I have said this for years: the current state of mainstream music is not just disappointing, it represents a measurable stagnation.
Throughout the 20th century, pop music evolved in identifiable, decade-specific ways. A listener can immediately distinguish a song from the 50’s, 60’s, 70s, 80s, or 90s because each era introduced new sonic palettes, production techniques, and cultural shifts that left audible fingerprints on the music.
However, the 2000s marked a turning point. Instead of continuing the pattern of innovation, mainstream music increasingly relied on recycling past aesthetics and formulas. What began as a nostalgic revival soon calcified into a broader homogenization. Pop became generic, and then that generic template spread horizontally across genres that once prided …
I have said this for years: the current state of mainstream music is not just disappointing, it represents a measurable stagnation.
Throughout the 20th century, pop music evolved in identifiable, decade-specific ways. A listener can immediately distinguish a song from the 50’s, 60’s, 70s, 80s, or 90s because each era introduced new sonic palettes, production techniques, and cultural shifts that left audible fingerprints on the music.
However, the 2000s marked a turning point. Instead of continuing the pattern of innovation, mainstream music increasingly relied on recycling past aesthetics and formulas. What began as a nostalgic revival soon calcified into a broader homogenization. Pop became generic, and then that generic template spread horizontally across genres that once prided themselves on distinction, from alternative to rap to country.
Although new subgenres have appeared, (mumble rap, “Y’alternative,” and others), these trends function more like micro-fads than evolutions. They lack the structural, cultural, and sonic durability that defined earlier musical movements. And yes, there are people still pushing boundaries, but it has become increasingly difficult to navigate the current streaming landscape with it’s billions of choices to give that artist the amount of plays they need to make the income to be able to continue providing us with incredible art.
The clearest evidence of this stagnation is behavioral. People, including younger listeners who have no generational attachment to older music, increasingly gravitate toward past decades in their playlists. That pattern does not emerge by coincidence.
The underlying reason is no mystery. The industry has openly embraced algorithmic optimization. Once data analysts identified the precise combinations of melody, timbre, pace, volume, and EQ that historically produced Top 40 hits, those formulas became the blueprint for new releases. Creativity was not just deprioritized, it was systematically replaced with predictability because predictability is more profitable. In this environment, the rise of AI-generated “music” is not an anomaly or an artistic revolution. It is the logical next step of a market that has already reduced music to a set of monetizable patterns. When human creativity is subordinated to algorithmic profitability, replacing the human altogether becomes not just possible, but inevitable.
In short, today’s musical landscape is not failing due to cultural apathy; it is functioning exactly as designed within late-stage capitalism. Homogenization is not a bug, it is the intended outcome of an industry optimized for revenue rather than art.
And I fucking hate it.