what @snakehead, @ebb, and @idlestate recapitulated w/r/t how things like jazz, ambient, remixes already achieve in abstracting the ‘being’ of the piece is what first came to mind for me and i agree. especially with jazz, which is harder to envision without understanding the amount of constant touring they did with so many variations of their songs
i find the first thing mentioned by @idlestate in the op post about questioning the aesthetics of a square album cover, or of the sort, to be particularly interesting. breaking barriers with the aesthetics, release format, etc are the things that have been and will continue to develop significantly (especially with the renassaince of vr approaching mainstream levels soon)
that being said, i think musically (in both present and much of the past), the ‘being’ of music has broken contingency from expectations or logistical qualifications for a while. i just dont believe its promoted as much as it should due to the monotony of music journalism (which should be bringing the ideas to form): arbitrary genre mapping and subjective feelings
im very excited, and perhaps a bit scared, of what the future holds for VR technology to be integrated into the abstracts of sound on a large scale like were discussing. a final point to mention is inevitably, mainstream tropes only thrive because our human engineering is attuned to being excited by specific things. ie high frequency sounds promote impact and transition, bass sounds give subtle but obligatory attractiveness, songs catching rhythym automatically have a base appeal etc. so i dont think well ever see a major overhaul renassaince across the board for media until our thoughts transcend to hyperspace or s/e