Is There Finally a Shift in the Overly-Perfect Emotionless Music of Today?

During the mid to late 2000s, EDM and DJs were taking over the world. EDM, as general as that term is, was exciting and it had a bit of everything for everyone. It seemed like the edgy kids could still jam to dubsteb EDM while the trendy club jumpers could still dance to their 120 bpm dance music as soon as the bass dropped. It was definitely the most popular genre in the US and in most other countries. And let's face it, there's a lot of cool EDM out there. I could finally hear some of the weirdest and coolest electronic "extended techniques" of the most sophisticated 90s techno in almost any top 40 song now. I thought it was pretty cool! But, as the technology advanced and the tolerance of experimental electronics found it's way into mainstream, I also noticed a lack of something else: human feel. 

Now let me explain. I love instrumental electronic music and I realize there are rarely any human elements in the music itself. That's fine. I can like music for what it is. I'm actually not complaining about the lack of human traits in the music at all. I'm simply just noticing it. I am always one to embrace new technologies all the while paying my respects to the history as well. Give me a chance to explain where I'm going with this. 

Just like the highly-produced, image-driven, 80s American music scene, it was bound to change. In the 80s, pop music was mainly driven by MTV music videos and the image of the bands. This kept the human element while losing some of it in the music. All the records were produced with more synthesizers, more reverb and more gain! Everything was just more. During this time, the best selling album of all time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller", had drum machines driving the songs. It was commonplace. And all that was awesome too! I love a lot of the music from the 80s. 

The thing was that the next generation would want something of their own. And like any pop music shift, they would go almost completely in an opposite direction: Grunge. The image changed from drag queens and bikers to people dressing like they were homeless. The music was still loud, but it was raunchy. The singers were yelling, or yarling or whatever the hell they wanted. The production quality went from pristine and shiny to dingy and garage-y (grunge). It was like the grunge movement went back to basics and embraced human emotions, mistakes, and imperfections--also a great musical movement in my opinion. 

So with that movement in the history books and teaching us a little something about ourselves, where did that bring us after the EDM storm in the early 2010s? First of all, this is the storm that not only brought entire songs of completely synthesized instruments except the vocals but infected many other genres as well. Even in genres that have always been driven by live musicians! I have heard albums in country, hard rock, metal, and even folk genres with perfectly pitch corrected vocals, pristine drum replaced sounds that are aligned to a rhythmic grid, and guitar parts that no longer have feel or character because they were played too perfect and mixed into an oblivion. 

The significant change I noticed in 2012 was from the one group that was led by actual robots (allegedly ;-). They released an insanely popular electronic/pop record only they had a live drummer on every track. Daft Punk's album Random Access Memories was not only on every radio station but it also won "Album of the Year" at the Grammys. It's as if the populace wanted a bit more of a human feel to their music. 

Now I see a lot more groups adding live musicians, not only to their live show, but to their recordings as well. Even despite the expensive studio costs in recording live musicians vs programming the parts. It seems obvious to me that this shift is happening. Do you see it happening? Do you disagree? What do the most popular albums of 2017 and 2018 so far reflect?