I was thinking about buying a seperate cheap phone solely to store mp3 files in so I can connect it to anything anywhere i go.

I just think that paying for a subscription isn't the move as of lately and most of that money doesn't even go to the artist to begin with. Only problem would be having to update your music files after a certain amount of years once the hardware degrades, and avoiding dropping your phone into a pit of lava or something

Janet Jackson is recognized by many to be one of the most influential popstars of the 20th century. She has been one of the few artists to produce 10 (or more) #1 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 alongside her peers (Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney, so on).

However, her streams across major streaming services such as YouTube and Spotify seem to be quite lackluster. Janet's most viewed solo single on YouTube as of late, Rhythm Nation, only has 34M views. Her Spotify streams are quite unimpressive; none of her top songs have surpassed 200M streams. For someone who's one of the most prolific popstars of her time, you'd naturally expect that she'd receive similar amounts of streams/views as her peers have.

Just to be clear, I don't intend to say her music is objectively bad for questioning as to why her music didn't age as well as her peers' did, at least streaming-wise to be specific, And I know that streaming stats aren't always the be-all and end-all but still, one would expect her to share similar numbers with her peers such as Celine, Whitney, and Mariah given everything she has achieved in her music career. Even Prince who has less #1's than Janet has far more streams and monthly listeners than Janet despite the fact that his music was unavailable on Spotify and perhaps other streaming services for quite a while.

Do you happen to know why this seems to be the case for Janet?

P.S. I have no intention of throwing shade or instigating a takedown against her. I view her as one of the influential popstars of the 20th century. Nevertheless, I can't help but be curious as to why there's a notable disparity between her successful music career and the public's reception to her music nowadays.

I think a lot of people realize how low ratings on RYM are compared to other websites. On Album of the Year, the highest rated album is rated 8.9/10, but on RYM the album is only rated 8.1/10. This is likely due to the 5 star rating system, which can be a bit harsh, encouraging users to give a lower score than how they actually feel sometimes. But this can't be the only case, because websites like IMDb use a similar rating system, yet content is rated much higher on IMDb. So my question is, how come albums are rated so low on RYM?

Something that I recently noticed is that a lot of disco songs tend to have fairly unmemorable verses, as opposed to their typically catchy choruses. Usually, when I'm listening to a disco song, it either doesn't really have traditional verses, or verses that I almost immediately forget about after listening to said song. Is there a reason behind this, or do I simply have a skill issue? Thank you. :)

Also, I'm aware that not every disco song is like this. I find the verses to "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire to be very memorable. :)

Thinking about how there is so much space in the industry for female artists with ‘small’ or ‘baby’ voices. Clairo, Adrianne lenker, beabadobee , Gracie Abrams , Tate McRae, Cults lead singer, Billie eilish (tho she has kinda proven she has more dynamic vocals) , Faye Webster, men I trust lead vocalist, ravyn lenae etc just to name a few!

Why are we obsessed with this style of female vocals? Is it it’s adjacent to childishness that is intriguing? We seem to be past the age of the female vocal powerhouse. Witney Mariah Beyoncé Christina type vocals seem to be out of style now and we are so drawn to female vocalists with unimpressive ranges, limited dynamics , and somewhat monotonous vocal delivery( I mean this in the least derogatory way possible lol, I’m a fan of all the artists I mentioned above except Gracie Abrams sorry I don’t get it)

The only vocal powerhouses that seem to be relevant atm is perhaps RAYE, Adele , lady gaga and those really the only popular artists I can think of that are still sanginggg.

IM NOT MAD AT THIS , just want to know ppls theory on this .

I've been thinking about what's considered a "pop" music a lot, and to be honest, I'm not sure. Is its popularity the reason it's termed pop? Or is it the song's sound, such as its catchy melody, straightforward lyrics, and lively atmosphere?

I find that everyone seems to have a different opinion the more I discuss it with others. The same is true for artists like Billie Eilish or The Weeknd, whose music is sometimes categorized as pop while others think it's more alternative, R&B, or something else. For instance, I might call a Taylor Swift song "pop" because it sounds radio-friendly and easy to sing along to, but someone else might say, "No, that's folk or indie because of the storytelling and acoustic feel."

How can one determine whether a music is pop? Is it more important the music's style and sound or how many people enjoy it? Is it too complicated for a song to be both pop and another genre at the same time?

Talk about whatever you want here, music related or not! Go ahead and ask for recommendations, make personal list (AOTY, Best [X] Albums of All Time, etc.)

Most of the usual subreddit rules for comments won't be enforced here, apart from two: No self-promotion and Don't be a dick.

By 2030 we'll have more people making music than the entire population of Russia. But it's actually hurting the industry more than it helps it

It sounds great until you realize most artists can't even cover their production costs anymore (even if they just use software plugins, or their own 'home studios' cause the higher demand = higher costs logic still applies here apparently).

and streaming platforms just keep feeding us the same stuff while millions of potentially great tracks get buried

Hey guys,

I recently discovered All Time Low; I like them. They have quiet verses with a main riff they play during the verses. While they have a loud, big chorus with power chords. They use two vocalists for vocal harmonies. Most of the lyrics deal with relationship drama. All Time Low reminds me of the first Brand New album.

Meanwhile, I've listened to some emo bands from Merge Records, Anti Records, and Revelation Records. It seems to me that their sound is more stable. There's no big variation between the verses and choruses. This might make their music less catchy. Even a band lthat use keyboards don't sound that catchy. The way the instruments are mixed, it seems as if all of them are played at the same time.

What are your thoughts?

Easily my biggest turn off in music history are as the title says. Used quite frequently in hip-hop, EDM and the likes I've never grown out of my hatred for this.

Some examples:

• Imagine Dragons - Thunder
• Frank Ocean - Nikes

Now I know how polarizing those two examples are. One is a very radio-friendly song that is seen as insensately mediocre to music go-ers and another from a highly acclaimed album.

On one side its obvious that the baby pitching has something to do with how much of a gimmick it is for younger audiences and works very well, which coincides with the radio-friendly nature. To anyone more mature they either roll with it or get annoyed by how blatantly pitch-shifted and skin crawling it is.

Now for Nikes, the pitch-shifted vocal is to serve as an alternate persona to Frank which is pretty neat contextually. Yet I cannot get over the baby ass vocals for the life of me. Even knowing how well scored the song, its basically PTSD for me to hear any baby vocals in any sense.

Hence my question if its normal.

One of my vouches for why artists do this is to replicate that curveball artists would do to elevate the song like the iconic "In a day or two!" from a-ha – Take On Me. That was done genuinely and with such finesse that it comes off amazingly well.

Meanwhile nowadays you can just add a pitch shift effect and it comes off cheap. But a few times it can work well like with the songs from 'Blank Banshee - Blank Banshee 0' having that chopped/glitchy nature that sounds great and correct for the vocals to be pitched all over the place.

So I am getting into 70s prog rock recently. I find the genre to be quite enjoyable. The songs are long, dramatic, and eccentric in a fun way. But when I read about prog I see a lot of talk about how the genre was seen as uncool, super technical and pretentious.

Now this is just a me thing but I don't really think technique is bad. Not all technique = bad. Also classical influences is not a bad thing. It's part of what I find appealing about prog.

I read Robert Christgau's reviews of King Crimson and Yes and they all came down to this album sounds very inaccessible and technical so it's pretentious. I don't understand this mindset. Aren't music reviewers supposed to be INTO inaccessible music? People say prog is a genre that appeals to musicians more than non-musicians so these music critics baffle me??? If you don’t get something that musicians obviously like why are you a music CRITIC? Aren't you just a cultural critic? I have rarely read Robert Christgau talk about music btw. He mostly talks about the culture, the ethos surrounding the music etc. Not to say this is a bad thing but these elements should ACCOMPANY your criticism of music rather than BE the main criticism.

Anyways I meandered lmao. I just wanted to learn about the attitudes surrounding the genre because I am a little new to rock music as a whole. I would love for people to explain these things to me.

Edit: Great points in the comments and some fighting. Thank you everyone for your contribution. So basically the genre is inaccessible, overly technical, very long and people lack patience for long, conceptual, wankery.

Well people have their tastes but this sounds right up my alley. Give me 12 minutes long songs with absurd lyrics and concepts! Will vouch by 60s-70s era Frank Zappa any day.

Edit: Lots and lots of amazing answers guys. Thank you. I am learning a lot.

It's been discussed that in the streaming era, people don't really have favorite bands anymore due to the ease of discovery and shortened attention spans overall. As a result, people don't engage with bands as intensely as they did 20 years ago.

However, I don't think it's that simple. Streaming gives us more options, and there are so many great musicians nowadays. The issue might be that no single particular band stands out among the hundreds of great bands. But people don't have to have just one favorite band, right? We can definitely have tens (or more) of favorite bands if we truly feel that all of them create good songs and their musical vibe resonates with our identity. Given enough time, a few of them will stand the test of time and will eventually become your favorite band. It just flows differently now.

What do you think?

The music industry has always been a machine that turns art into product, with professional songwriters crafting hits for performers who are more marketable faces than artists. From Tin Pan Alley to Max Martin's pop factory, musicians have long been buying prefabricated emotional experiences instead of creating their own. When artists outsource their musical storytelling, they're not just selling a song - they're selling out the entire premise of musical authenticity. It's a betrayal of what music should be: a raw, personal expression that comes from the artist's lived experience, not a calculated commercial transaction designed to top the charts.

The older I get the less tolerance I have for all this generic garbage that harasses us everywhere, all the time.

ETA: thanks for letting me vent lol and I want to clarify something. Performers who perform and don't pretend to be or are marketed as anything else - fine. Songwriters who don't want to perform and collaborate with aforementioned performers - fine. Throwaway, 'consumable' pop music has always existed since consuming pop music has become a thing - fine ok whatever.
But for my sensibilities I feel like a line too far has been crossed (forgive me for condensing and exaggerating the process a bit for the sake of the argument), when upcoming pop sensation Skye Riley* comes up on stage to the frenetic applause of her hardcore fans acquired through a million dollar social media campaign and say "I love you guys so much I wrote that song just for you in my hotel room this morning" and then some bored tech presses play and a song starts that Skye never even heard before and she starts the dance routine she worked the last 3 months on. The song? Oh that was an email attachment from corporate. Someone pressed the big, green button that says "$$CREATE$$" in their million dollar in house generative AI software and that was the only human touch that song ever felt.
Fuck. That.

(*Skye Riley from Smile 2 - great horror movie)

If you look up how many albums they sold, they sold millions of albums and human clay was a diamond album. i read even their debut was selling still when their next 2 albums came out, so it's obvious their fans bought their older albums too. i read they sold out stadiums and that they had several top 10 hits, including the #1 with arms wide open.

i knew people who openly admitted they liked limp bizkit or nickelback. hell, as a kid, i knew many people who said they liked nickelback and one even wore a shirt. nobody cared.

yet somewhere on reddit, i saw a few people say they never knew any creed fans, and that they're not sure how they sold so many records. i think mtv didn't even play them but vh1 did. i read adult contemporary played them and so did rock radio and pop radio.

I think i may read somewhere on reddit that it was older people who liked them but any millennial knows them. i never saw a creed CD in anyone's house when i looked at people's CD collections.

How did Creed sell so many albums and have top 5 hits without any actual fans. How many fans do you remember seeing? Was it young or older people?

Hello everyone! I've been thinking about how we all make use of music to control our feelings a lot. For example, do you listen to music like Bon Iver or The National when you're feeling depressed? Or do you take the other approach and play a lively song to distract yourself?

I personally have a playlist for almost every mood; groovy basslines are what I listen to when I'm excited, and lo-fi beats are what I listen to when I'm anxious. I've caught myself going too into the feels at times, but other times, the proper song may feel like a warm hug or even a therapy session.

Do you notice that your favorite music enhances your mood or does it truly help you de-stress and feel better? I'd love to know what you think and perhaps even get some suggestions!

Each week a WHYBLT? thread will be posted, where we can talk about what music we’ve been listening to. The recommended format is as follows.

Band/Album Name: A description of the band/album and what you find enjoyable/interesting/terrible/whatever about them/it. Try to really show what they’re about, what their sound is like, what artists they are influenced by/have influenced or some other means of describing their music.

Artist Name – Song Name If you’d like to give a short description of the song then feel free

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUTUBE, SOUNDCLOUD, SPOTIFY, ETC LINKS! Recommendations for similar artists are preferable too.

This thread is meant to encourage sharing of music and promote discussion about artists. Any post that just puts up a youtube link or says “I've been listening to Radiohead; they are my favorite band.” will be removed. Make an effort to really talk about what you’ve been listening to. Self-promotion is also not allowed.

I get different vibes now. So I see people commenting on Throwback YouTube music videos around late 00s / early 10s pop music that they saying they miss this era and genre of music and they want to bring it back. Late 00s / Early 10s electro-pop and dance-pop party music contains a lot of artists: Pitbull, Flo Rida, Rihanna, The Black Eyed Peas, Usher, Cascada, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Lil Jon, LMFAO, Cobra Starship, 30H!3, Dev, Far East Movement, Taio Cruz, Jay Sean, Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Zedd, Avicii etc. Because music nowadays doesn’t hit the same like these classics did. Anyone missing this era and genre of music?

Im NOT saying that all Americans hate and despise theatrical male singers, Im saying that I think perhaps these types of singers are less much appreciated by Americans as they are by British people and those in the Commonwealth nations like Canada and Australia.

Of course, when I say "theatrical" I am not talking about musical theatre but rather male singers that have an element of theatricality in both their performance but also their melodic singing, for example, Freddie Mercury, Morrissey, Sting, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Billy Idol, Rufus Wainright, Nick Cave, Tame Impala, etc...

Of course, Americans love theatrical male singers, we have Roy Orbison, Billy Joel, Jim Morrison, Lee Hazlewood, Joruney, Eagles, Simon & Garfunkel, etc...

But it just seems that one also sees a vocal style that's grittier, less flashy, more informal and casual, etc... think of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Eminem, Axl Rose, Steven Tyler, Green Day, Jay Z etc...

This sort of talk singing that one can see both in country and also hip hop. Where the focus is not so much on elaborate vocal melodizing but rather singing a narrative.

Once again, Im not saying the US is only X and the Commonwealth is only Y. There are definitely overlaps. There's no black and white in my statement.

Im also looking to start a discussion, not shove my opinion on anyone, excuse me for being so rigid. Im also not against any of these styles, I like all styles and have many artists of both these vocal styles on my playlists.

Lately I've been diving into how gothic aesthetics influence modern music production, especially in alt pop and darkwave. It’s wild how artists like Grimes and Zola Jesus craft these haunting, layered soundscapes that feel like an emotional séance. Producers today are like sonic alchemists, blending ethereal vocals with gritty synths to create something that feels both ancient and futuristic. You can hear it in the way they manipulate reverb to make tracks feel cavernous or layer distortion like brushstrokes on a digital canvas. It makes me wonder are we in a second gothic revival in music? Or is this just the natural evolution of the genre as technology catches up with its ethereal ambitions? Either way, it feels like we're all collectively dancing through a haunted cathedral, and I’d love to chat about it with anyone who feels the same.

He has ascended.

I’m not a technical type listener, so I can’t comment directly on their producing abilities, but the other parallels are so strong:

Both known for having intimate (not necessarily romantic) relationships with the artists they work with. Iovine spent hours on the phone with Bruce, was one of Petty’s best friends, and of course fell in love with Stevie because how could you not. Antonoff has been called family by Swift, and the Lorde talked about how close they became during Melodrama.

Both love working with women songwriters. Jimmy of course had Stevie, but also Patti Smith and later Gwen Stefani. Antonoff has championed Swift, Tegan and Sara, St. Vincent, Lorde, Lana, etc etc

Both don’t have a distinctive sound. I know a Max Martin song when I hear one, I know a Dre song when I hear one. But neither Iovine or Antonoff have a signature present on every song. Both let the artist take the lead and provide support to fulfilling the artists vision.

Both wear glasses.

With Kendrick’s new album, Antonoff has done what Iovine did and not only switched genres but did so with the biggest artist of that genre.

I know Antonoff gets a lot of hate, but he is genuinely fun to watch and keeps surprising me. I’m still not over the Please Please Please track. And now my brain has exploded with the Kendrick release. Honestly the only other thing he could have done to top this year, was also have producing credits on the new Father John Misty.

I wonder if Antonoff will go the executive route like Iovine or if he’ll continue producing. I wonder if he’s intentionally modeling his career after Iovine.

Edit: I originally posted this on r/popheads and they removed it because they don't like comparing artists (what?), so I'm glad to see this sub is keeping discussion alive. Even if most of you disagree with me, we can at least talk about it!

I want to expand my music appreciation comfort zone but I'm having a real hard time with rap music. I didn't grow up with it, the extent of my exposure in school was a few Beastie Boys tracks. I have a very hard time understanding the lyrics, even when I look them up I am still at a loss for the meaning. Is rap something you need to grow up around to be able to appreciate it? Anyone know of videos, blogs, etc that might help?

County music is arguably America’s most popular genre at the moment. Superstars, like Beyoncé, are exploring the genre. Many of the artists winning CMAs are also selling out global tours, like Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen.

This is also a unique moment politically where many Americans that identify as the under-educated underclass have a leader they believe to be their champion. I’m not commenting on the validity of that perception, only to say it reminds me of Blair/Oasis in the 90’s.

Workwear brands, like Carhartt, are as fashionable in NYC as Adidas was in London in the 90’s. There’s a desire for couples to move out of cities to pursue a more rural life. Single men as more often viewed as hot when sporting a rugged cowboy vibe complete with beard (a stark contrast to the waxed chest sex appeal of previous years).

Both genres/eras share being the pop music of the day born from a working class aesthetic. An aesthetic and mentality that many fans emulate despite not being born into that scene.

In both cases, the songs that have become anthems are more emotional, sincere, and accessible than their predecessors. For Britpop, this meant articulating the romantic hope of the youth in an emotionally easy to connect manner. County is similarly an accessible flag bearer of its time, but with more darkness and vulnerability than its old cliches of trucks and beer.

Country music now and Britpop in the 90’s connect to their audiences by describing their current life and an ideal to chase.

So what’s with all the Til’ Infinity songs? I know of 3 so far 93 ‘Til Infinity by Souls of Mischief, 03’ Til Infinity by Consequence, and the “new” one released today by JCole, Til’ Infinity. All of these songs are essentially the same with the same beat and similar lyrics, why are there so many? Is this a super influential song or something? And if it is who was the original that all the covers are by?

Who would have thought that Kendrick Lamar, the hip-hop titan, would burst onto the scene so explosively and unexpectedly with his sixth album? GNX (Grand National Experimental) emerges like a musical missile determined to take the world by surprise.

Unlike his monumental works like Mr. Morale or To Pimp a Butterfly, this album is more compact, concentrating all of Lamar's power into a direct and uncompromising attack. If Eminem released The Death of Slim Shady this year, Lamar responds with a work that stakes its claim without needing to make a big show of it. Eminem's album left no doubt about his technique, but it raised questions about his future. Lamar's is simply irrefutable proof of the immense talent of the young Compton prodigy and the brilliant future that still awaits him.

Wacced Out Murals, with the vibrant vocals of Deyra Barrera, explodes like the first projectile in this sonic arsenal. The production, handled by Jack Antonoff and Sounwave, constructs a musical landscape that is bright yet shadowed, polished yet lethal, where Lamar displays his devastating technique with surgical precision.

In Squabble Up, the artist unleashes a devastating lyrical storm that challenges the limits of the genre. While Eminem's album navigated a lamentable confusion, Lamar creates a claustrophobic atmosphere that helps him amplify his expressive power to almost hypnotic levels.

Luther shows another side of this great artist, with the complicity of singer SZA, revealing his ability to adapt and flow between different, more relaxed sonic textures. Man At The Garden delves into abstract experimentation that seems designed to challenge Lamar's own creative limits.

Every track is a bullseye. Hey Now condenses entire stories into rhymes that ooze identity and authenticity. Reincarnated explores quite daring rhythmic territories, with a sublime bass performance that sustains the artist's vocal fury.

TV Off returns once again to experimental rhythms, turning Lamar's words into lethal weapons and instruments of pinpoint precision. Dodger Blue pays a heartfelt tribute to the warm funk of the 70s, demonstrating Lamar's versatility to easily and naturally navigate between styles without ever losing his essence.

It's very clear that GNX doesn't seek to be an ambitious revolution like its predecessor albums, but rather a lightning-fast musical guerrilla war. GNX is a hard, direct, and intense album. Every note is a manifesto, every rhyme a raised fist against the monotony and mediocrity of the genre.

It's understood that Lamar doesn't make albums; Lamar builds, as a true artist, authentic universes. And in GNX, that universe is a brutal battlefield where music, combined with Lamar's tremendously structured and agile words, becomes the most powerful weapon.

I know this seems random, but I’m just wondering if there’s a release day chart that the bigger rappers/musicians follow to take advantage of YouTube’s very random algorithm patterns. Today is Thursday, November 21st 2024, and Jack Harlow, BigXThaPlug and Freddie Dredd all coincidentally posted a music video at 12pm. If it was Friday I wouldn’t be so shocked but I found this a little odd for a Thursday. Maybe I’m just overthinking it lol🤷‍♂️

I keep reading people see it as a joke, like the hair metal from the 90s/2000s and I honestly don't get it. I think Nu Metal produced some of the best metal bands out there, it was a nice and natural combination of different genres like metal and hip-hop.

People act all ashamed about it and it honestly hurts, cause there are few genres that influenced me that much. I never took it as a joke and I think it's the genre of an entire generation.

If you were born in 95 or around that, bands like Korn, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park probably were your jam. And I think each one of those bands, yes even Limp Bizkit, heck, especially LB, are great bands.

Yeah.

Edit: Oh boy, I shouldn't have made this post

Edit 2: Please stop replying. Gonna delete this post soon probably, just wanna get some info from one comment. Was just a low effort post cause I felt salty. Maybe I'll discuss the matter in another, more elaborate and serious post.

So, many of us have seen the vociferous discussion that arose and floated around Cowboy Carter from its initial announcement. There was a lot of skepticism around Beyonce-queen of pop, first lady of the hip-hop crossover space-seemingly stepping into a notably non-diverse and insular genre. When the album released, the reaction was more mixed than some probably expected. A lot of listeners loved the fusion of historically black-led genres under the ostensible umbrella of country music. There was blues, there was retro R&B, there was Zydeco, there was hip-hop and even an operatic touch alongside the cultural markers of country. At the same time, many genre diehards were less hot on it, calling it a shallow imitation, calling out the relative lack of inclusion from genre mainstays and a general unwillingness to fully commit to the things that listeners feel make country music what it is. Ultimately, the record came, had its moment, and went. There was no massive world tour like Renaissance had, and it continued her recent trend of 'no visuals,' leaving much of the engagement to be with the record itself. As a result, it has lacked the staying power in the zeitgeist that its predecessor had.

When the Country Music Awards nominations were released, Cowboy Carter became another inflection point, as despite the success of 'Texas Hold 'Em' and '16 Carriages' on the radio (both pop and country) charts, the record was completely shut out from nominations. This comes despite artists like Post Malone (a featured artist on Cowboy Carter and another artist who started in hip-hop and pop before crossing over) and Shaboozey having a breakout year after featuring twice on the album being nominated. Again, fans of Beyonce and fans of country music were split: Beyonce's fans felt it was another example of the genre snubbing a successful, Black female artist to grind an axe, country music fans called out her refusal to "play the game, shake hands, kiss the babies and come party with us" as Luke Bryan put it. Of course, there's loaded context there, as Beyonce has called out the negative experience she had performing 'Daddy Lessons' with The Chicks in 2016 being a big inspiration for Cowboy Carter. To make a long story short, she was subjected to a less-than-warm welcome, with reports of people from the crowd yelling slurs at her and them during the performance.

Ultimately, the CMAs went on, and there has been a note of disappointment in that Shaboozey was completely shut out of all of his category nominations. While it's worth noting that Post Malone also was shut out of his four nominations, what I want to talk about is the fact that, where Beyonce mostly stayed away from the Nashville machine that surrounds country music, Shaboozey didn't. Despite his single 'Tipsy (A Bar Song)' setting records on the charts, his participation and presence at media appearances and interviews, it seemed that he failed to make any meaningful in-roads with the awards committee. He took his opportunity as far as I imagine he could, and worked to capitalize on his moment in the sun, and I don't want to imply or suggest that he failed, but when it came to the awards show, it certainly didn't pan out this year.

Which brings me to the thing that I want to discuss: should we have a more frank talk about the way the country music industry is treating the minority artists who are working in the genre? It's definitely not news that black artists are undervalued, that female artists are also undervalued (albeit in different ways), and artists at the intersection of gender and race have a hell of a mountain to climb in the industry. Beyonce proves this in one sense, in that she's one of the biggest stars on the planet, but she still couldn't break through to the award committee. Much of this has been pinned on her not playing the game, but Shaboozey "played the game," and was still paid dust for his efforts.

Knowing all of this, how should we consider the way that Cowboy Carter was received, should we consider the odds more heavily stacked against it not just because of her history as a pop artist but by dent of having been a black woman unwilling to kiss the ring? Should we put more pressure on the kingmakers in the country music world to drop the racism and chauvinism that seems pretty plain after this year's award cycle?

Talk about whatever you want here, music related or not! Go ahead and ask for recommendations, make personal list (AOTY, Best [X] Albums of All Time, etc.)

Most of the usual subreddit rules for comments won't be enforced here, apart from two: No self-promotion and Don't be a dick.

Earlier this evening Coachella’s 2025 lineup was announced and it feels very stripped back from previous years:

https://www.stereogum.com/2288226/the-coachella-2025-lineup-is-here/news/

Next year has headliners that aren’t quite in the zeitgeist and a pretty anemic second row of artists. It’s no secret that Coachella’s 2024 wasn’t a bankable money maker, selling tickets at a much slower rate than the festival has historically. Other music festivals have been struggling too. A few weeks ago, Pitchfork announced it will not hold its annual festival in Chicago in 2025.

We can speculate on why this is happening: higher production costs, insurers unwilling to take a chance on music festivals, declining interest from festival goers. I wonder if this is the case all over the country. There are festivals that cater to one genre or one demographic (While We Were Young on one end, Big Ears on another) that seem to be doing fine because they aren’t striving to be everything to everyone. That and their target demographic is older people who can afford it.

Where do we go from here? Has the festival bubble burst? One thing I think about is acts who used to be able to tour the United States summer festival circuit will have far fewer dates if there are fewer and fewer festivals.

Especially with how the industry has shifted through the years and left consumers on an overly saturated but super accessible market. Also by how your personality or environment has changed over time. As a kid, you don't typically think about these type of things, questions and it's usually just like "oh, I just like that sound". I'm sure there's lots of people my age (early 30's) who still stick to that route, but with all the music I could be listening to right now, I have to say my relation towards music has changed for me personally. I find myself enjoying music a lot more the moment I don't even know whether I'm actually going to like it or not. Stuff that people maybe paraphrase as acquired taste, although it doesn't even have to be niche or anything like that, basically just music that is made for a specific target audience. Do you still float with the vibe as long as a good performance and mix will do what your expectation in music will ask for? I think this is super interesting, because I could definitely see a turnaround moment happen to some on to a more laid-back perspective the older you get. Just to stereotype that "nah, I've tried some weird things over the past, but in the end it all comes back to good ol' ACDC" kind of guy, haha.