It's taken me a few decades, but I've figured out what's really wrong with modern music.

By "modern" in this context I don't mean whatever da kidz are doing these days. Pop is its own thing, I gave up years ago on trying to keep track of its subgenres and fads. As far as I know it's the same as it always was, which is to say about 90% crap, 9% worth hearing, 1% gold. I'm talking about both what passes for "classical" music these days, and the specific kinds of pop and rock that get used in game soundtracks.

My teenaged son has spent the past three weeks, pretty much continuously, playing Persona 5, so I've heard a lot of that soundtrack. It struck me that it's superbly crafted to disguise the fact that time is passing. The same songs keep playing over and over, as soundtracks to battles and whatever, but they never finish. Ever. So, my brain thinks, it can't have been more than about four minutes since it started, because it's clearly that kind of song. Then I look at a clock, and six hours have gone by.

And on the car radio just now, I was hearing what I think was introduced as "theme from Downton Abbey". I've never watched it, so it meant nothing to me, but the music... just kind of rambled on. And on, and on. Without any sense of ever building anything or going anywhere.

Even most of the famous film soundtracks suffer from this anticlimactic disease. Think Star Wars - the music sometimes sounds exciting, sure, but then it fades back and nothing's changed. It never develops. It's not music that's interested in thought or feelings or telling a story or building a scene; its sole purpose is to be there, to fill up one of the audience's senses and protect them from thinking about anything.

I don't even hate it. How could I hate something so bland? - it'd be like hating grass. What I do hate is its omnipresence in media. Here's a thought: when you've got nothing much to say, don't f'ing say it. We don't need every moment to be underlined by music. Watching some old movies and shows, you'll sometimes see whole scenes with no background music at all. It was reserved for when it actually had something to do. Whatever happened to that?