Not being scholarly about the relative prominence of melody, harmony, rhythm and tone in music, I can only share my gut reactions to the video.
My impressions, as an aging keyboard player whose tastes were forged by the circumstances of growing up as an adolescent in the ascendency of prog and classic rock, is that this video captures something that I have felt and has been hard to articulate. It seems the only current culturally relevant new music is rap (the rockers I grew up idolizing are on their 40th or 50th reunion tours – if they are alive at all) which is definitely light on the melody side of things to say the least. But perhaps this has been a common lament. Parents of kids listening to bebop yearned for the melodies of Cole Porter. Parents of kids listening to The Sex Pistols longed for the melodies of the Beatles. Where can we go next musically is the question. . .
– Steve Gans is a Harvard affiliated psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Back in the day he was a keyboardist in the Chicago music scene of the 70’s and 80’s.
