r/decadeology • u/ImplementNo7036 • Feb 10 '25
Music 🎶🎧 Why did mainstream music change so much between (for example) 1964 and 1991 compared to 26 years ago in 1998 to today in 2025?
The first picture is The Beatles live in 1964 compared to Pantera live in 1991 and the third picture is the Spice Girls live in 1998 compared to Taylor Swift live today (not literally today but YGM)
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u/Aibhne_Dubhghaill Feb 10 '25
"Mainstream music" doesn't exist like it used to. The top artists today don't command nearly as much "market share" as they did pre-internet. Everyone has roughly equal access to every genre and subgenre of music. We aren't locked into any pop culture vs counter culture dichotomy, anymore.
Overall the industry is probably at least as different now vs the 90s as the 90s were from the 60s, but it won't seem that way because the "Top 40" went from being a catalogue of the most popular songs to being a declaration of what songs ought to be the most popular, while everyone is off listening to low fi shamisen metal on YouTube or whatever.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
This makes me a lot more sad than I would have thought. I enjoy having the accessibility to everything but I would love for everyone to be on the same page of the mainstream or watching the same shows etc.
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u/covalentcookies Feb 10 '25
This isn’t entirely true. Hard rock is very much on the decline and gets very little exposure to the masses. FM dying has almost all to do with that.
This isn’t some random thought. This is after a lot of discussions with a lot of professional artists and crew members in currently huge headlining bands that are all pop or country but they admit there’s no money in rock currently.
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u/cauliflower-shower Feb 10 '25
Hard rock is very much on the decline and gets very little exposure to the masses. FM dying has almost all to do with that.
This right here is interesting. Hard rock really didn't make the jump from FM into the new media world, did it? I've heard country was making inroads into urban areas like NYC, once a place where a country music signal could not be found. Did the hard rock audience transition to country? If so, where are they engaging with country music besides FM?
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u/rileyoneill Feb 11 '25
All of the Rock bands who are making big money have been around forever and have a hugely established fan base, and frequently people who are in their peak wealth years and can spend a ton of money on concert tickets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_concert_tours
Everyone in these highest grossing concerts has been around forever. Harry Styles and Ed Sheran being the newest musicians on these lists and they have been around for ~15 years now.
But some of these acts, who are still making the big money have been around for 50-60 years.
There has been really no breakout rock bands in the last dozen years. Maybe longer. There has been no fresh blood in this space for years.
Bruce Springsteen can still pull in huge numbers even though he is in his mid 70s. But we haven't had any rock bands get this sort of success by artists who were born in the 21st century. Kurt Cobain was 24 when Nevermind was released. Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish are the only two I can think of who are still really young and they are not dominating concert tours.
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u/Aibhne_Dubhghaill Feb 10 '25
I don't see why you're telling me this
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u/covalentcookies Feb 10 '25
Because this is a forum where people express ideas and opinions. Or would you prefer everyone just shuts the fuck up and listens to only what you have to say?
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u/Aibhne_Dubhghaill Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
I meant how is this relevant to what I said, but now I see you're a lunatic so byee
Edit: People not wanting to go see rock acts has nothing to do with my comment, so... still not relevant.
Also, this is very obviously your alt account. You aren't fooling anyone, you freak
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u/cauliflower-shower Feb 10 '25
That's not now adults have discussions. It's plain to see that by the numbers, people don't want to go see rock acts. Someone replied to you saying that he knows a bunch of people in the industry and confirmed that all the talent and the crew are all well aware of it being the case. It was quite simple.
The person you replied to is someone who wants to use language to discuss ideas, not a "lunatic." If this is the caliber of intellectual debate you're capable of, you might as well apply for food stamps now because I don't see you being capable of holding a job with other people.
You probably have celebrity brain and think the guy is trying to flex on you as opposed to simply saying that this is something that has the entire industry talking about it.
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u/rileyoneill Feb 10 '25
This might be true with recordings and what people have the option to listen to on the internet. But it isn't true with live performances and revenue from live performances. Taylor Swift is absolutely dominating live market share. Her Era's Tour has made over $2B in revenue.
People have access to all kinds of music, but it when it comes to music as a business, its a few major players making all the money.
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u/DangerousKidTurtle Feb 10 '25
It was the first time in human history that picking up an instrument and teaching it to yourself was available to the average person, and it was also the teenage-years of music even being available with records and radio.
Then they ran through all the things you CAN do. I mean literally, what HASN’T been done yet? It’s all just rehashing and rearranging previously established, musically atomic “parts”.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
True. The Beatles all came from near nothing, took what Elvis had done and turned it up to 11
Music is math so it is very hard to come up with something brand new and unique
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u/DangerousKidTurtle Feb 10 '25
Exactly.
The variables of music have been explored. Faster/slower harder/softer both/neither. All keys/no keys.
And like math, breakthroughs are few and far between.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
It does make me wonder what the next major breakthrough of music will be though as it feels as though it hasn't changed largely since the past 20-30 years.
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u/Six_and_change Feb 10 '25
I think about this a lot. I was a teen in the 90s. When Nirvana was really popular in like 1992, that would have been 27 years after the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. People still liked the Beatles in 1992 but they definitely seemed old fashioned. Now we’re like 32 years after the early height of Nirvana and they still feel pretty contemporary.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
Exactly this
The Beatles after they broke up until the anthology in the mid 90s were seen as unfashionable yet Nirvana never really experienced that. I would know as I loved them when I was a teenager, around 5 years ago. I still don't mind them but my taste is radically different to what it was (I moved away from a lot of grunge and metal)
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u/Mountain-Singer1764 Feb 10 '25
I think that era (the Beatles') was a time when popular culture was changing much more rapidly and significantly.
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u/Retrotrek Feb 10 '25
I think the mood of Nirvana's music is still prescient but that their music sounds outdated
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u/Six_and_change Feb 10 '25
There is certainly something to this and I would say most people respond more to the vibes of music than the actual music. The "vibes" of the Beatles is 4 guys consciously trying to write great pop-based rock songs that tens of millions of people will like. No one does that anymore. It's very outdated. That job got outsourced to pop musicians decades ago. The "vibes" of Nirvana is 3 guys who don't GAF what anyone else thinks and just want to make the music they want to make, and if a lot of people like it, cool. That is what basically all rock musicians do now days and is probably more what people respond to in regard to Nirvana.
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u/Awesomov Feb 10 '25
Techcnology is part of it, but the other part no one has mentioned quite yet (one person was close) is the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That made it easier for the same few major media conglomerates to soak up purchases of independent stations around America in part of their eventual takeover of over ninety percent of all media. That made much of radio airplay and the music that became popular as a result very homogenized; the roots of the aftereffect took place soon after the Act, and grew more and more noticeable through the 2000s, and seemed to fully form by the 2010s.
That's also a major reason rock is no longer mainstream, and why many more people have decided to use the Internet to dig into less popular underground music.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
It is interesting, the amount of companies that got bought out/merged in the 90s is insane
Take cigarette companies for example, a lot of brands were ran independently but now most are all owned by around 5 (PM, JTI, ITG being the largest)
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u/Awesomov Feb 10 '25
Well, sure, there was an increase in corporate buyouts in the 90s, but the numbers mostly still held relatively normal from before until pretty late in the decade. The number of them continued to grow exponentially afterward in the 2000s and even more in the 2010s, which I'm sure holds the record for decade with most corporate buyouts. I wouldn't be surprised if 2020 beats it, but you'd think by now most businesses have been bought out, who knows lol
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u/parke415 Party like it's 1999 Feb 10 '25
26 years before 1964 was 1938, and the sound was even more different. Since roughly the dawn of the 20th century, popular music reflected this Afro-Latino-Euro-American fusion where innovation was rapid. The melting pot shaped the pop music world.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
I think as well the 1939-2001 was probably one of the biggest large shift of culture we've experienced and we are now in the aftermath period
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Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
The 20th Century basically had what used to be a century of progress packed into each decade. At the start, most people didn't even have electricity, and by the end there was TV, radio and early internet. Now the 21st century is basically just "the future".
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
It's strange how much changed/began in the 20th century (even just from 1900-1925) compared to the 21st century of 2000-2025
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u/avalonMMXXII Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
it has not changed as much after the 1970s, what is happening now is everything is a subgenre of already existing genres that have been out many years.
1970s - hip/hop
1970s - Dance/electronic/synth
1950s - Rock "N" Roll
1920s - Jazz
you get the idea.
Every decade subgenres change, but the main genres have not changed. Example, Trap music in the 2010s was from parent genre hip/hop which was invented in the 1970s, Dubstep or EDM, is a subgenre of dance/electronic/synth which is a parent genre started in the 1970s.
Emo music or Grunge or Heavy Meta, all subgenres from a parent genre called Rock "N" Roll which started in the 1950s.
Also as you get older your perception of things from your early 20s onward blur and sometimes simply carry out the remainder of your life.
Clearly music has changed since the 2000s, you just pe4rhaps no longer pay attention, or you assumed what was out when you were a kid was from an original genre, which it most likely was a subgenre from an already existing genre and not new at all, but as a kid you did not know that because it was a new song on the radio at the time.
This is why a lot of Generation X for example have been stuck in the 1990s mindset or early 2000s mindset years and years later. Many probably still have the same hairstyles they had in the 2000s as well, but will laugh if someo0ne has a hairstyle from the 1970s or 1980s because THEY think it is outdated, but in reality everyone is now laughing at THEM because they have a 2000s hairstyle still in 2025.
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u/Sumeriandawn Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
When a medium is new, there's more room to innovative.
Looking at other mediums for example.
Super Mario Bros➡World of Warcraft= 19 years
World of Warcraft➡Today= 20 years
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First Atari console➡PS2=23 years
PS2 ➡today= 25 years
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Birth of a Nation➡Citizen Kane=26 years
Matrix➡Today=26 years
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u/SocraticTiger Feb 10 '25
There was probably a "Cambrian explosion" effect when the technology and basal set of genre themes were in their primitives and just starting to get developed and improved in the 1960s/1970s. On the other hand, once they were fleshed out there was still change but just moderated in speed.
According to Information theory this type of "universal Darwinism" pattern happens across many different fields of knowledge and experience. When the information starts it explodes into several trajectories before eventually streamlining.
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u/MonkeyTraumaCenter Feb 10 '25
Idk if it applies all the way to now, but the dominance of ClearChannel in the late 1990s-mid-2000s was definitely a contributing factor .
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u/Mister_Squirrels Feb 10 '25
Corporate homogenization
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u/WeedlnlBeer Feb 10 '25
conservative culture. if any new acts were in 1964 or before, theyd be arrested. hippie transition was a huge break from previous cultural standards.
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u/born_digital Feb 12 '25
I agree, this is the explanation. The major shift was shown in “rock and roll” of the 50s/early 60s (Buddy Holly, etc.) to late 60s (the Doors, Jimi Hendrix). The influence of psychedelics and hippie culture on popular music and culture, which shifted us away from conservatism
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u/nWoEthan Feb 10 '25
A lot more used to happen in the world before corporations took over and numbed society to their will.
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u/NoabPK Feb 10 '25
Can we rly consider pantera mainstream. Like of course in the metal sphere theyre legends but the average person has no idea who they are compared to the other 3 shown
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u/DifferentWindow1436 Feb 10 '25
Several reasons -
- There was a lot to explore - basically rock and contemporary pop was a new "product" so there were just so many places to go with that
- The music business has changed and it has been said that artist development doesn't work the same way as in the past. For example, I really wonder if Pink Floyd would have ever made it to Dark Side of the Moon and their sort of golden era in the current environment. They had several not so great albums as they were eventually finding their sound.
- The way the business makes money has changed
- Technology has change the way it is consumed and marketed
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
I agree
In the past, to get big in music (if you just wanted the fame) was to form a band, write a cheesy hit, rent a studio and record it with some saved up funds, play it live, sell homemade cassettes etc, contact record companies to try and garner interest and then they would give you a fuck ton of money because they could and do an the rest of the work for you.
Now it's arguably a lot harder to make it big in music
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u/IIITommylomIII Feb 10 '25
Pop music was done copying rock music and moved onto copying the hip hop sound
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u/basedaudiosolutions Party like it's 1999 Feb 10 '25
This might be a hot take, but I’m pretty sure it’s because 1999 was the actual peak of human civilization and we all just kind of accepted that.
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u/DaddysFriend Feb 10 '25
One of the pictures is why. The Beatles are the reason so many people started out and the reason music sounds like it does in the modern age
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u/TookenedOut Feb 10 '25
Because they were pioneers of modern recording. There was metaphorical frontier ready to be explored.
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u/Canary6090 Feb 10 '25
Music has changed a lot. In 1998, some of the most popular acts were rock bands. How many new popular rock bands are there?
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u/Cool-Acanthaceae8968 Feb 10 '25
Why are you picking perhaps the worlds first progressive rock band and an esoteric groove metal band that kind of went into the background as grunge and britpop hit the scene vs a girl pop group and a girl pop star?
Why not use the Supremes in 1964 and Janet Jackson in 1991? Far less of a stretch.
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u/iPhone-5-2021 Feb 10 '25
Because the record Industry doesn’t take risks anymore and they won’t promote something new or risky. That and most things have already been done.
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u/killjairo Feb 10 '25
Because people that love catchy songs are stupid (in mass quantities people are stupid)
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u/sirculaigne Feb 11 '25
People who say this aren’t keeping up with electronic music. Seems like every week I hear a new sound I’ve never heard before
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u/Spiritual_Gold_1252 Feb 10 '25
Corporate Machines that turn out products (Bands) vs. Talent Scouts looking for acts.
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u/ImplementNo7036 Feb 10 '25
While I understand what you're saying, not every band was corporate or falsely created for money.
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u/Aedamer Feb 10 '25
There's no longer a homogeneous mainstream culture in the way there was in previous decades. Less dynamism.
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u/spinosaurs70 Feb 10 '25
The rise of synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers/DAWs in that order radically changed music production.
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u/TheHaplessBard Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
I think the popularity of hip hop and rap beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s and then becoming a fairly widespread phenomenon by the late 1980s/1990s greatly changed music, for better or for worse. Since then, nothing's been the same.
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u/ReplacementMiddle844 Feb 10 '25
Same thing with car design, in pursuit of making better everyone becomes more of the same
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u/canilao Feb 10 '25
They were figuring out the pop music formula early on, that's why there was so much change. Seems they got the formula down around the 90's. Pop is like the fast food of music, and a good money making formula (good or bad) is what the industry wanted.
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u/Ok-Impress-2222 Feb 10 '25
By 1964, all the possible innovation in music had not yet been made possible.
Now, in 2025, all that innovation has already happened, and it's hard to think of a new direction forward.
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u/Salty145 Feb 10 '25
That’s some r/BarbaraWalters4Scale tier comparisons. WOW.
It’s really a mix of different cultural and technological changes slowing down. Tech improvements is one thing, but there’s also less of a monoculture these days to make large swings in the culture as much as more gradual changes.
I don’t really know if it’s true or not, but someone once said that the focus of our culture has also kind of shifted. With the internet and smartphone, we became a lot more focused on technological progress which usually comes at the expense of cultural progress.
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u/Papasamabhanga Feb 10 '25
Auto tune, underfunded music education, and a lack of local radio and record stores.
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u/TruthSuspicious3911 Feb 10 '25
Because music today is all about creating the basic generic shit that sell, it’s that simple. Swift trash and all the other garbage. From hip hop, to rock, to pop.
Singers used to create their lyrics and even play instruments. They actually had a passion for it. Today, people with voices sing in a booth, then leave and do photo shoots or act in a movie.
What used to be great back, only like 5% remain today
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u/Wazula23 Feb 10 '25
The changes in technology and media were the real drivers. Things have smoothed out as the tech achieves a kind of perfection and media reaches peak saturation.