Money and tours aren't what make a quality band though. The Beatles actually stopped playing shows so they could focus on studio work. Their label set them up with an absolutely incredible classically-trained producer who was essential to their development. He was basically a personal tutor for them to learn time-tested techniques, which is critical if you want to reach a level of competency where you can experiment in ways that aren't basically just esoteric. (I love experimental, esoteric music, btw. Not knocking it.) The Beatles mastered an incredible number of genres and styles before entering their really innovative phase. From what I understand, the music industry does not provide much music education anymore. I think you could accurately call the current musical landscape a collection of talented amateurs and some "corporate" acts with songs ghost written by a committee of marketing specialists. We're seeing a lot of variety and clever experimentation from random talented people, but a much lower level of refinement, and a lot of time wasted reinventing the wheel. A lot of songs frankly sound unfinished, or way overproduced.
The Beatles wrote like 200 extremely varied songs, many of which alone would have made another band's career. Interesting but concise melodies with incredible, distinct arrangements. I don't think they could have done that today.
Regarding simpler melodies, I'm not sure what you mean by "quantify". I'm just pointing to a general trend in music. I can't nail it down very specifically, but something along these lines is definitely happening. Melodies are either really simple as with many popular artists, or they're really complex for the sake of being complex, as in the case of wanky technical / experimental bands. There's not much of a middle ground anymore where you can find artists who writes complex but tasteful melodies done in a variety of styles, while not just solely rehashing previous bands' work.
this literally encodes the subjective importance of ‘melody complexity’ over many other aspects of songwriting.
I'm not saying complex melodies are the most important thing in music, just that I'd like to see some part of the music industry still prioritize it in the way it apparently used to.
Money and tours aren't what make a quality band though. The Beatles actually stopped playing shows so they could focus on studio work. Their label set them up with an absolutely incredible classically-trained producer who was essential to their development. He was basically a personal tutor for them to learn time-tested techniques, which is critical if you want to reach a level of competency where you can experiment in ways that aren't basically just esoteric. (I love experimental, esoteric music, btw. Not knocking it.) The Beatles mastered an incredible number of genres and styles before entering their really innovative phase. From what I understand, the music industry does not provide much music education anymore. I think you could accurately call the current musical landscape a collection of talented amateurs and some "corporate" acts with songs ghost written by a committee of marketing specialists. We're seeing a lot of variety and clever experimentation from random talented people, but a much lower level of refinement, and a lot of time wasted reinventing the wheel. A lot of songs frankly sound unfinished, or way overproduced.
The Beatles wrote like 200 extremely varied songs, many of which alone would have made another band's career. Interesting but concise melodies with incredible, distinct arrangements. I don't think they could have done that today.
Regarding simpler melodies, I'm not sure what you mean by "quantify". I'm just pointing to a general trend in music. I can't nail it down very specifically, but something along these lines is definitely happening. Melodies are either really simple as with many popular artists, or they're really complex for the sake of being complex, as in the case of wanky technical / experimental bands. There's not much of a middle ground anymore where you can find artists who writes complex but tasteful melodies done in a variety of styles, while not just solely rehashing previous bands' work.
I'm not saying complex melodies are the most important thing in music, just that I'd like to see some part of the music industry still prioritize it in the way it apparently used to.