Leveled L2+ smart comp & limit -9LUFs short term -1db true peak.

What is art? Most universally art is accepted as a form of expression. It can be said there are at least half a dozen distinct aspects of expression in music.

#1 melody
#2 swing (rhythmic variations)
#3 texture (micro details of an instrument’s sound profile)
#4 dynamics/phrasing
#5 harmonics
#6 micro tonal variation
#7 arrangement
#8 instrumentation
#9 lyrics

How has modern music production impacted these aspects of expression in music?

Melodies have been mostly removed by an overwhelming trend towards beatcentric music. Any melodies left have been diminished by expected conformance to a simple group of simple formulaic melodies. AI generated melodies/sounds are not an expression of an artist, since they are not directly controlled by the artist.

Swing has been removed by beat quantization. Whether purposely or the result of using quantized drum machines/sequencers.

Texture has been reduced by a long standing 16bit 44.1Khz recording standard. Far less than the resolution of live sound. In fact even ultra HD digital audio is still lower resolution than live sound.

Dynamics have been removed by the demand for music to be "loud". Anyone who says their mix is "loud" without compression and brick wall limiting, is lying.

Harmonics have been diminished by over processing and/or instruments that favor chaotic noise sound profiles over ordered harmonic ones. Digital audio technology with it’s distinct lack of natural saturation harmonics, also adds to this diminishing, as well as the trend to avoid using acoustic instruments with their harmonic rich timbres.

Micro tonal variation have been removed by autotune and other tonal quantizing factors.

Arrangement has been restricted to formulaic structures. 4/4, intro verse hook bridge solo outro. Even the run time is expected to conform to an industry formula.

Instrumentation has been limited by trend. If you want your music listened to, you have incentive to produce using only the sounds/instruments that are trending.

Lyrics are restricted by both trend and industry formula.

Most of these “rules” are incentive based. You might not be told you “can’t” go against them but the system that determines the overall success of a music production, will keep you from having your music heard to any useful extent, if you don’t follow the rules. It’s gotten to the point where, if you reject the rules, most listeners will never hear your art and may reject it even if they do. As they have grown so accustom to the formula, they dislike anything different.

If art is a medium of expression and the aspects of expression in music have all been limited and/or removed, it literally means the art in music has been limited and/or removed.

At what point can you say music is no longer art? Well, for example, what percentage of artificial ingredients are necessary before a meal is no longer considered natural? Can you really call art "art" if half the art has been removed from it? If 90% of the art has been removed? If 99.9% has been removed?

If music is art and art is music, then removing the art means removing the music. Yet there's something there. It's sound. You can hear it. So WHAT exactly is replacing the part that's been removed? Product, that's what. It is little more than intentional misleading calling modern music "music" when it's very production process replaces a significant amount of the art, with product. Call it what it is. Liken to "cheese product" not being real cheese, modern music is not real music. It's "music product".

Gear and instruments used in the creation of this piece: Hugh Tracey Kalimba, Vintage Korg Triton Rack, Logic Pro X.