Is there still “good” music?

My favorite part about music is its subjectivity. The most popular artists that get millions or billions of streams have some of the most vicious slanderers. Part of this is counter-culturalism since it’s seen as very cool and intelligent to be against the mainstream, but of course, not all music is for everyone. We have systems to measure how “good” music is, like big winners at award shows, top of the Billboard charts, or record-breaking Spotify streams, but none of this can convince someone to listen to BTS or Beyoncé or whoever it may be. Some people may argue that these metrics have no value at all because they don’t take into account the hundreds of thousands of small artists who can’t get noticed enough to even make it into consideration. 

Maybe music used to be good back when the world was smaller but now that music is such a large industry and the market is so saturated, new, good music is hard to find. Maybe people are resistant to finding new music because they’re comfortable with what they already know. This is certainly true of genres, where people make sweeping judgments and call all country music “bad” because they really dislike Luke Bryan. I think it’s very narrow minded to think that not listening to country music makes you better than the hundreds of millions of people who do enjoy it. 

I have my own biases but I try to keep myself open to new music constantly. From Bad Bunny to Beach Bunny, I try to practice finding new music because it can be difficult to know where to start in the age of streaming. Keep an ear out wherever you go; you never know if you might connect with movie soundtracks, the barista’s playlist at your local coffee shop, or the bus driver’s favorite radio station. You certainly won’t know what you like if you have your own library playing in your earbuds.

Rather than framing the question as “good” or “bad”, I think it’s more helpful to consider it as music I like or didn’t like. In a music column, I think the semantics are important because, to me, the idea of reviewing music does not necessitate judgment on the music. A critic isn’t there to tell people what’s “good” and “bad”; art is inherently subjective and a person needs to experience that art for themselves to decide whether or not they like it. The job of a music critic is to sort through their own subjectivity, consider other people’s tastes, and give an informed opinion. My goal for this column is to focus less on reviewing music and more on making people aware that certain new music exists and they might like it. I’m always taking recommendations, so be sure to submit any requests to The Stute.