The first thing I want to bring up is the lack of Australian representation on the ARIA charts as of late, now obviously we've had some representation over the last few years from the likes of Tones and I and Kid Laroi, however both of them were indie artists who managed to have massive success worldwide thanks to Triple J heavily promoting their music to an international market since the station went global throughout the 2010's. Even with reality TV such as the Voice, X Factor and the recent return of Australian Idol, we haven't had any successful songs from an Australian artist this decade so far that was on a major label, suggesting that we Aussies have officially given up on supporting local artists in favour of whatever's popular worldwide (particularly on streaming services which is mostly made up for American artists.)
Music veterans have coined the term "cultural cringe" to identify the issue with us Aussies ignoring our local talent in favour of international artists, a term that I feel is appropriate as there's certainly not a lack of local talent in our music industry to become the next big thing, and yet we're pushing that all aside for songs that in some cases are decades old at this point. While there have been talks about how to rectify this situation, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done as promotion for local artists is as strong as ever (not to mention the music being miles better than its international competition.) Even previously well-established Aussie artists such as 5SOS and Dean Lewis are struggling to find success here despite being in the prime of their careers.
A possible reason for this conundrum is the second issue I have with the modern music scene, that being how streaming has completely made ARIA and by extension the popularity of music down under completely redundant. Gone are the days that there was intrigue in what would become popular as we now live in an environment where the most popular songs here are more or less the same as what they are everywhere else in the world. This is because streaming takes up the majority of what goes into the data to calculate the charts not just here but throughout the world given how the pandemic prevented music lovers from buying the music they love (be it digitally or physically) in favour of streaming what Spotify and other services determined to be the popular music of the moment. This is even worse now that YouTube data has been included into our charts, meaning that a popular meme from the website can now have as much mileage here as it has since the data was incorporated into the Billboard charts in 2013.
This has an easier fix to the problem, namely, to not only buy the music you love (within reason of course) but also to look past those curated lists and explore new music that you love. Streaming was only included onto chart data to track the music those out of touch with the mainstream were listening to, meaning that artists that would've otherwise never had a chance to appear in the mainstream are now some of the biggest hits of all time worldwide thanks to Spotify's inability to rotate these songs off their playlists in favour of other artists that could use the exposure. This practice has led to many people (me included) accusing the company of engaging in payola as they cater to the biggest names in music in a similar fashion to how radio stations played music from the same artists over and over again in lieu of diversifying the music industry.
One thing that I found soul crushing when constructing my lists for the 2020's is how monotonous my commentary came off, I couldn't even get angry with the choices as it was just the same five or six artists appearing on the lists over and over again with very little variety of what I can say for each of their entries. Here's a list of artists and how many entries I would've featured with their albums (this includes repeat entries on each list):
Taylor Swift: 7
Billie Eilish: 5
Luke Combs: 5
Ed Sheeran: 5
Harry Styles: 4
The Weeknd: 4
Dua Lipa: 3
Elton John: 3
Eminem: 2
Pop Smoke: 2
Soundtrack: 2
Olivia Rodrigo: 2
Adele: 2
Doja Cat: 2
AC/DC: 1
Post Malone: 1
Juice Wrld: 1
BTS: 1
Lewis Capaldi: 1
Tame Impala: 1
Kid Laroi: 1
Justin Bieber: 1
Abba: 1
Drake: 1
Maroon 5: 1
Fleetwood Mac: 1
Now call me crazy, but that doesn't seem like a particularly interesting list of people to talk about, let alone multiple times with so few variation on each list to begin with for each of the entries. Admittedly this was an issue with the 2010's where there was so few variation with what was popular that decade that I really dragged myself in finally constructing my album list for the decade, however I was able to come up with enough to say for all of the notable entries to make it worthwhile. A big problem is that the mere announcement from a popular artist will send all of their catalogue flying up the charts in luei of rising stars in the music industry (in particular, Taylor Swift and her "Taylor's versions" of her back catalogue.) This also means that albums that were released years ago have still yet to drop off the charts even once, again coming from the names I brought up earlier.
This has no easy solution to its problem either as the only way to fix this this issue is to make these albums ineligible to chart which would be outright illegal to do. All we can hope for is that the fan bases of these artists eventually expand their music taste to restore diversity to what it once was in the music industry. The NZ charts has created a separate chart to curb this problem by making any entry older than eighteen months (78 weeks) ineligible for the main charts. This has been criticised by the kiwis due to preventing older songs that might gain a second chance in the spotlight from doing so, basically only giving them one chance to make an impression on them before missing out forever. We Aussies have a new music chart which only tracks songs released within four months of each chart which has faced similar criticism, although these charts are just the main charts but with only the most recent songs so it's not like they were designed to be reputable.
Both of these solutions are only skin deep anyway as they simply disqualify what is eligible to become popular in both countries rather than affecting the listening habits of those from the southern hemisphere, its similar to how music labels used to pull singles from shelves in order to encourage album sales, except of course they at least aren't currently denying anyone their right to own/stream the music they love like they used to. Again, the only real solution is to deincentivise fans to mass consume music from their favourite artists, which would be impossible to do without taking away their human rights as that's a form of censorship which I'm against (regardless if its towards artists I dislike such as Taylor Swift or Morgan Wallen.) I guess one solution is to only count streaming data from official releases, that is, a song or album is only counted if it is streamed from the artists official account on YouTube or Spotify rather than a playlist and/or video compilation from the former.
I also need to bring up what type of music is becoming popular nowadays, while I do like my fair share of pop music, I'm a rock fan at heart which makes the lack of rock music becoming popular in recent years disheartening to me (don't even get me started on what now qualifies for rock music in the mainstream.) There are a ton of other genres I love of course, none of which has been fairly represented in the mainstream this decade as it's been mainly trap and country music, the latter of which is among my least favourite genres in music (for arbitrary reasons.) Obviously this complaint of mine is more subjective as every era of music is going to have genres one isn't a fan of, however the fact these two genres is what's making it big of tik tok does make it worth complaining about as the website is limited in what music it popularises in the music scene as of late.
Speaking of tik tok, I think we can all agree that the social media platform has become a bad influence in what becomes popular this decade so far. Some of the most poorly received music and artists have made it big on the site that otherwise would've only found a niche audience at best that definitely wouldn't have been big enough to have any impact on the mainstream. This has been a problem since 2017 where artists such as Lil Pump and 6ix9ine found massive success thanks to their virality on the site which counted towards streaming data back in the day, with this trend only getting worse in recent years as these types of artists don't have to try as hard to find viral success through shock value.
Another problem I'll quickly touch on is how everything has become politicised, specifically out of touch political commentators reacting to tracks such as "Wap" and "Montero" that likely would've flopped were it not for the commentators fear mongerong their audience for views. This is a problem with all media as of late, but I'm growing tired of these people giving out free hits to artists for their political clout over stuff that no one cares about in this day and age. It's bad enough that everything has become politicised in the mainstream media, but the fact that having a political bias in your music seems to guarantee success in this day and age (even if it varies depending on what the topic is) is frankly tiresome to even think about. It's why I refuse to allow political commentary on my site unless it's relevant to an entry in question.
In both of these cases, music should be about art first and foremost. It can certainly be politically charged and/or have a gimmick to it that might be dated in a few years, but the fact that so many songs have become popular in recent years purely through social media (particularly twitter) is just plain ridiculous. Again I'm not saying they should be ineligible for the charts, rather people need to value their time better by ignoring these songs in favour something that is going to stick with them for more than a month. People also need to let artists be who they want to be, I guarantee you that the likes of Lil nas X and cardi b wouldn't have been as popular with those controversial songs if people had of just let them be who they wanted to be as they wouldn't of felt the need to be so provocative with those tracks and especially the music videos.
This next part has more to do with fan bases of popular artists, I think we can all agree that these campaigns led by these fandoms (particularly the swifties and k-pop fans) have gotten out of hand as they relentlessly campaign for these artists to have never-ending success to the point where they bully and harass anyone who isn't a fan of them. In particular, many people have blamed these fandoms (especially the swifties who in my opinion, are generally insufferable to deal with) for why music in general has stagnated in recent years as few if anyone else is able to compete with their favourite artists in the mainstream which results in their labels not bothering to promote their music any more than the bare minimum that is required (that is, announcements on social media and having radios play their music.) It's gotten to the point where other artists (most notably azalea banks) have called out these fanbases and the music industry at large for this practice, leading to resentment towards the artists in question they didn't deserve.
This is where the solution I have is less empathetic as if you couldn't tell, I've personally dealt with some of these people online as I'm sure anyone reading this has. These people need to be called out for their awful behaviour, its one thing to show your support for your favourite artist, but it's another thing to shame anyone who isn't a fan online to the point where they're afraid to voice their honest opinion for an artist they don't particularly care for. The fact that this is written with the swifties in mind makes this particularly egregious given how her target demographic is and has always been teenage girls, particularly those who don't have many real world problems as her lyrical content consists of her love life (and how she's notoriously bad with it) as well as coping with the fact that people don't like her or her music. All I'll say is that you must have had a rather sheltered life if your top priority is defending a woman who has yet to deviate from these topics in her music.
This isn't to say that people should no longer be fans of hers (regardless of my issues with her, and believe me I have many) in fact I encourage people to continue to enjoy her music if it brings them joy in their lives. Rather they need to realise that isn't the case for everyone else and them thinking otherwise is extremely selfish on their part and a bad look on her given this is the audience she's cultivated over the years. This goes double for k-pop fans as while they aren't as plentiful as the swifties, they more than make up for that with how much more militant they are (don't even get me started on the barbz or the beyhive.) This also goes for other fandoms (particularly rock elitists) as too many times I've been put off from an artist due to how toxic their fanbase has been. People have their opinions, no opinion is fact, and the sooner people realise that the better.
I think that's everything I have to cover here, who knows how the music scene will pan out moving forward. I don't have much hope but it's possible things will turn around. Take care and I'll see you around.
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