A Slice of Modern Pop

[imwjl]

With my young adult and adult kids getting into retro stuff it's also a reminder of how much non-modern pop is also mediocre at best.

This observation is interesting in the modern days of streaming and all the different work spaces I get into - what I hear working in different departments and offices, and what people play at social gatherings. A lot of people are set or maybe stuck in musical times similar to what they find comfortable with clothing, food, history or social scenarios. Others are less parochial, so with pop music I think there is a split between those who seek comfort and those who seek or are fine with adventure and change.

This is extremely interesting to me with aging kids, my boomer cohort, and my mother just moving into a senior apartment complex. It seems so much of what we accept or like is just tied to how rigid or adventurous we are.

[jklotz]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

This is a song from the latest by a band I follow and the whole album is HERE.

Bob

The production on that is amazing! We have such incredible tools for making music these days. It's refreshing to hear somebody making very good use of them.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by jklotz

A friend once told me the purpose of rock and roll is to piss off the parents. I'm sure rap and hip hop did that, now this. To me, the last decade and a half of music has been a dark one.

I try to be tolerant though. I remember how all the older guys hated punk when it came out while I was figuring out Romones and Sex Pistols songs on my guitar. Popular art of any kind will always be changing and every new generation will have their own anthems. I am quite ready, however, for the next "new" thing comes down the road and I hope it's better than what's out there now.

Yes!

I too find it hard to get excited about many top streaming songs, but then I also find it hard to get excited about many songs by artists in our many current subgenres that get respect here as "real music."

Because I'm not excited (instantly drawn in) it's unlikely I'll every be able to distinguish what's good innovation or even what is being intended by those artists (or compound creators) -- who even a commercial field will present something for the listener's consideration. "Death of the Author*" says that meaning will be there even by accident.

How deep do you want to go in to this currently popular music? For many of us, hardly toe deep. Even from a cursory glance we can make some observations, unfavorable ones mostly. A knowledgeable guy like Bob is going to be perceptive, and correct as far as it goes. So would someone like Rick Beato on his YouTube channel. But here's the burden: the same thing has been continually said over a hundred years.* We reply: "No, this time it really is bad and worthless and lacking redeeming value." How is it that we're the first ones where it really is entirely dire? We can take time out from our happy music places and maybe go in waist-deep or more to make our case, that this time it's really true, the musical sky has actually fallen.

My explanation? young listeners don't listen to music the same way old listeners do. They don't have the same context for it. Youngish musical creatives find or luck into something that has appeal to this young audience. The disapproval of older listeners is a feature not a bug.

*This winter I read some stuff written by the writers of what became known as The Harlem Renaissance of the last Twenties. Guess what they thought of Jazz in what would be called "The Jazz Age?" A large contingent of the intellectuals thought it was an embarrassment. Not all -- then teenaged Langston Hughes got it -- but even Afro-American composers like James Weldon Johnson had their doubts. Guess what my first music teacher thought of Rock'n'Roll? "There's no harmonic development, just these few chords over and over." What did the Seventies think of punk? Unless you were a handful of genre fans or critics: no talent poseurs, every one of them is exactly Sid Vicious. I was on the early Internet when Nevermind hit. Rick Beato who was coming up then raves about the harmonic genius of Kurt Cobain's songs in our times, but you know what the predominate opinion was on forums then: "Simple minded. No talent. Can't play the blooze. Needs guitar lessons."

Much respect to Bob Womack. He's not incorrect -- indeed he's incisive -- and as a practical matter we don't need to understand; but it's likely both generations are deaf in different ways.

[fumei]

4. Even with copious Autotune, pitchiness is apparently acceptable.
5. Twenty-one writers, twelve producers, seventeen studios, five words. Apparently repetition is next to godliness in the modern milleu.

#5 in particular drives me nuts. Counted 58 repetitions of the same three words - and virtually no other words - in one song. Over and over.

Was a Wishbone Ash fan back when they toured with Deep Purple. I am quite out of the loop...I did not know they were still going. That is impressive.

As to the argument that all generations say the newer (younger) one is crap music, well, that is true. The problem is with the factual points Bob lists. So, I think that popular music is crap, for the reasons Bob lists, BUT there is still real music being created. There always will be.

I do wish that Autotune had not invaded so pervasively. Alas, I think we have lost that battle.

[Glennwillow]

The only time I listen to pop radio is when I have an errand to run and I need to take out my old year-2000 pickup truck to make sure it gets run every week or so. It's 21 years old with only 22K miles on it. I bought that truck as a utility truck for hauling wood, hay, going to the dump, stuff like that, so it is as stripped down as a truck can be with only an AM/FM radio in it. I live out in the country but in the nearby town there are only two stations that play music, one, a classic rock station, and the other, a modern pop station. So, I jog between these two channels looking for something new or old or interesting.

The last time I used my truck, late last week, I noticed the same things that Bob listed in his OP. All this repetition and no development. And it seems to be almost all female voices or guys singing so high that they are in that same range. It's as if they have stripped things down to the simplest nursery rhyme formula... "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, ..."

The music doesn't make me angry, it just bores me. I end up on the classic rock station most of the time and only about half of that stuff do I really like. So, I bounce back over to the pop station and I just get more ads or more nursery rhymes with a PG rating.

My grand daughter, who is now 18, gets her music from other sources besides the radio: YouTube, Spotify, for example. It's a different world. Then again, I get most of my new music these days from YouTube, too!

I think for many performers, pitch correction, when done judiciously, is not a bad thing. Mark Knopfler, for example, I think is a terrific and tasteful electric and acoustic player but not a great singer. Pitch correction helps make Mark Knopfler's voice more palatable for me. The trouble with most of these girl pop singers is that they sound like they are so young (13 maybe?) that they don't even know how to sing yet.

- Glenn

[frankmcr]

Yes, but what the OP is criticizing is the mainstream music of today. NOT today's equivalent of punk or grunge or whatever.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

Yes, but what the OP is criticizing is the mainstream music of today. NOT today's equivalent of punk or grunge or whatever.

Where I expect time to show it is much like or same as other eras. Only a little bit of it is truly good unless you're stuck in a particular time or more prone than others towards parochial behavior.

[Song]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

This is a song from the latest by a band I follow and the whole album is HERE.

Bob

I listened to that entire 5 minute song. It sounds great to me.
"But it wastes about 2 minutes of advertising time on intros, outros, and solos." modern pop producer

I guess 17 minute Yess songs are totally out of the question.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

The only time I listen to pop radio is when I have an errand to run and I need to take out my old year-2000 pickup truck to make sure it gets run every week or so. It's 21 years old with only 22K miles on it. I bought that truck as a utility truck for hauling wood, hay, going to the dump, stuff like that, so it is as stripped down as a truck can be with only an AM/FM radio in it. I live out in the country but in the nearby town there are only two stations that play music, one, a classic rock station, and the other, a modern pop station. So, I jog between these two channels looking for something new or old or interesting.

The last time I used my truck, late last week, I noticed the same things that Bob listed in his OP. All this repetition and no development. And it seems to be almost all female voices or guys singing so high that they are in that same range. It's as if they have stripped things down to the simplest nursery rhyme formula... "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, ..."

The music doesn't make me angry, it just bores me. I end up on the classic rock station most of the time and only about half of that stuff do I really like. So, I bounce back over to the pop station and I just get more ads or more nursery rhymes with a PG rating.

My grand daughter, who is now 18, gets her music from other sources besides the radio: YouTube, Spotify, for example. It's a different world. Then again, I get most of my new music these days from YouTube, too!

I think for many performers, pitch correction, when done judiciously, is not a bad thing. Mark Knopfler, for example, I think is a terrific and tasteful electric and acoustic player but not a great singer. Pitch correction helps make Mark Knopfler's voice more palatable for me. The trouble with most of these girl pop singers is that they sound like they are so young (13 maybe?) that they don't even know how to sing yet.

- Glenn

I think you nailed it on "it just bores me" and how I've always felt about most pop music. Even stuff I can play as a chronic mediocre guitar player bores me but I can do it so I do it.

So much is I, IV V music and when I can identify what I think is I, VI, IV, V (Stand By Me?) it can catch me.

To me most pop music criticism with a time period context is just variation of the "get off my lawn" complaint and illustrating how many people don't age being as accepting of who's next as we should be.

I'll take it if I'm the odd one here.

[buddyhu]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

This is a song from the latest by a band I follow and the whole album is HERE.

Bob

Tasty! But I haven’t been to many pizza parlors that aim anywhere near that high. It is almost ALWAYS stuff that folks won’t have to really listen to, that is predictable, and that some of the target audience can sing along to…..

Have you ever been trying to converse with someone who wants to really relate to the music? They either want to pause the conversation to listen, or they want to talk about something that relates to what they are hearing. Delightful if you are similarly inclined, but the absolute worst if you are not so inclined. And, at some level, most pizza parlors know this, even if they can’t speak about it.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by rmp

heard one of the new cuts


rock

is

not

dead...

Yea, the first single was released a few days ago without any word of the new album from Maiden. Samurai Eddie! Up the Irons!

[The Watchman]

I dislike having any recorded music in a restaurant or shop. Its hard enough to have a conversation. And usually it seems to be music for the entertainment of the workers, not the customers.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

Yes, but what the OP is criticizing is the mainstream music of today. NOT today's equivalent of punk or grunge or whatever.

Possibly a response to my longish post, but even if it isn't, I'll point out in the matter of "Grunge" that Nirvana had four number one albums on the Billboard charts in the last decade of the 20th century.

Yes, I had to look it up

A number of other bands that might fit in that grunge bin did very well when record sales were the metric around then too, but because Nevermind was the landmark, Cobain's playing and songwriting took most of knocks from folks on the forums in the 90s. At the time they thought he was too popular and was leading young people to disrespect skilled musicians who wrote real music.

Punk never hit big in the US in the 70s., but it seemed generational to me the time anyway, with the ones that dug it trending younger than the ones that didn't. Different story in the UK as to chart position success. Objects closer in the mirror factor: I felt personally close to what as I viewed as the ideals, and had minor connections to the early proponents in my city.

And leaving those aside: Jazz and Rock'n'Roll were also generational musics, widely decried when they were mainstream musics, particularly with younger people.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

The music doesn't make me angry, it just bores me. I end up on the classic rock station most of the time and only about half of that stuff do I really like. So, I bounce back over to the pop station and I just get more ads or more nursery rhymes with a PG rating.

My grand daughter, who is now 18, gets her music from other sources besides the radio: YouTube, Spotify, for example. It's a different world. Then again, I get most of my new music these days from YouTube, too!



- Glenn

My teenager is the same Glenn. Radio (which was often the source of theory/rants about how young people are deluded into liking bad music because evil/dumb/commercial-to-a-fault radio forces it on them and excludes the good stuff) seems a very small factor in youth musical experience today. And another tabernacle of my youth (and maybe yours) the record store, ditto. Internet discovery and word of mouth seems to be the ruler now. It may be harder to form a theory about who are the puppet masters corrupting young people's musical tastes in this era.

I say this even though I used to work for a radio network. I don't follow these things closely, but I think "the charts" today are heavily based on streaming plays on major services. The short intro and "don't bore us, get the chorus" aspects commented on up-thread could be a result of seeking streaming plays in order to chart.

I do sometimes theorize that streaming could tend to decrease the engagement of listeners with what they listen to. In my youth, buying an LP was an investment or sorts and you really wanted to listen to it a few times, often with some attention, in order to get one's money's worth. When I listen to something today on streaming/You Tube, I'm so glad it's convenient and easily searchable and no drain on my still limited budget, but it's easy for me to say "that's good, interesting musical ideas, great performance, fine song..." and then move on to something else and maybe stream something else a bit later, and repeat....

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

...I do sometimes theorize that streaming could tend to decrease the engagement of listeners with what they listen to. In my youth, buying an LP was an investment or sorts and you really wanted to listen to it a few times, often with some attention, in order to get one's money's worth. When I listen to something today on streaming/You Tube, I'm so glad it's convenient and easily searchable and no drain on my still limited budget, but it's easy for me to say "that's good, interesting musical ideas, great performance, fine song..." and then move on to something else and maybe stream something else a bit later, and repeat....

Yes, my wife and I still buy CDs and even though a $10-15 CD is not as much money to us as $3 was when we were 16 years old, we still listen over and over again to the music we buy to completely absorb it. We'll go over a CD many, many times over a couple of months until we know it inside out.

I notice that when our youngest daughter visits (born in 1981), she doesn't have much patience for listening to the same CD more than once or twice. It doesn't take long before she says, "Can we listen to something else?"

"Ah, okay..."

She comes from a generation where more music was available for way less money and her age group tends to graze over music like a horse on a huge field of lovely bluegrass pasture. Trouble is, if a person grazes across piles of music, none of it embeds in a person's brain. In my case, I still know all the nuances of songs from way back in high school (early to mid 1960s).

I will graze over music if I am looking for something particular, for example, which song am I going to cover next. But when I listen to music for enjoyment, I like basking in the music in some depth.

Taking us back to Bob's OP, though, if the music doesn't have much depth, then there is no need to dive into it. It's all there on the surface, custom made for the music grazers.

And I suppose that's the point. Listening habits have changed to where listening for many tends to be superficial. And for that reason, I suppose the music must be adapted to become more superficial. Maybe listening for many always was superficial. It just wasn't superficial for me.

- Glenn