How is it that “what sounds good” changes about every decade?
What is it that changes our taste? Who decides when certain melodies or rhythms feel more right than the ones that used to work. What drives tonal taste?
You could point at any variety of culprits, but I think the most prominent of drivers is culture- specifically, youth and counter culture.
So, art forms that are most connected to their community sources seem to take turns leading the counter culture charge, ultimately driving taste. This- in my opinion- is the gold medal of artistic roles.
Music had it’s hay day in the 1960s and early 70s. Rock and Hippie culture formed distinct ideas and language that artists turned into lyrics with melody which bands wrote into music. It was a clean pipeline from the talks happening cheap apartments above The Gaslight to the performance stage at…well….The Gaslight- or CBGB years later. Artists sang the ideas back to the audience, as if to continue the conversation from a slightly higher elevation and with the added power of melodies that fit the current mood.
I think this isn’t happening anymore- not for music anyway. Youth culture, which drives artistic evolution, is largely digital now. And, without diving into the black hole of how that is definitely impacting the health of these communities, suffice it to say, they are less capable of translating cultural consensus into artistic expression than their more organic predecessors.
I think the impact can mostly be seen in how people utilize music. Music no longer leads artistic forms in speaking for the social, political, or mental perspective of a generation. That mantle is largely held by comedians these days. It’s easier to laugh at existential problems these days. Music has, instead, become an escapist tool- something sought to check out of the deeper thoughts people are bombarded with throughout the day. In that way, music’s role exists more in what it doesn’t say than what it does. There are far more topics that you can’t comfortably include in songwriting than ones you do.
Language is something we can look at as a compass for writing music. Taste and counter culture language are inexorably tied, and the language of the counter culture today is largely either sarcastic and self-deprecating or it’s feathery and white-washed. The melodies that sort of language inspires doesn’t speak well to the very real existentialism of our times. I mean- I don’t know how to melodically call a congressman “sus” without it sounding completely out of place.
But more realistically, I am saying that taste- inspired by activated community and translated into new language- lent itself to the pressing issues of previous decades. It does not now.
It leaves artists who want to talk about deeper issues in their music in a bit of a bind. One of the most common ways I’ve seen people get around it is by embodying the work that has already been done on an issue.
I saw an artist on Instagram singing a song about housing prices not 30 minutes ago. You want to guess what blue collar, working man predecessor his song sounded exactly like?…..Bruce Springsteen.
There are countless examples of this. It is, after all, easier to reference someone else’s artistic interpretation of their times than to come up with your own way to express similar current issues….details do matter though. It’s not 80s. Their melodies don’t quite work in 2023. They definitely don’t fit with 2023 language.
But, Perhaps revisiting these past forms will inspire new communities, new language, and new melodies to match them. Or maybe we will keep being cheap knock-offs of once great musical efforts that grew out of genuine cultural movements….a glaring reminder that we aren’t able to translate the issues of OUR time into relevant music.
Reminds me of what you were recently saying about politicians using old tropes and quoting the original words of past leaders during the prominent moments of their time. Post modern everything.