Image Credit: Fireworks on New Year’s Eve in a small Swabian village (1), brightened.jpg by Andreas Weith. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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So the post I had planned for New Year’s Day went all kinds of pear-shaped over the course of the Holidaze® Season. Like I’ve explained before, Bananaland (my terminology for the never-ending intrusion of Business Idiots® and Tech Bozos®) keeps getting in the way so I’ve come to realize it’s The New Normal® here at SW Headquarters and I should just roll with it. Sometimes, we just need to ‘cheat’… 😀
Yesterday I was listening to Bobby Owsinski’s ‘Inner Circle’ audiocast where he makes his predictions for the year, and saw an easy out for this New Year’s post. They certainly tie into my views, so I can piggyback on his decades of musical expertise in Music Production and Mixing for a much-needed assist.
You should also check out his many, many books – his Handbook series are must-haves (and constantly referenced) in the Engineering Circles of the Music Biz. Highly Recommended reading, and many of them are available in your Public Library. 🙂 I also suggest listening to the audiocast of his predictions since Bobby also goes through his ones made for 2025 and how well he fared.
So, I present to you the summaries of Bobby’s Predictions from his Website along with my commentary below. I’ll have additional thoughts afterward (as usual…)
• Streaming prices are rising as subscriber growth plateaus
Yep, we’ve been seeing this for a while now. Streaming is convenient, but quite costly (and getting costlier every year), so I always recommend owning as much of your media as you can (and your tools too!) to keep the Tech Bozos® need for greed to a minimum.
• YouTube is quickly becoming the #1 music streaming destination
I resubbed to YT Premium (or whatever it’s called this week) earlier this year since I wanted to make sure the Creators I like to watch are getting something for their efforts since ad revenue is an absolute crapshoot for them nowadays, and that Almighty Algorithm must be continuously bowed to by them to even try and earn something of a living. For all you get, it’s still reasonably affordable (assuming you can buy a YT Sub and food. Or a place to live. Or all of the above…) and I think it is the best Streaming Platform we have, even if you have to slog through the muck to find all the good stuff hidden underneath…
• AI slop is clogging platforms and turning off listeners
‘Whatcha gonna do when the novelty is gone?’ (to quote a famous Post-Punk quartet). It was interesting at first, and now has become rote, instantly recognizable, and is flooding everything with the ‘sameness’ transparently cash-grabbing drivel that everyone is tired of – both visually and aurally. Good riddance.
• Major labels are cutting deals with AI music generators, often at artists’ expense
The unholy merger of Business Idiots® and Tech Bozos® just ruins everything it touches. They don’t care about you – they just want your money. Ignore them and just do it yourself using the plethora of choices we have. Just make sure they are not selling your property to the Idiot Bozos…
• Human musicianship is making a comeback
I’ve been banging this drum for a while, and totally agree – although I see this as a slower trend… Electronic Music is not going anywhere, and I personally see the ease of entry for beginners (not to mention the convenience for the experienced) as a strong case for DAWs, Sequencers, Synths, and Samplers always being a part of the Music Production picture. But – I think the days of perfectly Quantizing everything, locking all the parts tightly to the Grid, and ‘playing once and cut, copy, paste to make arrangements’ is done. People want the real back in their art again – the emotions, the performance, and the Happy Accidents (mistakes) humans make regardless of the medium they use. More of this please.
• Another round of venue closures is coming
I’m hoping this is not the case since more people actually playing their instruments and doing so in front of other human beings means needing not only more places to practice, but more places to play out live… Bobby says both the decline in alcohol consumption (a good thing IMO) and just the expense of ‘brick and mortar’ costs in general is to blame, but I’m honestly hopeful musicians will find alternatives and workarounds. We need those ‘Third Spaces’ in our lives again.
• Big music gear consolidation and fewer product releases ahead
I see this happen nearly monthly with just the Electronic Gear Manufacturers and Plugin companies – I’m sure it’s just as prevalent in the guitar and drums arena too. Bobby’s reasoning is valid, and personally I agree it’s good to have less gear available (especially if it’s yet another clone of something there’s plenty of already, like the 1176 and LA2A Dynamic Processors or endless Minimoog and other Monosynth photocopies – even though I have some of these myself!). I’ve mentioned before that Daniel Miller’s quote ‘Limitation is Liberation’ is some of the best advice any artist can have. Learn what you have until it doesn’t do what you need it to anymore, only then should you find a replacement.
• Social media fatigue is real, artists are quietly pulling back
This is a shining example of why I’m so few and far between here at SonicWasteland – I’ve got stuff I need to do, and art I like to do, and people I want to hang out with IRL. Social Media stopped being fun a long time ago, and now it’s just plain work in a vain attempt to get anything to pop up above the waves of AI Slop, Bot Nonsense®, and everyone else screaming ‘Look at me!!! Look at me!!!’ I think we’re over it (or really warming up to the idea) and to be honest, I think it’s been a long time coming. See Goodhart’s Law.
• A Grammy nomination for an AI music designer is highly likely
Terrifying, but he’s probably right. The Grammy’s®†m© stopped being a measure of the music-buying public decades ago, so is this really such a loss?
• NAMM and other major industry shows continue to shrink
I’ve been to two NAMM shows in my life – both in the 80’s. They were exciting in the same way all the Music Tech in the 80’s was exciting. Once that innovation cooled down I never saw the point in going again. And then once the Interwebz® came along and we knew what was going to come out before the Trade Shows even started the jig was up. Like less gear is a good thing, maybe smaller, more focused Trade Shows are too. We shall see…
A few last words:
First, thanks to Bobby Owsinski for helping me get out of the rut of this post – hope I send some traffic your way!
Second, Always look at the New Year as a time of renewal and growth. It’s so easy to get caught up in the chaos going on around us every fleeting second that it’s hard to remember that humans are not built for this kind of thing. We work really well under stress, but we need to have plenty of downtime so we can perform when we have to. Art (and truly any passion) is that downtime we need. Fit some into your schedule as often as you can.
Lastly, remember that we need your art in the world. You need to take care of yourself to make that happen, so be sure to do that too. 🙂
Until next time…
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