To Ted Gioia, music is a form of cloud storage for preserving human culture. And the real cultural conflict, he insists, is not between “high brow” and “low brow” music, but between the innovative and the formulaic. Imitation and repetition deaden musical culture—and he should know, since he listens to 3 hours of new music per day and over 1,000 newly released recordings in a year. His latest book covers the evolution of music from its origins in hunter-gatherer societies, to ancient Greece, to jazz, to its role in modern-day political protests such as those in Hong Kong. He joined Tyler to discuss the history and industry of music, including the reasons AI will never create the perfect songs, the strange relationship between outbreaks of disease and innovation, how the shift from record companies to Silicon Valley transformed incentive structures within the industry–and why that’s cause for concern, the vocal polyphony of Pygmy music, Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize, why input is underrated, his advice to aspiring music writers, the unsung female innovators of music history, how the Blues anticipated the sexual revolution, what Rene Girard’s mimetic theory can tell us about noisy restaurants, the reason he calls Sinatra the “Derrida of pop singing,” how to cultivate an excellent music taste, and why he loves Side B of Abbey Road.
Follow Ted on Twitter
Follow Tyler on Twitter
More CWT goodness:
David Bentley Hart on Reason, Faith, and Diversity in Religious Thought
Reid Hoffman on the Possibilities of AI
Noam Chomsky on Language, Left Libertarianism, and Progress
Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
Seth Godin on Marketing, Meaning, and the Bibs We Wear
Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity
Kevin Kelly on Advice, Travel, and Tech
Anna Keay on Historic Architecture, Monarchy, and 17th Century Britain
Jessica Wade on Chiral Materials, Open Knowledge, and Representation in STEM
Jonathan GPT Swift on Jonathan Swift
Tom Holland on History, Christianity, and the Value of the Countryside
Yasheng Huang on the Development of the Chinese State
Brad DeLong on Intellectual and Technical Progress
Glenn Loury on the Cover Story and the Real Story
Paul Salopek on Walking the World
Rick Rubin on Listening, Taste, and the Act of Noticing
Katherine Rundell on the Art of Words
Conversations with Tyler 2022 Retrospective
John Adams on Composing and Creative Freedom
Jeremy Grantham on Investing in Green Tech
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Resilient Mind
Positive Thinking Mind
In the Great Khan’s Tent
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast