Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

stephen_s

It is difficult to judge at first, but it appears that some music genres (classical and jazz especially) have seen a radically slowed or non-existent output of significant works in recent decades. By significant, I mean works that would be seen in league with the most acclaimed artists in the genre (eg Beethoven, John Coltrane). In a similar way, there is a building popular consensus that Hollywood is not pursuing original ideas as much anymore and is relying on rebooting old stories and franchises. But is this because of a fault of the Hollywood system, or is it because there are few significant movie story ideas left that have not been done?

It seems to me that there are limited possibilities in art (or any field) of what we can discover or create. It appears that the matter and rules of the universe (in concert with human nature) manifests itself into these limited possibilities. When we develop a field or genre, we learn and create at an increasing rate but then eventually "complete" the field (in a boom and bust pattern).

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

In the specific cases of jazz and classical music, it seems like a slowdown in creation of original properties could be pretty plausibly explained by those types of music not being very popular anymore (why that is so is a more complicated question), and so not attracting as many of the talented musical minds of the most recent generations. The people who were going into jazz and classical music 50 years ago could be going into rap and electronica now, and it would look pretty much like our world, I think.

I'm not sure if this is actually true, as I know very little about the general state of the music world and how it works, but it seems like a reasonably possible explanation at first, and certainly comes to mind before "we ran out of jazz". Another possibility is that the music industry has changed greatly over the last few decades, and what qualifies as a "meaningful addition" to a genre is less clear than it ever was, as genres splinter and people's musical tastes are given the option to diverge. I much prefer Snarky Puppy's "Shofukan" to, say, "Take the A Train", but there's no way it could reach the same level of cultural saturation because people have so many other choices now (it's not just listening to the one or two jazz stations on your local radio or going to live music if you have a chance, it's Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, and probably more).

I float both of these as just ideas; I haven't thought very hard about either of them, but at first glance, at least, they both seem more plausible than "we have made all of the good jazz and classical music already". Yes, such a theoretical limit exists, but music is so incredibly complicated that it's really unlikely we've hit it yet. It seems more reasonable to think this slowdown is due to something else, unless there's good evidence that the limit specifically is the cause.

I could very well be wrong, though. I'm not very confident about any of this because it's a tricky topic.

That's an interesting idea, and yes I'm still thinking through the idea myself. But couldn't the lack of popularity of a genre could be caused by the slowdown in release of substantial new works? Declining quality leads to less popularity?

I'm thinking of it in terms of the idea that "you can't reinvent the wheel." Each song or style is a concept that once created can't be recreated, and in the case of art it loses its freshness eventually.

I think it works at the level of a single band or artist as well. Take AC/DC for example. They released most ... (read more)

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Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

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Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

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