Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Technological Incline, Musical Decline


We all heard our parents claiming that the music today is garbage; “Music back in my time was real music” or “This is not music…let me show you what music is” as they busted out an old cassette or even a record. Of course we all brushed it off, thinking our parents, even grandparents, were the ones who didn’t know what good music was. I know I did. But now when I consider the music that is coming out now, I think they might have been right. I am hip-hop, rap fan and I’m seeing a complete decline in that genre.

            While technology resulted in faster distribution and even emergence of many genres of music, the pitfalls of it are beginning to outweigh the benefits. Consider rap artist such Christopher Wallace or Tupac Amaru Shakur; their music, while not having the refining of autotune, digital equalizers, and FX effects available in multiple music creation software, had audible, meaningful, cleaver lyrics, hooks, and refrains. Now fast-forward to today with the emergence of Future, Migos, or Desiigner: you can’t even decipher what they are saying. The essence of lyrics has been replaced by base synths, rifts and loops developed by advanced music software. I find that alarming. More alarming is that people are drawn to this more than before. Is the future of music industry going to centered around rhythm tones that were virtually impossible without technology?

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