What's going on with mainstream music nowadays?
I'm someone who loves all kinds of music across many genres and eras, but I’ve started to realize I mainly listen to music from the 1950s up to mid/late 2010s. The more I think about it, the more I feel that mainstream music has lost its spark. A lot of it feels lifeless, and I don’t jump to listen to new releases like I used to. Instrumentals don’t feel as intricate and intentional like they used to, most of them are loops instead of layered production and experimenting with different sounds. Vocal performance is lacking and artists are not playing around enough, there’s not much vocal stacking, harmonies, dynamic, artists are not doing as much like they used to compared to older music. Mixing has become so polished that the personality and rawness in these songs are gone. Song structures are predictable following the verse, pre chorus, chorus, verse, pre chorus, chorus, chorus, outro formula, and 1-2 minutes long songs have become normalized. Albums are becoming large playlists for streaming and losing the artistic part of them (themes, storytelling etc.), Songs are mostly being used as viral moments giving the artists 5 minutes of fame because of a 15 second snippet played 100 times and then everyone moves on in a few months and the songs being forced onto the public (specifically pop music) sounds like 80s inspired music that only plays in H&M. I could honestly keep going but the point is, music nowadays sounds lifeless and flat. I know that there are artists that don’t align with this at all and there’s good modern music if you go looking, but majority of mainstream music makes me feel this way. I'm scared for what music will become in the future.