“They just don’t make good music anymore…”
Everyone’s heard it… The thought has popped up repetitively for those of us who find ourselves enamored by classic tunes… The question is if it’s valid statement, or if it’s just a cliché complaint coupled with stubborn nostalgia.
Last year in February, ITunes announced the total sale of 25 billion songs since its creation in 2003. From the year 2004 to 2009, about 30 billion songs were downloaded illegally. (5 billion more songs have been downloaded illegally in half the years ITunes has existed.)
Other multi-millionaire companies like Amazon.com and Spotify have found themselves overwhelmingly successful in the selling of every kind of music imaginable. All this doesn’t take into account the growing number of successful musicians surfacing, and the many TV shows and businesses centered on finding the next big artist.
There should be no question for the growing demand and supply of fresh music. Technology and accessibility might also be a factor, but is there less talent now than there was in the past decades?
Has mankind reached the ultimate pinnacle of talent and is just now beginning the descent? As drastic as that sounds, I believe the answer is a saying originated in ancient Greece. Found true to Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, and the philosopher David Hume, is the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Admitting that music isn’t as good as it once was, is like trying ice-cream for the first time, never to move on from the flavor vanilla. It’s like wearing clogs your whole life because they’re comfortable. It’s like taking the same road every day and never straying from the same parking spot. It’s like having a painfully awkward first kiss, and then committing to being single forever. It’s like buying the Louvre because you like the bathrooms.
Complacency in today’s plethora of musical revolution is in its very own degree of despair.
Music is a reflection on society in itself, the many different turns and innovations will turn into a new album or style of music. It’s constantly evolving just like we are. Is there anything original and sweetly addicting anymore? Is there even any new thoughts or thinking anymore? Is it all a copy or mashup of something that’s been done before?
There are 7 billion humans on this planet, which means 7 billion new thought processes 70,000 times a day. Think of this over the course of a century.
There will always be the musically inclined who spend the majority of their thoughts on what they love to do and what we love to hear. The changes of each day accumulate in the limitless space that is our future. Every new day is filled with new sets of variables and factors that make every second a multitude of outcomes.
What you need is that hunger for music, that hole that can only be filled with the search for the perfect song. You need appreciation for the sounds musicians coax out of their instruments and vocals with passion and seemingly invisible effort. You need to hear the final song without thinking, just be delightfully lost in the golden weave of raw talent and something you can’t quite place.
Pure, unparalleled bliss is the feeling of listening to a song for the first time, and being left in the trailing dust of pure gold perfection. It’s worth it to take a step outside of familiar and comfortable, and into the world of new music. Music that feels with you, draws on the eerie coincidences of human thinking, feels for you, and makes you feel supremely alive.
Give each new day the opportunity to impress you with only the ways new music can, and to borrow the words from a golden oldie by Abba and remix them for my sake, “Come on, give me a break will you? Take a chance on me.”
