Top 10 Things that Most Ruined the Music Industry

1. Auto-Tune

   

   Some songs sound fine with auto-tune, but most singers who use it end up sounding like robots. Auto-tune hides real singing talent, and some singers have abused it by relying too much on it.

   It's annoying! If you can't sing well, then get good at it! Don't use an effect to make it sound like you can sing.

2. People getting judged on looks

   Madonna was the one who started this unfortunate trend. She paved the way for mediocre singers to become famous because of their sex appeal and their willingness to create a provocative and overtly sexual image of themselves.

   People love to focus on appearances over others. They always flaunt themselves and put such a stress on it. This does impact the music industry, but it definitely did not start there.

   People's looks have nothing to do with their music. Just like how people judged Lady Gaga's looks.

3. Rap

   

   I thought that whoever put this on the list actually meant mumble rap. Rap was on fire and had legends back in the day, but then Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and others contributed to what some see as a decline. It's actually mumble rap, with artists like Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Future, and Young Thug, that is often criticized. Rap as a whole did not ruin the music industry. It's just most of today's rap, best known as mumble rap, that has received backlash.

   Rap started off okay, but now a lot of songs sound like a 6-year-old put together lyrics they found in some angry deviant's journal. Bring back talent, instruments, and melody.

4. Almost all songs referencing sex

   It gets worse when it targets minors, encouraging them to engage in such activities. It's one thing to use these references as an allegory for something else. It's another thing to promote it openly.

   Except for songs exclusive to animated movies.

5. MTV

   

   MTV is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is part of the Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, a division of Paramount Global. Launched in 1981, the channel initially gained popularity for airing music videos hosted by video jockeys.... read more

   This gets my vote because MTV is a television network that focuses more on what you see (looks) than on what you hear (music).

   MTV always cares about incompetent pop stars.

   MTV discourages rock, classifies artists like Hozier inappropriately as rock, and promotes popular teen issues instead of focusing on music.

6. Justin Bieber

   

   Justin Drew Bieber (born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He currently resides in Ontario, Canada, and is Christian. He is the son of Pattie Mallette, an author.

   Justin Bieber is best known for his songs "Baby" and "What Do You Mean?" As of mid 2025, 11 of... read more

   He is the logical result and product of this same industry - he embodies it.

   He killed music along with Nicki Minaj, no doubt.

   Yummy is his worst song ever, even worse than Baby.

7. Songs about partying, sex, and drugs becoming mainstream

   Thank you! I was scared this wouldn't be on the list. This should totally be #1. Music is mostly about sin nowadays. It's so sad. The end times are here.

   That's all there is to mainstream music. Except Tones and I, but her singing could really use some work so it sounds less annoying.

   This is just becoming exacerbated through internet culture.

8. Songs about doing drugs

   Peer pressure levels are through the roof. It's honestly awful.

9. Greed

   

   That's all there is to music now.

   Screw greed.

10. The rumor that rock and metal are the devil's music

    I really hate that people think this. I love rock music, but that doesn't make me a satanist or anything.

    Could you at least put this at number 4?

The Newcomers
11. ?

    TikTok

    

    TikTok, known in China as Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

    It hosts a wide variety of user-generated videos in genres such as pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and general entertainment. Videos range in duration from three seconds up to... read more

    Not everything from TikTok automatically sucks, but lots of it sounds lackluster and uninspiring.

    Music has gotten a lot worse since TikTok came around.

12. ?

    Nightcore

    

    A nightcore edit (also known as a sped-up song, sped-up version, sped-up remix, or simply sped-up) is a version of a music track that increases the pitch and speeds up its source material by approximately 35%. This effect is almost identical to playing a 33⅓ RPM vinyl record at 45 RPM.... read more

The Contenders

13. Record labels

14. Napster

    

15. One Direction

    

    One Direction (commonly abbreviated as 1D) was a British and Irish pop boy band composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and originally Zayn Malik, who departed on March 25, 2015.

    The group formed on The X Factor UK in 2010, finishing third, and then signed with Simon... read more

    They are stupid. Once I said, "I don't like One Direction" on MSP, and some teen girl told me to kill myself.

16. No more guitar solos

    Guitar solos may not apply to all genres, but they do take a lot of talent. I don't really see songs with long guitar solos nowadays, but I'm not saying that having no guitar solos is necessarily bad.

    The only number one songs of the year with guitar solos are Thinking Out Loud and Rude. They're not exactly Eddie Van Halen.

17. Ke$ha

    

    Kesha Rose Sebert (formerly Ke$ha), born March 1, 1987, in Los Angeles, California, is an American singer and songwriter. She became famous for her energetic pop hits like Tik Tok, Die Young, and her collaboration with Pitbull on Timber.... read more

18. Simon Cowell

    

    Simon Phillip Cowell (born October 7, 1959) is an English television personality, entrepreneur, record executive, philanthropist, and film and television producer. He gained fame as a judge on several talent shows including Pop Idol, The X Factor UK, and Britain's Got Talent. Cowell also created the... read more

    The biggest ass to ever walk the face of the earth.

    He is one of the reasons why the charts are crap.

    Hope he goes away soon. He is a disgrace to music, giving us people like Honey G, who has no talent at all.

19. Nu-metal

    

20. Billboard

    

21. Pop

    

    Pop music got a lot worse in the late 2010s and early 2020s with even more low-quality and cringeworthy music coming from this genre.

    It's made with ghost producers and all sounds the same.

22. Screaming fans

23. Pop fangirls

24. Kidz Bop

25. Posers

26. Music streaming

    The problem with this is that people only care about the streaming stats nowadays, just getting as many streams as possible instead of focusing on quality. That's Spotify for you.

    I like Spotify, but I don't care about the stats. I just want to listen to my favorite songs.

27. Trap