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An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All
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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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brother pop music has been bullshit for decades.
Maybe I'm old, but I think popular music peaked in the 90s. Everything has sounded the same since then.
Funny enough, they were playing 80s tunes at Dollar General today. Be hard to say you don't like 80s music as there was plenty of variation.
Yes you're old, there is some really good pop music.
The problem with this comparison is you're always holding up the absolute best of a decade against what happens to be on the radio top ten right now. Same goes for people who think music hasn't been good since the seventies, or sixties, or whatever. It's one half nostalgia for the stuff that shaped and formed your music tastes, one half survivor bias.
There's plenty of good, new music out there. Some of it is on the radio, some of it is in the streaming top ten, and some of it is in places where you'll never find it. And by the same token, if you actually went back in a time machine and listened to the average radio station in the eighties, you'd hear some absolute dog-shit garbage. It wasn't all Queen.
Problem being, the good stuff is buried under the formulaic stuff. Never said all music has sucked since the 90s, just that mainstream music all sounds the same.
There's another comment here I came to make where that shows 6 modern country tunes all cut together. It sounds like an ensemble of popular singers, sounds like the same music.
Made another comment here that Nashville has nailed the algorithm on selling music. Back in the day, producers and promoters would throw everything at the wall to see what would stick. Now music is a formula, unless you actively seek otherwise.
Country, absolutely, has become a generic mess of slop. Or at least, chart country / bro country certainly has. That's a very specific result of the kind of people who listen to bro country; soulless conservative zombies who will lap up anything that references their preferred cultural touchstones. There's still amazing country music out there but you definitely have to dig deeper to find it.
But as with everything soulless conservative zombies do, you shouldn't let it shape your view of the world as a whole. It doesn't mean that popular music in its entirety, or pop music as a genre, have suddenly become creatively bankrupt. There are artists out there producing incredible tracks. Some of them toil in obscurity, some not only break into the mainstream, but define it.
Saying the good stuff is buried is sort of meaningless, in that its always been true. 90% of anything is crap. That's exactly the point I was making in my previous comment; it's easy to look back at the past and find the good stuff because we've had time to forget all the trash. The present always arrives unfiltered and undiscovered.
And Queen gave us "Radio Ga Ga". 🤮 They can't all be great.
Radio Goo Goo?
The biggest change is lack of screening by music labels and DJs.
Both are now gone and music is being written for internet algorithms and there is a vast sea of garbage. Effectively, TV shows and movies now act as DJs.
My local radio station Kiss FM used to cater to teens. I'm 30 now and they still play mostly the same music they did in 2008. Some new remixes, but -- brb gonna check what they're playing right now. It's past midnight so this might be unfair but they're playing Never Forget You - Zara Larson. 2015.
100% fast downhill after the 90s unless you look hard for quality music.