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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

I'm a jazz musician. Like Gioia said, if it gets any worse than classical, it becomes jazz. But things to seem to have changed since the start of the pandemic. Maybe having everything turned upside down has caused some shifts in listening tastes, and audience demographics. Attendance is good at my jazz performances. A local chamber music ensemble sells out all of its performances.

Some hypotheses: Volume levels. (Mostly) lack of lyrics makes it more conducive to serving as background music, perhaps for working from home. The people who attend my jazz gigs are too young to have grown up during the jazz era.

Maybe it's a blip, but if so, it's a welcome blip.

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It could also just be the emergence of algorithmically curated playlists simply makes it easier to start playing a mood-appropriate playlist of classical songs.

When I was in school I used to play a lot of orchestral movie soundtracks while working because it was no lyrics and usually somewhat energetic. The main reason I didn’t go with classical was just because I didn’t know any of it well enough to make a playlist for myself. It was much easier to just pick the Gladiator soundtrack and go. But now I can pick “Classical Focus” and get the same.

I suspect many people found something in one of those "mood lists" they really liked, and decided to learn more about it.

Although I personally don't use recommended music as background music, I know that has happened for me for other algorithmical recommendations.

A lot of music that gets stereotyped as background mood music has a lot more depth to it than people realize (who would have thought George Winston was such a weird rabbit hole?)

> A lot of music that gets stereotyped as background mood music has a lot more depth to it than people realize (who would have thought George Winston was such a weird rabbit hole?)

I actually like that about it. Because it actually lets me distract myself by just stopping and listening rather than going down internet rabbit holes.

Another possibility: some people only recently started going to live shows again after the pandemic? For me it was listening to music mostly on YouTube and getting a recommendation I liked. [1]

[1] Hiromi Uehara https://youtu.be/VJExqsrZzeA

Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds great. What a madwoman on the piano!

It seems pop/rock music hasn't really changed much in the last 10-20 years, but I'm an old fuddy duddy so maybe it has. If it's the same manufactured stuff as it's been for a while, maybe it's pushback on that.

Stylistically, pop has changed significantly even in the past 10 years. Going back 20, the differences are even more striking. Of course, chart-topping pop songs are mostly very manufactured, but that's been true for 100 years.

Rock is no longer a "mainstream" genre, in the sense that rock acts generally don't top the charts or occupy a large space in the zeitgeist (hip hop has replaced rock in this area). But I think this has been healthy for rock; the genre is now more fractured, and as a result, more varied and experimental. (Don't @ me metalheads. I love metal too but it is not a mainstream genre)

Sorry if that got a bit rambly -- just wanted to point out that there is tons of evolution in contemporary music. It can be harder to see that, though, since music streaming has taken a big chunk out of the music monoculture. That means finding interesting music is more accessible, but requires individual effort to seek out (and the sheer quantity can be overwhelming).

There has been a lot of innovation in the metal scene. (Though structurally, metal is supposedly the closest genre to classical music, and I find myself listening to more jazz and classical, now that I found a bunch of contemporary metal bands that I like.)

Here is an eclectic list of example metal bands from the last decade:

Diablo Swing Orchestra

The Hu

Finntroll

Baby Metal

Sumo Cyco

Archspire

Igorrr

You’re an old fuddy duddy. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on. But I think the hyper pop segment led by 100 gecs is the most interesting of it all if you want to take a look at what the kids are doing.

I'm actually quite surprised at the low popularity of jazz. I have found jazz to be one of the few genres that is pretty much always welcomed. Don't know what to play for your guests? Put on some jazz!

I also know a few jazz cafes in my city and personally I've been listening to the genre since my late teens, so I never thought it was this unpopular.

Classical music on the other hand I've always found tricky to enjoy. There are a few pieces I really like and in general I can tolerate it as background music, but it's not something that you easily groove to. Classical music venues are also a bit high brow, so not something you'd pop into easily.

It could be that the stats cover mostly recorded music and radio / online play, whereas jazz has tailored itself to serve live performance. And for playing background music, you don't need to buy more albums than you've got. Jazz players can fit into much smaller venues and lower their volume levels. They can adapt their playing, on the spot, to suit the audience.

Classical could lower its brow and increase its popularity in a live setting. From what I've read, the highbrow thing isn't historically justified anyway, and the musicians only tolerate the formality because it's expected.

Just tried to buy some jazz tickets in my town. Everything was sold out lol. It was a small show, but still. I think live music is just getting a lot more popular post pandemic as someone else wrote.

I wonder if Pixar's "Soul" had anything to do with it? It was a popular 2020 movie and the protagonist was a jazz musician and it included quite a bit of jazz music.

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