Out of Time NOT Out of Mind – Paying Attention to the Future NOW | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 4 Episode #4

SUPPORT MUSIC IS NOT A GENRE ON PATREON

WATCH MUSIC is not a GENRE VIDEOS and MORE

There’s a lot of great music. There’s even a lot of exceptional music. Just look at Rolling Stone’s recent 500 lists, and then think of all the albums & songs that WEREN’T included but could or should have been. Some of that music is judged to be great when it’s first released. Others weren’t seen as great until time moved on and they were put in context.

For music to stand the test of time, it has to do three things:

1. Be good to begin with. This seems like a no-brainer, but there are plenty of albums judged to be great upon release that have since been revealed to have way less substance and quality. That first judgment might have been based on some novelty of sound, production, instrumentation or context. All of those things tend to get subsumed into the new normal, at which point that first iteration is seen in a very different light, one that might show it was the newness and not the quality that made it so popular.

2. Age well. Music that is its own thing regardless of whether it touches in on trends almost always ages well. Music that adheres too closely to current trends without breathing something more personal into it rarely holds up. That means it has to survive multiple shifts in sound & taste. Albums and artists go in and out of fashion all the time. Producers & listeners want more minimalism (and yes it’s possible to have more of less, so definitely quote me on that) so artists who produce layered or complex music aren’t as popular. And vice versa. It’s the albums that are considered great regardless of these changes that will be great forever.

3. Reveal itself more fully over time. Tons of music can captivate an audience on first listen, especially if it’s introducing something new, or recontextualizing something else. Way less music bears repeated listening. That doesn’t mean it’s not good, just that it maybe doesn’t have much else going on besides what we’ve already gotten from it. It’s even rarer that repeated listening reveals the beauty of songs, performances or production choices that weren’t picked up on all those years prior.

This week’s podcast is all about that last idea. ...

This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/musicisnotagenre/support

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.