People are probably going to roast me after this post but IDGAF.
I wouldn't say that today's music is lifeless. I reckon it depends on what someone is looking for. There is a huge amount of very good music out there and to be honest with you I don't quite understand your use of a word 'lifeless'. I think that each historical period had 'lifeless' music and each of them was perceived differently by different people.
I'm gonna give you a very good example that may serve as a good reference here:
Nowadays, music by Louis Armstrong is perceived as a very noble one. Louis Armstrong now is the icon of jazz music, trumpet virtuoso with very original bass voice.
However, a friend of my grandfather once said to him "I can't listen to this growling... It's not music, it's noise".
The same thing goes with new music today. I reckon that it is a sort of a human characteristic that we tend to think that old things are better, more classy and more valuable. But we often forget about the fact in the past our "classy" and "more valuable" music was treated very similarly to the one we hear today on the radio. Take a look at the beginnings of rap, metal, punk etc. It was something that was very hard for people to comprehend and to accept. Of course now those genres are described by the use of such words like "revolutionary". But back in the day most of the people was looking on them with smirks on their faces and they were treating members of those subcultures in a very derogatory way to put it delicately.
I am more worried about the fact that due to infinite access to professional music tools the market and Internet has been flooded with low quality music and basically it made music less valuable in general.
However, everything has its pros and cons and an infinite access to music tools gives a lot of opportunities to people who wouldn't be able to go to music school or who are limited by lack of money or personal matters. It gives people the ability to try it and express themselves. In the past only the chosen people were able to fulfill their dreams of becoming the music stars.
I realise that it may be quite difficult for you to understand but I'm gonna give you another example from my country. Until 1989 Poland was under the surveillance of the Soviet Union. Only a few people had enough connections and money to get products from the West. Basically we suffered from the lack of food (there were food ratios divided among the citizens), lack of products and the quality of them was very low. At that time if you had a guitar, bass or whatever instrument and you could play something on it your chances of becoming famous and successful were sky-rocketing.
So be happy that you have easily accessible means to realise your passion.
I definitely disagree with the third point that music is seen more as a background noise as opposed to a sociocultural experience meant to be shared. Of course I think it depends on the environment where the music is used. For example I sometimes listen to music at work and then I don't pay much attention to it. It's more like a filler. But when I'm at home or at the concert it's a totally different story. However, if you look at the classical music which is nowadays the highest and purest form of music you should notice that in XVII and XVIII century music composed by Mozart or Haendel was created mostly for the purpose of banquets. It was a background music. Surprise, surprise!
I don't want to be salty but I think you take music too personally and I'm sorry to inform you but with all due respect music is and was mainly created for the purpose of parties, dance etc. Very trivial reasons. Mozart wrote dances, Beethoven wrote dances, Strauss Brothers wrote dances. Music is created to make people move their bodies. Most of the classical stuff are dances. Now they are perceived as very classy and noble but back in a day they were just a normal form of entertainment.
Besides my approach to music in general has changed as I moved from being a teenager to being an adult who has to care about very down-to-earth things.
When you are young you have the time to contemplate music and maybe to think about it in a more deeper sense but at the moment when you have a child (I don't have one yet but it's just an example
), you have a family, you have bills to pay etc. music becomes just some element of entertainment and trust me, the vast majority of people don't have the time nor will to pay attention to music. Not to mention analysing it.
People seek easy music they can understand and relate to. And once again, I'm really sorry to break it to you but average music consumers don't care about things WE care about. They don't care about what kind of progression was used here, what kind of snare was used here etc. They do not care about it. And they will not do it. It has to make them hooked and this is the point. It is meant to relax them, to make them enjoy their free time. I know that most people here including me look at music in a little bit more detailed way. We care about what we hear. We take interest in what we listen to. We are curious why it was done in this or that way.
But people are not curious in general.
Another example. I have a car. I like driving it but I have no idea how particular elements of its engine work. And I don't want to know. I don't care. Mechanics are the people who should know this and help me when I'm in need. Not me. I just want to drive safely from point A to point B. And that's it.
The same goes with music and its perception by the average listener.
The same thing goes with blaming some artists for selling themselves. I mean, isn't it something most of us dream of? To live off of music? I mean I don't understand why it is so bad for some people to earn money on making music. I don't get it at all.
I mean we all should get rid of this stereotype that a true artist is a poor artist.
Personally, if I came across the opportunity of making a lot of money on music I would go for it no matter what kind of genre it is. It can be pop, rap, techno, whatever. I would use my five minutes to the fullest. I would appear in commercials, TV shows and all this stuff. And I don't care at all what other people would think about it.
Final example, there was a time in my life when I wanted to make very ambitious type of music. And you know what? Nobody cared. Why? Because it was boring to majority of people, because majority of people didn't have knowledge to comprehend it. And this is why some genres will never be as popular as others.
I'm sorry but statements like "why today's music is lifeless" are like quotes from Don Quixote. I don't know why but a lot of people lives in some nostalgy to the old times. But I'm sorry to disappoint you. They are not going to come back... So please leave your utopian ideas at home at let's face the truth and reality... And there is no pun intended to any of the members. Just to the general concept.
At the end I would like to praise very good point made by
@ArvinArmani about the distraction world. It was very accurate and I fully agree with it.
I'm gonna close this post with the paraphrase of Eminem's verse: "I'm not a musician, I'm an adapter. I can adjust."
Period.