Ironically for the title of this Substack, this statement is incredibly vague and unsubstantiated: "With Spotify and SoundCloud, it's increasingly rare for truly gifted musicians to go unnoticed, which is a tragedy for seventeen-year-old hipsters everywhere. In a world saturated with information and effortless access, everything will be sufficiently streamed and adequately appreciated—with the exception of country music."
Is it rare? The rise of Spotify has turned music curation into an algorithmic affair, and the decline of music (and other forms of) criticism, paired with the consolidation and then decline of independent radio has given precious few channels for artists to "break through" or be "rediscovered" by an obscure enthusiast.
Yes, you can look up almost anything on Spotify, but you don't, in practice. Just like most the Internet doesn't get seen anymore and increasingly rots away as we don't do search as much anymore, even, being fed content by algorithm or paid-results searches within walled gardens (like Amazon) or else increasingly just asking LLMs about things. The publicly available Spotify data that I've seen verifies that the "long-tail" of music in their library slopes down to zero listens very quickly after the cluster of top artists at the top.
Yes, exactly! The reality is the opposite of this last statement. Now with layers of AI slop creaming it all up it will become even more so. The antidote for an artist is a complete divestment from social media and streamers, have a good website, do some shows, make some cassettes and find people to send them to via mail or email. If you’re a “truly gifted” musician you a) won’t be motivated by your number of fans and b) eventually will have quite a few of them.
Love this stuff! However, any raver is truly clutching their Molly by seeing Sheena Easton listed as house/trance. Also, The Smiths were huge in their native England with many #1s. And Morrissey had many hits in the USA after they broke up. I think that propelled their resurgence in the USA more than retail promotion.
I think your comments about country music somewhat miss the mark. While I agree that it is a somewhat disregarded genre, you note in the "genres snubbed" table that it's part of a more broad trend of shunning pop music, generally. George Strait is certainly a legend in the genre. But it's also true that since the late 90s a lot of country music has been extremely commodified. Pop country for a long time has meant a mediocre singer cosplaying as a cowboy singing cringe lyrics that you'd never hear on an actual cattle ranch. They've often used the same, simplistic backing bands. It's not musically interesting or important, even if it is popular. And it's mostly popular because of consolidated corporate ownership forcing it onto the airwaves over other, more interesting acts, even in the country genre. For more than a generation now country music stations have meant the same piped in top ten country hits, which are sometimes just reskinned pop hits, made worse. Older country music is often only on oldies stations. Finding new rock is surprisingly hard on the radio, but often there's a college, community, or other end-of-the-dial radio station that brings these along. Some of these same stations, interestingly, are sometimes the only place to find critically acclaimed country music.
With that said, I'm not judging country listeners. In fact, I'm just like them. Looking at the "Artists that were underappreciated" table I basically see a list of artists that I never even knew or heard about until I was an adult and hanging with the cool kids. Most of those artists were not on my radar as a teenager, because they weren't on the airwaves. As much as Rolling Stone is possibly shunning certain genres, the media owners have done the same by largely sticking to promoting a small list of safe pop artists (regardless of genre).
Consider the music that is underground is not on those services. Spotify and SoundCloud are mainstream so why would the underground be there? I have a collection of albums on Bandcamp that I cannot find anywhere else. These albums are bought by the exact types who will inform the taste of future hipsters. Or do a deep dive on YouTube for some truly bizarre and boundary pushing stuff. The statement that the best rises to the top today appears to miss the role of underground music to expand our tastes, necessarily pushing at a fringe before there are significant numbers of listeners.
My gut tells me comparing charting songs with greatest albums is tangerines to navel oranges if not apples to oranges.
I’m not meaning to be harsh, but I find this analysis more problematic than your usual articles.
On seeing all the thoughtful and valid critiques of this piece here in the comments section, it's clear this piece sparked those earnest reflections: valuable in its own right!
As is true of other art criticism, music critics tend to favor less commercial artists who employ self-consciously divergent approaches to distinguish themselves from mainstream work. At its best, this has yielded urgent, compelling beats and lyrics. Often, though, these groups have limited musical gifts, depending on their image as rebels to carry a lot of their weight. Rock critics like Robert Christgau are often attracted to bands with bad boy, punk attitudes. If they gave raves to groups like Chicago or Three Dog Night, they might feel as though they have no special role to play. By putting down mainstream artists in favor of more obscure, edgier bands, they seek to elevate their critical faculties over the mindless plebes who love Top 40 music.
Even lauded groups like the Velvet Underground are appreciated more for their vibe than for the quality of their music, which plowed the same fields without much growth over time. Its reputation might have never gotten far if Lou Reed never wore sunglasses or eyeliner.
In short, critical music acclaim tends to romanticize the rebel, the unknown while discounting popular music because, well, if everybody likes something, its no longer cool.
Also, I love Big Star ... even before reading the article, they would be my first bet.
Regarding the possibility of a "new Nick Drake" ... I would conclude the opposite. Today is far more easy due to overwhelming content volume, no central distributor to shape a trend. It's all so disperse that is hard that this type of phenomenon will ever happen again (underrated and later on super influential), but in a very pessimistic way.
Pop music of the 50’s and electronic music have never struck me as “album based” genres in the way rock has been, but more driven by individual tracks. So using a top albums list as a proxy for legacy impact is a biased starting point. Interesting analysis nonetheless.
This is such an interesting exploration of the divide between commercial success and critical acclaim. The point about country music being undervalued—similar to horror films—is spot on. Both resonate deeply with dedicated audiences but get dismissed by critics for not being "highbrow" enough. Also, the idea that the internet age has made "underground" or "long-lost" appeal almost obsolete really hits. Maybe it’s time we rethink what deserves lasting recognition, whether it’s Glee or Zac Brown Band.
Ironically for the title of this Substack, this statement is incredibly vague and unsubstantiated: "With Spotify and SoundCloud, it's increasingly rare for truly gifted musicians to go unnoticed, which is a tragedy for seventeen-year-old hipsters everywhere. In a world saturated with information and effortless access, everything will be sufficiently streamed and adequately appreciated—with the exception of country music."
Is it rare? The rise of Spotify has turned music curation into an algorithmic affair, and the decline of music (and other forms of) criticism, paired with the consolidation and then decline of independent radio has given precious few channels for artists to "break through" or be "rediscovered" by an obscure enthusiast.
Yes, you can look up almost anything on Spotify, but you don't, in practice. Just like most the Internet doesn't get seen anymore and increasingly rots away as we don't do search as much anymore, even, being fed content by algorithm or paid-results searches within walled gardens (like Amazon) or else increasingly just asking LLMs about things. The publicly available Spotify data that I've seen verifies that the "long-tail" of music in their library slopes down to zero listens very quickly after the cluster of top artists at the top.
I agree completely. An entirely unsupported by data conclusion in an otherwise interesting piece.
Yes, exactly! The reality is the opposite of this last statement. Now with layers of AI slop creaming it all up it will become even more so. The antidote for an artist is a complete divestment from social media and streamers, have a good website, do some shows, make some cassettes and find people to send them to via mail or email. If you’re a “truly gifted” musician you a) won’t be motivated by your number of fans and b) eventually will have quite a few of them.
Love this stuff! However, any raver is truly clutching their Molly by seeing Sheena Easton listed as house/trance. Also, The Smiths were huge in their native England with many #1s. And Morrissey had many hits in the USA after they broke up. I think that propelled their resurgence in the USA more than retail promotion.
I think your comments about country music somewhat miss the mark. While I agree that it is a somewhat disregarded genre, you note in the "genres snubbed" table that it's part of a more broad trend of shunning pop music, generally. George Strait is certainly a legend in the genre. But it's also true that since the late 90s a lot of country music has been extremely commodified. Pop country for a long time has meant a mediocre singer cosplaying as a cowboy singing cringe lyrics that you'd never hear on an actual cattle ranch. They've often used the same, simplistic backing bands. It's not musically interesting or important, even if it is popular. And it's mostly popular because of consolidated corporate ownership forcing it onto the airwaves over other, more interesting acts, even in the country genre. For more than a generation now country music stations have meant the same piped in top ten country hits, which are sometimes just reskinned pop hits, made worse. Older country music is often only on oldies stations. Finding new rock is surprisingly hard on the radio, but often there's a college, community, or other end-of-the-dial radio station that brings these along. Some of these same stations, interestingly, are sometimes the only place to find critically acclaimed country music.
With that said, I'm not judging country listeners. In fact, I'm just like them. Looking at the "Artists that were underappreciated" table I basically see a list of artists that I never even knew or heard about until I was an adult and hanging with the cool kids. Most of those artists were not on my radar as a teenager, because they weren't on the airwaves. As much as Rolling Stone is possibly shunning certain genres, the media owners have done the same by largely sticking to promoting a small list of safe pop artists (regardless of genre).
Consider the music that is underground is not on those services. Spotify and SoundCloud are mainstream so why would the underground be there? I have a collection of albums on Bandcamp that I cannot find anywhere else. These albums are bought by the exact types who will inform the taste of future hipsters. Or do a deep dive on YouTube for some truly bizarre and boundary pushing stuff. The statement that the best rises to the top today appears to miss the role of underground music to expand our tastes, necessarily pushing at a fringe before there are significant numbers of listeners.
My gut tells me comparing charting songs with greatest albums is tangerines to navel oranges if not apples to oranges.
I’m not meaning to be harsh, but I find this analysis more problematic than your usual articles.
Great analysis!
On seeing all the thoughtful and valid critiques of this piece here in the comments section, it's clear this piece sparked those earnest reflections: valuable in its own right!
As is true of other art criticism, music critics tend to favor less commercial artists who employ self-consciously divergent approaches to distinguish themselves from mainstream work. At its best, this has yielded urgent, compelling beats and lyrics. Often, though, these groups have limited musical gifts, depending on their image as rebels to carry a lot of their weight. Rock critics like Robert Christgau are often attracted to bands with bad boy, punk attitudes. If they gave raves to groups like Chicago or Three Dog Night, they might feel as though they have no special role to play. By putting down mainstream artists in favor of more obscure, edgier bands, they seek to elevate their critical faculties over the mindless plebes who love Top 40 music.
Even lauded groups like the Velvet Underground are appreciated more for their vibe than for the quality of their music, which plowed the same fields without much growth over time. Its reputation might have never gotten far if Lou Reed never wore sunglasses or eyeliner.
In short, critical music acclaim tends to romanticize the rebel, the unknown while discounting popular music because, well, if everybody likes something, its no longer cool.
Great article...
Also, I love Big Star ... even before reading the article, they would be my first bet.
Regarding the possibility of a "new Nick Drake" ... I would conclude the opposite. Today is far more easy due to overwhelming content volume, no central distributor to shape a trend. It's all so disperse that is hard that this type of phenomenon will ever happen again (underrated and later on super influential), but in a very pessimistic way.
Pop music of the 50’s and electronic music have never struck me as “album based” genres in the way rock has been, but more driven by individual tracks. So using a top albums list as a proxy for legacy impact is a biased starting point. Interesting analysis nonetheless.
This is such an interesting exploration of the divide between commercial success and critical acclaim. The point about country music being undervalued—similar to horror films—is spot on. Both resonate deeply with dedicated audiences but get dismissed by critics for not being "highbrow" enough. Also, the idea that the internet age has made "underground" or "long-lost" appeal almost obsolete really hits. Maybe it’s time we rethink what deserves lasting recognition, whether it’s Glee or Zac Brown Band.
Very interesting stuff! I think unfortunately the first time most of us heard Nick Drake was in a Volkswagen commercial.
And I think nirvana might be having a similar moment as velvet underground did with t shirts etc in stores. But the kids think it’s a clothing brand.