Yep, here I go again pointing out the decline in the quality of rock and pop music. But this time I’m joined by the music maven Rick Beato, who has always had the same opinion. In this video he compares music from 1984 vs. 2025, juxtaposing the Grammy nominees for Song of the Year from both years. Save for one song, he finds the 2026 nominees lame, so there’s no contest. Music, he argues implictly, has gone downhill in the past four decades.
I’ll list the nominees and make some comments below. The winner for both years is is at the top. My own comments are flush left.
Song of the Year
Had I voted, there would be no hesitation in my dubbing “Billie Jean” as Song of the Year, but all of these songs, as Beato agrees, are good and memorable. They will last, and will still be popular years from now (they’re still listened to 42 years later!).
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2026 (winner was announced on Feb. 1)
Song of the Year
Beato finds “Wildflower” the best for this year; it is, he says, a “great song”. (This is Eilish’s tenth Grammy.) While I don’t think it’s great, it is very good, and miles above all the other nominees. And it won. I’ll put it below. He simply dismisses the other seven songs, though a few have some merit, like being “well produced.”
The reasons Beato finds this year’s songs worse are that they are in general lame, derivative, often include many songwriters (too many writers spoil the song), and sometimes include sampling from older songs.
In contrast, only one of the 1984 songs has more than one writer, and all include the singer as a composer. (Note that one one is by Bad Bunny, and Beato can’t understand the words!) Beato’s takeaway is that nobody will remember songs written by so many people, and nobody will remember these latest songs more than three years from now.
Beato:
“Wildflower,” live with Billie Eilish (the official release is here, and the lyrics are here). The only accompaniments are a guitar, bass, two sets of drums, and three backup singers.