Periodically I hit the “Browse” tab on Apple Music to see what’s happening in the broader—or more accurately narrower—world of mass musical culture. The featured music is usually quite dull, musically. (See Rick Beato’s video, “Why Today’s Music Is So BORING. The Regression of Musical Innovation.”) Lacking musical skill and creativity, the artists instead focus on the excitement of crass, racist, hyper-sexualized, and violent language. This is not new, one could find such songs throughout my lifetime and before. The popular music, however, relied more on innuendo and suggestion, and generally not gaining widespread listening without a catchy chorus or hook.

What is relatively new, I suspect, is that while the writing and musicianship is gone, nearly every single charting song is marked “Explicit.” Take a look at today’s Apple Music US Top 100: