[RJDG14]

I've come up with an attempt to visualise how pop music will be in the 2020s, using my theory that fashions go in a roughly 30 year cycle from experience. This will then go on towards how somebody could write a possibly 2020s sounding song:

*There will be "new-brit-pop", a follow on from the 60s and 90s style bands
*Autotune vocals will have gone out in favour of natural singing, with the exception of if used for effect
*Synths will be generally considered unfashionable, only organ sounds will be routinely incorporated
*Assuming there are still original melodies, there will be more tuneful music than what is currently released
*Following a huge surge in streaming during the late 2010s, vinyl will be at a 40 year peak (in 2030)
*Songs will be more focused on social issues, rather than love and sexual stuff
*There will still be some not so good stuff, sounding similar to the current charts, but more blended in, with less synth used
*The selfie culture will have gone out of fashion, although venues will still typically allow photos (unlike the 90s)

Taking these predictions into account for 10-15 years time, I feel that a REM or Oasis style piece, with some influences of current stuff, will sound quite similar to regular alternative stuff in the 2020s.

Would you agree on this, and if not, how do you think 2020s music will turn out? Would you have any different advice for somebody who wanted to come up with an ahead sounding piece?

[Boydie]

I think you are pretty much spot on apart from:

Songs will be more focused on social issues, rather than love and sexual stuff

I think the day songs stop being about love and sex will be the real day the music dies!!!

Don't forget that new generations are always coming through so a first kiss, first love, break up, etc. will still always be relevant to Tweenies and also nostalgic for older people

Advances in streaming and social media interest me the most - will there be "established" acts in 15 years time? - or will everyone just listen to "smaller", independent acts that they actually WANT to listen to (rather than thinking they should to be cool and fit in)

Think of TV - I remember a time when there was only 3 channels (and I am sure others remember fewer  )

We have gone through a time with a gazillion channels and now we have "on demand" so ratings for the "big channels" and shows have plummeted and people can watch what they want (even "Nazis and Sharks" 24/7 if they have Sky!)

[Sing4me88]

Have to disagree with all of it I'm afraid. You're treating music almost as a separate form the wider society in which it is formed, played out and bought in. The world is getting more technological not less ergo we are likely to see more synth and less real instrument playing. Everything about modern society is getting increasingly sexualised from more liberal attitudes to sex to branding and marketing to the behaviour of prominent sorts stars. Sex sells always has and always will so like Boydie I don't see music being an exception to the global trend. I think what your post contains, if I'm being brutally frank, is your idealised version of how music SHOULD be rather than of how music WILL be. But hey I probably know even less about this than lyric writing so I'm as much guessing as the rest of you

[adamfarr]

Pretty interesting but I think very theoretical discussion...

Possibly you might be right that there could be some cycles that repeat (people like electronica, get fed up and want to hear guitars, crave electronica, crave guitars again etc. etc.)

But the world is changing and there are many other trends that influence all this. For me the real killers are:

- ability to hear any music from any time and any genre at the click of a mouse;
- globalisation as Western-Eastern styles influence each other...

So maybe music the world over will start to sound the same (example of globalisation: Gangnam Style?). Maybe the most popular styles could be based on Chinese or Indian music. No-one knows. The only sure thing is that country music will still roll on. That stuff changes about as quickly as the rules of chess...

[Paulski]

Ah - trying to predict the future - many have tried - good luck with that!
For me I just try to write a good song and to h*ll with the trends.
It's great to see home recording tools get better and cheaper though.
cheers
Paul

[Vintage54]

       Paulski,
         The sound of a man with his feet on ground, And the eyes of the wise old owl in the tree. Who can predict?

                                Vintage54

[hardtwistmusic]

I've come up with an attempt to visualise how pop music will be in the 2020s, using my theory that fashions go in a roughly 30 year cycle from experience. This will then go on towards how somebody could write a possibly 2020s sounding song:

*There will be "new-brit-pop", a follow on from the 60s and 90s style bands
*Autotune vocals will have gone out in favour of natural singing, with the exception of if used for effect
*Synths will be generally considered unfashionable, only organ sounds will be routinely incorporated
*Assuming there are still original melodies, there will be more tuneful music than what is currently released
*Following a huge surge in streaming during the late 2010s, vinyl will be at a 40 year peak (in 2030)
*Songs will be more focused on social issues, rather than love and sexual stuff
*There will still be some not so good stuff, sounding similar to the current charts, but more blended in, with less synth used
*The selfie culture will have gone out of fashion, although venues will still typically allow photos (unlike the 90s)

Taking these predictions into account for 10-15 years time, I feel that a REM or Oasis style piece, with some influences of current stuff, will sound quite similar to regular alternative stuff in the 2020s.

Would you agree on this, and if not, how do you think 2020s music will turn out? Would you have any different advice for somebody who wanted to come up with an ahead sounding piece?

I'm far more interested in the BASIS for your predictions than with the predictions themselves.  In other words, I'm interested in WHY you think this.  Far less interested in THAT you think it. 

I have some theories myself.  I think that periodically (not a thirty year cycle as far as I can tell - although econimic trends DO tend to run in thirty year cycles.... so there is basis for your belief) music "changes" by "returning to folk music" and then combining elements from other forms of music TO the folk music.  WHEN that next change is due is far beyond my limited abilities to guess. 

Other observations...... when music does "return to folk" the producers/industry becomes less powerful and the artists become more powerful.  The "demand" for good music becomes the primary driving force instead of the "supply" dictating what everyone listens to.  As far as the decade of the 2020s becoming like the decade of the 1990s, I don't see that happening.  And I hope it does not happen.  (If it's a thirty year cycle, it will happen is why I bring it up.) 

What I hope happens is that by 2025 or so, people begin to demand some artist driven excellence and refuse to listen to what the producers order them to like.  At that time (and there is nothing magic about 2025) artists will become important again, and music will be treated like (and marketed like)  art instead of being treated like soap and/or detergent. 

[PopTodd]

I've come up with an attempt to visualise how pop music will be in the 2020s, using my theory that fashions go in a roughly 30 year cycle from experience. This will then go on towards how somebody could write a possibly 2020s sounding song:

*There will be "new-brit-pop", a follow on from the 60s and 90s style bands
*Autotune vocals will have gone out in favour of natural singing, with the exception of if used for effect
*Synths will be generally considered unfashionable, only organ sounds will be routinely incorporated
*Assuming there are still original melodies, there will be more tuneful music than what is currently released
*Following a huge surge in streaming during the late 2010s, vinyl will be at a 40 year peak (in 2030)
*Songs will be more focused on social issues, rather than love and sexual stuff
*There will still be some not so good stuff, sounding similar to the current charts, but more blended in, with less synth used
*The selfie culture will have gone out of fashion, although venues will still typically allow photos (unlike the 90s)

Taking these predictions into account for 10-15 years time, I feel that a REM or Oasis style piece, with some influences of current stuff, will sound quite similar to regular alternative stuff in the 2020s.

Would you agree on this, and if not, how do you think 2020s music will turn out? Would you have any different advice for somebody who wanted to come up with an ahead sounding piece?

I'm far more interested in the BASIS for your predictions than with the predictions themselves.  In other words, I'm interested in WHY you think this.  Far less interested in THAT you think it. 

I'm guessing that it's based upon the 20/30 year cycle of nostalgia/retro always coming back into favor.
Look at how the 90s echoed the 60s psych (BritPop) and punk (Grunge) sounds of 20-30 years earlier. And how the rockabilly comeback of the early 80s did the same thing on a similar timeframe.
I absolutely think that there is something to that.
And, while I would not bet the house on it, I would lean very heavily on these predictions being pretty much on.

[Paulski]

Another thing that might happen is this:

Lyrics to pop songs will become simpler and simpler, dumber and dumber until 90% of songs will consist of "Whoa's" and "Hey-ay's".  At this point most listeners will have their brain explode and suffer from repeating bouts of nasal projectile vomiting. From this unfortunate a-"pop"-olypse a phoenix of simple folk songs will herald in a new generation of music for the surviving listeners.

*book of paulski ch 3 vs 9

May we all live to see that glorious day. 

[Boydie]

I think the key is that songs that are 10 years old sound "dated", when they are 20 years old they sound nostalgic and then when they are 30 years old they get "re-discovered" and are cool again

I hope funk makes a bit of a return after Uptown Funk

[hardtwistmusic]

Have to disagree with all of it I'm afraid. You're treating music almost as a separate form the wider society in which it is formed, played out and bought in. The world is getting more technological not less ergo we are likely to see more synth and less real instrument playing. Everything about modern society is getting increasingly sexualised from more liberal attitudes to sex to branding and marketing to the behaviour of prominent sorts stars. Sex sells always has and always will so like Boydie I don't see music being an exception to the global trend. I think what your post contains, if I'm being brutally frank, is your idealised version of how music SHOULD be rather than of how music WILL be. But hey I probably know even less about this than lyric writing so I'm as much guessing as the rest of you

Good points.  The other thing we have to keep in mind if/when making predictions is that the social CONTEXT creates the musical tastes. 

The great depression created Woodie Guthrie.  Without it, his folk songs would have never found listeners.  The "spokesman for the common man" only becomes important when the common man needs a voice. 

Similarly, the Vietnam war created a whole musical era precisely because 18 year old draftees who could neither vote, nor otherwise be "heard" needed a voice.  The whole protest era of music in the USA was created by social context. 

The trend toward country music in the USA (still underway) was more of an "anti-protest" backlash.  In the first era 1965 to 1985, a song had to say something profound (and anti-establishment) or it couldn't get heard.  From 1985 to 2005, the songs could NOT say anything anti-establishment or they would not get heard. 

If there is another major war.... it will have more effect on music than any existing "cycles." 

If we ever get around to admitting that there has been a major economic collapse and that there have been many victims of it world-wide, THAT will change music more than any "cycle." 

[Sing4me88]

I hope funk makes a bit of a return after Uptown Funk

Amen to that! Got a couple of nice wee lyric hook/ideas I've been slowly bringing together in that modern Bruno style funk so hopefully I'll be £ in if it does.....