Pop Music isn’t Getting Worse, Capitalism is.
On 9/11, Kendrick Lamar released an as-yet unnamed song on Instagram that fans have titled “Watch the Party Die”. The immediate framing people latched onto was that it was the start of a round two against Drake or a victory lap. I see it as Kendrick asking, “what’s next?” He attacks the dominant hip-hop culture of parties, scamming, basic songs propped up by influencers who don’t understand the culture and yes-men who support artists for favors. In the second verse he advocates for a baptism by fire, saying that maybe things would be better if some people went down in a hail of gunfire, that maybe then we’d “…see a new Earth/ Filled with beautiful people makin’ humanity work”. In the final verse he questions that mentality, looks to spiritual artists like Lecrae and Dee-1 and his friends for answers. The final line “The kids live tomorrow ‘cause today, the party just died” implies that he finds an answer there. I’m not sure he does.
I’ve been a Kendrick fan for a long time, and I recognize what he’s reckoning with in this song. It’s the culture built from the same people he sung songs for when theirs were unwritten, it’s the same people he wanted to save on To Pimp a Butterfly, the same desire to “save” America that Kendrick reckons with on DAMN and rejects on Mister Morale and the Big Steppers. But in it, I see more than a reflection on Kendrick’s personal tendencies and a statement on Black American culture, I see a rejection of Pop music.
Youtube music critic Todd Nathanson (Todd in the Shadows) analyzed Not Like Us as a rejection of Poptimism. If you’re unaware, Poptimism was a rejection of the idea that the commercialization of Pop made it lesser than rock or hip-hop. The ideas came about alongside major success from Justin Timberlake, Kylie Minogue, and later Lady Gaga. With it came a reappraisal of genres like Disco and artists whom people had previously looked down on. In Todd’s view, the title of Not Like Us is not just saying that Drake is abnormal, but that he doesn’t belong. He’s not a rap artist, he’s not even an artist, he’s a pop star. Watch the Party Die is a lament for the world Poptimism has created, where virtuosity seems to be an afterthought next to marketability or memeability. He isn’t the only one crying out for a time gone by.
I began conceptualizing this article when I saw discussions about a video from Rick Beato called “The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse”. At that time, I hadn’t seen the video, but I immediately had the title of the article where I’d throw in my two cents (this one). The video itself makes a series of blatantly wrong claims (there’s no world where dependency on technology limits creativity and trap beats have not been *en vogue* for the past TWENTY YEARS), but the core of the video’s argument is that music is getting worse because the people who make and consume it value its less. Beato states that with the advent of digital tools people don’t bother to learn about the analog technology of the past, or even bother learning instruments, and that with the price of a spotify subscription being less than what one album used to be, young people don’t value music the same way people did in the past.
This claim that the industry and public value music less is completely wrong, and the idea that people valuing music less makes music worse is equally absurd. Nobody valued Van Gogh’s art while he was alive, that certainly didn’t diminish its value. Everyone agrees that Jimi Hendrix is a legendary musical genius, but he has fewer top 40 hits than Tommy Tutone and Vanilla Ice. Did people not valuing his music make it worse? Even if you accept that people valuing art less makes it worse, I’d argue the accessibility of music has made people value music more than they would in the past. If we never got the mp3, how many people would never have discovered their favorite songs? How much music would be entirely inaccessible due to a lack of reissues? Some music might end up in a spot older video games are in now, where you either pay thousands for a long-out-of-print CD or pray for a re-release.
What saddens me most about the common sentiments Beato expresses is that it ignores the genuine issues that every artistic field faces. All he has to say about Spotify and streaming has to do with the low prices and AI devaluing musician’s labor. AI certainly is doing this, but it’s just a new weapon in the industry’s large arsenal to screw over its workers. The notion that it’s audiences and musicians who value music less when the government is constantly tightening school’s budgets forcing them to cut arts funding, when labels don’t trust artists in nearly the same way they did in the past, when abusers in the industry like Diddy can have their crimes be an unpunished open secret, and when one million people listening to your song only earns you seven-thousand dollars is infuriating.
If you are one of the many people who think that modern music just doesn’t compare to the music from the 70’s 80’s or 90’s I encourage you, don’t go after T-Pain or hip-hop producers, take action! That action can be listening to those classic bands, bands that call back to those times, playing that kind of music yourself, or best of all, advocate for music education and the proper treatment of artists. Outside of America’s military and political exports, its number one export is culture. In one thousand years, the main things people remember from America will almost certainly be Hollywood movies, television shows, and the many distinct styles of music that dominated global consciousness. I can think of no greater tragedy than American culture truly dying because of the capitalist greed that pervades all creative industries. Rick Beato or Kendrick Lamar can see the rot, but it’s up to all of us to fix it.
