what's interesting to me about the audio animation of newer dance music and hip hop in particular is how there's been this sort of unspoken arms race towards more solid, satisfyingly compressed sounds. stuff made with drum samples in a DAW 10-15 years ago often sounds annoyingly thin compared to stuff from the past few years; the evolution has been very dramatic.
this musical value sort falls between the cracks of normal spoken values: it's not about having more
intricate production like IDM, and music that's perfected mastered in a traditional sense (e.g. steely dan) also totally lacks this hyperreal punchiness. it's not even about playing with space like in grm stuff. it perhaps has more to do with those vids of "oddly satisfying" sounds or even asmr than any of that.