[asdff]

I think we peaked with music already, maybe in the early 2000s. Popular music was so simple before the 1970s. There were a few chord structures and you just had some generic verses and put it on a record. Take someone like leadbelly or bb king, they were just playing folk music that had been played for at least 100 years before either of them were born, reusing old verses or adding their own, adding a short guitar lick between verses if so inclined (bb admits this was even because he could not sing and play at the same time). A lot of their fame as a result was happenstance of being at the right place at the right time (leadbelly in particular) versus them being a head and shoulders better folk musician than the other musicians of their time. A lot of the Beatles and other such acts in the early 60s were like this too, just basic formulaic rock n roll songs with the artists marketed as heartthrobs more than musicians even. They all even had the same haircuts.

Fast forward to something like Radiohead's Kid A and you have orders of magnitude more complexity going on the track. So many different sounds layered in very complicated manners. Its almost like a classical composition how there are motifs, movements, different emotions being evoked, but with any sound imaginable compared to what few are possible from the orchestra ensemble. A song from Kid A is just a part of the greater album itself. Nothing was made to stand on its own between radio advertisements.

It seems these days we are reverting to how commercial music was always made. Very commercial studio focused with the artists removed from production. Generic lyrics written by low paid songwriting staff and same old tried and true chord progressions we've heard forever. The artist is a brand and a sexy person meant to sell products versus someone particularly talented with an instrument or with songwriting skills.

[dragandj]

And yet the Beatles stood the test of time much better than the alternative hits of the ‘90s (Radiohead included). (IMO of course, but I think its supported by alternative still being an alternative, while Beatles are still THE Beatles after all this year. BTW I’m not a great fan of either, but appreciate both)

It is easy to create a supercomlex composition, that’s what classical music have been doing way before 1970s. But to capture the minds and hearts of many people with simple things, now that’s the real mastery.

[asdff]

What does stand the test of time even mean in this case? People still listen to both Radiohead and the Beatles and lesser known "alternative" acts from the 1960s like the velvet underground today. All went on to influence others. I'd say they all stood the test of time. Stuff like record sales depends a lot more on how well your label commercialized you versus your musicianship. The mid century media era was also much smaller in terms of competing artists that were actually put in front of listeners. 3 stations on TV, a few radio stations playing music from the same record labels, a shop in town selling records from a few major labels, and that's all the discovery you have. popular acts were far more popular proportionally than popular acts in later years, just because you didn't have much option or choice otherwise back then.

[dragandj]

It means that the Beatles (who the parent mentioned explicitly as a basic formulaic rock in contrast to the "peak" from the '90s) is much more well known now than Radiohead, and could even have been more popular than Radiohead even during the peak of Radiohead's popularity (with the general audience, of course). I doubt that the problem of alternative bands was media exposure, because they had plenty in their heyday. The issue is that their music appeal only to a small(ish) subset of people, and that most people would like something else. I don't mean this as a bad thing. It is what it is, but I find amusing how cultish their following is :)