It all changed in the last decade
We look back on the decade that saw the music industry tear up the game plan
In his bedroom, my teenage son sits, ears encased in giant headphones linked to his phone, nodding to a beat no one else can hear. There would be little point asking what he is listening to. He probably wouldn’t be able to identify the track, picked out for him by a personalized algorithm gradually narrowing his taste down to a point halfway between overwrought emo singer-songwriters and spaced-out psychedelic hip hop.
You can find me in my basement den, surrounded by redundant CDS and aging vinyl, playing new mixes of a Beatles album at bone-rattling volume on a Bluetooth speaker about the size of a child’s toy drum. A copy of the original 1970 album lies at my feet, now a nostalgic memento, next to a stereo so ancient it probably belongs in a museum.
This is music in 2020. Everything has changed and nothing has changed. Unheard of at the start of the decade, streaming now accounts for more than half of all recording industry revenues globally — more than three-quarters in the developed world alone.
Every bit of music ever recorded is now available on tap. If you should feel bewildered by charts packed with auto-tuned rappers with facial tattoos mumbling about prescription drugs, or Korean boy bands singing what sounds like five different Swedish pop bangers compressed into one, you can still tune into all your old favourites from the past. You can probably catch most of your old heroes in concert too, with holograms and tribute bands picking up any slack left by the retired or deceased, as time takes its inevitable toll on the original giants of rock culture. We lost too many great artists in the 2010s, including Lou Reed, David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen. But do we really lose anyone anymore, as our idols shuffle off to that great playlist in the Cloud?
Streaming feels like the definitive technological shift of our time, with profound implications not just for the way music is stored, delivered, used and monetized but also for the kind of music being made. The sound of the 2010s was the sound of historically separate genres converging. The decade’s greatest and most influential artists made music that was multifarious, open-ended and impossible to define as simply one thing or another.
In 2010, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy demonstrated such vast musical, harmonic and experimental scope that it was hailed as the Sgt. Pepper of hip hop, kicking off a decade in which rap embraced melody and merged with the pop mainstream. Powerhouse R&B singer Beyoncé brought elements of rock, blues, reggae, funk, country, gospel and electronica into her 2016 masterpiece, Lemonade, then delivered it as a dazzling long-form video with a powerful feminist political message. These were established superstars making music that blew open the parameters used to critically define them. That genre-blurring instinct fuelled many of the decade’s most influential artists. Lana Del Rey’s super-stylized torch songcraft, The Weeknd’s solipsistic hip-hop R&B, Bon Iver’s digitally fractured folk, Frank Ocean’s downtempo soul and James Blake’s warped microbeat soundscapes all offered sound and style innovations that percolated throughout modern pop.
This was music that joined dots. Daft Punk’s global smash Random Access Memories blended the force of electronic dance with the harmonic warmth of analog disco. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly fused heavy rap with the jazz and funk riches of socially conscious soul.
A combination of commercial imperative, creative impulse and the sheer portability of digital recording technology resulted in production becoming a multiplayer game, adapting the hip-hop ethos of guest spot collaborations until it seemed as if everybody was working with everybody else.
In the case of Ed Sheeran, that was almost literally true. For a oneman band, the British singer-songwriter has made more than 60 guest appearances on other artists’ tracks while featuring more than 30 artists on his own. The most streamed artist in the world and the most profitable touring musician ever, Sheeran could not have existed at any other moment in pop history. His only rival for streaming ubiquity was Canadian rapper Drake, whose simple loops, understated delivery and almost nursery rhyme melodies provided a template for a narcoleptic low-energy rap-pop sound that became arguably the theme of the decade.
One artist, though, stood out. The British singer-songwriter Adele scored the two biggest albums of the decade. Between them, 21 (released in 2011) and 25 (released in 2015) amassed worldwide sales in excess of 53 million.
Given the rise of streaming and precipitous decline in CD sales (down 85 per cent over the decade) it is probably safe to say no one will shift albums in such quantities ever again.
She could have thrived at any time, combining emotional songcraft with the kind of big voice that has powered musical entertainment since the dawn of recorded music. She does, however, stand at the forefront of another of the decade’s notable trends: the rise of female artists.
For as long as there has been a music business, female musicians have been undervalued, undermined and under-promoted. In the second decade of the 21st century, it remains baffling and frustrating that only about 20 per cent of artists in the charts are female. Yet in terms of the most critically acclaimed and culturally impactful music of the decade, it certainly feels as if change is underway. After Adele, such whipsmart pop stars as Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande have topped charts and sold out huge tours alongside stalwarts Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
In critical terms, the influence of Beyoncé and Del Rey has been matched by such adventurous artists as Lorde, Solange, Christine and the Queens, Florence + the Machine, St. Vincent, FKA twigs, Courtney Barnett, Haim and Charli XCX, with the audacious teenager Billie Eilish and body positive rap-singer Lizzo emerging as breakout stars of 2019.
Pop’s glass ceiling may not have been shattered this decade — but to any men standing above it, the message is clear: Mind your step.