State of The Game vol. 165-POTY so far 2023 w/ C $ Burns

by Dan O

C $ Burns, Daniel Olney, Keith Rollins

Discuss the role of mastering and what separates it from the role of production or mixing (using sonically unique projects like BLUu Edwards as an example).
Declare and discuss top 25 POTY.

Rock music continues to be largely absent from the forefront of elite music conversation. R & B and Dance Pop continues to be the most prominent public facing music (after several years of people complaining that R&B wasn’t in good shape). This has opened the doors for Soul, Reggae and Jazz to continue building on that momentum.
Numbers aren’t numbers anymore. It’s odd to think how focused we used to be on album sales, post–Spotify going Gold or Platinum or #1 on the charts isn’t much to anyone. Morgan Wallen has been #1 at least 13 weeks and how many people care? That album has a metacritic rating of 48 out of 100. It exists within a closed space and doesn’t matter outside of it. That is a problem the whole industry faces…how do we make everyone care about a single song, album, or artist?

The legendary Complex article deserves discussion: my take is pretty straightforward. When discussing the sales success of a musical form we are discussing its cumulative health which has to be a mixture of popular and underground. Underground/Indie has a role to play and that is to push the creative envelope, provide new ways to create that the popular artists can borrow from. The popular space has a job just as difficult…namely to galvanize the world. At its best, popular rap speaks to generations around the world. As talented as folks like Babytron or Youngboy Never Broke Again are…your Mother doesn’t care about them any more than Ka or billy woods. Hip hop subgenred itself out of the spotlight in 2023. Drill has drilled itself so deeply into itself you need to pay a guide to find your way into it. Griselda is making music sampling the same sounds in the same song structure to fans who just love that sound and song structure. The worlds are so separate they don’t touch, intermingle or generate greater community/ financial impact. The limited vinyl drop exclusivity game has an overall narrowing effect.

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