Computers and the Music Industry

With advances in technology come both improvements to society and some things that society could probably do without. One such example can be found in the music industry. If you look back into the 80’s, when technology was nowhere near as advanced as it is now (duh), you find, what some argue to be, some of the greatest musicians that defined the generation. Some of the greats include Bon Jovi, Queen, Van Halen, the list goes on. As a side note, Nirvana was formed in 1987 in Seattle. All of the bands I have mentioned used actual instruments and the members had actual talent. It was only occasionally, and only for support, that they would use any kind of computer to add to their music. Synths. I can think of at least one song from each of the above bands, sans Nirvana, that used a synth, especially Van Halen.

Once you start to get into the 90’s and 00’s is when, in my opinion, things start to take a turn for the worse. Boy Bands like N*SYNC and The Backstreet Boys start to arise and attempt to show that you don’t need instruments or real voices or talent to become a popular musician. While they did prove that to be right, in my opinion, they were nowhere near as talented as other bands in the 90’s such as Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, for example. 

However, things continue to take a turn for the worse when get to the late 00’s and early 10’s. A technique arises that will forever change, and possibly plague, the music industry forever. Autotune. Various artists like Ke$ha (or, as she goes now, at time of writing, Kesha), Akon, Chris Brown, and, dare I say it, Rebecca Black resort to this technique to try to firther their careers. With the birth and rise in popularity of autotune, you can see something very interesting start to happen. Because of the easily reproducible notes and effects on all songs on the charts, this brings the rise to the YouTube spoof trend. 

With the rise of YouTube in the late 00’s, countless people begin creating accounts and uploading content. Obviously, not all of them will rise to fame, but the ones who do, I would say, define a generation. Striving to gain viewers’ attention, these content creators start to look for ways to turn some heads towards their content. This is when the rise of the YouTube spoof begins to happen. YouTubers such as Shane Dawson and iJustine begin to turn to popular music to gain attention.

Somehow, we started off with musical greats like Bon Jovi and Queen, and ended up Shane Dawson’s YouTube spoofs. This just goes to show you how great of a social impact computerized music has had in the past few decades. With this in mind, I cannot even begin to imagine where music will be going in the future. Who knows, maybe somehow we’ll get back to 80’s Hair Metal.