In terms of songwriting going 'downhill', I'm not sure if that's the case but if it is there is a plausible explanation.
Record companies have been in trouble for a long time now, trying to make money. As have film studios. If we take the example of a popular film genre and analogise it to music, we can draw a valid comparison.
Superhero movies are big, big business now. Twenty years ago we had a few but they didn't saturate the cinemas in quite the way they do now. Around about ten years ago, Nolan's Batman movies got great press and audience numbers and other studios caught on. Marvel comics and their characters (and yes, I'm aware Batman is DC) started having a few hit films and in the last five years or so, there's barely a quarter goes by that there isn't a large-budget superhero action blockbuster that's new on screen. Some of them are good (Nolan's Batman, Wonderwoman, Avengers), some of them not so good (Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad). They pretty much all made good money. People went to see them. The merchandising did well. Films that are not financially successful aren't made into franchises and no sequels are made.
The point is, it became a winning financial formula and is an inherently conservative approach.
Move on to music and exactly the same thing has occurred. A particular pop sensibility has developed and studios - afraid to lose money - have digested the financials, worked out the general characteristics of what sells and what doesn't and rather than spending money on 'experiments' have doubled down on what they know will sell. The result? The music all starts to sound fairly similar. In that milieu there are some great songs, there are some really poor songs.
Aesthetic judgement is, however, completely irrelevant. How much money did it make? The more trouble the industry is in, the more I homogenous I expect the charts to sound.
Record companies have been in trouble for a long time now, trying to make money. As have film studios. If we take the example of a popular film genre and analogise it to music, we can draw a valid comparison.
Superhero movies are big, big business now. Twenty years ago we had a few but they didn't saturate the cinemas in quite the way they do now. Around about ten years ago, Nolan's Batman movies got great press and audience numbers and other studios caught on. Marvel comics and their characters (and yes, I'm aware Batman is DC) started having a few hit films and in the last five years or so, there's barely a quarter goes by that there isn't a large-budget superhero action blockbuster that's new on screen. Some of them are good (Nolan's Batman, Wonderwoman, Avengers), some of them not so good (Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad). They pretty much all made good money. People went to see them. The merchandising did well. Films that are not financially successful aren't made into franchises and no sequels are made.
The point is, it became a winning financial formula and is an inherently conservative approach.
Move on to music and exactly the same thing has occurred. A particular pop sensibility has developed and studios - afraid to lose money - have digested the financials, worked out the general characteristics of what sells and what doesn't and rather than spending money on 'experiments' have doubled down on what they know will sell. The result? The music all starts to sound fairly similar. In that milieu there are some great songs, there are some really poor songs.
Aesthetic judgement is, however, completely irrelevant. How much money did it make? The more trouble the industry is in, the more I homogenous I expect the charts to sound.