Tell me why I looked at the top songs on Spotify and the majority of the top tracks are ancient... I love me some Iris and viral throwbacks, but this is crazy:

https://kworb.net/spotify/country/global_daily.html

Iris has been parked in the top 20 for ages, outlasting a trend's cycle. Beauty and a Beat is up there since Coachella. The One That Got Away is literally a top song despite Katy's new music making 0 noise. Sweater Weather must be on a loop in a streaming farm because it's up there year round even in the summer. Training Season is doing better than its initial chart run, but at least this is recent-ish and having an actual viral trend. Even Shawn ******* Mendes is #23 with Treat You Better when he basically retired to become a yoga instructor.

Is new music that terrible that old music is outlasting it and never falling out of the charts? I think that's part of it,. But also, are these sold catalogs causing some sort of payola situation where the new holders are pushing the music they bought to come out ahead of these investments? Are people trapped in nostalgia playlists which feature the same songs depending on the playlist like 90s hits or 2010s throwbacks? What is going on. This seems more dire than ever. We were worried about AI killing new music but it seems the GP has already done that themselves.

The music industry is simply in a bad state right now, especially with the rise of… sigh, AI songs.

Older music gets better traction because people are already accustomed to the production, lyrics, obviously nostalgia for better times etc.

I think you need to stop looking at the top streamed songs. There's so much new music that is released weekly that is so great. The past few weeks alone I have added 12 albums to my library and most of them I like 100% of the album.

8 minutes ago, Walk_Away21 said:

But also, are these sold catalogs causing some sort of payola situation where the new holders are pushing the music they bought to come out ahead of these investments?

People don't want to hear it, but it can't be a coincidence that some of the biggest of these "revival" songs fall into this category.

It really says something about how relatively easy it must be to boost songs on Spotify if this really is the case, especially since that's primarily where the boost is happening (some of these songs don't even chart in the Top 100-200 of other streaming services for example). That one Malcolm Todd song randomly rising to #1 in response to that Kalshi prediction and falling down the next day for example also adds to this possibility.

It also says something ominous about the future of accurate charts if it really is this easy to game them.

It could also just be a trend of people preferring older music and these companies simply riding it and milking it for all it's worth to get their money's worth. I guess we'll have to wait and see to know for sure what's going on.

New mainstream music is just bad.

Can't say the same for underground/independent music.

There's so much to explore.

But as for mainstream music, quality is going downhill.

There is an invasion of Ai songs and nepo babies, like I can't trust new music

I only stream artists I find in social media that are obviously human then search them on Spotify

I can't trust Spotify's recommendations because you never know who is behind it anymore

2 minutes ago, nick_rod said:

New mainstream music is just bad.

Can't say the same for underground/independent music.

There's so much to explore.

But as for mainstream music, quality is going downhill.

I agree, in terms of mainstream 2024 felt like the last year of mainstream music

2025-2026 has been endless slop, new plants/nepo babies and endless AI

Edited September 12Sep 12 by Trent W

New music is bad

Most people are inherently lazy listeners.
Give them complete freedom to choose their music, as streaming does, and most will just fall back on what they already know. That's why there's this "music was better back then" mentality.

Stans used to complain about labels and radio controlling what we heard, but that system was also a major reason new music actually caught on. Labels had an incentive to constantly push new songs, and radio repeatedly exposed the GP to music they probably wouldn't have chosen themselves. Call it effective promotion or force-feeding, but it got people out of their comfort zones. Ofc it wasn't perfect, but it was a necessary level of control and gatekeeping for the music industry to move forward in terms of new releases, instead of just repeating the old hits.

Now that control is mostly gone, people just listen to whatever they're already familiar with. And that's imo a big reason why there's less new music becoming the next generation's "old music".

Edited September 12Sep 12 by Feanor

17 minutes ago, Pop Art said:

People don't want to hear it, but it can't be a coincidence that some of the biggest of these "revival" songs fall into this category.

It really says something about how relatively easy it must be to boost songs on Spotify if this really is the case, especially since that's primarily where the boost is happening (some of these songs don't even chart in the Top 100-200 of other streaming services for example). That one Malcolm Todd song randomly rising to #1 in response to that Kalshi prediction and falling down the next day for example also adds to this possibility.

It also says something ominous about the future of accurate charts if it really is this easy to game them.

It could also just be a trend of people preferring older music and these companies simply riding it and milking it for all it's worth to get their money's worth. I guess we'll have to wait and see to know for sure what's going on.

I agree with everything you said, but back then they similarly paid for radio play which also directly contributed to the hot 100 (in some eras it was even mostly radio bc physical single sales were dead in the US and before digital took off).

Everything besides swim in the 40 is terrible so no. New Western music is just mid compared to the older pop songs.

But what everyone is saying there is a lot of great music just stop looking at the hot 100.

12 minutes ago, nick_rod said:

New mainstream music is just bad.

Can't say the same for underground/independent music.

There's so much to explore.

But as for mainstream music, quality is going downhill.

This. Go listen to some new artists, broaden your horizons etc etc. We like to kii at metacritic scores but a lot of these publications are always recomending good stuff. Also instagram pages. There's a lot of GOOD music out there for you to find out.

Afaik there's always been "bad" music, just streaming made it more accessible and allowed people to self release music more.

Monoculture is dead now so we all split off, what you might listen to and find bad I may not even ever hear those songs. For example I've not heard a single song in the top 10 on the Hot 100. Not even once.

Everybody is scared to listen to new music now because it could subject them to the likes of Katseye or Malcom Todd. We all have to stick to what we know until we find out what the hell is going on

2 minutes ago, smartalek22 said:

I agree with everything you said, but back then they similarly paid for radio play which also directly contributed to the hot 100 (in some eras it was even mostly radio bc physical single sales were dead in the US and before digital took off).

The big difference is payola didn't always translate into sales even in the digital age. At least with playlisting and now shuffle on streaming, they can cause more accidental or recommend plays which can contribute to sales figures.

But to be fair, like I said before, monoculture is dead so now there will be songs we don't know about or hear about that chart and so well.

It's both, music is not being taken seriously enough, it just became background noise to tiktok shorts/insta reels and "artists" are adjusting their output to profit on the trend thus becoming slaves to the streaming services algorithm. it's turning it into a disposable commodity and cheapening the art/lowering effort all around.

I think there's so many factors why people are drawn towards older music - nostalgia, catchy songs because writing camps, amazing videos because of bigger budgets.

I don't know why but many of the new pop acts want their music to sound kinda trashy and Intentionally bad? The vocal effects on acts like Kim Petras, Charli xcx or Slayyyter are sometimes super weird and leaves me wondering about the concept of having a melody in the song.

But theres so many reasons why pop music right now is the way it is. One thing I really miss are voices without huge amounts of autotune/effects on them

52 minutes ago, Walk_Away21 said:

Tell me why I looked at the top songs on Spotify and the majority of the top tracks are ancient... I love me some Iris and viral throwbacks, but this is crazy:

https://kworb.net/spotify/country/global_daily.html

Iris has been parked in the top 20 for ages, outlasting a trend's cycle. Beauty and a Beat is up there since Coachella. The One That Got Away is literally a top song despite Katy's new music making 0 noise. Sweater Weather must be on a loop in a streaming farm because it's up there year round even in the summer. Training Season is doing better than its initial chart run, but at least this is recent-ish and having an actual viral trend. Even Shawn ******* Mendes is #23 with Treat You Better when he basically retired to become a yoga instructor.

Is new music that terrible that old music is outlasting it and never falling out of the charts? I think that's part of it,. But also, are these sold catalogs causing some sort of payola situation where the new holders are pushing the music they bought to come out ahead of these investments? Are people trapped in nostalgia playlists which feature the same songs depending on the playlist like 90s hits or 2010s throwbacks? What is going on. This seems more dire than ever. We were worried about AI killing new music but it seems the GP has already done that themselves.

Yes

19 minutes ago, Venice B said:

This. Go listen to some new artists, broaden your horizons etc etc. We like to kii at metacritic scores but a lot of these publications are always recomending good stuff. Also instagram pages. There's a lot of GOOD music out there for you to find out.

I do love some indie artists. I was just commentating at the most mainstream music being streamed.

Yall said no to Hazel Eyes and Brandon Flowers... so... ofc AI and nepo babies are taking over. It's all YOUR fault.

Most people just listen to playlists

Spotify used to boost new music in them , now the opposite

No one wants to listen to new music/new artists because everything is so bad these days

Yes, streaming does play a role.

Before you actually needed to invest your hard-earned money in music, hence artists were driven to give their all to make the best albums. Now music consumption has turned into a fast food mess.

streaming era sucks, it's so easy to fraud numbers

Music is just bad.