 So if you know this tale you know a lot of why I started doing this and for that matter why I wrote my books is I saw information out There that was lacking and being helpful to musicians or just flat out false Since music is often infiltrated by grifters looking for marks to buy courses of information that is free and easy to find But what we're gonna talk about today is not those grifters or even the people who know nothing and spread bad Information that they haven't really researched instead I want to talk about two people I respect and think do a lot of good in the world of music And our true music lovers who try to make musicians think and make me think regularly So Rick Beato, who's one of the most popular youtubers discussing music had on Ted Joya a writer I've been reading for literally as long as I can remember reading articles on the internet And they had a great nuanced conversation that touched on a lot of great points Seriously, it's well worth your time to watch as it's to really smart people having a great conversation on music And I linked it in the description But here's the thing Rick has a massive platform and there's some points in here That is someone who values having musicians informed about what's really going on in music I can't let the things they get completely wrong stand because I wouldn't be being me I mean after all Ted says in this video and I was going to assume that my audience had very little tolerance for bull And I'm part of his audience and I'm here to call bull So I felt the need to make this video to respectfully offer the audience a greater context because some of the stuff said here Really needs a lot more context so that we all understand what's actually going on music And there's really some bad agenda pursuant takes that fall under the unfortunate banner of Anyway, so I clipped some of the interview which I hope Rick will see as fair use since he's made some great videos on how Ridiculous YouTube's copyright strikes are so let's get into it Well, I sometimes complain about the three-minute song, but check this out right now The music industry thinks their savior will be tick-tock, right? I mean they're absolutely convinced that all the problems they have are gonna be solved by tick-tock But I saw this study and it's unbelievable that someone analyzed the most successful Tick-tock videos and they said the ideal music for a successful tick-tock video is 16 seconds in duration and what I Really can't believe that the future of music, you know the next breakthrough is gonna be 16 second songs Lord So this gets into my main problem with this discussion on this podcast as someone super familiar with Ted and Rick's work and a fan They both do a lot of downing modern-day music I on the other hand am one of those people who argue we're in the best period of music of all time And as we know from countless studies Most people feel that music peaks shortly around their teen years Since as we know music at its core is a mood-altering drug that makes you feel a way you'd rather feel and for most of us Our emotions are pretty intense in those years, but then they level out to more logical things like taking care of bills You know that lawn and that partner that whole thing and while this is conjecture What I see happening here is Ted is more than smart enough to know that this study He's talking about here or anyone that's suggesting you make song 16 seconds long is Totally taking it out of its intended mean instead what those studies say is when you post a song to tick tock That 16 seconds is an ideal length for the clipped version of it to penetrate the algorithm now considering most songs hooks are far Shorter than 16 seconds. It's not unreasonable for this to be suggested, but here's the thing It's our job as people who explain music to people to punch holes in arguments that we both agree with and disagree with But if I'm gonna offer my conjecture this didn't get that vetting because it agrees with Ted's points about how bad music is today And honestly this argument could have done a lot better here because we all know that's not what this study suggested and frankly in your words Ted, it's like a foggy. Sorry, but it's true. People don't love music as much as they used to I know that seems like an Extraordinary generalization about that about Gen Z ears. Don't you know, I this is just my own You know from talking to kids. I talk to kids all the time. I have young kids I talk to their friends and they're just not engaged in music and and the loyalty part of it I think and Sting said this too that the fact that you can just turn on a water faucet You get access to anything and through streaming whereas before you used to buy albums and cherish them and own them So obviously I've posted cringe on the timeline here now Let me say the first thing here is what's always said in these discussions where old people talk about modern music It's because we didn't search five record stores then get an LP that we could look at while you listen to a record We don't form relationships with music And all of us know we're passionate about music today that this is totally ridiculous Music's what drives youth culture and almost every conversation on the internet is somehow affiliated with music culture I'm sorry. That's true. Whether you're watching video games doing dumb dances on the internet whatever it is It's all around music still and that's just as much as it ever has been It just doesn't look the same way as it did now as someone who did have to go to five record stores as a kid to get mostly Records, I'd be really disappointed in I know today by being someone who hangs out in discord subreds and YouTube comments sections That that drives the conversation even bigger than it ever did and I'm a child of the internet when you talk about Tiktok it drives so much of you culture and what is the majority of tiktok hmm? music-based dances or Conversations or performances to music and the reason tiktok dominates over Instagram reels and YouTube shores is it's so much easier to Integrate music on the platform and that's a lot of what gives them their edge Just because music consumption doesn't look like what it looked like in your youth It does not mean that music isn't just as important or that the generation isn't as engaged in it There's no definitive study that says otherwise, especially since we count music consumption in such totally different ways today Which is another point we're gonna have to talk about it's fascinating because it used to be songs with going to rotation on a Radio station. Oh, they were so these are the top 40 hits and every week the list would change a little bit Yeah, but over time you started seeing Radio stations and playlist corridors and everybody in the industry becoming more risk-averse Right and if there was a song that was popular, I'm not gonna take it off I'm not gonna be the one to take it off the list And all of a sudden you had this situation where songs would get into rotation and would never leave Right, which made it very difficult for the next song Yeah, and and it's all because of this risk-averse Cautious mentality on the industry, but then I saw this research that resulted in the article you mentioned the Groundhog Day back In the days when the the best-selling list mentioned actual sales. Yeah, it was meaningful Someone had actually reached into their wallet and bought this music. Yeah now days It's all this formula based on clicks and views and what are what streams and you know Who knows what goes into those those figures and it's always the same songs Right on the top and this year the top 10 songs nine of them were same at the top 10 Yeah, the previous year. Yeah, and they say we're now Groundhog Day is that you listen to the most popular songs and they just Don't change So I've cut up what they said here a bit for brevity's sake But this is important it can be argued very easily that it's a problem that taste makers like the radio station programmers Aren't doing taste making because they know that they're appealing to the most Disengaged people who just want somebody to put on something that's not gonna make them change the channel and that's part of why radio essentially tries to now serve as a list of the most familiar songs in a given format for the People who are least engaged with music because everyone else is engaged is using a playlist today, but here's the thing It's Inarguable that the reason radio does this is they watch streaming numbers and now finally have an accurate gauge on how much people like a song And when they get sick of it as streams ramp down instead of having to do what they had to do 20 years ago an Interview people about when they're sick of a song come on man Songstay popular for longer than ever because we can now accurately measure how long it takes all these Disengaged listeners to start being sick of old town road, which I was probably sick of the fourth time I heard it we now have really accurate tools for this so radios responding But this gets to why one of Ted's articles that Rick got really excited about on how old music is dominating new music Is factually not measured very well So this cursed article was mainly based on a study that's made a crucial mistake by defining old music or Catalog releases in a really questionable methodology and the problem is that criteria They used was the song was released 18 months ago, which is ridiculous And that's for a handful of reasons such as the point that we just discussed that regularly Songs are on the radio for a really long time and stay popular because in any era of music The larger numbers are driven by people who aren't the most passionate music fans But instead people just putting on familiar songs to block out noise and make their mood feel a way they'd rather feel But here's my main point against this article take one of the most popular artists right now one do a leap up Hey girl now You've probably guessed I'm an uber riding city type and I hear do a nearly every time I get in an uber or walk in a bagel shop playing top 40 radio as I have for the past few years But here's the thing her record was released two years ago And it's still releasing singles and if you spend any time listening to popular radio You know multi-year-old songs are regularly consumed because they're still releasing singles from these records for Ever so for the past six months every time you hear any of her numerous songs that they play on the radio From her current record that get hundreds of millions of streams every release Well, they count that as catalog the long tail of albums is really long these days And then that gets counted as catalog releases even though they are fresh new songs that the majority of the public haven't heard I say this all to bring up one of my main mantras about music Which is music is a lot like our Kelly's backstage area and that no one's checking a date of birth All they care about is if music makes them feel a way they'd rather feel I think this is a good thing about music since as long as it's new to you Well, it can be emotionally powerful and this is what we're constantly seeing now from songs like Bastille or glass animals There are four or even nine years old that were never really heard before but are blowing up because they sound modern and fresh And yes, those are considered catalog songs by this study standard Yet they're new songs to people because most people had never heard them until tick tock blew them up But notice this doesn't happen with really old music Instead it happens with songs that don't get proper attention in the mass of music released But had a small audience but then were brought to a larger audience through tick tock whose audience then jumped to Spotify and kept streaming But you know the old music that everybody tries to celebrate that makes these arguments That's not happening with it because we still care about new fresh music So the claims that old music is crushing new music. Well, I'm sorry. It's not real And here's the thing whenever I hear old people argue that old music is overtaking new music What they also like to discount is what's finally happening is streaming music measures when some boomer who finally adopts Spotify Still listens to the same damn song that they've been listening to since they were 21 You know longer than my old ass has even been alive and they're still rocking the same song and Christ You know, it's scary some loser I went to high school with is still gonna be mentally stuck on that lit song where the car is in the front lawn And this my friends is why America is not doing so well these days because that person has probably procreated multiple times Well taking some gas station boner pills and creating a kid who looks like this I'm telling you a 40 year olds just listen to food house and delete Zeke like me. Everything would be okay Anyway, there's real data that the boomers are finally adopting streaming services You've probably seen it too and because of that everybody listens to music from throughout their life And cuz there's so much more music than the last 18 months old music has a distinct advantage To get more popular as old people adopt it The thing is now is we now get to see how much grandpa is listening to some trash song that he keeps thinking about that one date He went on Susie Q with that had some terrible lyrics like come on baby Let the good times roll and now we have to see that they're listening to it over and over and over again You know all the while while they demean rap music's lyrics while they're listening to a song with lyrics like that Anyway, that's not what Rick and Ted are doing here And I'm clearly getting a little off track and heated here But here's the thing when you put those goalposts at 18 months Insight this study as evidence that old music is now gonna dominate new music You're putting those goalposts in a convenient place that really does not make sense Since we've never been able to measure people's consumption of how often they've written songs all the old rules are Totally gone and because it's not just young people who largely adopted Spotify and other streaming services first Using it and old people are starting to yes Consumptions gonna change with adaptation and it's funny because this is the first time we're ever seeing this in music Cuz we have to remember record players and even CD players were for rich people at first But since the digital music age, this is the first time that well It's not just rich people who get to do the technology first And you know one last point I'd like to make when we're talking about old music We want to say that these are these legacy artists or artists that are from the past or from that person's generation That's always the argument. They're always making but here's another thing. You know what counts in that catalog music I mean who amongst us doesn't go back and listen to the artist We love albums before the one they are currently released and start rinsing their old stuff, too As we start to love the mood that they've put us in with their new release We ever visit some of their old releases that gets counted as catalog music and as old music I'm sorry That's people consuming new music and the evolution of new artists and I gotta say I'm not worried about new music It's doing just fine these studies though. They're not doing so well and maintaining the relevancy after they're held up to the light Okay, one last boomer take I did see something just the other day saying and it said it looks like the major labels have so much Influence on Spotify playlist you could almost say they control them now if you watch this channel You know this is not true because I made a whole video debunking this since it's super easy and lucky for you It's linked on the screen right now. Like I said most of Rick and Ted's discussion in this podcast is super smart But I wanted to give some further context. I hope you go listen to their side of discussion. Thanks for watching