Monstercat's Pointless Downfall (ft. MrGally75)
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- if you like monstercat good for you! if you hate monstercat good for you! i am simply very dissapointed in it and i feel like making a video over it's issues might help
socials you need to block:
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I miss the good old days of monstarcat music in background of my Minecraft builds or survival or just pvp
One point I definitely agree with is how I don’t get really excited for new releases. Ever since I started my channel and to this day I normally don’t listen to the new songs until I binge them all at the end of the month to make a video and add the ones I like to my playlists. Only time I’ll listen to one early/get hyped for a track is if I know I like the artist(s) who made it. Another point I agree with is the quantity over quality thing. I always say quality>>>>>quantity I mean look at what Marvel’s doing rn they have a billion shows and movies coming out but I couldn’t care less cause it doesn’t mean they’ll be good. Monstercat still has many great songs in their catalog hence why I have a giant playlist full of their music that I go back to all the time - they’re just not as consistently good as they used to be. Thanks for coming to my ted talk didn’t realize I’d be typing out a full 5-paragraph essay here 😂
Well said! That's a good summary of what I think were the better points made in the video.
Facts
I used to love monstercat because of how interconnected everything felt. Every release felt so different and unique, but now the label has somehow turned into another run of the mill label it tried to set itself apart from in the first place. The label, ironically, has no identity anymore.
My main issue with the label (aside from the malpractices I’m just now learning about) is that they made the definition of Uncaged and Instinct way too esoteric. Rather than simply just saying “Heavy on Uncaged, Melodic/chill on Instinct”, they have some vague ass qualification system that puts future bass and melodub on Uncaged 60% of the time.
They've said they don't have a system. They just put each track to the brand they see fit
Yea half of the uncaged releases aren’t even heavy
nah I disagree, and they dont even have any qualification system, its just what feels more uncaged goes on uncaged, what feels more instinct goes on instinct, it just depends on a song vibe, not if its heavy or melodic. im not really a big fan of the split tho, i liked when everything was on a single yt channel (bcs outside of youtube, it doesnt matter if its uncaged or instinct so im talking just about youtube)
it’s better to follow the artists rather than the labels they release on imo
true!
Yeah
^ this - I'd much rather follow individual artists then not-so-great labels
yeah, but you need to find artists and places like monstercat are great way for it
if I liked 99% of music released on monstercat, why wouldn't I follow what label releases?
but then, when theres an artist on monstercat I really like, I will also listen to his off label releases (like to me karma fields for example), but monstercat is still a great collection of music, its like a good playlist I know is good
I definitely agree that the label changed in 2020, even in 2016-2019 it still felt like Monstercat to me and I cared about all the releases but 2020 just made something…change. I still think if they had artists release consistently like they did in 2014-2017 it would be a lot more enjoyable but I get it’s not really possible at this point. I’ll still follow but I don’t feel excited to check every release anymore
maybe im wrong but it feels like at one point they started caring about having big songs by big artists too much, they want to produce hit songs so bad. you can see it when some house songs got millions streams on spotify, they were pumping generic house music on instinct so much i got tired of it. there were good house songs but its just the amount of the same style music that was overwhelming.
monstercat became less monstercat and idk how to explain it really but its just what i feel like
I wish Monstercat would have put future house/future bounce songs such as Aiobahn on Uncaged instead of Instinct. Aiobahn’s stuff is a lot more in tune to the Uncaged vibe than the instinct vibe. I’m also bummed about Monstercat not doing compilations ever again.
Now in 2023, Monstercat decided to prioritize Uncaged to the disdain of instinct fans. I still like a lot of the songs Monstercat releases, but it’s not a guarantee a song will be enjoyable anymore like it would have in 2016.
Monstercat is still featuring a lot of their artists from the past, and I’m glad, but damn do I miss listening to new Noisestorm songs. The #1 wish I have for Monstercat.
I do predict that one day, Monstercat will stop releasing songs that I enjoy as much, and I will stop really listening to Uncaged. I already stopped listening to instinct.
2020 imo has to be the last very good year Monstercat had. It started going downhill in the fall of 2020 however, and while Monstercat is still enjoyable, it’s not the same as it was before 2020 or especially before 2015.
TL;DR - Monstercat as a label has evolved to the point that they don't feel the same as they used to, and that's usual with other long-standing labels.
I do think that as Monstercat has evolved over the years, so did their artists. They've constantly evolving their style and expanding what they can do with their sound design and so early Monstercat sounds nothing like modern Monstercat.
I also agree with the whole 'signing new artists' thing. They've been doing this for a long time now and that gave us some of our favorite artists. By the time 2020 rolled around though so many new artists were being introduced and while that's not a bad thing, some of them have been very hit-or-miss when it comes to their tracks. 2021 was good but not very great as while it did gives us stuff like Sleepless, Eternal, the Somewhere New EP and the rise of Color Bass, among others, it just didn't feel exciting. Also props to 2021 for bringing the label's biggest meme since Crab Rave, 'it just feels so good right now'.
The first 30 compilation albums told a story, Uncaged just used a random PNG file for its album art after Volume 3, and Instinct well... exists.
The Monstercat NFT drama... was a thing, and so did the ExxonMobil collab with the release of 'All We Needed'. On that note you don't use a shitty collab as a reason to make a song associated with it look bad.
I still like the music, but the stuff the label's doing now is depressing.
Yeah same, I still enjoy the music and many of the artists but I’m not to fond of some of the businesses decisions
Same
Reason’s I’m still okay with Monstercat:
Bossfight’s entire discography released on there.
Sullivan. King.
Chime songs.
Caster.
Any collab with Teminite.
Ok, I’m done.
Ik I’m late but one of my biggest issues with monstercat is something you pointed out I think. Their inability to keep artists. Some of my favorite artists (like soupandreas and jay cosmic/desert star) just seemingly left after a handful of songs. How can they keep on losing these great artists? Like there’s gotta be some huge issue internally that isn’t being resolved between label and artists.
All in all I still enjoy some of the songs and some of the artists but I feel like I’m usually disappointed, even by some of my favorite artists releasing new songs.
yeah, before it was a family, now theres so many artists that come here, release max a few songs, and dont return.
this is the main difference between monstercat and disciple these days.
im not against new artists, but 99% of times they just pop out here and then never come back, or release a few songs and then go somewhere else.
@@rje1293 FYI Desert Star was releasing between 2017-20, plus Empty Sky is STILL his latest track.
Hi! I don't know why I just found this now but here is my opinion, coming from someone who first listened to Monstercat in 2014.
Yes. Monstercat definitely killed itself. They became more money focused. They were "playing it safe" as one person I was talking about this with said.
The first signs of problems I'd say were Marshmello's Alone debut - Alone is a damn good song, but like, Monstercat then kind of used that as "we're famous now!" and just started working with more popular artists.
Then, the split happened with Uncaged and Instinct. This is where the music fell, because now music had to fit into two categories. When the split happened, a lot of genres like Electro, Drumstep, Glitch Hop, all were gone. Because now they just don't fit into the scope of either label. Nowadays you will NEVER EVER see Monstercat release a song of those genres, and if they do they will say it's "nostalgia". Now that the pre-existing artists rely on the label, it has to be good up to Monstercat's standards. And that is where you lose the personality and uniqueness of the sounds.
Artists additionally then went other places. Some went into other areas of music, some took a break. However in 2024, in the future after this video, we see some artists making a return, most notably Nitro Fun with "World Wide Web" (Which is literally the first complextro song monstercat has released in I think like five years), nanoobi with "All I Want" to start of the year, but there are still problems. Pegboard Nerds now runs their own label which Stonebank recently has been releasing songs on. And Vikkstar honestly; I know him for Minecraft, not TF2 or KSI or whatever and "Know Me Better" is a banger but it's probably another popularity grab.
The podcasts also fell. It used to be the "Monstercat Podcast" with soundbites and epic bangers. Now it's "Call of the Wild" where songs from other labels are being played. Currently they're now doing "Genre showcase episodes" which are really going piss poor. And believe me, some people in the Discord community have tried to be vocal about it. So now you get just a generic genre-specific episode every week, which sucks because if it's a genre I hate, oh well.
I could keep yapping forever, this conversation really can go on forever. It's just that Monstercat transformed itself to become so reliant on generic music that it lost everything that made it special along the way. If you want to really find the best songs, I recommend using Chosic's "Similar Song Finder" or following artists on Soundcloud or wherever so you can find their beats.
Underground artists though, if you find them, can really pop off. So if you find them at smaller labels, you will be satisfied.
the opinion on if monstercat music got worse or not is subjective, but the fact is that many people lost interest in monstercat. back in the days a new video had 100k views in a day at least, now its 5x less (ray volpe - see you drop 3 days ago and only 23k views, so its even more than 5x less). every video had 1M views in a week, now just few videos get to even 100k views mark.
100k views in a day meant almost 100k people cared enough to listen to a new monstercat song the day it got released. its not even close. i still listen to monstercat but so many people lost interest on it and thats a sad fact.
Never heard of this channel but this is my type of beat, hope u grow bro
2023 has been a pretty good year. (From mid-2023 onwards). We have gotten a LOT of big names such as Ray Volpe, Adventure Club and even Shaquille O'Neal (Which may have hindered the smaller artists on the label such as VESK GREEN) But they killed Instinct and Silk as they both upload one release a week. This is subjective but Instinct is the WORST sublabel out of the 3 not only due to its lack of releases but it seems like Instinct has shifted toward Commercial House styles such as Slap House. 2022 seemed to be the worst year on the label. There was INSANE backlash when one of Koven's songs was in partnership with Mobil1 and the Monstercat NFTs which exhibits that Monstercat are disconnected from their fans.
The split, the change of the visualizer and the rather recent end of the compilations are Monstercat's biggest mistakes imho.
Quality-wise it's still great in my opinion, even though they had some Ls in terms of decisions (both business-related and artistic) but overall it remains my favorite label currently!
visualizer change wasnt that big of a deal since the youtube audience was only a fraction of the community by the time they made that change. aside from that though i agree that the uncaged/instinct split was the beginning of the end. just too much quantity with no consistent quality
What visualizer changes, more specifically?
'Cause that motherfucker has gone through a lot in the last 10 years.
I loved the stars layout, but I think the next iteration, with white bars and album art background is great as well. The current one is just underwhelming...
Monstercat uploading so many tracks per week makes it overwhelming and less exciting about song releases, It's way too hard to catch up to. I only stick with the old Monstercat songs 2011-2018, some recent ones. I rarely keep up with the new tracks Monstercat releases. I feel like they are just shoving any artist even if they are ass in their channels, most of the songs don't have creativity anymore it sounds like any other common EDM song.
Don't even get me started with the 11 Year anniversary event, I was expecting it to be memorable and epic. Because I've been a Monstercat fan for 9 years, so I gave Monstercat a chance to see if this was going to be a hell of an anniversary. But it wasn't, it was depressing, it was just Dylan talking through a poor-quality microphone, no music in the background and poorly handled constests. Wasted 4-5 hours of my life sitting and watching the most depressing live ever.
agreed with the quantity over quality thing - the remixes and stuff with little advanced warning really ticks me off, plus MUZZ's album release schedule is too much (releasing every other week, I mean come on)...and I also started making my own compilation albums, too (they are under the Playlists tab on my homepage)
glad you guys touched on these topics
Just like the subsidia vid, very well said and I couldn't agree more
Now I don't hate monstercat, but I definitely don't love it anymore. It seems I only really follow for the artists and not the entire label anymore.
I haven't really listened to Monstercat as much as I used to. I think it makes sense why.
Also, NFTs suck in general, so I'm disappointed that Monstercat decided that it was a good idea to do them.
some of the new music has been decent imo, but their main brand decisions have been really shit
people like maliboux and danny leax were really good signings tbf
6:06 "Each artist had a recognizable style and made music that had structure, great ideas and production to back it up"
I feel like this could use elaboration? Does it suggest new artists don't have recognizable styles? That their music has no structure? Great ideas and production are more subjective I guess but I'd argue the quality of production is better than ever.
1:05 how perfectly you pronounced that was really satisfying
Judging by his accent and YT language (0:00) or he's Mexican, Spanish or basically he's Latin American
Post Uv8-Iv4 was when stuff started falling off.
Can you do Spinnin' Records
0:15 NSD kicked ass. Wish it was still around today
rip never say die 😢
I hope monstercat sees this video and makes some changes
I feel like NoCopyrightSounds is better even though they have had some bad years, this year it seems like they are stepping it up with quality rather than quantity as you said in your video. You should check their early stuff out.
Nah, they're the same thing, but the difference it's that almost no one wants to release on NCS cuz their contracts
Nah they were doing pretty good back in 2022 but threw all that out of the window for 2023 and are now majorly quantity > quality
@@yaska7399
Idk man, they brought in some more newcomers who are well known Aiobahn, Kage, Rave New World and NEFFEX with their songs being good (I heard Don Diablo is coming to NCS according to the spotify roster) and also they brought back some old artists mainly Alan Walker (and later Fox Stevenson since he is going to be on NCS's side in ADE). I would say that NCS is kinda in the bright side imo.
Great video! Just one advice, maybe tune down the background music a little, at times you were hard to hear because it was too loud ^^
Honestly I don't disagree with anything you mentioned and don't know or care enough about monstercat to agree with it either but do feel that it's a really interesting topic you're talking about.
However I found it really hard to understand much of what you were saying without captions due to the way you slur your words and their lack of individual distinction. Is it your mic or just the way you talk? If it's your natural voice, I can understand and don't intend to attack you for it, but it it is your mic then maybe consider a new one? Because I would definitely watch more of your videos if it was easier to understand. Anyway, good content. Keep it up!
Edit: Also maybe equalise the volume on the effects and stuff? It's way louder than the voice audio. The outro especially really hurts headphone users. At least give a warning maybe? 😬
Wow. This video is pretty interesting. I agree that the label's downfall was in 2020. Both Uncaged and Instinct I feel lost their creativity by that point. I can probably pinpoint Instinct's loss of creativity. Given that Potions by SLANDER & Said the Sky and Million Days by Sabai & Hoang were big hits for Monstercat, this probably inspired the label to feature new artists with a future bass style. Keep in mind, as much as I don't like a Million Days, Sabai was a brand-new artist at the time. They probably thought that they could repeat the same formula. Uncaged's loss of creativity is trickier to determine. I think their loss was due to leaving artists. Combine that with newer artists showing up on the label, and I think everything just mashed together. Don't get me wrong, I still like their singles recently. But it's hard not to get past that.
i think i recommend ghostly international for labels. not sure if they entirely count as electronic but they do have some really good acts on there
Ok if you do end up making a small label showcase, you should include Neoluminum. The people there are incredibly talented and creative, and deserve way more attention than they're getting
They killed themselves when they stopped doing the og compilation albums.
my favourite artist on mc is probably caster
Yeah. I’ve been following Caster since Embrace of Hekate came out and he is just really good.
banger vid
Of course theres still a lot of good music on monstercat, but it feels like it lost its identity, plus its not that relevant anymore on the internet (but i dont blame mc here, its just what happened to electronic music as a whole, it also evolved)
the label has been kind of mid recently
@neptune yes i do
agreed but 2hard2letgo was not mid, in fact it is amazing
@@pjw- there have been some good songs released. for me tho, it's more of in a general sense
@@hexnight Silk for me has been really meh recently...Uncaged is fine, but Instinct has been amazing
95% of music on monstercat is from artists ive never even heard of, and will never hear of again.
and the genres are mislabelled asf. at least they used to try, but now it's just #dubstep or #drumandbass or #trap (or #melodicbass, if skybreak touched it) hidden somewhere in the description and like nothing else
It's either that or the infamous #Bass lmao 😂
the scripting and editing in this video was very good, but your vocal delivery really drags it down. your tone is kinda monotonous and some phrases were spoken too fast or two quietly and it kinds bogs down the video, still enjoyed it thk
1:05 it's a joke, right?
Yeah I'm not really listening to the new releases tbh, I've probably listened to like 20 of the songs released this year
Moar of this please my guy 👉
Yes I know I am late but I want to ask u something. Kad and Paul McRiddim are making an Automhate club for fans of automhate. Do you want to join?
bad computer, silent child, elypsis & hayve literally carried mcat this year
helloworld
Feint, Rameses B, and Leah Culver have been serving this year tbh
Bossfight.
hi gally
it’s so bad that even ncs has better songs
don’t be mean
Ok I disagree with this one, NCS sounds very mid to me imo. At least some of the recent mcat releases I actually remember
Not sayin NCS is bad just I don’t often remember the releases there 💀
I don't even listen to modern ncs anymore lmao
NCS became good when they ditched their prog house style and generic fb this year
based foekoe watcher
why the fuck is there a cell phone alarm in the middle of the video.
funny beep