The Music Scene....circa 2050

Someone posed an intriguing question today: what is the future of the music industry? What will it look like forty years from now? Will we have different instruments, previously undiscovered genres, audio/video/mass distribution technology far from anything we’ve ever imagined before? Where’s this all going?

I think to take a guess, we have to look at how the music scene has changed in the last fifty years or so. The 1950s music scene was dominated by rock and roll (Elvis Presley), jazz, rhythm and blues, and musicals (this is when Broadway first became really popular). This was also around the time when color TV hit the American public, so suburban housewives everywhere could rock out to “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” while mopping their floors. Ok, maybe not. But color TV definitely helped boost music popularity, because it was the hot new thing and so anything shown on said color television was automatically the keenest thing since sliced bread.


The sixties and seventies were when music became a medium to express political views. America was struggling though ‘Nam, Charles Manson was ordering cult murders, the civil rights movement was in full swing, and people discovered that music and hallucinogens went really well together. This era was full of Motown, pop, the Beatles, Elton John, and Barbara Streisand. Woodstock became huge: three full days of peace, love and marijuana.




In the eighties and nineties, the number of genres of music exploded. Hard rock, industrial, metal, techno, hip hop and rap, punk, and new wave music all became incredibly popular. The variety of what people listened to to express their views on life expanded enormously…I’d say music became a lot more individualized.

So where does that leave us for the future? We’ve gone from the days of black and white TV and Elvis Presley to iPod video nanos and more genres of music (let alone bands) than you can shake a stick at. We’ll probably develop a new instrument or two – hell, look what I found while cruising exotic instrument websites: the waterphone.



The stuff of our musical future? I’d say so.

I’d say we’re in for just as much change over the next fifty years, but in ways that we can’t even fathom yet. I mean, no one in the 50s could forsee racial equality, much less the iPhone. It’s like…most people are born with five senses. But if someone you know was born blind, you’re never going to be able to TELL them what it’s like to see. You can talk for years and never come close to painting the picture of how Boulder looks at night from Flagstaff. I think the music industry in fifty years will be something like that: a sixth sense that we can’t imagine yet…but it’s bound to be fantastic and beautifully indescribable.