How will music evolve?

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Being an avid oldies fan, and knowing quite a few current songs too, I've observed and took notes to myself as to what was and is happening in the music industry and I may (with your help) try to speculate what will happen next. I think it's a good discussion idea and it is open for everyone who loves music whether he makes it or listens to it.

First of all, history. Learning from the past makes us learn new things about how things work. Over the years music became much more accessible but at what cost. If in the 60s a band would have to deploy both an organ and an E. piano (which are both huge), nowdays all of that is available in one split keyboard, in a somewhat "less" of a quality. People would brag that you wouldn't hear a diff between the two sounds but a sample will never be able to fully emulate an electromechanic instrument or an acoustic instrument (in acoustic instrument eg acoustic guitar each time you press a string will generate a different sound, whereas a sample will always generate the same sound - even with the newest behavioral modeling or whatever its name is, can't still compare).

So did music advance backwards in your opinion? I think samples do have their advantage. drum machines (again, making music more accessible) had their unique sound - with all their limitations and because of them, and you could do things you wouldn't be able to do in a normal/traditional drum kit (Like making beats more precise, making drum sounds play faster than human speed and making different types of sounds).

Advancement of music made people realize they don't need a big band (or; see the beatles' clip for "All You Need is Love"). Music is not only about sounds but also about fashion, clips and culture. That's what people realized over time. For some reason, comparing old 60/70/80s songs to today's music, it's hard for me to diffrentiate between the various instruments in a song in alot of modern music. Back then there were fewer sounds simpler arpeggiators and today with all the effects going on it's a big mess (not saying modern music sucks, there are quite a few good songs I like).

The future. Today we're seeing Ipad compatible instruments, like mixers and keyboard editors (instead of hands on knob interface, you tweak it on the Ipad). Will we see a transition from "real" instruments built from metal/wood/plastic/ whatever to virtual real instruments? First they are introducing those robotic gear tuners (for guitar- Gibson) which you guys should really check out. I wonder what comes next. DISCUSS.

I just pray that it doesn't end up going further into electronics and autotune, essentially taking the musician out of music. I see music progressively becoming more superficial and generic and I really hope that we break out of that trend soon.

I'm hoping for a popular return to simpler arrangements for acoustic instruments and unamplified voices; but that may be asking too much.

I think music will become more unusual and interesting once we get to grips with the new technologies. People are already set up to rebel against the trend to sound generic in music.

It's never going to be the same as it was in 60s, nor should it be.

I think fully electronic music is going to continue to grow, but acoustic and electromechanical music will continue to grow as always. Looking at Rock and Metal there has been less development than in the 80's, but there still continues to be new development. I think we are going to seeing more integration of electronic and non-electronic elements, taking advantage of both the natural and artificial sound to reach the full musical potential.

I'm actually surprised rap lasted this long. I thought it was just a gimmick because there were no musicians involved. Coulda fooled me! I also never thought I'd see DJ's become like rockstars with huge adoring crowds. They're not even musicians! I guess since music reflects the times, electronic music will be around forever. Some will be uptempo dance, some atmospheric chill. I guess rap will be around for a while too because it's where we are as a culture. Hopefully, rock will come back with a vengeance.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIL2ds8gq5Y[/youtube]

This song epitomizes the future of music. Every song on the radio will be like this in the future. Dubstep opened a can of worms, and dubstep by itself doesn't need to exist, just everyone will throw dubstep into every song made. Also, love songs will be obsolete and "faggy" and all songs will be made about clubbing or getting drunk.

Wait this is the present.

I notice dubstep is good in generating 2 types of music: the goofy non-serious cheese/wobble type and the overly distorted fear-mongering dark type.

Let's hope it will be a quick trend like the boy bands.

World war 1-2 was fought with weapons and bombs. World war 3 will still be fought with really advanced weapons and bomb. World war 4 will be fought with stones and sticks. Although now that I think about it, past world wars were fought also using sticks (rifles).

My point: stuff will resurface, people will try to reinvent music by taking things from the past. Old music may be ressurected, but with a modern touch/feel into it.

Like a G6 actually has a pretty nice beat. I could do without the lyrics though. The breathy female vocalist on the "chorus" (such as it is) reminds me sort of like a cheap version of that woman whose name I can't remember who did vocals for the 80s synthpop band Berlin.

The weird thing about current music is there's no rebellion in it. The 60s had Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, the 80s had punk, the 90s had "conscious" rap and grunge, late 90s/early 2000s had rave music which was more rebellious than people realize, but today's youth don't seem to be rebelling against anything. You'd think that they'd be in full blown rebellion against the system which screwed them, but they're not. Today's youth seem to be narcissists, totally wrapped up in materialism and slaves to technology.

Gen X had the cyberpunk movement that tried to use technology in unapproved and system-screwing ways, but today the youth use technology to bully and toot their own horns. Today, people associate hacking with stealing money, when the original hackers simply wanted to liberate information. Read the Hacker Ethic, that was the original goal of the hackers, but nowadays hacking is all about identity theft and stealing money and the Chinese collecting intel for cyberwar. It's really sad.

Maybe the generation that follows the Millenials, sometimes called "Gen Z" (they are still little kids, so they haven't named themselves yet), will rise up and battle the system. The Millenials grew up in a debt bubble and they thought the good life could be had without effort, since the bubble gave the false appearance of wealth.

Remember MTV Unplugged? I have a copy of the Unplugged version of 10,000 Maniacs' Because The Night, and it's a much better song than the "plugged" version.

We're rebelling against the idea that we should be rebelling!

So Opeth? YAY!

I want to say progressive metal, but the fans are so elitist and focused on instrument wankery it likely won't ever be commercially viable.

However, I hope well crafted songs in progressive structure are the future. Some more mainstream bands like Alter Bridge and Lamb of God are already starting to encourage a more progressive structure.

Now, if Gojira type music ever became commercially viable...I would LOVE to hear more bands in that style.

Progressive has never been commericially viable. The closest it got were with things Pink Floyd, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Stairway to Heaven. However, I hope Progressive Metal continues to grow, and maybe some shorter songs can get more attention. Oh, and apparently despite Rock being more commercially viable than metal, Progressive Metal is apparently more commercially viable than Progressive Rock, see Porcupine Tree,

Music has always been in evolution. I think we're at a point where it is unclear where the next phase of evolution will come from. What's clear is that something's going to overthrow rock music, if it hasn't been the case already.

These days, there is no shame among "hip" people in admitting you like pop music. The shame these days is admitting you like the "dinosaur" rock music of your father. Among music elitists, there seems to have been a lot of talk about destroying the rock canon and replacing it with a more inclusive, "poptimistic" canon. Within the 2000s, we saw rock throw its fists in the air for its last hurrah, and I think the 2010s will be marked by rock music becoming a niche, underground genre.

I know about indie music, so I can use indie music as a microcosm of what's happening. When I started college in 2008, it seemed most of the Pitchfork-style buzz bands were still rock bands in scraggly beards playing loopy guitar riffs. Pitchfork hyped some electronic stuff like LCD Soundsystem and Justice but in the end those bands use rock building blocks and are very album-based. Between 2008 and 2011, when I graduated, there seemed to be a linear decline in that kind of rock music, and Pitchfork-type hipsters went on to hype chart pop, indie hip hop, and electronic music. At my university's radio station it was the same -- by the time I graduated I was apparently the go-to person for rock music in general since nobody else seemingly listened to much of it anymore.

This is very true. There seemed to be a little uptick in political music in the late 2000s, but it was like a blip on the radar. It's like we've admitted to ourselves that the purpose of music is escapism, and we're going to use music merely as a vehicle to escape what's around us. We seem to think we've seen everything and everything's been done before.

I mean, music doesn't need to have a message, or be deep -- this is one of those rockist mantras I don't necessarily subscribe to -- but music as pure escapism is tough for me to accept as a future.