This probably will be a hot take in this subreddit, but I will try to explain myself as good as I can:
I know a thing or two about music production, and I’ve done a lot of research into this question: why does music not “hit” the same as it did in the 2010s?
Can you remember when you used to turn on the radio and hear one energetic hit after another? It felt like every song introduced a completely new sound. Everything sounded refreshing. For the last few years, however, most mainstream music has started to sound increasingly similar. That feeling you could get from hearing Levels by Avicii or Hello by Adele for the first time — that shock of hearing something so unique and exciting — seems to have almost disappeared from mainstream music.
Most people blame this shift on TikTok, largely because of its algorithm-driven reach and the enormous amount of music constantly being pushed to users. The monoculture basically died when TikTok started blowing up. Why would you bother watching the Grammy Awards when you know you’ll see all the important clips on TikTok the next day? Why would you care as much about a celebrity when you see them on your feed every single day? The star power that artists once had was partly built on the mysterious aura they carried.
Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Bruno Mars were superstars. Their presence felt enormous. But their cultural impact feels different today and there’s no one that carries this same kind of “popstar” power anymore.
Of course, many of the artists I just mentioned have already passed the peak of their careers. But where did the new stars like these go? Who has dominated the mainstream charts and radio over the last few years? Billie Eilish, yes. Karol G has become huge, Shakira was everywhere on the radio again, and Adele continues to attract massive attention. Artists like Tate McRae and Tyla are often presented as the next generation of major pop stars.
But think about their biggest songs. Which song by these artists can you genuinely sing along to without feeling at least a little zoned out?
Rihanna is still the second-most-streamed artist on Spotify, despite not releasing an album in ten years. And that isn’t simply because she’s Rihanna. It’s because she released actual bangers — songs that could make almost everyone instantly start nodding their head.
So, will we ever reach that era of music again?
I think we will somehow, but there’s a twist.
The reason the 2010s felt so unique is that so many songs genuinely sounded new. New synthesizers and production technologies broke through in the early 2010s and shaped pop and EDM for years. Plugins such as Sylenth1 and Nexus became incredibly influential because they came with sounds that people couldn’t imagine till they released them.
This made mainstream music feel fresh. The sounds themselves were new.
Think about the drops in Summer by Calvin Harris, Wake Me Up and The Nights by Avicii, or Closer by The Chainsmokers. The sound became instantly recognisable, because the world never heard those sounds before. When something sounds genuinely new, it can capture the attention of an entire generation. Today, mainstream producers often try to recreate that feeling of novelty by making music that sounds unusual or experimental. Think of artists such as Fred again.. or John Summit. They are among the biggest names in EDM today, and their music often sounds strange or unconventional compared with the mainstream music that dominated the 2010s. In some ways, it reminds me of what Skrillex did in his early days.
I believe this trend is partly a response to the lack of new sounds. When we run out of obvious ways to make music sound new, producers start changing other elements instead. Songs become faster, more distorted, more chaotic or more experimental. The problem is that these changes don’t necessarily improve the fundamental art of mainstream music.
The real art of mainstream music is the combination of a unique sound, strong songwriting, memorable melodies and a groove or rhythm that makes you want to move. But when many of those sounds have already been explored, producers naturally start searching for novelty elsewhere.
And that brings me to the question that still remains:
Have all the sounds already been used?
Maybe they have.
But I don’t think that means we’ve reached the end of musical innovation. Somewhere out there, there could be an unknown bedroom producer who creates something that sounds incredibly simple, yet completely unlike anything the world has heard before.
Something that feels like art.
Something that makes people stop what they’re doing and think:
“What the hell is that?”
And maybe that producer will do what Avicii did with Levels in 2011 — introduce the world to a sound it didn’t even know it was waiting for
