[cobbzilla]

it’s only less diverse at the top.

go down a couple of layers and various genres of music are experiencing renaissance’s like you would not believe.

pop music has always (mostly) sucked

[EDIT] Bring on the downvotes. You never bothered to explore. If you take what’s given to you by those who are selling, you’re in the seller’s market. Your downvotes are pride to me.

[cobbzilla]

311 may have said it best ~33 years ago:

    I tell you what's wrong to me
    The industry's ability to manufacture stars
    They churn them out like Iwo Jima makes cars
    But the blame lies not with those suits for trying
    It's the sheep that keep on buying that soulless crap
    Whatever they put in front of ya
    The hysteria of America

[damienmeur]

IMO it's just very scattered across very huge players / very small players that dont really live out of their artist work (it s just like a "hobby").

If you look at this year rock werchter festival in Belgium, it's ofcourse very good artists: Gorillaz, The XX, Franz Ferdinand,...

But almost only groups from the 90`s / 2000`s that could make their name when the industry was more tolerant with non-pop / blockbuster music.

I m over caricaturing ofcourse, but probably that if Gorillaz was created in 2026, Damon Albarn would post his work on a forgotten soundcloud, do some bartmitzvah during the weekend to roundup the end of the months while working as a ubereats delivery driver.

[xosc]

I dunno.. even here in new zealand, very much not a musical hub, i still know plenty of jazz musicians who make a living off of music, and there is generally at least 1 jazz gig every week.

I also think the industry is pretty tolerant of more experimental/non-pop music, just that this isn't really true for the rock scene amymore. Hardcore punk, hardstyle, dubstep, hyperpop, shoegaze are all huge genres now, large enough to live off of and perform at festivals as big as coachella.

You may be right about Damon Albarn but that would just be a result of which genres have listeners who are willing to listen to smaller, non-mainstream artists. I think the biggest example of this is that mainstream rock music a la guns and roses has pretty much completely died out, while genres with smaller, more dedicated fanbases like post-rock and noise rock are still going strong as ever. I'm sure if you check your local shows (and you live in a place with reasonably large population) you will be able to find plenty of bands who completely live off their music.

[cobbzilla]

how many live local shows have you been to in the last month?