The 80s had house and techno and Michael Jackson. The 90s had rave, grunge and pop. The 2000s brought minimal and dubstep and the 2010s had hyper pop and EDM. The biggest movement of the 2020s seems to be resurgence of songs (and sounds) from past decades. Retro nostalgia is hot and new artists come up emulating the sounds of generations before they were even born. Add to this the coming impact of AI collaboration on the future of music and the next wave of music innovation gets even more complex.
One factor may be the growing fragmentation of the industry that makes it harder for any single sound or artist to break through to stand out. Add the fact that aging stars continue to perform and tour for decades after their “prime” – and reliably still fill stadiums. So for any lover of new music, what can we do to fix this? As my friend and fellow futurist Nikolas Badminton shares, it starts with music findability. Given how much data our preferred streaming music generates about our listening habits, we all have the ability to use that data to explore and discover new music. We just need to choose to ask for that instead of listening to the same music over and over.
For a deeper dive into this topic and even more suggestions for how we might contribute to discovering that signature sound for this decade, you can read the longer report from Resident Advisor magazine writer Gabriel Szatan who explores the issue further.