The "Real™" Reason Today's Music All Sounds The Same

If I had the amount of followers on YouTube these audio engineers do, I'd honestly make my own video tearing these apart.

The irony of these videos produced by audio engineers stating "the real reason today's music all sounds the same!" is that they are all saying the same things every other audio engineer is. 

and they're all wrong. This is a subject that really needs an experienced, old composer's perspective on.

To his credit, Billy does passingly mention things like 120 bpm, loop packs and a lack of key changes, but his arguments are still mainly "Everyone is recording the same way." like what Rick Beato and Glen Fricker talk about. "No one is recording guitars with real mics! They're all using Superior Drummer! They're quantizing!" etc.

Yet they cannot explain why so many different-sounding albums in popular music used and still use the Shure Sm57, Marshall JCM800, Celestion Speakers, 6L6 tubes, and a Gibson Les Paul or strat with DiMarzio super distortions. How come everyone who writes for an orchestra doesn't sound the same?

It reminds me of how, back in my electronica phase, guys said not to use presets because "You'll sound like everyone else!", and then proceeded to plop down a four-on-the-floor (the only beat they know) with an offbeat or side chained, straight 16th note bassline just like everyone else. Guy...I don't think it's the patch you chose for the bass that is causing you to sound the same.

Stuff sounds the same now because everyone is WRITING THE SAME MUSIC I don't know why this isn't obvious these guys; it should be obvious even to a layman. 

Like I said in the thread about "what makes a chord move poorly": This thinking in terms of "chord progressions" is one of the things making everything sound identical, as is the dominance of "ostinato". It's just crazy to me that someone out there is laying down "epic" drums and plunking in that "root-third" 8th note ostinato every trailer piece plays on the violas and thinks to himself "...I'll bet if I had my own string library, I'd sound unique!"

Granted, I do think that it helps to an extent. I don't think anyone else's mockups sound quite like mine due to me having a rather unique collection, but this by itself would not be enough. I like to lean into genre tropes, but as @PeterthePapercomPoser accurately noticed in my latest cinematic-metal track, the guitar riff is a seamless mix of Phrygian and the diminished scale. Most metal bands today would stick to the Phrygian the whole way through the song.

Curious to hear your thoughts. In my opinion, it is a more damning report on the current state of the music industry that everyone seems oblivious to the obvious decline in craftsmanship at the songwriting stage than it is that everyone is using Superior Drummer.