Many say that creativity is in decline and that movies, music, books and other arts / entertainment were better in the past.

I agree.

I agree. Even science proves it. An older study, but still.

WAP surely could not have been made in the 1950s.

CLEARLY, it's better now.

Movies and books are getting better because of the wide array of voices and histories of the people creating it. Music, in general, is always in flux and there is amazing stuff released today. The problem is pop music is sooo cookie cutter and faceless. The "artist" behind a pop or hip-hop or pop-country song does not matter one bit. It's all about formulas. It's taken the soul out of popular music. We've always had crappy manufactured pop acts, but at least in the past they used to be played along with legit artists.

"We've always had crappy manufactured pop acts..."

Fuck off, bitch!!!!!

Music was definitely better in the past, films too. Books and TV are better today. Contemporary art is shit.

Agree with R4.

Depends where you look. Many seem to say this yet not take the time to dive deeper. Searching 'FKA twigs' isn't that hard, for instance.

I do agree, yes. As an example, the short fiction in the New Yorker is nowhere near as good as it used to be 20 years ago.

I’d take “976-Evil” over “Get Out” any day of the week.

Agree with r4. Books and tv are better, movies are somewhat worse (Disney taking over everything under the sun), and music is much much worse. Even if there is great music out there, the artists don’t make much money anymore (Spotify), and it doesn’t reach a big audience anymore (also Spotify). Music has been gutted.

R8, FKA twigs is boring and repetitive. Twenty-thirty years ago there were mainstream quality female - and male - music artists producing stuff that would be widely played. Yes, there is some good music being produced but it's increasingly not in the pop/contemporary music genres.

I do think a problem with a lot of contemporary pop is the digitisation of sound and the fact that music is basically programmed, not performed, but that's another issue.

I promise I'm not Janbot, but listen to how something like "When I Think About You" was so beautifully composed and lush. You hear a clear definition between instruments and soundscapes. That is something largely missing from most current pop music, which sounds claustrophobic and dense.

I don't think creativity is in decline - why would it be?

The problem is that the arts (movies and music in particular) have now been thoroughly taken over by the businessmen and the industry. Businessmen are very conservative, they'll only support what they're confident will sell, and they shy away from anything that's different or that challenges a formula. As a result, pop music, mass-market films, etc., have been dumbed down and made bland, to appeal to the widest possible audience. And there's very little (not enough) pushback from the performers/artists themselves, who these days will often do whatever it takes to be famous or successful.

This is even true in the book industry - so many fiction writers these days sound alike because they're all following a formula the industry likes (like for example all the people who try to write like David Foster Wallace because his books sold very well and the industry liked him).

"Everything was better 50 years ago."

Is it me or did more pop stars play instruments?

They also wrote songs.

On TV most of the reboots have been awful.

More channels so more chances for better TV, but the rest isn't is nearly as good.

Naw, people who say that are just out of it. I thought the creative energy of the east Village had died but yup it's out there in Brooklyn I was stunned and pleased to discover. Didn't hang any more. Too young a crowd for me and I have other things to do. But they're still there having fun like we once did. I've just moved on.

Totally agree.

ESPECIALLY pop music, which is just a hundred Drake copycats.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzz .....

Who can afford to live in the East Village anymore, r19?

Who in Manhattan, at studios, networks or music labels, will green-light original voices or everyday people — if they don't do exactly what the last-selling voices were doing?

NYC used to be a Mecca for artists from anywhere and the studios, networks and labels were upstarts, peers from the middle class sometimes and part of a counter-cultural movement.

Who can afford to move to NYC now? Who in NYC is interested in anything besides Ivory Towers and status?

Taylor Swift is big because her daddy was a powerful Manhattan banker who bought her a platform and writers. That's 2020 NYC and I can't relate.

I agree totally that creativity is in decline...

My hypothesis is that we judge the past creativity on the pieces that have passed the "time test" and thus are probably the best out of the slew of good, mediocre and lousy pieces created. In other words, classic rock stations play the best of rock, not every rock song that came and blessedly went. On the other hand, with contemporary pieces, we don't know what will last and so are bombarded with the whole output of now, thus feeling like most of it is crap. There are always great works being composed, written, sung, danced, painted, etc. But in the rush of cultural motion, we may not pick them out. The future will judge what is great.

Every generation has genius.

[quote]I don't think creativity is in decline - why would it be?

Because the middle class is in decline. The voices are fewer, less diverse and coming from rich people or their trust fund kids.

Artistic excellence has always depended on leisure time and expendable income — something maybe 10 percent of people have anymore.

The 1 percent has just drained the life — and real estate — right out of the middle and working classes to be able to afford time to create new things or to move to NYC or LA, not to mention buy artwork.

So we get corporate, shopping mall product in music, Disney movies, etc.

I do agree that internet tech has enabled TV to get better; more cinematic. There is a higher number of quality shows. But they're repeating the same things and subjects that only appeal to a niche market of art viewers, anyway. Most of TV is just run-of-the-mill super hero shit on repeat.

Just like the movies. Studios won't green-light a wide release movie for anything that isn't part of a pre-existing franchise we've seen done better before. I thought Marvel/AVENGERS perfected the comic book movie, but that's played out now and oppressively everywhere.

Christopher Nolan is an exception, but his latest was pretty uninspiring.

So who cares? Now with the pandemic, it's just getting worse. Everybody has more difficulty and expense trying to make anything and it endangers their health.

I'm not sure. I've seen some great stuff in the past 20 years, but as a whole, I do think the film world certainly takes far less risks and is worse off for it. You have some studios like A24 who constantly take big risks and, sometimes they're rewarded for it, and sometimes they're not, but their films are always polarizing with some people loving them and some people thinking it's the worst crap they've ever seen.

On the other hand, you have a really successful company like Blumhouse that probably hasn't taken a huge risk once in their life. Every film they make looks the same, is paced the same, and feels like it was written by the same horror plot generator.

People say film is more diverse now and maybe it's true in terms of casting or people behind the scenes, but the stories that are being told aren't diverse at all. You have so many screens devoted to one Marvel movie and then a few lukewarm reboots in the other auditoriums. In the 70's, 80's, and 90's, it wasn't unusual for a rom com to be playing next door to a slasher movie that was right next door to an Oscar bait drama that was right down the hall from a big superhero movie. There was more variety.

r11 and r23 are right in that fragmentation has both diminished and expanded artwork.

Now anyone can get their artwork distributed and offered to the entire world, thanks to the internet.

But nobody's buying the same things anymore and one artist doesn't stand to make as big a killing or be a household name anymore.

It's great that we're all not captive to a handful of distributors anymore. But we don't all share the same pop art, either.

What do some of you mean by creativity? List creative artists.

r9 blame overstuffed MFA programs

I don’t think that people are any less creative. However, I think music, art etc.. have become too commercial and streamlined. Things are made to make money, and not to express ideas of feelings.

The problem with music, TV shows, and movies today is that people don’t have interesting stories to tell anymore. Everything is about shock value or just trivial stuff.

Original works are def. in the past. Now, everything is a shitty remake.

In many ways TV was better in the past. Of course there was lots and lots of junk but a mass entertainment show like Ed Sullivan would feature opera, ballet, modern dance, genuinely great popular singers. Talk shows like Suskind and Cavett would have stimulating conversations. Guests like Capote, Vidal, Buckley etc. NPR had live classical concerts and opera all the time. Even their cooking show was high brow with Julia Child. Even game shows, the original Password and of course Whats My Line? were so genteel , civilized and grown up. AND there was investigative journalism and news personalities like Conkrite and company. So much better then.

I used to agree but I realised that I was making these judgements by focusing on sixties and seventies movies that were essentially classics. But really there was a lot of cliche ridden dreck at that time as well. When I stated branching out to more indie films, foreign films,etc I changed my mind.

R29 I think that’s the problem. The creative industries are just that—industries. Their output is rarely art, just product, and that product is manufactured to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible. Sadly, mainstream movies and music suffer a lot as a result. It’s generally lowest common denominator trash; an executive’s boardroom brainstorming of what they think people want. But if you know how to look, there’s still plenty great creative work being made, it’s maybe just to be found in more niche markets.

Yes, R32, media attempted to educate and encourage curiosity not play to the lowest common denominator.

At one time people like Robert Merrill, Beverly Sills, Roberta Peters, Marilyn Horne, Anna Moffo, Leonard Bernstein, Pavarotti could be TV stars. Edward Valella, Baryshnikov, Nureyev, were household names. None of that can exist today. Impossible.

I loved how a goofy variety show could come to a complete halt for a gentle song with intelligent lyrics sung beautifully. We'll never ever see the likes of those moments again. All gone.

Agree with everything everyone has said, and want to put another thought out there (don’t scream at me).

A lot of genuinely good creative work has declined because technology has actively changed people’s brains, including the creators. The world of Mick Jagger did not have a Starbucks and a Gap on every corner and a Disney movie on every channel. Reagan and the aggressive corporatization of North America has made people actually think The Little Mermaid is a really fantastic movie. It’s good, but well, so what? People now have to actively loon for what was all around us before like someone mentioned about Ed Sullivan.

I’m not getting my point across that well, but I don’t want to yammer on and bore people to death.

LOOK* for not loon.

Says who?

Marvel ruined movies.

Game of Thrones ruined TV.

Latinx music ruined pop.

Disney ruined Broadway.

And dummies who use the word Latinx ruin the Spanish language.

Definitely agree.

Do you know wtf a Dionne Warwick is? I don’t.

People are creative all the time, whether marketed or not. You have to go to Gowanus or Far Rockaway to see where artists interact and create today in NYC. Creativity never dies but some eras and places are more creative than others.

What’s really in decline is two-fold: the lack of critical skills and the absence of professional standards. Opens a lot of doors for crap to get in.

I think video games, social media and Netflix are certainly decreasing creativity. Creativity is often born out of boredom. No one is bored anymore.

The last creative people-we're talking giants here-died in the 20th Century. Stravinsky, Strauss, Balanchine, Picasso and great talents in the performing arts. And moviemakers as well. Sjostrom, Dreyer, Renoir, Godard, Kubrick, Bergman...

Culture due to today's technology doesn't allow for the intense hot house concentration that created artistic diamonds. Is the talent there. Of course. Can it meet its potential? Absolutely not. It lasted (at least in the western world)for about 600 years. Not bad and there is certainly more than enough to fill one's life with.

R16. Indeed. People don't learn instruments like guitar, bass, or drums anymore because there's no money in it. As long as synthesized music made by pimply Swedish guys in their basements remains popular, live music will suffer.

Talent and creativity matter less now than ticking boxes. Thus a decline in quality.

It doesn't help that creativity isn't encouraged in schools. Programs that encouraged art and music appreciation have been gutted. Even here on DL, many posters express disbelief that students would waste their time on anything that isn't STEM.

I really notice a drop in quality in films especially. You can find great current music and writing but so many films these days terrible

A majority of investment in entertainment is either translating this or than extended universe into film. Deadening it with sequel upon sequel. Even Broadway is mostly doing stage or musical versions other things. Artists are still putting out incredible things, but the industry lacks courage because in the end, it’s a business.

It's all been done and been done better.

I've tuned out of remakes and sequels. So let others watch I say. More for me to do as I'm more a creator than a consumer. That said, I need to watch the latest in The Crown.

What r21 said. Young, creative people can't afford to live in NYC anymore unless they have parents with money to support them. Somebody like Madonna moving to NYC dead-ass broke and struggling is not an option anymore.

Movie theaters are dying because, of course, Covid but it happened before that. People can get the movie experience at home on their giant 1080p HDTVs with Surroundsound. They don't need to go to a theater and deal with all the riffraff.

The stuff about the money is perfectly true ('course, we probably wouldn't have Sondheim if his family hadn't had money), but there's a bigger thing.

Great creatives, even the most stunningly original, have nearly always drawn on the history of their art, or even related arts. Including the arts of foreign cultures (which I suppose you'd be cancelled for these days.) Their originality is more appreciated by those educated in the field because they understand in detail what is being built on or reacted to, but those who aren't expert can still appreciate their work because it is clear to all that it has substance.

The last couple of generations have been actively encouraged to ignore everything that has gone before, because it's "dead white males" or because it's not "relevant" to their young lives, or whatever. Both history and imagination have been reduced to sound bites. It's a tragedy, at a time when they have Google and YouTube at their fingertips and could learn so much so fast if they hadn't been talked out of it. Young adult fiction is a blight on the landscape - even the best students can get all the way through school without ever reading a classic novel, or even learning how to. The best you can hope for is that the ones who are interested in contemporary music will have some grasp of classic rock.

All this is why the popularity of The Queen's Gambit puzzles me. It's about a young person who wants to know EVERYTHING about her obsession, including all its history, so that her (much admired) original instincts can be polished by butting up against those ideas and solving, over and over, the problems of earlier games. The fact that she's a girl and the history is all males (and ?all white) does not seem to have been a problem, either for her or for the millions of viewers.

Not very bright people teach and regurgitate half understood cultural theory.

That too!

They stopped playing sad songs on the radio twenty years ago so even if great stuff is out there you wouldn't be hearing it. You just hear shitass crap that's upbeat and "slaying".

Close down three quarters of the colleges. Useless teachers, dull students, and a waste of money - only a few need go to college. High school is enough for most of us. Higher education is just another industry, a scam like insurance.

Attitudes against education and enlightenment, like at R61, is why creativity is dead.

You think the greatest achievements of civilization came from mass education? R62 you are a prime example of wasted education. But don't worry, most are like you. I hope you learned a useful trade like plumbing.

R63 Your posts filled with errors are a greater testament to years of wasted education. No wonder you never aspired to anything beyond high school.

"I know you are but what am I" eh? Grow up r64.

[quote] In many ways TV was better in the past.

Aside from a few classic shows, I don't miss the old network television programming at all.

Most of those old shows are unwatchable today. People are so used to cable and streaming dramas that have bigger budgets and not sets that look like they're made of cardboard, and of course more realistic depictions of what life is like.

What do you expect in a fascistic police state where commerce/war is everything?

Education and independent thought come dead last and next to last in the U.S.

Instead of "Where's the beef?" the watchword is "Where's the money I don't have to make any effort for?"

R62 this might interest you but read the entire essay. This is just a section pertinent to my views about mass higher education.

"Turchin opposes credential-­oriented higher education, for example, which he says is a way of mass-producing elites without also mass-­producing elite jobs for them to occupy. Architects of such policies, he told me, are “creating surplus elites, and some become counter-elites.” A smarter approach would be to keep the elite numbers small, and the real wages of the general population on a constant rise."

[quote] Even here on DL, many posters express disbelief that students would waste their time on anything that isn't STEM.

R50 I agree that the educational emphasis is now on STEM and music programs are gutted from the system although research shows a connection between math skills and musicianship. The same part of the brain is stimulated by numbers as by music.

STEM is just a politically correct way of saying, "Become a software engineer or a stockbroker." Math is to make money and science to invent the next iphone.

Thank goodness the world is still full of bright, curious humans who refuse to be reduced to commercial products/shills. But they don't make any money, usually, and have to battle bureaucracies to get anything to the public.

Most of STEM should teaching a trade like turning computers off and on again, or how to administer anesthesia.

r4 Movies have gotten worse because there is no original screenplay anymore. Everything is based off of a book, novel, comic book, or videogame. And if not that then it uses heavy nostalgia from some movie that was popular 20-30 years ago or had a cult following. Which give rise to lots of sequels and reboots. The movie industry is bankrupt

Yes, I totally agree OP

I work in a library and most of the best sellers aren't up to the best sellers of the past, and most seem to be either written for women, or men, not both (as used to be the case. (With some exceptions. I think nonfiction is better than fiction). I just ordered all the top grossing movies from 2019 and 2020 on DVD. It's mostly a bunch of junk. I had to order some movies that weren't very successful at the box office, to get some good films. But years ago, the best movies tended to be the top box office films.

As for music, though, I think music now is fantastic. You have to avoid some junk, there, too, because of what corporations push to corporate radio. But go a little beyond that and there are so many interesting and creative artists, good bands, singers, well produced pop and r&b and other genres.

Many people who are creative and who in another era would've gone into the entertainment industry are now working in tech. Tech has drained a lot of creatives from movies, tv etc.

Interesting take R76.

Too much MONEY. The amount of money successful actors, musicians, producers can make is so large that it becomes the goal, not art.

But today’s movies really are crap. Music, well it’s changed from just rock, so really it’s a matter of taste. Books are the same. TV is miles better but I still like the old shows.

I think the decline in music is pretty obvious and rap ilustrates that pretty clear, in the beginning it was music to express the rage and the social injustice, now it's all about ego without any substance.

The decline on movies is quite obvious too, while on tv shows there's diversity and new voices, films are simply too adverse of risk, everything is a remake or a superhero franchise. In a couple of years they will have problems to find enough decent films for the oscars.

On literature i don't think there's a real change, there are new voices and some quality novels every year. In the end people tend to talk about the past for the novels that remain, but that's far from the whole picture. There were great novels every decade, but people forgot about the bad ones, that makes look like the quality was better but that's not true

Many TV comedies and dramas are better due to less censorship. TV talk shows have become unwatchable due to shorter attention spans and hyper commercialism. TV talkers in the past actually had conversations. Today, the guest is trotted out for a very scripted five-min segment, They play their clips and maybe a stupid game with the host and NEXT.

And due to the huge amounts of content providers, the good TV is buried among endless piles of crap. Here's looking at you Netflix: loads of new content, but 90% is crap.

[quote]Too much MONEY. The amount of money successful actors, musicians, producers can make is so large that it becomes the goal, not art.

This is a great point. It's true. I know actors who are in it to try to get money, a successful career, and that's the goal. I've heard both young actors and musicians describe themselves more as businessmen than artists. A not very artistic, or creative person, with a not very creative mind. This is why so many young actors can seem cookie-cutter. A lot are former child actors who were put in the business by their parents. Most are competent, good looking, but with no real artistry or deep talent.

Been there done that.

There are still good films being made, but for the most part they are independent and / or foreign films. Hollywood’s current output is trash and so are many of the popular actors.

I also think film stars have become much less likable and interesting due to how overexposed they are on social media and all the new platforms to talk about themselves. There’s no mystery or glamour anymore—it’s constant self-promotion and desperate attempts at relatability to appeal to the masses.

Broadway has become jukebox musicals, and even original musicals Rent, Hamilton, The Prom and the Producer failed to produce a single memorable tune and shows based on films: Pretty Woman, Beetlejuice, Mean Girls Tootsie...proliferate. Where's the next generation August Wilsons, David Mamets. Neil LaButes ..? Film comedies are infantile and lame, there are too many sequels, remakes and action hero movies for my interest and commercial television is boring. Only HBO Netflix and other streaming services are providing varied interesting fare and the music scene and the artworld is not producing much that is notable or that will be long lasting either.

Books and TV programs are getting better

movies and music were better in the past

But OP, this is the era of George Clooney!

Clooney's had a low profile in movies for awhile now. I can't even remember the last movie he was in.

What is missing in Western film, music, literature, etc. is talent, imagination and the ability/desire to create unfettered. It's been lost to repetitive, blow 'em up, give 'em what sells, don't challenge 'em banality.

^Sounds like what's happening in education.

All eras are not equally creative. There are highs and lows.

[quote] But OP, this is the era of George Clooney!

Feh.

Most current pop music doesn't have dynamic range. If you look at a sound level graph, the sound level starts at fully saturated and stays that way through the entire song. They process it using compressors to ensure this. Older music has much more sonic space in it, which is why you often have to turn up the volume when listening to older music, the quiet parts really are quiet.

This constant barrage all results in a miasma of sameness and ear fatigue. It's also why the occasional ballads from certain artists that do create audible space or simple acoustic accompaniment are so striking.

What other era produced low-quality entertainment, cultural, and art?

^ Can't think of another era offhand but, the decline over the last 2 decades or so is tied to economics especially in film and theater. Broadway relies on tourist so you have jukebox musicals with songs and an artist people are familiar with just like all those shows adapted from films Pretty Woman, Mean Girls, Beetlejuice, Tootsie. Likewise film sequels have a built in audience with Bad Boys 4 and Men in Black 4 on the horizon. And those loud, empty, superhero movies that have huge opening weekends and that travel well because of their lack of complexity; they're easy to understand in any culture.

[Quote] What other era produced low-quality entertainment, cultural, and art?

Every era every culture has low quality cheap art forms. They were not homogenized, manufactured, and just didn't travel like the current flock does.

I think the focus of creativity has changed with technology. Plus, creativity isn’t limited to the arts.

TV is better overall these days. All other mediums are in decline. I sometimes think about how wealthy people in the past would actively become patrons of non-family member artists, as the creative pursuits were often considered slightly declasse. Noblesse oblige, etc. Now the elite class pay for their children to play at art making, rendering it even more difficult for poorer people in the arts to compete. It's more complex than that obviously but nepotism has definitely had a hand in the dumbing down of culture. This article made me think about it just today, actually.

To add to my comment, I'm very surprised so many in this thread have said that books are better now, personally I find modern literature horrible generally, apart from the odd new voice, in fact the literary arts seem to be the most diminished of any medium to me.

I'm with R85. I prefer the TV and contemporary novels from today. Music and movies were better before though.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

OP, hotels aren’t, either...

Everything is vastly worse today. I feel sorry for the youth of today stuck in a completely dog shit culture.

I would say that in most areas the *popular* arts are worse than in the past. There's creative stuff being made, but we're not in an era when the hit movies and top 40 tunes will include that alongside the schlock. Compare hit 70s films with today's or early 90s pop tunes with today's. I'd also agree with R24 that the precipitous shrinking of the middle class has a lot to do with the decline in quality—in fact, the whole neoliberal, market-obsessed program fuels the general race to the bottom.

Creative works have to be relevant to their time and, in a more practical sense, be marketable to current audiences. H. P. Lovecraft's stories are much more popular now than during his lifetime, in no small part due to the fact that he was no great literary writer (he's a hell of a lot easier to read than Poe) and also because his reactionary views tickle the fancy of the alt-right.

Popular music has definitely declined. So repetitive and lacking in depth and range. Less diversity. All the best music is being released independently from lesser known artists. A lot of the biggest artists are more known for their social media presence rather than their musical talent too.

The written word peaked 1925-1955 Music 1953-1978 Film-no idea TV: we are in the golden age

I'm not sure novels are actually getting any better when one of the best selling books of the 21st Century is Fifty Shades of Poop.

R107, there have always been crap novels though.

The elevation of Cultural Studies and Anti-Intellectualism - "Family Guy has just as much cultural value as Proust!!!" - plays a big part.

Someone - I think it was Keith Richards - pointed out that British popular music took the world by storm after mandatory military service was abolished. He thought that a lot of men went into service at a young age & were taught obedience and were made to waste their time & energy on mind-numbingly repetitious drills. When they came out of the service, all the creativity had been drilled out of them. Getting rid of mandatory military service allowed for leisure time for young men and they produced entertainment because their creativity & young exuberance didn’t get pointlessly drained over 18 months.

Meanwhile, in the US, young men we’re being sent off to warfare in Asia.

These artistic talents are honed in youth, and today’s youth simply don’t have the free time to exercise their imaginations and practice skills. The few that do have been sucked into the internet brain drain. I suspect previous generations had a lot more free time in their youth to indulge their creative impulses distraction-free. It also cannot be stressed enough how appalling our education system has become and the impact this has. It devastates me that that proverbial can has been kicked down the road for so long, with dire consequences.

American culture is very culturally masculine. As in The US values aggression, domination, competition, rugged individualism, working long hours and ultimately becoming financially successful and owning a lot of property. This comes at the expense of leisure time, social interaction, community building and sharing resources and ideas.

The rising income inequality combined with the cultural value on competition and rugged individualism makes it hard for people to sit down, have a conversation, focus on their creative passions and invest in them.

Look at the films released in 1939, the Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Dark Victory, Ninochka, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and many more greats. All these marvelous films in one year. We're lucky to get a few good films a year now

But 1939 is famous as a unique high point for Hollywood studio films, R113. It wasn't routine. That's the problem with judging the present by the past: we only remember the great works. All the garbage is forgotten.

True r114. For al the elder rhapsodizing on how great the pop culture of the 70s was, there was also a lot of garbage in that decade as well.

Peruse the Billboard Hot 100 charts for a good example. For every one great Chic or Donna Summer song, there were ten "Disco Ducks."

Tell me something that has struck you as 'fresh and new' culturally the past 10 years? Hamilton definitely falls in that category.

But I'm drawing a blank in terms of music and film. And no, mumble rap is not ground breaking.

Made for TV series and streaming seems to be at the top of its game - really great stuff the past 10 years.

There have been good films - but the tendency toward Superhero blockbusters is so tired.

The Superhero films are all the same, with the exception of Wonder Woman. That was a refreshing change. Otherwise, it's the same basic plot with the same 15 minute battle scenes. It's all gotten so stale.

R114. True about 1939. So I picked a year randomly, 1953. Still, many wonderful films. It may be the studio system was the best way to create consistent quality year after year.

[Quote] The elevation of Cultural Studies and Anti-Intellectualism - "Family Guy has just as much cultural value as Proust!!!" - plays a big part.

I totally agree. Academia is in its own bubble. I see no change. Their woke students come out into the larger world with these half baked mediocre ideas.

There still is good music, but as many have stated, it's just not as much or as diverse. There's so many reasons, from the elimination of A&R, the fact that less musicians can make good money, the fact that being in the record business is much more difficult for companies - the money isn't like it was before, listening habits have changed, how people consume music (physical media to streaming) has changed, music's "role" in a lot of people's life has changed. And, I'd also add that now everyone has easy access to decades and decades of music - a lot of it good or great. This might lessen the "need" for more great music.

[quote] What’s really in decline is two-fold: the lack of critical skills and the absence of professional standards. Opens a lot of doors for crap to get in.

This is key. I’ve noticed that today’s very young people (young Millennials and Gen Z) don’t seem to understand the nuances that separate the mediocre from the great, when it comes to things like movies and music, the two mediums that have suffered the most.

It’s hard to explain the phenomenon, just as I imagine it’d be hard to explain to today’s very young adults the nuances that separate the remarkable from the mediocre. I won’t get into specifics on the music side of things, but I’ll just say that today’s version of hip, smart young people don’t seem to be able to filter out average/crap music; they enjoy it just as much as better stuff and they aren’t aware of the lesser stuff’s reputation or understand why it’s inferior.

Okay, I’ll give two examples that I know a lot of DLers will not appreciate (sorry): Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is way more popular now with this decade’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn hipsters than it was with, say, the hipsters of Seattle or Wicker Park, Chicago in the early 90s, who recognized it as emblematic of the bloated commercialism of late 70s mainstream pop/rock. A lot of cheesy 80s shit is experiencing a renaissance among young people today, too—and they don’t experience or understand it as separate from better, less tacky music.

As for film, the rise of Ari Aster and the accolades he’s received from today’s crop of “cinephiles”—who apparently have NO IDEA that he’s just a one-trick-pony and pillager who can’t write a story—is as good an example as any.

"I think video games, social media and Netflix are certainly decreasing creativity. Creativity is often born out of boredom. No one is bored anymore."

I'd say creativity is born out of boredom that can't be easily be escaped.

A lot of people are pretty damned bored, but they have a million things to distract them from boredom. I can see it in myself - I always have made art - drawings, paintings. I still do, but not as much - I could be creating my art, or I can easily fritter away hours online or watching yet another TV series that's at my fingertips, or deep diving Prince concert snippets on youtube.

NYC is too expensive for young people who don't have rich parents. Lots of budding young artists can't afford it now. NYC, of course, was always the incubator for American artistic talent.

There was a thread on Reddit about how Banksy had his work sold by a vendor on the street for $60 each and very few bought it. Those who did buy it suddenly saw the value skyrocket to over $100,000 per piece.

From the visual art field, I say that speaks volumes about the art world.

Pop music is so low class and trashy now.

We have more, and better, creative content than ever. However, we also have more media outlets and venues (to display and show art) than ever and in our busy times it has become more and more challenging wading through all the creative content, offered through various resources (like media outlets) on a daily basis, to find what we like / looking for.

DL has some great posters who recommend music, literature, movies and TV shows I quite enjoy. That is why I still visit DL.

Saint Andy was right. Now EVERYONE is a star (in their own minds)

Some of this may be related to do the decline of the U.S. as a world power. The creative arts may seem dull here, but that's not necessarily true in other places.