes his fist of clouds all day, but I won’t take some thing so obvious and as many examples is this has, and just dismiss it as that.
  - slg 3y ago
    Your comment here is helping to prove my point. You are equating the music industry with music as an art form. Studio equipment being cheaper and there being no "major releases" or "shared listening experience" does not mean music today is worse. It just means the mainstream has broadened to a degree that it barely exists. Complaining about that is effectively old man yelling at clouds behavior. But if you are truly craving the mainstream shared experience, Taylor Swift is currently in the middle of the most culturally relevant concert tour in decades.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      >Taylor Swift is currently in the middle of the most culturally relevant concert tour in decades. Name another. Name one that came up in the last ten years that is at your Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, whatever pop level. Who is the biggest name in country right now and when did they come up? How about rap? You're refusing to look at it outside yourself. It's hard to say what good art it - but it's pretty damn easy to say what bad art is. I'm not talking about preference, I'm talking about "everyone is special" pushed so much that there are more than there used to be with less polish and drive. It takes a lot less talent and vision to just see that it's just being pumped out by everyone for free. The labels figured out quickly they don't need these superstars anymore. It's the effect from influencers. Or AAA movies, where is this generations DeCaprio? .... It's DeCarpio. Do you remember when Lady Gaga's dog walked was shot and the dogs stolen? That was expensive for Universal. Why bother? Remember when Britney broken and shaved her head? Who needs that? If you have 100000 gorgeous little starlets that can sing ready to replace each other, who cares if one kills someone in DUI or releases a porn/onlyfans? Why pay for PR and handlers and management when you can just replace them? And for the same reasons you don't need to invest in them for a shared cultural listening experience. Everyone can sing into equipment the Beatles would have murdered each other for then release it worldwide in the time it takes to cross abbey road. How can you not see the effect of that is lower quality?
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > It's hard to say what good art it - but it's pretty damn easy to say what bad art is. I'm not talking about preference, I'm talking about "everyone is special" pushed so much that there are more than there used to be with less polish and drive. Not only are you talking about preference, its preference for superficial marketing. > Why pay for PR and handlers and management Do these things make better art, or just better sell mediocre art?

slg 3y ago

Whenever someone says a particular art form sucks now, what they are really saying is that they don't like the mainstream version of that art form. The thing about art is that people are self-motivated to make it. Sure, the financial incentives aligning with good art can help spur more of it by allowing people to dedicate their whole lives to making art. However, there is always someone making cool stuff in their free time regardless of the financial reward. There is more good art out there than any individual could possibly consume, it just becomes a little more difficult to find it when it isn't playing on the radio.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Disagree. This is a subjective dismissal for a topic that is objectively been enshitified. This isn’t “back in my day”. There is objectively less quality and massively more quantity. * With studio quality equipment being reduced to almost literally nothing anyone can be in the game. * Studios don’t need to pay to developer artists. They are entirely disposable now. * Albums aren’t at all important. There is very little in the way of major releases outside some traditional artists. Just dump a single to Spotify and walk away. * Directly from an executive that worked a major label - people that actually like music are no limited to basically just sound engineers. Everyone else has a MBA and couldn’t care less if they were making movies or music or gears. * From the same high up executive I am social with - Rap has been hit the hardest. It is objectively garbage. There are no Nas, or NWA, or Eminems coming up. The last of the actual poets that got any play at all like Kendrick for example just aren’t pushed. It comes back to quantity, but as a side note he did lament how these guys are the worst to try and deal with if they try to at all. * Automation has hit this industry with its massive influx of quantity. Basically get on Spotify and get to a level, then you’ll get an automated contact, maybe they’ll front you a few thousand at a bad deal so you can set up your own tour and make a couple dollars. If you fuck up or whatever they just move on to the next one. Literally no one cares about you until you hit a Spotify number. * previously there were things like handlers and PR. But now, as an artist you are entirely on your own. Want to do a porn or have a mental breakdown? Ok so what, you are more of a number in a system than you have ever been. There is no “guy from the label” until you are at the top Spotify tiers. * it’s not all studios and MBAs and labels. There’s a side effect going on as a culture we don’t really have a shared listening experience. Since the invention of radio, we all heard roughly the same thing at the same time. Now, kids have their on playlists and maybe they recommend some thing on that playlist to their friends, but you go one school over and they can have drastically different collections. They aren’t hearing the same song on the radio, there is no Casey Kasem‘s Top 40, everyone has been down selecting their own optimization. * trust me, if you knew my history with music, you’d be shocked as I would typically be the last person in the world to recognize any positive effects that labels and the industry had on the art. It’s strange days my man. * do you know the phrase “it takes a lifetime to make the first album, and the year to make the second”? Part of that is it your first album has so much polish. You need to hit hard to get the eye of a label. There’s no reason to hold a song back now at all, to work on it, to have versions that you’d like to hear better when you’re touring, versus on a car stereo versus in the studio… there’s no reason to polish anything anymore. You get it out you were Lisa you put it on Spotify and move along. Just like everybody else is doing. So no. Objectively, the quantity of music has grown exponentially and the overall and polish quality has gone down. I will old man shakes his fist of clouds all day, but I won’t take some thing so obvious and as many examples is this has, and just dismiss it as that.
- slg 3y ago
  Your comment here is helping to prove my point. You are equating the music industry with music as an art form. Studio equipment being cheaper and there being no "major releases" or "shared listening experience" does not mean music today is worse. It just means the mainstream has broadened to a degree that it barely exists. Complaining about that is effectively old man yelling at clouds behavior. But if you are truly craving the mainstream shared experience, Taylor Swift is currently in the middle of the most culturally relevant concert tour in decades.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    >Taylor Swift is currently in the middle of the most culturally relevant concert tour in decades. Name another. Name one that came up in the last ten years that is at your Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, whatever pop level. Who is the biggest name in country right now and when did they come up? How about rap? You're refusing to look at it outside yourself. It's hard to say what good art it - but it's pretty damn easy to say what bad art is. I'm not talking about preference, I'm talking about "everyone is special" pushed so much that there are more than there used to be with less polish and drive. It takes a lot less talent and vision to just see that it's just being pumped out by everyone for free. The labels figured out quickly they don't need these superstars anymore. It's the effect from influencers. Or AAA movies, where is this generations DeCaprio? .... It's DeCarpio. Do you remember when Lady Gaga's dog walked was shot and the dogs stolen? That was expensive for Universal. Why bother? Remember when Britney broken and shaved her head? Who needs that? If you have 100000 gorgeous little starlets that can sing ready to replace each other, who cares if one kills someone in DUI or releases a porn/onlyfans? Why pay for PR and handlers and management when you can just replace them? And for the same reasons you don't need to invest in them for a shared cultural listening experience. Everyone can sing into equipment the Beatles would have murdered each other for then release it worldwide in the time it takes to cross abbey road. How can you not see the effect of that is lower quality?
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > It's hard to say what good art it - but it's pretty damn easy to say what bad art is. I'm not talking about preference, I'm talking about "everyone is special" pushed so much that there are more than there used to be with less polish and drive. Not only are you talking about preference, its preference for superficial marketing. > Why pay for PR and handlers and management Do these things make better art, or just better sell mediocre art?