Meanwhile the ghost of the bridge lives on as a sample in contemporary songs. Future generations will watch these ruins in awe of what the masters in the past were able to construct. Will we ever be able to surpass the classics?
Fast forward to something like Radiohead's Kid A and you have orders of magnitude more complexity going on the track. So many different sounds layered in very complicated manners. Its almost like a classical composition how there are motifs, movements, different emotions being evoked, but with any sound imaginable compared to what few are possible from the orchestra ensemble. A song from Kid A is just a part of the greater album itself. Nothing was made to stand on its own between radio advertisements.
It seems these days we are reverting to how commercial music was always made. Very commercial studio focused with the artists removed from production. Generic lyrics written by low paid songwriting staff and same old tried and true chord progressions we've heard forever. The artist is a brand and a sexy person meant to sell products versus someone particularly talented with an instrument or with songwriting skills.
It is easy to create a supercomlex composition, that’s what classical music have been doing way before 1970s. But to capture the minds and hearts of many people with simple things, now that’s the real mastery.