The Future of Underground/Extreme Music

So I was thinking about (and discussing with la femme) the future of underground/extreme music when having lunch in a Johnny Rocket’s, listening to ancient doo-wop songs and their ilk. Listen to those old songs and you realize that pop music hasn’t gone anywhere, save the influences of rap; even what passes for “punk” these days is little more than barbershop harmonies. But this is all to be expected: that’s why it’s pop music. But what are people going to consider underground or “extreme” music in 50 years I wonder?

How much more extreme could music get than the distorted tech-punk of digital hardcore, the insanely fast beats of gabber, or just plain old noise? The music that exists outside the mainstream seems to be assimilated only briefly, and then only the most accessible material. So sure, you now hear the skittering urban rhythms of jungle/drum n bass in the back of adverts, but that’s about it.

I don’t picture a future of people regularly enjoying blistering, Merzbow noise. It’s “extreme” music, and it’ll always have a very small, very strange audience (like yours truly). But I wonder: what will those extreme folks be listening to? What’s more extreme than harsh noise? Silence? Subsonics? Thoughts like that make me hope I’m reincarnated as something with good hearing.