I've made a comparable argument about the fallacy that movies were better back in the 40s or 50s, or rather that the overall quality was better then. It just seems like that because the rebroadcasting of old movies skews toward the better stuff. It filters things to appeal to a larger audience. Duh, of course. But the effect is to make us think or feel that, man, it was nuthin' but classics back then. Cultural critics tend to be lousy historians, too focused on the immediate. Instead, we need to be aware that we're always living in the mixed-bag era; the past gets to forget the shit. Same with music. So we need to be cautious in how we compare the past to the present. (However, in terms of cultural production, we certainly experience a greater quantity than in the past, but I suspect the effect is less one of influencing our sense of quality than increasing the amount of the stuff we just plain never encounter; vast, vast numbers of movies, records, etc that hardly anyone ever encounters.)Howard Beale wrote: ↑06 Aug 2022, 10:40pmIt's interesting that the soundtrack to Stranger Things resonating with younger audiences was brought up in support of the Contemporary-Music-Does-Suck side of the argument. The non-original music from that show is mostly from the '80s—there was certainly no shortage of absolutely abysmal music topping the charts back then. With the benefit of hindsight, the producers were able to go back over that decade's popular songs and select the best it had to offer. That will likely someday be possible with this era as well.
Re. the Barnes piece, while the music industry certainly engages in more detailed analysis, all entertainment industries have relied on genre to minimize putting out something that won't turn a profit. There are two basic formulas that are use: the star and the genre. In the former, it relies on past success of a performer. Love that Harrison Ford movie or Taylor Swift record? The industry figures if you liked them before, you'll like them in the future. In the latter, did you like that disco record or zombie flick? Cool, here's some more disco and zombie movies. Ride those horses until the audience shows they don't want to pay for it. So what Barnes is describing isn't a new development—capitalism is all about profit—but rather fine-tuning the process. There are dangers with more and more sophisticated techniques of analyzing audience preferences, but the impulse itself isn't new.