Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
I feel like there's a bit of a backlash that the post-major-label world never materialized the way it seemed it might a decade ago. There was a lot of looking at the new technologies and theorizing about how it was going to decentralize the whole industry, but really things are more or less the same as they were a decade ago or twenty years ago in that regard. So there's a realization that the reason that pop music was popular wasn't because it was being foisted on us by the industry, but because it actually resonates with people.
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I would argue that it's actually quite the opposite. Marketing defines people's taste's even more than it used, and generally people have even less idea that there is something outside the mainstream that is actually different from what they're used to.
That's partially because the mainstream has eaten everything up.
When the artists don't make money off music anyway, and most would be happy to just have somebody listen to them, there's not a lot of people out there anymore who actually take time and effort to try and stand out of the crowd, to do their own thing, to innovate and break the mold. Why the heck would you? Music is not a special thing to do anymore, it's not art, not a statement and hardly even an extension of your personality, even if you're the one making it. It's just a hobby or just a job.