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.

Just my perceptions.  Much music sounds the same because it rests on the more conservative foundations of tonal or modal harmony in its simplest form and, as you say, wannabe pop composers and performers want to use their gadgets straight from the box.

Has anyone traced the hows and whys of “fuzz” and the accident that popularised it?

It isn’t so different with “classical” music either: key-based, concern (as we’ve spoken before) with progressions; staying in one key due to lack of basic theoretical knowledge. Agreed that harmony (up to Brahms at least) allows more scope than the sadly ultra-conservative pop song so it’s there if people want to explore it. .

I suppose you hit the bullseye with the “music industry”. Okay, it’s always technically been an industry of sorts. The sausage machine of species counterpoint proves that but until recently it’s been an artisan trade rather than a factory thumping out sameness. Where did it start? The arrival of recorded music and BASF tape; then multi-track recorders able to distribute the product of skills to the masses? Radio? All inspiring members of those masses to try their hand but with no understanding?

Thankfully, all but my simplest efforts with “light music” don’t fit the “preferred” formulae. But my call is get playing rather than just tinkle around with a midi keyboard and sample set. Ponder what you want to do with music. Are you into composing because you crave attention or because you need to express something beyond words, or even with words/lyrics?