There was a point in time where music meant something important. It was raw and vulnerable and full of soul. Singers played their instruments instead of using technology to create sounds. The artists could sing without autotune or voice filters. The records were real; they were true and organic. Now that soulful feeling is gone.

Before Freddie Mercury, the original lead singer of the band Queen, died, he made a frighteningly true prediction about the music we listen to today. He said, “There will be a time when technology becomes so advanced that we will rely on them to make music rather than raw talent. Music will lose its soul.” It is the scary truth. The music produced today has no message, no meaning deeper than surface level. No one is original. Everyone is cookie-cutter and mass produced. The music we have today is the result of years of advancement in voice editing and other technologies. Forget raw talent, if you want to sing and you can hold at least some pitch, auto tune will fix you right up. Look at someone like Britney Spears next to someone like Kelly Clarkson and you’ll see exactly what I am talking about. Not all artists today are artificial: Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Ed Sheeran and various others do not need or like to use autotune or voice enhancements; however, the industry insists upon using them.

Certain artists, such as Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, etc., can sing. There is no doubt about that, but they rely heavily on technology as their backtrack, and they tweak certain portions of their voices to make them fit with the tech sound. These artists stand out more than the average singer today because they have a unique sound, but the use of technology over real instruments is present in their music and has become more and more common. In fact, it is so common that I bet if you turn the radio on right now, you will hear something with electronic or digital sounds, versus piano or guitar. I am not trying to completely chuck today’s music to the gutter because we all like to jam out and dance to it, but where is the soul? Sure, it’s fun to mess around with your friends to a drop beat, but if all music has to offer is drop beats and electronic sounds, won’t we all eventually lose interest? It is not the artist’s fault: the music industry tells these singers that in order to keep their place in today’s generational music, they will have to play the game. If you haven’t noticed yet, singers today all have the same sound vocally as well. They form their vowels the same and swallow their sound. Rather than singing clearly, artists today prefer to slur their words. The music industry is also partially responsible for this because they take artists who are original, who have a unique sound, and they break them down to fit into a little box with the rest of the cookie-cutter stars. The music industry destroys originals and turns their unique images into a copy of every artist before them.

There has not been one artist who has truly impacted everyone in this generation. There has yet to be an artist today whose music will be carried on for ages. Rock and roll has died, and the age of cookie-cutter popstars has come. Soul and blues have been replaced with technology and artificial voices, and now music is lost. There is a small number of artists who refuse to convert to the ways of the industry, and there are more singers to come that will provide hope for future generations. Artists like Carole King, Etta James, Queen, Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and Guns and Roses remain a strong source of music history, but the new age of music is fading them out, blurring their impact and covering their success. Inspiring artists such as those listed should not be covered up but remembered for ages. We all connect over music, so let’s make music something that matters.

Check out this video or this video of Queen at the Live AIDS benefit concert!