[pazra]

I think a big part of the deterioration of musical quality is connected to three major factors:

1. Recorded music has meant less need for such large numbers of musicians, as a result the pool of potential talent is lower. Much less live music is performed as a result, as a result the pool of musicians with great live musical abilities has gone down.

2. Multi-track and then computer recording has made it possible to make much more 'effects' based music, which wows the ears sonically, but requires less musicianship to back it up. The large producers of pop music has largely clung to using these techniques to give their music a unique 'modern' sound, largely fueled by the latest developments in technology.

3. The ever progressing corporatization of the music industry.

[vlehto]

I think all of these could be used to justify why music has gotten better:

1. Only the most passionate musicians do it as a profession.

2. A producer doesn't have to chase that perfect accordion sound and manage to record it withouht distortion anymore. Which means it's increasingly about musical ideas and less about mechanical skill.

3. Corporatization always has element of specialization. Which has yielded lots of good on on other fields.

[CPLX]

4. Lowered attention spans. It's true across all media, our culturally induced ADHD rewards novelty hits, least common denominator styles, and especially demotes things that require more than 15 seconds to process and understand before moving on. It's not just music it's clickbait headlines and superhero movies too.

[icebraining]

Superhero movies? They seem quite long to me. In fact, the average length of the most popular movies has been increasing.

[mdk754]

One could argue it's more about the "thrills-per-minute" counts going up. I'm not saying I totally agree, but it is at least evident to me that movies from past decades spend a little more time between "thrills" than your average modern film.

[CPLX]

Of course. But the cognitive load required to be made aware of one and then process and make a decision to watch is nearly instantaneous.