I don't know about that; the corporations certainly think they won, but I'm more inclined to believe they already killed the golden goose. There's no money in top-40 payola; the time to the grocery store soundtrack has never been shorter. The average age of cable TV viewers gets a year older every year, and there's much less patience for sitting around watching ads than in the 90s or 00s. Big corps are trying to win loyalty by loudly believing all the right things, only to find that they're alienating more of their customers than they thought. It's cool to be a foodie and do your own cooking, so fewer people are buying ever-shrinking prepared meals. Everyone's hugely cynical and expects a sales pitch around every corner. Culture is an incoherent wasteland largely because the big corps lost control.

>I don't know about that; the corporations certainly think they won, but I'm more inclined to believe they already killed the golden goose. There's no money in top-40 payola; the time to the grocery store soundtrack has never been shorter

They don't care. They do "hollistic deals", and sell Billie Eilish merchandize and Taylor Swift dog collars and barf bags. Music is just a byproduct of the whole thing...

Sure, but they're only doing that because they're desperate and have no other ideas. They'd make way more money if they had a monolithic gaggle of 18-35 fans, and they don't.