There have been profound changes in how recorded music is created, leading to almost ”apples to oranges” difference in contemporary pop vs music created in the 20 century, and all the way back to prehistoric times.
There’s a lot to it, but one big change is the reliance in the most popular genres on digital instruments to create sounds. These instruments are almost entirely programmed, not performed in real time. It turns out that digital instruments are not very “expressive“ as performance instrument. But with careful and imaginative production can be made to express by being ”programmed,” a non-real-time process.
The parallel is imperfect, but it has made producing music more like animation vs live action in movies.
Essentially, this is a more “cerebral” process and less “physical.”
Digital instruments are also abstract themselves. They are embodied in matter, but there is no “analog“ between the motion of the molecules in the instrument (a computer) and the sound that comes out of the speakers They don’t actually make sound, they make numbers. In many cases, when listening to electronic music you are hearing first generation sound production.
Historically making music was an activity involving the brain, moving muscles, moving molecules, in real-time.
This is largely gone in music production. With Billie Eilish most certainly.
Where this thread has still not been broken is in the vocals, which still contain a connection to physical activity in the body. And a lot of weight is carried by the vocals in modern pop music.
There is a similar aspect in visual animatio, where human actors are still required for the voice, to actually complete the illusion and allow full expression by animated characters.
Most modern pop “leaves me cold” and I think the core production process is part of it.
It‘s not that it’s inferior, but that there is a deep difference from the kind of music I grew up with, which formed cultural context for what music “means” to me. So I do recognize that someone like Billie Eilish is doing some cool stuff, I just don‘t “get the feeling” from it.
As a quick reference to what I’m talking about, compare any modern pop to the greats of classic rock. Apples and oranges.
