Well... I can tell you where it's not: big labels and the RIAA.

The title should be "The future of popular music..."

You can't group all music into these different 'endings.'

etstanger wrote:The title should be "The future of popular music..."

You can't group all music into these different 'endings.'

pop is hop, bop is on top

As long as there are minimum wage jobs, and taxes on food, people are going to have stress, and live performances are the antidote. Screw an automated dj streaming music! Drinking, jumping, and having a good time with friends in a public setting will never get old.

As long as profitable music is owned by the big corporations, we will see and hear what they want us to see and hear. There will always be some indie groups and jam bands who will sell you their CDs, but that isn't a long term financial solution. The big labels will sign the "next pop stars" or create them on Idol type shows and that what the kids will want. iTunes, Amazon, Google and whoever will sell you the tunes that the majority of kids want to hear, and that is where it will be.

The future of music is MP3 downloads & players.

I was so sure that Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero represented the next phase in musical evolution. I predicted (really, ask my kids) that artists would no longer just release a song -- that's a business model as dead as 45rpm records. No, the artists of the future would release their music with dance and guitar and drum and even hip-hop DJ scratch tracks, creating an unparalleled connection (and money stream!) between the creator of the content and the consumer.

I don't know what contributed most to the apparent death of interactive music. I want to believe it was greed, like when Konami (makers of DDR) purchased competitor In The Groove with the sole purpose of removing it from the market. And licensing spats and non-interoperability between the Guitar/Band/whatever simulators seemed to kill off that side.

But I suspect the real culprit is that the inertia of passive listening was just too much to overcome. Plus, my idea for DDR floor mats for the car never seemed to get past the concept stage.

epicsatyr wrote:As long as there are minimum wage jobs, and taxes on food, people are going to have stress, and live performances are the antidote. Screw an automated dj streaming music! Drinking, jumping, and having a good time with friends in a public setting will never get old.

Perhaps not, but you will, and then you will break a hip.

RobertB wrote:No, the artists of the future would release their music with dance and guitar and drum and even hip-hop DJ scratch tracks, creating an unparalleled connection (and money stream!) between the creator of the content and the consumer.

I don't know what contributed most to the apparent death of interactive music. I want to believe it was greed . . .

Turning art into a business kills the art every time. The future of music is the same as the past of music. People will get together and make art for no other reason than to make art... and they won't be using plastic guitars with all of five buttons on them to do it.

I didn't agree with any of the selections so I selected the last one....

The future of music is exactly as it is today. An artists releases an album, the internet spreads specific tracks like wildfire, some for money, mostly for free.

Radio will likely fade out slowly over time. With time, everyone will have fast internet at their fingertips for next to nothing no matter where they are. Why listen to 30 mins of ads and 10 mins of DJ talking to listen to 20 mins of music.... when I can log into Pandora. Not that I think Pandora will take over the world. I still believe the #1 source of audio will come from iPods/MP3's. I'll listen to exactly what I want whenever I want.

What is the future of music? Well, let's think: We've gone from Bach to the Beetles to Bieber. I suppose the next phase should be Banging on Buckets. Oh wait, they already do that. Man, we are so screwed . . .