What happened to modern music?

Hello, this is Vaidotas. I’m currently in Italy, enjoying a short vacation and, at the same time, having a bit more time to reflect on new ideas.

While scrolling through Instagram, I came across a post predicting which songs might be nominated for the Grammy Song of the Year award this year. After listening to short excerpts of the songs, I became interested in the comments.

The same theme kept appearing over and over again: many people were saying that they hadn’t seen such a list of bland, gray, uninspiring songs in a long time.

That observation caught my attention. Why does contemporary music sound the way it does? What has changed over time?

With more free time on my hands, I started digging deeper. I found some interesting insights and realized that this feeling wasn’t limited to the commenters alone.

I came across one of the more interesting recent academic studies. The authors show how creators consciously optimize songs for platforms and algorithms. They discuss the decline of creative autonomy and how a song is becoming not only a work of art but also a data product. In the past, a song was primarily made for people; now, it is often designed to appeal to an algorithm.

One Pitchfork article discusses how streaming has changed the structure of pop music. It explains why songs try to hook listeners within the first few seconds, why choruses arrive earlier, and why long introductions are becoming less common. It’s not directly about emotions, but about how economics and algorithms are shaping the language of creativity.

Meanwhile, The Verge published a compelling cultural analysis. It argues that algorithms encourage homogenization: songs are getting shorter, sounding more alike, and artists are adapting to platform logic. One of the central ideas is that music’s purpose is gradually shifting toward retaining attention rather than conveying complex or deeply emotional experiences.

What I want to say is that every creator has the right to discover their own way of making art. That can include following algorithms or creating songs that have little lasting value. It is a matter of personal choice and ability. What interests me, however, is the bigger picture. What is happening overall?

Lately, it seems as though music is being made according to the principle of not affecting the listener too strongly—becoming background music that goes in one ear and out the other without disturbing the brain.

People in the comments under that post raised an interesting question: Can you remember a song from the past five years that truly blew the minds of listeners across different age groups? A song that many random people you meet on the street could hum?

There is a good chance that such songs are still being created, but they may not necessarily fit the demands of technological algorithms. Think about how fascinating the times we live in are: technology decides much of what you listen to, and there is less and less human influence behind those decisions.

I believe that human beings are valuable, and that our imperfect choices are often more interesting than the emotional detachment of technology.

I genuinely want to believe that songs filled with emotion—songs that challenge the mind, provoke a reaction, and make us stop and listen—will once again find their way to audiences in this age of background music.

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