Maybe a somewhat depressing and dystopian but still interesting view on music industry today

 

I have copied the following text for the video to provide a better understanding:

For years, it looked like the music industry was thriving — more artists, more access, more music than ever. But beneath the surface, something was breaking. Studios were closing. Engineers were disappearing. Budgets stopped growing. And the system quietly rewired itself.
This film explores what actually happened.

Starting in Los Angeles — once the center of the recording world — this documentary follows the slow collapse of commercial studios, the rise of home production, and the economic forces that reshaped how music is made.

Along the way, a deeper question emerges:

Did the music industry lose something…or did it trade it away — and was the exchange worth it?

Featuring Grammy-winning producer Adam Kagan, inside Chalice Studios, and firsthand experience navigating the modern recording economy.

Adam Kagan credits include:
• Kanye West
• Rihanna
• P. Diddy
• Nas
• 2Pac
• Major label projects across hip-hop and pop

Watch to the end.
This isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about what comes next.

 

I just watched it a couple days ago. I liked it. It's a nice perspective on what and how things happened, and how we ended up where we are today.

The bedroom producer era.

 

Business is getting increasingly difficult, money is dwindling, quality is declining, the best years are long gone, and whatever cheap AI can do will be done to save costs. A full-time technician will likely become a part-time technician. Only a few companies will survive. In the end, only a few large players will remain, dividing up the existing market.

 

Collapse? No. May be deep crisis...

Yes, recording studios became the past for the most part. But the industry doesn't die, it just dramatically changes.

Yes, there are a lot of stupid things in our time. Infinite amounts of music garbage are the main problem. But people need cool, meaningfull music and that's why I'am not pessimistic. Music will find its ways.

 

the title may be a bit clickbait-ish but the video itself is not all fire and brimstone.

 

Collapse? Implosion.

 

What is already dead cannot die

 

It's an interesting video. I've been around the business for a long, long time. Some of what the vid says is dead on, some of it misses the mark or just lacks depth.

The collapse of record label and recording studio infrastructure is, in my view, what history will have to focus on to better understand where we've landed. There were terrible, horrifying aspects to the record label system of decades ago. Notorious for ripping off artists, and the coked out A&R people who recognized they could hold on to their glam jobs longer by not signing people than by signing and developing them. At the same time though, the difficulties and struggles in getting to the brass ring is what produced so many remarkable artists and records that actually focused on music and songwriting. Much of that has been lost today with 95% or more of what we get to hear.

When the whole home recording thing began I recognized that eventually it would change everything, though in fact it took many more years than I thought it would. I can remember in the early 80's having a phone conversation with a Columbia Records A&R guy/producer talking about the back-then latest home recording equipment I'd gotten a hold of, and telling him we would be making records at home in the not-too distant future. He laughed and thought I was nuts.

Most artists back then would tell you they hoped for the demise of the record labels. Back then, it seemed like a terrible system. Unfortunately, what followed is in many ways even worse. When anyone can make something that sounds like a record at home I fear you wind up losing more than you've gained. People who at one time concentrated on songwriting must now divide their time being both songwriters and producers, as well as marketing experts. That division frequently lessens their skills in all areas, and only a small handful of people are actually very good at everything music-related they're attempting to do.

People work with other people less, artists often skip over development since they feel the polished sound they make at home must mean they've already arrived. Advanced technologies have people believing they've created something that in reality a machine has done for them, and they no longer know the difference between listening to something and having created something.

Artists are being ripped off for their work more than ever. And perhaps worst of all, when just about anyone can make polished recordings relatively inexpensively, with most people using the very same equipment and apps, just about all of it winds up sounding the same. That forces you to have to re-define what greatness sounds like, because when everything sounds pretty good the reality is nothing sounds great any longer. It's just mind-numbing sameness. Sadly, listeners and music creators haven't arrived at the space yet where they can newly define in contemporary terms what will be better than the rest, at least not when all creators are using the same tools, and more often than not sitting at home working alone.

I never thought I'd see the day, but in many ways I wish we could move back to the old system. As shitty as it could be at times, the results were better than where we've landed.

***Sorry for going on for so long***

 

Thanks @robie for your detailed and lengthy report. Some things need at least a page to explain.

First and foremost, let's preserve the music that's already been produced, not just for ourselves, but also for future generations. Save everything you have somewhere and pass it on. You never know if the digital world, like YouTube and Spotify, will want to or be able to store songs.

It's a piece of musical cultural history and identity into which we were born. Depending on their age, our parents may have experienced the Beatles, and our generation witnessed the beginnings of techno and used the first computers.

"Old" music is also a benchmark for everything that's yet to come.
You can only judge the quality of modern music if you've listened to many older bands and songs.

Someone like us should point out to young people and those not yet born that you need some knowledge about music, time signatures and rhythm, and the craft of mixing and mastering to make high-quality music.

You can't build a house based on a YouTube video; it will collapse. Y
ou need highly qualified, trained people to build a house. Education is essential!

 

Thank you, that's a very sensible analysis.

About the generated music. Such music is commercially useless. If the same type of music is offered everywhere, it doesn't matter who you listen to. Mostly those who offer something that stands out and is noticeable make money from music. At least they are recognized. When you are no different from anyone else, no one will remember you.

Change has only just begun. It makes sense to think about how to live in this new world. We can already guess what this world is. But how to live in it is the question.

 

The music industry is a system and it is, and has always changing with technology, we either adapt or disappear.

The future is simple, it will be about those who own the IP, and those who use the IP.

 

According to what criteria ? There's an incredible amount of talent in tons of different genres today, more than any point in history.

Just this week I listened to an album that sounded like nothing else I'd heard before, and that album wouldn't have been possible in the "golden age".

 

But that's more likely due to access to the internet, computers, and more affordable musical instruments. The population growth from 4 billion to 8.4 billion is also bringing more people into the world of music! Overall, almost everyone here in the forum is worried about the future of music. They will also have to ask in the future: AI generated or AI used? Who wrote the text?

I already described it: songs mixed according to the criteria of successful, established professionals, for example, Pink Floyd.

Of course, @triggerflipper, not all people and musicians on this planet will become stupid or dumber; some use modern digital technology and the internet very intelligently.

There are also people who successfully study music at university and then found an orchestra and perform live.

 

Music industry has collapsed because of the fact that times evolve and so does the technology... What you had to do in a studio back in the day, now you can do it with a computer.

Besides this, again, back in the day you had to have a talent for music, whatever it was, either playing an instrument, composing, singing, mixing, DJ'ing... Nowadays, there are many tools that can be used for making music without having the knowledge or talent, say tools to stay in the scale, say tools to pitch your voice to the note if you're unable to sing or to DJ a music session.

Again, said all this, you can think of music itself. There is not an infinity of chord progressions, melodies, real instruments. Well, there IS, but not all of them would sound OK to human's hear. Taking this point further, we could think that salvation of the sound would be synthesis, because besides of the sound a piano can offer you, synthesis will break the rules of physical limitations, offering almost endless sonic possibilities.

Now, think of mainstream music. It's always the same because it repeats itself. Why? Because what worked before, will work again. Why? Because new generations won't stop coming. Thinking of a particular genre of music, let's say "pop", it is repeating itself since decades ago because the chord progressions that worked back then, are still working. I won't say that everything is already written and done, but I think we're quite close to that point. When you think of the explosion of genres we had back in the beginning of the 90s, you realize of what a few new hardware tools offered and the way they changed the rules of the game. First of all: samplers; secondary: new synthesizers which came with their new sounds never heard before. It all gave birth to all the huge amount of new music genres which appeared.

Thinking of the unexciting music of today, I believe there is a lack of interest of squeezing new gear, just a will to give the public what it's easy and proven to work.

Going back to the birth of samplers, we cannot forget the skills of Liam Howlett, composer behind The Prodigy. His early albums for the band were absolutely mindblowing. There you had Aphex Twin, who, as well, experimented with gear and tools to the max. But where can you find that creativity nowadays?

I won't say music is dead, but I will point to the fact that music we have nowadays is a reflection of the society itself, just like the music we had in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s were a reflection of societies of every own decade. So, in the end, we have exactly what we are.

And last, but not least, world population has raised up to more than 8k M. You have to think that the more people we are, the more braindead people are consuming and producing music. That's the way it works. And top of that, there was no visibility for braindead back in the day, but nowadays with the ease of Internet, anybody will be heard all over the globe. If there used to be a fool in the village and nobody paid any attention to them, now there is another fool in another village who, thanks to social media, pays attention to them. And there you have two interconnected fools who validate each other, making themselves believe that they are right. Similarly, if there are more empty-headed people, they will resonate more among the rest.

Anyway, I have to admit that I have not watched the video but the fact they're talking about Kanye West, Rihanna or P. Diddy does not make me want to watch it...

 

The audio was pretty bad (sibilance and plosives) for someone with such impressive credentials.