Where do you see music in the next 10-15 years?

What do you think the music scene will be like in the next 10-15 years? What will the pop,rock,country,metal,rap, etc scene be like? Will EDM suffer a backlash? Will we get another Nirvana-type band that changes everything?

Public tastes are a cycle that the media tries to portray as a linear progression.

Some bright-eyed bunch of rockers who play their own instruments will save rock music, again. Until some random subgenre from electronic music catches on and becomes obscenely popular. Someone will come up with yet another pointless label for popular electronic music, to make it sound newer than it is. Artists will continue to raid past decades for ideas. Fogeys will continue insisting all the new music is garbage—why can’t it be as good as it was in the 2010s?

If the major labels die off for good, the same trends will probably still happen, just on a smaller scale.

I didn't write any of that.

In keeping in touch with the increasingly multipolar world, there will be innovative music scenes coming out of Brazil, China, India and some African countries (another possibility is South Korea, provided they break out of the K-Pop centralism). As a result, the Anglosphere will lose some of its importance. In fact, it has been losing fairly steadily, even if a bit unnoticeable, since the economic crisis started back in 2007/2008.

New advances in technology (cyborg-made music, Vocaloids) will allow for new avenues of performance and recording.

The major labels in the West will become either dead or small, while in the East there will be some ups and downs. The new models of music business in the West will probably be more economical, but also more effective and with less executives on cocaine.

edited 26th Feb '15 10:56:59 AM by Quag15

Eventually we will have machines that create music for us.

Aside from that, revivalist bands will continue on, and quite possibly the whole way we think of songs and songwriters will change - which it hasn't much since the Beatles came along.

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

I've always thought about what Future Music would be like. Vaporwave would somehow supplant Smooth Jazz, and Smooth Jazz would fuse with glitch-hop to form a new genre called "Neuro Jazz", reaching the logical conclusion of KOAN Sound's style.

As for the next 10-15 years, after all the 70s throwbacks, the 80s'll probably get their due. And my mom will never let me hear the end of it.

Or that could've already passed and we'd be hearing 90s throwbacks.

edited 26th Feb '15 6:29:45 PM by PhysicalStamina

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

Country Music will continue to be a sausage fest, because the only new females we're getting are 16-year-olds who were contestants on a TV singing competition.

I'm not interested in predicting future pop music trends due to its unpredictable nature. In 2009, I thought 90% of pop music will be electronic music because of its popularity at that time. A while later, Adele came around and disco is having a semi-revival.

It's the future of the music business and industry that I'm interested of. I made a few predictions for this case.

• I think most music by small-name bands on Spotify will be pulled out by the bands' requests. The bands will realise how little value there is to put up their music there.
• Famous pop musicians making surprise album releases without prior anouncement will be the norm. This is to counter music leaks.
• More major record labels' marketing decisions will be more controlling and low-profit. Seemingly controversial PR stunts will be often avoided so to not provoke the hypersensitive mainstream media.

edited 26th Feb '15 10:39:05 PM by tropeslave

While there are programs capable of making generative music and compose according to algorithms, it cannot bring the emotional component. Humans will still be needed to create music.

Cyborgs are humans after all and quite capable of creating music (with the most prominent example at the moment being Neil Harbisson, who makes sound portraits of famous people and has developed collaborations of colour-to-voice performances with other artists.

edited 27th Feb '15 4:01:54 AM by Quag15

I actually think this will be part of a general cultural trend I think is on the horizon, where we make machines to do everything for us, and then we end up like in Wall E.

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

Again, cyborgs will be making music. Not everything is about machines as dominators. It will involve humans (in cyborg and non-cyborg form), robots, androids, and so on and so forth, hopefully in a cooperative way.

As for the Wall-E thing: in America, sure, but here in Europe we will be drinking wine and making sweet amore e passione.

More seriously: not everyone is gonna end up obese and complacent. Far from it. Human will and creativity will always be in many of us humans.

Also, not to sound too pedantic, but the word/expression you're looking for is paradigm shift. Trend is generally a short-lived thing, which may or may not cause impact.

edited 27th Feb '15 8:09:08 AM by Quag15

I don't have that much faith in us as a culture. Besides, I believe the morons will grow fat and complacent and the smart people will be distracted somehow.

People will probably still want to hear music made by humans with real instruments, that much I know.

edited 27th Feb '15 9:43:57 AM by Aldo930

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

Breakcore will become mainstream and replace all music, kinda like how Taco Bell won the Franchise Wars

Ever heard of Pete Townshend's Lifehouse project? Technically, that already exists, it just isn't public anymore.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Oh yeah; everyone starts calling French House "Future Funk" for some reason.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

I like the term future funk—sounds really retro-futuristic, and I've always liked things with that vibe.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I don't get it though; it's just Filter House with Sailor Moon gifs that sometimes samples 80's J-Pop. I mean, compare this to this. How is it so different it warrants a name change?

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

In terms of progressive rock, the genre I am most passionate about and in my opinion the greatest genre by far as it contains a vast majority of the most talented and ambitious musicians on the planet, I think the future is very bright for it. Prog musicians are always discovering new methods of making music, mixing prog subgenres together to make new ones, reviving old genres and making them fresh, crafting new and interesting, epic stories for their songs, etc. Prog rock is a huge genre overflowing with impeccable artists with diverse tastes who take music very seriously. In my opinion, almost every other genre of music has hit a dead end. But not prog. Prog still has far to travel. It's the most diverse genre ever, and it's rare for prog bands to fail to release great music. And even if they do fail and release a dud, they at least tried a lot harder than today's rock bands that just release the same old recycled "edgy" albums that talk about love, getting laid, intoxication, politics, how much life sucks, etc., and infinitely harder than every rap, autotune pop and hip-hop artist going.

Electronic Music as a whole has a bigger claim to that status, and it's often more concise^note conceptually speaking, direct ^note  in terms of physicality or "sound cathedrals" or capable of endurance^note Par for the course in the realm of Techno. And Hip-Hop hasn't hit the dead end, if you look towards Brazil and some African countries.

But anyway, I don't see many Prog bands and artists using a lot of modern technology, with the relevant (relevant as in, relevant outside the realm of the connoisseurs) exception of Mike Oldfield having used a Vocaloid for a couple of tracks a few years ago.

Also, there aren't many songs or albums about politics being released in the mainstream (the closest to a fairly acessible thing such a thing ever got in recent years was perhaps PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, and it was mostly rooted in history and not in current events).

edited 1st Mar '15 1:33:07 PM by Quag15

We still have some good stuff too. Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, even Wale is pretty good. And that's not mentioned the large pool of amazing underground/independent artists such as Reks, Torae, Hopsin, or the Strange Music label. Then there's the old school artists who have put out recent good albums. Wu-Tang released A Better Tomorrow just last year, Nas released Life is Good only three years ago. And, despite its recent Hype Backlash, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 is still a great effort by Eminem (if you wanna call him "oldschool").

Speaking of which, something I'd like to see after Kendrick Lamar's success is an improvement of quality in mainstream Hip-Hop; more people who can actually rap and are capable of talking about something other than cars, women, and money. Less stuff like Rae Srummerd (or however you spell their name) and Migos, more bars. More consciousness. More substance.

edited 1st Mar '15 1:45:02 PM by PhysicalStamina

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

x4 Uh, I just like how the phrase sounds. I wouldn't necessarily describe French house with that term, but I like how that term sounds.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I can see that, I guess, but I think it;s just really unnecessary. Or at least, pinned to the wrong thing.

I mean, doesn't this sound more like what you'd think something called Future Funk to sound like?

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

I think French House and Future Funk are quite different, especially when taking into account the first wave of French House (e.g. Cassius, Motorbass, Daft Punk's first album, Etienne De Crécy...

I'm talking about dead end in a sense of actual, verifiable innovation. Lots of good rap is still being released, indeed. But Brazil and some African countries have artists are making more unconventional forms of Hip-Hop, either by fusing with their musical traditions or by mixing it with more recent genres (e.g. Kuduro, Afro-House) or making weird time signatures. America's rap is currently in a period of semi-stasis.

edited 1st Mar '15 7:31:52 PM by Quag15

1. How so? Is it the more straightforward sampling and the J-Pop source material?
2. Mmm, I dunno. With albums like Yeezus, Death Grips' entire discography, because the internet to a lesser extent, and Azealia Banks mixing Hip-Hop with oldschool UK Garage, I don't think that claim holds up too well.

Besides, why should "innovative" inherently mean "better"? Just because something isn't breaking or rewriting the rules doesn't mean it has any less value.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

1. The first wave of French House came out in the mid-90's/late-90's. There are no traces of J-Pop whatsoever and sampling was not the main element. Here's a prime example of it.

From my understanding, French House and Future Funk are... water and vinegar, I guess. The clue is also in the names. House Music. Funk. That right there distinguishes and sets them apart a bit already.

2. Well, the thread is about the future of music. I'm not saying that music that is not innovative is bad, just that it is not particularly relevant to the topic in question.

Fair point about Iggy Azalea (the way you describe it makes it sound like Grime, though I could be wrong) and Death Grips. Still, I'd say there's no current, solidified movement.

edited 1st Mar '15 8:57:32 PM by Quag15

1. Fair point, but sometimes Future Funk won't even sample J-Pop; it'll just grab an American (or otherwise Western) disco track, like this, or this, or this. What separates that from stuff like this, or this or this?
2. Iggy Azelea? I said Azealia Banks.

Also, that Etienne track sounds like a French take on Chicago House.

edited 1st Mar '15 10:07:01 PM by PhysicalStamina

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."