Consensus Hits

There were only 17 last year. That's down from 28 in 2020.

In other words, if you're overwhelmed with new music, feel out of touch, think you don't know what is going on, welcome to the club.

Those statistics are from Guy Zapoleon in the article:

"2023 Marked Fourth Year Of Worst Music Doldrums For Top 40 Radio": http://tinyurl.com/7z8jknms

Or why don't you mosey over to "Variety," and look at their writers' best albums of the year: http://tinyurl.com/s3fpeapu

They're all different, there's no consensus. No "Miseducation of Lauryn Hill." No album you haven't heard that you need to go out and buy immediately. Even worse, everything is available to you all the time and chances are you still don't have the desire to click and listen. You would if you felt you were the only person out of the loop, but inside you believe it's a fruitless effort. You're going to spend time checking out something that no one you know knows, you're going to end up just as isolated as you started off. And your goal is to feel connected. It's everybody's goal. That's the human condition.

And if you really want to laugh, check out the "New York Times"'s "Best Songs of 2023": http://tinyurl.com/2s49u864 (That's a free link.) What you'll end up reflecting on is not the unfamiliar tracks themselves, but the writers who selected them. Is this what they are doing with their time, combing the untold millions of songs released each year for exactly what? Certainly not our respect. They're the equivalent of those guys in leather jackets with long hair who never went on a date who told us everything in our music collection sucked. But that paradigm went out years ago. When someone criticizes me for being late to a project I laugh. There are only so many hours in day. If you find something, whether it be released yesterday or in 1969, that's cool. Just like when you stumble on a ten year old TV series. There's just too much out there, kudos for discovering anything at all. Especially in a world where Guy Zapoleon says "75% of music consumed is older than two years."

As for that which does have consensus, other than Taylor Swift, the album I've seen lauded most at the end of this year is that by the supergroup boygenius. But check on Spotify and you'll see that not a single cut on "the record" has triple digit million streams. The opening cut only has 14,258,655, meaning people are cherry-picking the hits, not listening to the whole album, since tracks 5 & 6 have 59,848,499 and 69,495,641 respectively. Of the twelve tracks on the album, seven don't even have 20 million streams on Spotify.

Yes, this is not a definitive reflection on the quality of "the record," but it is a declaration of popularity. The album came out on March 31st of this year. It's not like it's new and we've yet to see the build. And for perspective, the last track in the Spotify Top 50 Global chart had 2,863,445 streams yesterday. And the U.S. chart? Number 50 had 831,778 streams yesterday.

It's not like Taylor Swift isn't big. But of the top ten global songs on Spotify this past year, #5 is by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma, a regional Mexican group. That never happened before.

So what do we know?

That what is big is smaller than ever before. It reaches fewer people than ever before. Fine for the act involved, just don't buy the hype that everybody is listening except you.

The entire system has broken down. This is what happens when the barrier to entry is almost nonexistent and the supposed powers-that-be lose control of the game. This is akin to the Republican party. Forever it was controlled by fat cats/corporations who wanted low taxes and few regulations. But now it's the domain of the blue collar whose interests are contrary. The blue collar want health care. And although Trump lowered taxes on the rich, and despite the canard that more IRS agents will mean higher taxes on the rank and file, in truth those who used to set the path no longer do. As a matter of fact, many have become anti-Trumpers.

So there are many acts that are not on major labels that can sell thousands of tickets a night. They're probably not on radio either. But in a country of more than 300 million, they've developed a fan base. Most over time. They've invested, made music and toured, and grown their audience. Overnight success? Even "The Voice" can't do that. And even if you have overnight success that does not mean anybody wants to see you live, that you've truly got fans. I mean if everybody listening to those two boygenius tracks was really a fan they would have consumed the whole album, right?

As for the future...

We could have a new Beatles. But we haven't had one yet. There have been big acts since the Beatles, but not one that affected an entire generation and the world, that penetrated every corner of society, that created music we all knew and could sing and people can still sing more than fifty years later. Don't compare numbers from the "Billboard" chart. They're nearly meaningless. How many number one hits an act has had. In the sixties a number one hit was known by everybody, we were all listening to Top Forty radio. Today? We keep being told by terrestrial radio that its listenership is going up but I can't find anybody under twenty who tunes in.

This is akin, but not like television, As many series as there are, there's a tiny fraction of shows compared to new music. And shows cost a ton of money and there are gatekeepers. Everybody can afford to make music today, right on their laptop, and distribute it for a de minimis cost.

So we've got a Tower of Babel music landscape. Consumption continues, but everybody is listening to their own thing. They don't need you to listen to their music and you don't need to listen to theirs. You can even ignore Taylor Swift's music. In a pull society you don't have to pull it, you don't have to go to the show or the movie. Same deal with Beyonce. The Renaissance World Tour? Nearly a sideshow. And everybody is coursing the sideshow, because there are not enough acts to fill the three rings in the Big Top, ones that people will sit and want to see.

As far as breaking acts... You're on your own there, the major labels don't know how to do it.

Music has become cottage industry. If you're looking for help, look in the mirror.

And if you're a listener...chances are the scene is so overwhelming you're just listening to the same damn stuff over and over again. With the insertion of a few new acts you hear about from friends, from trusted sources. That's who gets you to listen to new material, your friends. You want to experience what they're talking about, you don't want to feel outside. But as to the world at large? It's incomprehensible.


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