> Our biggest change is the prominence of ambient "background music," which isn't as fun as, say, the rise of gangster rap or grunge to me.
This is very dependent on your POV. I've always really liked ambient and instrumental/non-vocal music and it's vastly more accessible now than it was 25 years ago. Grunge + gangster rap and a lot of popular music post the 70s was pretty overstimulating in an unpleasant way to me. I think those of us who like calmer sounds or who listen for ambiance (rather than lyrics and/or the spectacle of shows [ which are of course valid ways to like music and probably more common]) are eating pretty well. I think it's fun - I'm listening to more new stuff than I did from 2000 - 2020.
This is very dependent on your POV. I've always really liked ambient and instrumental/non-vocal music and it's vastly more accessible now than it was 25 years ago. Grunge + gangster rap and a lot of popular music post the 70s was pretty overstimulating in an unpleasant way to me. I think those of us who like calmer sounds or who listen for ambiance (rather than lyrics and/or the spectacle of shows [ which are of course valid ways to like music and probably more common]) are eating pretty well. I think it's fun - I'm listening to more new stuff than I did from 2000 - 2020.