20 Hard Truths About Music And What To Do About It
The New Amateur Hour - Why the future of music lies in passion, not profit.
Everyone knows music is broken. Everyone knows we’ve taken a wrong turn. All over young creative folks are searching back in time to find the right road - new country bands, disco bands, and retro of all sort represents a quiet quest to find the good in music. Older audiences are travelling back too. In terms of listening hours old music is killing new music. And that’s part of the problem.
Two years ago Ted Gioia wrote an essay for the Atlantic that broke the musical internet. Is Old Music Killing New Music? The answer, we all know is - yes. The mystery is why?
This Song Came All The Way from WWVA, Wheeling, West Virginia
Each week end when I was a kid my family and I would travel down the old Truro highway to visit our coal-mining grandparents in Pictou County and the old folks at home. My father drove the car and played the radio. When we were lucky, on days when the frost was just crisp enough he could get skip signals from WWVA, Wheeling West Virginia 1,200 miles to the Southwest. An endless stream of sweet Southern accents and songs we could all enjoy.
When that didn’t work he would roam the dial, openly frustrated. The thing about really loving music. Really caring about it. Is that means you hate most of it. It can hurt you, embarrass you, make you feel disconnected and disillusioned about the state of the world, the economy, and people in general. When one of these songs came in on a strong signal my father would sometimes spin the dial to shut the radio off and swear what still seems to me the meanest curse I’ve ever heard. “Well”, he’d say, “That’s a song that didn’t need to be written.”
What an idea! That there are songs that didn’t need to be written. Maybe they were produced for purely commercial reasons. Maybe they are pale imitations or repeats of other songs. Maybe it’s just any other one like the other one. Maybe it’s a song about the song that once said something new. They were always perfectly professional. And my father had no musical training. He just didn’t think the song had any reason or need to exist. Imagine. What a terrible thing to think.
Could the opposite be true I often wondered from the back seat. Could there be songs that need to get written that aren’t? What would stop them from being written? Or what if they were written but no one got to hear them? How sad would that be?
The good news is, a lifetime later, I don’t think many songs that are burning deep inside some soul somewhere don’t get written. I do think there are many though that don’t get heard. Like a messages in a bottle, but the sea is so full of bottles and messages that none can get through. It’s just pollution of ideas after a point.
I’ve taken some time to choose and insert some non-commercial music into this essay. I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy these links that form part of the larger story I’m telling here.
20 Hard Truths About Modern Music
There’s Too Much Music
The sheer volume of music being produced has overwhelmed listeners and devalued the art form. It’s no longer special; it’s disposable.Music Has Been Devalued
Streaming services pay fractions of a penny per play, reinforcing the idea that music is cheap background noise rather than meaningful art.A Brutal 1% Economy
The music industry is one of the most unequal places on earth, where the top .1% of artists (corporations) earn nearly all the money while everyone else is left struggling in obscurity.Sex Sells, and Substance Suffers
Image and marketability dominate, reducing music to a vehicle for selling fantasies and distractions rather than engaging with meaningful themes or emotions. You can call it female empowerment, queer truth, Tik Tok, youth culture, whatever you like, but let’s be clear it’s the vitality of sex and youth that is being bought and sold here, not music.The Death of Songwriting
In mainstream music, the craft of songwriting has been replaced by factory-produced formulas focused by algorithms and “another one just like the other one” repetition, leaving little room for originality or depth.Music by Machines, for Machines
Loops, samples, drum machines, and AI are churning out endless tracks that are “fine” but lack soul - the natural movement of humans for better and worse, made for algorithms rather than people.AI is an Endless Machine that can repurpose the best into the OK
Artificial intelligence can now generate infinite songs, reducing music to an unrelenting flood of mediocrity - not bad, not wrong, but missing the journey that gives all things value.Music is a Culture War Battleground
Once a unifying force, music has been on the forefront of culture as power - consumed by cultural and political battles, turning it into a tool for deeper and deeper division rather than connection.Distribution is a Soulless Commodity Business
Platforms, labels, and increasingly capital investment funds that buy major song catalogs treat music as a commodity product to be moved, stripping it of its human connection and cultural importance.We’ve Stopped Talking About Music
The discourse has disintegrated. Where critics once debated albums with passion, most people now reduce music to playlists and background noise.Few Understand Music’s Inner Workings
Music was once central to science, philosophy, and human understanding, but today, few people know or care how it actually works.Music is Entirely Passive
The relationship between performers and audiences has become transactional, with a wall separating passive listeners from active creators.Live Music Mimics Recordings
Backing tracks, lip-syncing, and a drive for perfection have turned “live” performances into hollow reproductions of studio recordings.Big Boxification of Music
Arenas, promoters, and corporate venues prioritize profits over sound quality and intimacy, degrading the listening experience into a commercial spectacle.Big Tours Kill Local Scenes
Massive tours extract entertainment dollars that could support local bands, leaving grassroots music scenes to wither.Globalization Has Erased Diversity
Streaming and corporate radio have homogenized music, replacing regional sounds and local scenes with generic, global playlists. In the long run real diversity is lost.Arts Funding Misses the Mark
Government grants reward political and demographic criteria over talent or relevance, forcing artists to play identity politics instead of focusing on the art. Pick-a-winner arts systems don’t count the 100 folks who go away discouraged and disappointed, and the damage that causes, versus the one who gets the funding in any moment (where they themselves might be let down, cast off, and disappointed in the next round).The Death of Bands
Collaboration is dying. Artists work in isolation, and the industry favors solo “artists” employees they can control over the unpredictable dynamism of bands.Innovation is Stifled
Isolation and corporate control prevent the rise of new scenes, genres, and cultural movements, leaving only safe, algorithm-approved sounds. Anything good or new that happens succeeds in spite of the systems. That leads to a culture of bitterness and divisiveness in the place where music should connect us all.Music is No Fun Anymore
Music was once an escape from poverty, isolation, and despair. A source of joy opportunity and hope has become a graveyard of crushed dreams. Music is now an expense, not a ticket out or a path to freedom. For the concertgoer, it’s a transformation into cattle that makes air travel seem respectful, economical, and luxurious.
10 Amazing Timeless Truths About Music That Can’t Be Denied
Amid this bleak landscape, it’s tempting to despair. But music isn’t dead—it’s just waiting for some change that is for sure going to come. Here’s why music still deserves a place at the center of our lives:
The Right Song Can Change Everything
Even in the chaos, the right song at the right time can break through. Music has the power to stop us in our tracks, to speak directly to our souls and hearts in a way words never can.Playing Music Connects Us
Making music with others is one of the purest forms of human connection. Sharing music dissolves barriers, builds trust, and creates shared joy.Local Music Builds Community
Local music scenes are the backbone of all culture. Sharing and supporting local music creates bonds that no global streaming platform can replicate. The more people give the more they and the community get out of it.Music is Brain Food
Learning how music works engages the mind, builds discipline, and connects you with others who share that creative spark. It’s one of the most rewarding intellectual pursuits there is.Music is Medicine
Creating music is a powerful antidote to loneliness and despair. It gives people a sense of purpose, progress, and prosperity. Music is an outlet for emotions.Music Speaks Beyond Words
For those grappling with feelings too big or complex to articulate, music provides a voice that transcends language.Making Music is Agency
Writing and playing your own music - even choosing which music is ‘your music’ is a statement of individuality, a declaration of existence in a world that often tries to make us feel small.Music Brings People Together
At its best, music unites us—whether it’s a shared concert experience, a sing-along, or a song that becomes the soundtrack to a movement, a generation, a summer, a car trip, or just a Saturday night.Music is Proof of Beauty
At a time when beauty is often dismissed as subjective or irrelevant, music is a reminder that beauty is real, measurable, and worth celebrating. Through music and math, we can be certain that there is beauty in the world that we can emulate, enjoy, and harmonize with.Music is Bigger Than Us
When we sing, play, or listen, we tap into something larger—a shared humanity, the magic of existence, a timeless tradition, an infinite possibility, and the possibility of the infinite.
Don’t Freak Out.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
What’s wrong and how do we fix it?
Somewhere, a young woman sits at her laptop, scrolling through Spotify. She has millions of songs at her fingertips—more than any human could ever listen to in a thousand lifetimes. She clicks on one, lets it play for thirty seconds, skips to the next. Nothing sticks. Nothing grabs her. It’s not that the music is bad, exactly. It’s just… nothing.
This is where we are now. Music—once a primal scream, a desperate act of connection, a ticket out of nowhere—is now just wallpaper. An accessory. Something to hum to yourself in the checkout line. The Greeks believed music was the bridge between the earthly and the divine, the glue that held the cosmos together. Today, it’s background noise for TikTok videos and algorithm-driven “chill” playlists. The cosmos has moved on.
And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that music still matters, even as the world conspires to make it irrelevant.
This used to be the story: A kid from a dead-end town picks up a guitar, starts a band, and changes the world. Bruce Springsteen. Nirvana. Even The Beatles. They were all born in the crucible of local music scenes, where creativity thrived because there was nowhere else to go.
But local scenes don’t exist anymore, not really. Corporate radio and streaming services have flattened everything into the same dull hum. Diversity has become a buzzword, but in the age of globalization, true diversity—regional, geographic, cultural—has been erased. Every town plays the same hits, curated by faceless algorithms.
And then there’s the money. Or rather, the lack of it. Big acts suck up all the entertainment dollars, leaving scraps for everyone else. Governments throw grants at the problem, but these programs reward the politically correct over the genuinely talented, forcing artists to fit into narrow, performative boxes.
Music is medicine. It cures loneliness and despair, not by drowning them out, but by giving them shape. When words fail, a melody can carry the weight. When life feels small, a song can remind you that you’re part of something bigger.
And for those who make music, it’s more than a cure—it’s salvation. Writing a song, playing an instrument, singing with friends—these are acts of agency in a world that so often leaves us powerless. Music connects us to each other and to ourselves. It’s proof that beauty exists, that it can be created, that it matters.
Maybe the solution isn’t to save music as a whole. Maybe it’s to save our relationship with it.
Start small. Go to a local show. Play music with your friends. Learn how music works—not just the mechanics, but the magic. Stop scrolling through Spotify and listen—really listen—to an album from start to finish.
And for the love of all that’s holy, stop treating music like a product. It’s not just another thing to consume; it’s a thing to experience, to share, to hold close.
Have love affairs with songs. Relationships that can last you a lifetime. You’ll find the music that brings you joy in the good times will bring you comfort in the hard times too.
When Love and Hope Become the Chains of Our Enslavement
If music has a sickness, it is this: the unholy bond between music and money. It’s a chain forged in the fires of ambition and commerce, and its links are gilded but heavy. The deeper tragedy is that this chain has grown so familiar, so omnipresent, that we barely notice it anymore. Love and hope binds musicians, audiences, and the very idea of what music can be. But it also is our weakness. Musicians want desperately to play and sing. Audiences need the music that connects them to the world and each other. Money answers these things and money men capitalize on intermediating these needs.
This wasn’t always the way. Once, music was a calling. A thing you did because your heart had to, because the song wouldn’t let you rest until you let it out. The Beatles struggled with this chain, the jazz singers, the big bands, as did Zappa, Dylan, and countless others who saw the looming danger. They knew, in their guts and in their experience at the front lines, that tying music to profit wasn’t just bad for bands or bad for audiences—it was bad for the soul.
But the tide was too strong. The machinery of the industry—record labels, radio, MTV—grew bigger, faster, and more inescapable. Money became the measure of success. Fame replaced artistry as the goal. And here we are, 50 years later, with an industry so bloated and broken that it’s choking the life out of music itself.
The Secret Weapon
And yet, the same thing that has corrupted music might also save it. Most people in music—statistically speaking—don’t make any money. They play for tips in dive bars, release albums on Bandcamp that only their friends buy, or jam in garages that smell of motor oil and mediocrity.
This might be the secret weapon we need. Because when money leaves the equation, something extraordinary happens: music becomes free again. Free to be bad, weird, raw, and unpolished. Free to exist for its own sake, not because it can turn a profit.
Amateur hour—once an insult—becomes a badge of honor. It’s where the best things have always started: punk rock in basements, jazz in smoky clubs, folk songs passed hand-to-hand like secrets. What if we could turn back to this? What if we could value music because it’s not trying to be the next big thing?
The New Revolution - Bringing Back Amateur Hour
Imagine a music scene where the goal isn’t to go viral, but to connect. Where the dream isn’t a million-dollar contract, but a roomful of people singing along. Imagine valuing local bands more than arena tours, house concerts more than festivals, and authenticity more than polish.
This isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a survival strategy. If music is going to live—really live—it has to break free from the grip of money.
It’s not about rejecting money entirely; musicians need to eat, after all. But by equating money and music so shamelessly we lost everything that’s important about music. We need to rebuild a culture where money isn’t the point. Where music’s value is measured in joy, connection, and beauty, not streams or ticket sales.
Money Doesn’t Matter.
No One Is So Poor They Can’t Afford To Give Encouragement.
This will be hard. The chain is old and strong, and breaking it means confronting not just the industry but our own expectations. It means showing up for local bands, even if they’re not “great.” It means buying an album because you can imagine what it could become if you tend that garden, not because it’s trending. It means finding joy in imperfection, in the rawness of music made for love, not profit.
Imagine what we’d get in return. A world where music isn’t a commodity but a craft. Where artists don’t burn out chasing algorithms, and listeners don’t settle for algorithmic mediocrity. A world where music, once again, feels alive.
This isn’t just a dream. It’s the way forward. The only way. We have to break the chain, not just for music but for ourselves. Because when we free music, we free something in our own souls. Something that remembers why we sang in the first place.
Let Me Tell You A Story: A Fable of Loss and Hope
There was a time—not so long ago, though it feels like another world—when music stood at a crossroads. Bands and artists, as well as their fans, worried deeply about the growing entanglement of music and money. They wrote songs about it. They protested it. They spoke openly in interviews, fearing that if the business of music overshadowed the art, something sacred would be lost—not just in music itself but in all of us who find ourselves reflected in it.
The Beatles wrestled with this tension as their fame exploded. Frank Zappa, ever the satirist, skewered the commercialization of art with biting wit and unflinching critiques of the industry. Bob Dylan electrified his sound and walked away from folk purists in a move that alienated as many as it inspired. And Neil Young? Neil Young fought harder than most, not just with his words but with his actions, laying bare the high cost of art’s uneasy marriage to commerce.
Neil Young’s Fight for Integrity
If you want to understand the moral battle at the heart of music’s commercialization, look no further than Neil Young. His career is a chronicle of rebellion against the forces that sought to commodify his sound and soul. Young famously walked away from lucrative deals, scrapped projects that didn’t meet his standards, and battled with his own record labels when they tried to package him in ways he refused to accept.
Young’s This Note’s for You—a direct critique of corporate sponsorship in music—wasn’t just a song. It was a manifesto. With biting lyrics and a refusal to conform, Young called out the growing tide of artists selling their music—and themselves—to the highest bidder.
But his fight didn’t end there. Decades later, Young became one of the loudest voices against the devaluation of music in the digital age. He railed against streaming platforms for their poor sound quality and abysmal payouts to artists, going so far as to launch his own high-fidelity music player, Pono, in an effort to restore some measure of integrity to how music was consumed.
Young’s struggle wasn’t just about contracts or platforms. It was about something deeper: a refusal to let music become just another product. His fight showed that the chains of money were stronger than anyone could have imagined, but his resistance remains a rallying cry for those who believe music can—and must—be more.
The Story That Now Includes All of Us
For much of music’s history, the tale was the same: artists created, and the industry exploited. Record labels, publishers, managers, and promoters built fortunes on the backs of musicians, locking them into bad deals, seizing control of their work, and leaving them with little more than crumbs. It was a story of betrayal—of artists losing not just their livelihoods but the rights to the songs they poured their lives into.
We know these stories. We’ve heard them a hundred times. But what we don’t often realize is that this isn’t just history. It’s not just something that happened to The Beatles, or Zappa, or Neil Young. That same system, that same story of exploitation, has expanded its reach. Now, it includes all of us.
Streaming platforms sell us convenience at the expense of connection. We become the product, our listening habits mined for data and profits. Local music scenes collapse under the weight of globalized playlists. We, the listeners, are complicit in the devaluation of music every time we treat it as a disposable commodity, every time we let algorithms choose our songs instead of seeking out something real.
We’re no longer passive witnesses to the exploitation of musicians. We’re participants. And if we don’t wake up to that fact, the story of music will end in tragedy—not just for the artists, but for all of us who need music to live.
Breaking the Chains
Now, here we are. The wrong turn has taken us down a path littered with soulless playlists, algorithm-driven hits, and a music industry where the 1% thrive while the rest struggle in obscurity. The fable is complete—but it doesn’t have to end here.
The lesson is clear: we must go back.
Breaking the chain between music and money is the only way forward. This isn’t a call to dismantle the industry entirely—artists still need to make a living—but to reject the idea that music’s primary value lies in its profitability. We need to rediscover the amateur spirit, not in the pejorative sense of being unpolished, but in the original sense of the word: doing something for the love of it.
Imagine a world where local bands are supported not because they’re the next big thing, but because they’re ours. Where the joy of playing music with friends matters more than landing a record deal. Where the best music is the kind you hear in a room, with people who share the same air and energy as you—not through headphones, not from a stage the size of a small country, but in a space where you can feel the vibrations of the strings.
The Right Track
Going back isn’t regression; it’s a reset. It’s choosing connection over consumption, community over commerce. It’s remembering that music is medicine, not merchandise.
When we strip away the metrics, the algorithms, and the glitz, what’s left? Just people. People singing, playing, and listening together. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where music heals us, teaches us, and reminds us who we are.
This is the moment to rewrite the story. To reclaim music as a thing that lives and breathes, a thing that doesn’t belong to corporations or algorithms but to us. The Beatles and Zappa and Dylan saw the warning signs, and Neil Young showed us what resistance looks like. They couldn’t stop what was coming.
But we can.
To get back on the right track, we must value music for what it is, not what it earns. We must cherish the amateur spirit, the messy, joyful creation that happens when people make music because they must, not because they expect a payout.
The chains of music and money can be broken. The wrong turn can be undone. The fable doesn’t have to end in tragedy. All it takes is the will to listen—to really listen—and to let music matter again.
When Music Was Home
I walk by it sometimes when the house is quiet. My Grandmother’s piano. In the soft light filtering through the window, I can still see how the finish once shined. It stands there waiting and whispering like sunken treasure. The kind of thing that is priceless but can’t be bought, sold, or spent. A silent witness to a deep, different era, one that feel…
Does this make sense to you? What is your experience? What do you do to keep music alive in your life, home, and family?