OT: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? (Video by Thoughty2)

AudioGus

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton

To do a little remix of your post I would say...

The truth is that the people 'in charge' are not at all interested in art, this is true from the top bosses down to the promoters / managers...and down to the average consumer.

Yes indeed, this is a very good point...most are not interested in anything that is not 'the big thing'....

And to even use the word art elicits a 'you think yer somethin' special?' raised eyebrow.

Yes indeed, i used the word loosely, what I meant was that they don't care what it sounds like, it is whether it will easily make them money that they care about.....this is where the money people and the consumer do differ....if a consumer hears something they like they will get interested....it is getting them to find it that's difficult as they have no real desire to seek it out, it needs to be forced in front of them, which for an independent means getting it trending on one of the social media platforms, or standing in front of them and playing it to them (if you can get them to stand/sit still long enough)

Then what are the odds that the person who does stop and listen is actually into it? There is tons of brilliant, amazing, fantastic art in the world that I don't like.

AndyPlankton

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton

To do a little remix of your post I would say...

The truth is that the people 'in charge' are not at all interested in art, this is true from the top bosses down to the promoters / managers...and down to the average consumer.

Yes indeed, this is a very good point...most are not interested in anything that is not 'the big thing'....

And to even use the word art elicits a 'you think yer somethin' special?' raised eyebrow.

Yes indeed, i used the word loosely, what I meant was that they don't care what it sounds like, it is whether it will easily make them money that they care about.....this is where the money people and the consumer do differ....if a consumer hears something they like they will get interested....it is getting them to find it that's difficult as they have no real desire to seek it out, it needs to be forced in front of them, which for an independent means getting it trending on one of the social media platforms, or standing in front of them and playing it to them (if you can get them to stand/sit still long enough)

Then what are the odds that the person who does stop and listen is actually into it? There is tons of brilliant, amazing, fantastic art in the world that I don't like.

You just have to keep going in the hope that one day someone who IS into it hears it, and then they go and tell someone else about it, and so on......that is how pretty much everything becomes a thing that people are into..the more people you get to stop, the more chance there is of that happening.

I've been doing this for more than 30 years and it ain't happened yet, but then again, I haven't yet made anything I truly believe in, so i haven't tried to push it...I just throw it out there and mess around with the next piece. That is my fault, nobody else's....

cian

Most bands who sent a tape into John Peel didn't do any better than bands today who create a bandcamp, or Soundcloud, account. And the people who listened to John Peel were people who were obsessed with music. When I was a kid John Peel was pretty much the only way to hear music that might interest me - now there's Youtube, Spotify, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, podcasts. Fanzines were mostly unavailable unless you were in a big city - now they're websites. There's never been a better time for accessing music.

What that guy in the video is talking about is pop music for people who aren't terribly interested in music and require spoon feeding. Which has always mostly sucked. We just have a survivorship bias so that we remember the Beatles, rather than Herman's Hermits, or Brotherhood of Man, or Chris de Burgh. And the study he cites which objectively proves that modern music is worse is bullshit (fewer timbres - give me a break). His perspective is also incredibly white...

This nostalgia for the past is ridiculous. Back in the day if you didn't get a record contract, it was almost impossible to record. Distribution was very difficult (even in the 80s, it wasn't trivial). And while nobody much is making money at the moment - they didn't make any money then either. You had to sell a lot of records before you made a decent income. Promotion was haphazard - if your guy at the record company left, you probably wouldn't get any promotion. And of course - you, the artist, would pay for all promotion out of your royalties (as well as anything else the record company could think to charge you).

cian

@richardyot said:
My memory of being young is that good music always had to be tracked down. Via the record shop, recommendations from friends, and of course the music press. Music mags, particularly the NME, were as frustrating as they were useful though. I bought NME and Melody Maker every week for years, and the amount of crap they used to hype was maddening, but they had to fill a magazine every week.

They'd also turn on bands for no real reason.

The music is still out there, but it takes a little effort to track it down. More importantly though, and this is the hard thing when you get older (and likely less open to new things), you have to take the time to actually listen to it, and that's the hardest part - even though it's freely available to hear in ways we could only dream of when we were young.

I find I tend to get less obsessed with artists now that most of it is on Spotify, and less likely to listen to an album all the way through. Of course I also have kids, and my free times goes into writing music, so that could be the culprit.

AudioGus

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton

To do a little remix of your post I would say...

The truth is that the people 'in charge' are not at all interested in art, this is true from the top bosses down to the promoters / managers...and down to the average consumer.

Yes indeed, this is a very good point...most are not interested in anything that is not 'the big thing'....

And to even use the word art elicits a 'you think yer somethin' special?' raised eyebrow.

Yes indeed, i used the word loosely, what I meant was that they don't care what it sounds like, it is whether it will easily make them money that they care about.....this is where the money people and the consumer do differ....if a consumer hears something they like they will get interested....it is getting them to find it that's difficult as they have no real desire to seek it out, it needs to be forced in front of them, which for an independent means getting it trending on one of the social media platforms, or standing in front of them and playing it to them (if you can get them to stand/sit still long enough)

Then what are the odds that the person who does stop and listen is actually into it? There is tons of brilliant, amazing, fantastic art in the world that I don't like.

You just have to keep going in the hope that one day someone who IS into it hears it, and then they go and tell someone else about it, and so on......that is how pretty much everything becomes a thing that people are into..the more people you get to stop, the more chance there is of that happening.

I've been doing this for more than 30 years and it ain't happened yet, but then again, I haven't yet made anything I truly believe in, so i haven't tried to push it...I just throw it out there and mess around with the next piece. That is my fault, nobody else's....

The best succes I had is back in the early y2ks when i had a visual art website and my music on it, with regular visitors, before social media was a thing. I am sure a lot of the 'success' i had was because there simply were not a lot of people into my then small pond doing what i was doing, but now i just have zero motivation to wade into the waters of social media douchiness. The interfaces alone look so gross and demotivating. Yay, i am a tiny thumbnail on someones phone in a stream of ugly visual noise haha.

cian

@pichi said:
Also, radio used to be a local thing. So you'd get local DJs supporting local talent. Regional differences made for much variety in what eventually made it to the top 100.

Maybe in the US, but in the UK local radio was mostly garbage.

Music has pretty much become a global thing, especially in English speaking countries. People listening the same stuff making the same sounds using the same tools. A reflection of globalism in the internet era.

I don't think this is true. Certainly the UK has a lot of dance and rap music that is very rooted in local scenes. And nobody much outside the US listens to Bro-Country - thank god. My sense is that the music that's popular in Australia is often unknown elsewhere. Loads of terrible US rock bands never really break outside the US.

cian

@mannix said:
My opinion is popmusic is also made interesting by of controversial artists with different opinions (although you don't have to agree with them) because it is so much more dynamic than everybody bringing the same message over and over again.

My opinion is that pop artists with political opinions are an embarrassment to the human race. Each to their own I guess.

AndyPlankton

@AudioGus said:

The best succes I had is back in the early y2ks when i had a visual art website and my music on it, with regular visitors, before social media was a thing. I am sure a lot of the 'success' i had was because there simply were not a lot of people into my then small pond doing what i was doing,

maybe, but the stuff must have been half decent for people to bother at all.

but now i just have zero motivation to wade into the waters of social media douchiness. The interfaces alone look so gross and demotivating. Yay, i am a tiny thumbnail on someones phone in a stream of ugly visual noise haha.

This is where you need someone to do that stuff for you, someone who IS interested in it, it is just promotion, the promoters role is the same as before, but the methods are different.

cian

@MonzoPro said:

@cian said:

I love Nurse With Wound.

Recent album Dark Fat has been played pretty constantly here for the last few months. Gives me an excuse to post my favourite YouTube vid here again:

Watching that video in my bland, bourgeoise (but admittedly very comfortable) house I realize I took a terrible wrong turn.

Though it's weird hearing Simon Pegg's voice come out of Steven Stapleton's mouth.

Not heard the latest one. I fell of the wagon a bit when I moved to the states. I should track it down. Did he ever release the 'Lady Rapper' album he's been threatening/promising?

AudioGus

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

The best succes I had is back in the early y2ks when i had a visual art website and my music on it, with regular visitors, before social media was a thing. I am sure a lot of the 'success' i had was because there simply were not a lot of people into my then small pond doing what i was doing,

maybe, but the stuff must have been half decent for people to bother at all.

but now i just have zero motivation to wade into the waters of social media douchiness. The interfaces alone look so gross and demotivating. Yay, i am a tiny thumbnail on someones phone in a stream of ugly visual noise haha.

This is where you need someone to do that stuff for you, someone who IS interested in it, it is just promotion, the promoters role is the same as before, but the methods are different.

If I did live music and/or had monetary goals then I certainly would. Recorded music for recorded music's sake just doesn't seem to have a market so I never get too exposure horny.

[Deleted User]

@cian said:

@MonzoPro said:

@cian said:

I love Nurse With Wound.

Recent album Dark Fat has been played pretty constantly here for the last few months. Gives me an excuse to post my favourite YouTube vid here again:

Watching that video in my bland, bourgeoise (but admittedly very comfortable) house I realize I took a terrible wrong turn.

Though it's weird hearing Simon Pegg's voice come out of Steven Stapleton's mouth.

Not heard the latest one. I fell of the wagon a bit when I moved to the states. I should track it down. Did he ever release the 'Lady Rapper' album he's been threatening/promising?

You can listen to most of their stuff here: https://nursewithwound1.bandcamp.com/

We've come very close to buying bits of land, in the middle of nowhere with shacks on them over the last few years. Unfortunately our house here refuses to sell, and as prices have rocketed for that sort of thing we've missed the boat now. Would still love to do it though - house knocked together with old bits and pieces, deteriorating caravans in the field, grow your own veg and scrape a few pennies together playing music and making art, makeshift stage made from old pallets and a load of old hippy punk musician types staying for the weekend. Not quite the same here in our cul-de-sac, though I try my best.

richardyot

@cian said:
I find I tend to get less obsessed with artists now that most of it is on Spotify, and less likely to listen to an album all the way through. Of course I also have kids, and my free times goes into writing music, so that could be the culprit.

I still get obsessed, when I find a new track or album I love I'll play it to death, still love that feeling.

I also really like the modern way of listening to music: one giant playlist of all the latest stuff on shuffle. It means I listen to the music in a much more open-minded way, without any of the assumptions that would have come from the image of the artist, or the artwork etc. You just listen to the songs, and judge them on their own merits. So, much as I miss some of the stuff from the past, such as the 12 inch sleeve with the nice artwork, the artefact of the vinyl LP itself, the idea of listening to a full cohesive album, etc. etc... I think that the current way has unexpected advantages, beyond mere convenience. I think listening on shuffle really helps to reveal the songs, separate from everything else. YMMV of course.

AudioGus

@richardyot said:

@cian said:
I find I tend to get less obsessed with artists now that most of it is on Spotify, and less likely to listen to an album all the way through. Of course I also have kids, and my free times goes into writing music, so that could be the culprit.

I still get obsessed, when I find a new track or album I love I'll play it to death, still love that feeling.

I also really like the modern way of listening to music: one giant playlist of all the latest stuff on shuffle. It means I listen to the music in a much more open-minded way, without any of the assumptions that would have come from the image of the artist, or the artwork etc. You just listen to the songs, and judge them on their own merits. So, much as I miss some of the stuff from the past, such as the 12 inch sleeve with the nice artwork, the artefact of the vinyl LP itself, the idea of listening to a full cohesive album, etc. etc... I think that the current way has unexpected advantages, beyond mere convenience. I think listening on shuffle really helps to reveal the songs, separate from everything else. YMMV of course.

I pretty much never listen on shuffle. I like whole albums still. The only way any random order gets in is if I download a big mix or 'best of' something from youtube, but the i guess it is still curated by someone.

AndyPlankton

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

The best succes I had is back in the early y2ks when i had a visual art website and my music on it, with regular visitors, before social media was a thing. I am sure a lot of the 'success' i had was because there simply were not a lot of people into my then small pond doing what i was doing,

maybe, but the stuff must have been half decent for people to bother at all.

but now i just have zero motivation to wade into the waters of social media douchiness. The interfaces alone look so gross and demotivating. Yay, i am a tiny thumbnail on someones phone in a stream of ugly visual noise haha.

This is where you need someone to do that stuff for you, someone who IS interested in it, it is just promotion, the promoters role is the same as before, but the methods are different.

If I did live music and/or had monetary goals then I certainly would. Recorded music for recorded music's sake just doesn't seem to have a market so I never get too exposure horny.

And that is a perfectly reasonable standpoint to take

JohnnyGoodyear

@richardyot said:
There's far more outlets now than national radio stations. You can follow blogs and Twitter feeds from the genres that interest you. I follow a bunch of Indie blogs and there's a constant stream of new music on them.

This is a track posted 3 days ago that I really like, not even 1k views on YT yet:

Like it a lot. Thanks for the nudge. AND he uses veranda and just about gets away with it

JohnnyGoodyear

@richardyot said:
My memory of being young is that good music always had to be tracked down. Via the record shop, recommendations from friends, and of course the music press. Music mags, particularly the NME, were as frustrating as they were useful though. I bought NME and Melody Maker every week for years, and the amount of crap they used to hype was maddening, but they had to fill a magazine every week.

Hanging out in record shops you discovered weirder but more interesting stuff. Shimmy Disc was a favourite thing of mine when I was in my twenties, and it wasn't covered even in the music mags. But that's part of the pleasure, something that's yours, that you share with a very small handful of music nerds that you meet in real life. I've never taken the time to really dig into The Fall or Captain Beefheart, but I'm sure that's a similar thing: music that you have to take the time to appreciate, that you share with a very small handful of people who share your taste. It belongs to you.

The music is still out there, but it takes a little effort to track it down. More importantly though, and this is the hard thing when you get older (and likely less open to new things), you have to take the time to actually listen to it, and that's the hardest part - even though it's freely available to hear in ways we could only dream of when we were young.

Yeah, a lot of recognition in that. Made all the more so by the fact that I'm re-reading 'High Fidelity' right now as a preface to giving it to The Kid as an introduction to what life in London was partially like at a certain time (for his dad) and more immediately the enduring truth about girls...

richardyot

@JohnnyGoodyear said:
Like it a lot. Thanks for the nudge. AND he uses veranda and just about gets away with it

Just for you, as you're a fan of words, some lyrics. The ones to Mildenhall are full of images that are like flashbacks to my own adolescence. Kids passing tapes to each other, that was a cool thing. And the band in question, well it's familiar to you. I'll stick them in spoilers so as not to clutter up the thread.

At fifteen we had to leave the States again
Dad was stationed at an RAF base they called Mildenhall
Black moss on a busted wall
The cobblestones made it hard to skate
I thought my flattop was so new wave
Until it melted away in the Suffolk rain
Well god damn, you miss the USA

Then a kid in class passed me a tape
An invitation, not the hand of fate

I guess my shoes said I might relate
Somehow she knew I'd like to stay up waiting with her in the cold
For cheap beer and rock 'n' roll
Which in time put lots of things in my mind

A kid in class passed me a tape
We saw some bands down at the Corn Exchange

I wonder where my sister was that night
Back at home under the tanning bed lights
I can still see the glow
Strange rays from her window
Each night, as I was skating home
Started messing with my dad's guitar
Taught me some chords just to start me off
Whittling away on those rainy days
And that's how we get to where we are now

A kid in class passed me a tape
A band called The Jesus and the Mary Chain

I started messing with my dad's guitar
He taught me some chords just to start me off
Whittling away on all of those rainy days
And that's how we get to where we are now
And that's how we get to where we are now

And Father John Misty, in all his knowing 21st century lucid commentary.

Naturally the dying man wonders to himself
Has commentary been more lucid than anybody else?
And had he successively beaten back the rising tide
Of idiots, dilettantes, and fools
On his watch while he was alive
Lord, just a little more time

Oh, in no time at all
This'll be the distant past
Ooh

So says the dying man once I'm in the box
Just think of all the overrated hacks running amok
And all of the pretentious, ignorant voices that will go unchecked
The homophobes, hipsters, and 1%
The false feminists he'd managed to detect
Oh, who will critique them once he's left?

Oh, in no time at all
This'll be the distant past

What he'd give for one more day to rate and analyze
The world made in his image as of yet
To realize what a mess to leave behind

Eventually the dying man takes his final breath
But first checks his news feed to see what he's 'bout to miss
And it occurs to him a little late in the game
We leave as clueless as we came
For the rented heavens to the shadows in the cave
We'll all be wrong someday

[Deleted User]

Wait, Pop is still music today.
I thought it means people of pinterest.

Greenie

Thougty2's video was generally glum,--- Music is dying BOLLOCKS ! -----Have you folks ever listened to SOTMC there are some modern pop gems there ,go have a LISTERN

Greenie

Typo LISTEN

greengrocer

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@AudioGus said:

@AndyPlankton

To do a little remix of your post I would say...

The truth is that the people 'in charge' are not at all interested in art, this is true from the top bosses down to the promoters / managers...and down to the average consumer.

Yes indeed, this is a very good point...most are not interested in anything that is not 'the big thing'....

And to even use the word art elicits a 'you think yer somethin' special?' raised eyebrow.

Yes indeed, i used the word loosely, what I meant was that they don't care what it sounds like, it is whether it will easily make them money that they care about.....this is where the money people and the consumer do differ....if a consumer hears something they like they will get interested....it is getting them to find it that's difficult as they have no real desire to seek it out, it needs to be forced in front of them, which for an independent means getting it trending on one of the social media platforms, or standing in front of them and playing it to them (if you can get them to stand/sit still long enough)

Then what are the odds that the person who does stop and listen is actually into it? There is tons of brilliant, amazing, fantastic art in the world that I don't like.

You just have to keep going in the hope that one day someone who IS into it hears it, and then they go and tell someone else about it, and so on......that is how pretty much everything becomes a thing that people are into..the more people you get to stop, the more chance there is of that happening.

I've been doing this for more than 30 years and it ain't happened yet, but then again, I haven't yet made anything I truly believe in, so i haven't tried to push it...I just throw it out there and mess around with the next piece. That is my fault, nobody else's....

The best succes I had is back in the early y2ks when i had a visual art website and my music on it, with regular visitors, before social media was a thing. I am sure a lot of the 'success' i had was because there simply were not a lot of people into my then small pond doing what i was doing, but now i just have zero motivation to wade into the waters of social media douchiness. The interfaces alone look so gross and demotivating. Yay, i am a tiny thumbnail on someones phone in a stream of ugly visual noise haha.

Agree Especially in the beginning the internet was an experimental medium and attracted DIY people looking for other DIY nowadays internet has become mostly a pure consumption medium. In those early days there were a lot of dediacted website doing interactive visuals with sounds (soundtoys) I think the decay came because the (social media) consumers took over and of course the change to tablets and smartphone apps were promoted.

JohnnyGoodyear

@richardyot said:
Just for you, as you're a fan of words, some lyrics. The ones to Mildenhall are full of images that are like flashbacks to my own adolescence. Kids passing tapes to each other, that was a cool thing. And the band in question, well it's familiar to you. I'll stick them in spoilers so as not to clutter up the thread.

>

Brilliant. And THIS is how we find new stuff, whether by the tapes we used share or the internet people who are oddjobs like us and we know but have never met...

And it occurs to him a little late in the game
We leave as clueless as we came..

RUST( i )K

Because the GOVERNMENT MEDIA COMPLEX and its minions who run Hollywood, Entertainment, POLITICS, and TECH GIANTS are all on the same page.

THEY ARE IN IT FOR THE PROPOGATION OF CONCEPTS AND IDEAS THAT FURTHER THEIR SUCCESS and SURVIVAL.

Entertainemnt and music is the easiest way to do that.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

RUST( i )K

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

[Deleted User]

@cian said:

@mannix said:

My opinion is that pop artists with political opinions are an embarrassment to the human race.

Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Lives in the Balance - Jackson Browne
Tramp Down the Dirt - Elvis Costello
War - Edwin Starr
Rockin' in the Free World - Neil Young
Working Class Hero - John Lennon
Going Backwards - Depeche Mode
Sympathy For the Devil - Rolling Stones
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

JeffChasteen

@richardyot said:
My memory of being young is that good music always had to be tracked down. Via the record shop, recommendations from friends, and of course the music press. Music mags, particularly the NME, were as frustrating as they were useful though. I bought NME and Melody Maker every week for years, and the amount of crap they used to hype was maddening, but they had to fill a magazine every week.

Hanging out in record shops you discovered weirder but more interesting stuff. Shimmy Disc was a favourite thing of mine when I was in my twenties, and it wasn't covered even in the music mags. But that's part of the pleasure, something that's yours, that you share with a very small handful of music nerds that you meet in real life. I've never taken the time to really dig into The Fall or Captain Beefheart, but I'm sure that's a similar thing: music that you have to take the time to appreciate, that you share with a very small handful of people who share your taste. It belongs to you.

The music is still out there, but it takes a little effort to track it down. More importantly though, and this is the hard thing when you get older (and likely less open to new things), you have to take the time to actually listen to it, and that's the hardest part - even though it's freely available to hear in ways we could only dream of when we were young.

This is it, richard

cian

It's funny, but that Elvis Costello song typifies what I dislike so much about politics in pop music, but he's written a number of political songs that actually work. Shipbuilding is a great, true, song. Whereas that other song is just a rant. I mean I agree with it, but it's not great.

Issue songs can work. That Marvin Gaye song is great because he's singing from his lived experience. It's not an ishoo song, or a right on song about the latest political pet cause, it's about his life. The Dylan song in contrast works because it tells a story very well, and (mostly) lets the story make it's point. So many political songs tell you how to feel about something, rather than trusting you to come up with your own perspective.

So yeah I was exaggerating a bit - but the hit/miss ratio for political songs is very low.