It was only new recently in the sense that it became a mainstream pop genre.
The article kind of misses the point - pop is a packaging and marketing industry, not a music invention industry.
The invention happens in subcultures, mostly in the UK and US. Then it's discovered, reinvented, and popularised by the industry.
At least, that's how it used to work. With mass exposure to the same online influences everyone is listening to the same stuff and moving in the same directions. There's a lot less original experimentation happening, and that's a much bigger problem for pop than the fact that the industry is making product, because it means there's not much coming down to feed the production line.
I really enjoy finding undiscovered new music on SoundCloud. Amateur production values are incredibly high now - infinitely better than a cassette demo of 20 years ago.
But if anything a lot of the writing sounds professional and safe. It's slick, polished, beautiful/grungy/glitchy/ironic/whatever and good listening. But it's not often amazingly surprising, or fresh enough to kickstart a subculture into orbit.
> The invention happens in subcultures, mostly in the UK and US.
Really? Or is it just invention of genres that go and influence pop music? Which is better explained by the fact that most pop music is indeed produced by the UK and US.
While I can think of many musical (sub)genres that were invented in the UK or US, I know them because they got quite popular (in or around the hit charts).
But there's also others, the ones I know are from my personal tastes over the years. Isn't electro from Germany and the Netherlands (The Hague)? Or Suomisaundi, a bouncy subgenre of psy-trance from Finland. Israel being a big influence on certain styles of goa-trance. "Lounge music" (there may be a better term) got big from Yonderboi (Hungary), and then Balkan beats appeared. And "filterhouse" came from France (Cassius, Daft Punk). And I'm not too familiar with the genre but I'm sure that Scandinavia has quite a few subgenres of metal on their name?
(disclaimer: I probably got the "proper" names of the subgenres wrong to some people)
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/an-oral-history-of-dubstep-vi...
It was only new recently in the sense that it became a mainstream pop genre.
The article kind of misses the point - pop is a packaging and marketing industry, not a music invention industry.
The invention happens in subcultures, mostly in the UK and US. Then it's discovered, reinvented, and popularised by the industry.
At least, that's how it used to work. With mass exposure to the same online influences everyone is listening to the same stuff and moving in the same directions. There's a lot less original experimentation happening, and that's a much bigger problem for pop than the fact that the industry is making product, because it means there's not much coming down to feed the production line.
I really enjoy finding undiscovered new music on SoundCloud. Amateur production values are incredibly high now - infinitely better than a cassette demo of 20 years ago.
But if anything a lot of the writing sounds professional and safe. It's slick, polished, beautiful/grungy/glitchy/ironic/whatever and good listening. But it's not often amazingly surprising, or fresh enough to kickstart a subculture into orbit.