I quoted this post, but in response to the second, thanks for the tip of the hat. Having a good discussion about music is what’s important, right?
As for this post, i am not sure what to say. TS writes Pop songs; those existed in the 70’s but weren’t those bands.
But that’s not the point.
It feels like this thread is discussing two things: Music’s Quality and its Cultural Importance, and whether the two are being crossed up here. I think some amazing descendents of the Eagles, CSN, etc are around today - have you heard Sturgill Simpson? As I have been asserting, Music is Okay in terms of talent, fundamental human attachment to music, access to varied content, etc.
But, man, the Rock n Roll/Rock era put music at the forefront of Cultural Importance. and, to go with it, the music was innovative and new - and if ever an instrument was born to lead all that, it was the electric guitar ;). I am obviously a fan.
It was cool when dinosaurs ruled the earth - the Monsters of Rock!
After the Internet meteor hit, we have a bunch of smaller species, but Life itself is fine.
And before anyone else, can I just say :smack: to that analogy? But it’s Sunday morning, so I’m leaving it in.
Let’s start by clarifying that Aretha is a far, far better singer. I saw that earlier post and seized up ;). But that’s not particularly relevant to this thread.
And it’s good to have someone such as yourself to discuss it with. Unfortunately I’m having a bit of a busy day today and don’t have time to properly answer your other points. I’ll try to get back later tonight or tomorrow and answer them then. As always I appreciate your input.
(And while I’m on the subject of input I want to thank the posters who’ve made helpful comments about ways to search out good music not found on the radio. I don’t know if any of your are still reading the thread but if you are I want you to know your efforts haven’t gone unappreciated. I’ve been meaning to get back and thank you but time and arguing over Taylor Swift seems to have distracted me and I apologize.)
For the most part, I’m with you. I’d rather listen to Pat Benatar and Heart (or even Olivia Newton-John or Linda Rondstadt) than the vast majority of current ‘pop’ music. I have an intense (some might say irrational) hatred of Celine Dion and, more recently, Taylor Swift. Justin Bieber and the like also drive me insane! But there are a few current singers who have phenomenal talent- Kelly Clarkson and Adele, for example. I enjoy almost everything that they sing…but they actually have genuine vocal talent…the same can’t be said for most of the others on the Top 40!
Because I’m a contrarian twit I’m going to have to take issue with this statement. Music has always had cultural importance. Early 20th-century jazz was the soundtrack to the Roaring 20’s and the Lindy Hop. Billie Holiday protested racism with Strange Fruit in the 1930’s. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were changing the world well before Rock 'n Roll. Gospel music was immensely important in black Christian culture. Farther back, armies marched to The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
What has changed is not the quality of the music but the technology used to distribute it. Rock 'n Roll came to the forefront around the time of the LP record format and FM radio came to the fore, making it somewhat easier for prominent acts to become national.
Actually it’s exactly the point, at least as far as what I’ve been saying since I brought her up. It’s been my contention all along that Taylor Swift’s music and talents are pretty much equivalent to the sort of lightweight pop tunes that were around in the 60s and 70s. In other words, she’s really no great shakes and once again not comparable to the likes of the singers and songwriters of that era that I’ve already mentioned.
This thread has persuaded me that there is still quite a bit of good music being produced today even if it’s not much in evidence and one has to employ electronic technology to find it, so in that sense, yes, Music is Okay. (Although I have a hard time wondering how it could reach previous levels in terms of quality and musicianship. Previously, once a band or a singer began to hit it big, they then had access to better producers, engineers and studio musicians than they had before, therefore they were able to grow and continue to get better in ways that I imagine would be difficult today for good-quality but little-known musicians or bands.)
But we’re not talking about the state of music as it exists in total; we’re talking about it in terms of Top 40 radio. And that’s where the dearth of good musicianship is both most evident and most frustrating because Top 40 radio is where new music is most easily available and where it finds its largest audience. So the concern becomes that as music is dumbed down and dumbed down, there’ll be nothing to stop the slide because its audience, not knowing any better, thinks its cool. If ever there’s been evidence that teens and young adults still maintain much of the unquestioning acceptance that one finds in children, the fact they’re so eagerly accepting of the claptrap found on Top 40 radio is it. And the fear is that as music becomes increasingly dumbed down for economic or whatever reasons, the uncritical group it’s aimed all will still eagerly accept and enjoy it, and it will continue to get worse and worse as it has for the last eight to ten years or so.
Nah, it was a perfectly cromulent analogy. Rock n Rollers and guitar gods pretty much are dinosaurs these days, but they were monsters once upon a time and neither their influence nor their musicianship have been eclipsed by what followed.
What irks me though is that even if one accepts the fact that music has become so fragmented that the cost of recording and promoting bands of actual musicians and that the singer/synthesizer model is the only one profitable, it would still be possible to produce quality music if studio standards hadn’t degraded to the point they have. Look at People, by Barbra Streisand, or I Left My Heart In San Francisco by Tony Bennet. Excellent tunes with minimal help from backing musicians, but still excellent songs. The problem isn’t so much an inability to create good music with minimal participation in the studio, it’s that musical standards have sunk to the point that no one cares about musicianship as long as the guy/girl fronting the songs has what passes for a cool image. No one listens to Iggy Azalea or Justin Bieber or Selena Gomez to be blown away by their musical chops, they listen to them because they identify with and want to be like them (or to have sex with them, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sex appeal has always played a significant role in popular music. The difference is that it hasn’t always been pretty much the only thing.) It’s in this area that I think Taylor Swift is head and shoulders above everyone else. She’s the most beautiful, the most stylish, the most savvy, the most powerful, the one with a captivating and ever-changing love life with good-looking men, etc., etc. Girls identify with and want to be like her and guys want to do her. And at least compared with most of the other pop stuff out these days, her music is at least fairly musical. It’s just not great.
I’ve often been critical of my own generation on these boards, but at least they had to good sense (and sensibility) to go nuts when prior to a Zeppelin performance Jimmy Page’s guitar was brought onstage by a tech, placed in a stand, and hit with a spotlight. Those people were there to hear some fucking music! Were that it was so today.
Yikes! Speaking of guitar gods, I just saw that Joe Perry collapsed during a show tonight with The Hollywood Vampires. Cardiac arrest is said to be the cause. I’d really prefer that we not lose any more legendary musicians this year.
Totally fair. Music has always been a vital part of culture. I do operate from a perspective of Guitar Exceptionalism ;), so am sure my bias is obvious. The convergence of simple, cheap, loud instruments, records and radios, and the emergence of the teenager as its own commercial segment seems to have been a period where music was a topic of cultural conversation even more. But what do I know? Folks are sure talking about Formation today, etc.
You point out that what has changed is the forms of music-making and music distribution. I agree - the music talent is similar, but the new technology has led to big changes in how its made and how we consume it.
Starving Artist - yeah, I appreciate all of that. So, if TS is pure Pop, would you say she is the equivalent of ABBA from the 70’s? For all of their uncoolness to me as a guitar geek, they sure have stood the test of time so far and if anything gained in respect.
Is it because she is willing to be a Brand and a Persona and her music sometimes comes across as new Product to feed her brand machine?
Hmm, a fundamental form of this question boils down to: Is Sturgeon’s Law constant? Is “95% of everything crap”* consistently? I guess to me, the answer is Yes - that is the basis of the Music is Okay assertion. I am inclined to look back and appreciate that if I was standing there, Music would be facing very similar questions, have similar types of iconic heroes, songs and cultural influences.
I think folks arguing that right now, 98-99% of music is crap - Sturgeon’s Law is facing a blip. I just don’t see it.
*frame as you see fit. The point is that the vast majority of any category is yucky.
Just by coincidence, I came across a recent article today with many of the same themes being discussed in this thread. He applied a non-scientific analysis of top-10 music today vs. the early 1980s. His conclusion is that today’s top 10 is indeed less interesting and varied than in the early 80s. However, ten songs per year is a very small sample size to analyze.
My own opinion also is that top 40 music right now is in a pretty bad lull. Most songs just don’t seem very fun to listen to, and pop music is supposed to be fun. Instead there’s a lot of crap like the Calvin Harris & Rihanna song where the entire chorus is “you you you…you you you…” In the article I linked, the writer names DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” and Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” as two recent examples of fun, catchy songs that are too rare right now. I also like those two songs, and I agree that there should be more like them.
However, there have been many other lulls in top 40 radio in the past, and I’m sure there will be a resurgence eventually. I remember Smpati’s polls, and there were several stretches of years where I liked a large percentage of the songs listed, and there were several other stretches were I struggled to even pick one song I liked. The early-to-mid 1990s and the late 2000s decade were pretty bleak. We seem to be suffering through another one of the low points right now.
I’ve watched a couple of Corden’s Car Pool Karaoke and didn’t know a single song. Sigh.
But honestly, Top 40 was never really my choice back in the day anymore than it is today.
I think persona/perception has a bit to do with it. TS is on top of the heap right now, but is she really all that bigger of a talent than the roundly dissed Miley Cyrus? Take looks/public image/stage persona/lifestyle out of the equation and it’d be a closer horse race IMHO. Emphasis on the IMHO.
Considering that T-Swizzle writes her own lyrics and is a talented multi-instrumentalist as well (I’ve seen her play acoustic, electric, banjo, and piano live), I’d say she has a leg up on Miley, yes.
As a… non-serious listener of music, and sometime Top 40 listener on my commute (it’s about 40% classic rock, 20% Top 40, 20% “Alternative” and 20% 80s/90s oldies).
I agree with the people who are postulating a lack of variety in today’s top 40 music. It seems to be very homogenous- it’s either some variation of the current folk-ish sounding music, bad hip/hop dance music, or songs that sound like they’d be covers of 70s-80s songs, but they’re modern-day songs (think “Blurred Lines”, “Shut up and Dance” for a couple of examples)
Every now and then you get something kind of weird- Lorde’s songs are pretty odd and don’t quite fit in, but for the most part, they’re different than say… 1986 and you had rock, pop, R&B, and even some lighter metal in there. If you look at the 2015 Top 100 singles, they’re almost all pop, dance or really terrible hip-hop/R&B/rap. Variations on the same 2-3 basic styles without a lot of variation between bands/singers.
Oddly enough today’s pop type music is actually pretty good relative to pop of years past, I think. It’s the other stuff that sucks in comparison to years past.
Sorry to be so long getting back and if your interest in the thread has waned in the meantime please feel free to let the thread go. It seems pretty much to have run its course but I’d feel it rude not to answer.
IMO, TS is roughly equivalent to the likes of Leslie Gore and perhaps Toni Tennille, although my estimation is that Toni Tennille is more, uh, musical than Swift.
There’s no question that Swift’s music is pure pop, but that’s been pretty much my argument all along. My complaint is that there’s no modern equivalent on the radio of talents such as the monster talents of yore, that were they to exist today, would keep Swift’s contributions in their proper lightweight place.
Not in the slightest. I’ve never been one to consider people sell outs for capitalizing on their success.
I think first of all we have to define crap. My subjective opinion is that it’s crap if it seems to lack at least a modicum of what I consider musicality. Secondarily my opinion of crap somewhat depends on whether I like or at least don’t mind listening to it, and the primary determinant of that takes us back to my first criterion - musicality. It’s the rare song I think of as crap as long as I can hear a certain amount of musicality going on.
But even now I’d be hard pressed to say I think 95% of Top 40 music is crap, although it’s getting there. But this is a recent development. It’s only been the last seven or eight years that I’ve come to feel that music is overwhelmingly crap.
Here’s a site that chronicles Top 40 radio all through each year from 1955 to 2007, and to 2015 for the Top 100. In my opinion most of the music being played throughout all those years has been pretty damn good. Some of it is lightweight and inconsequential, and a fair amount of it is music that music snobs might deride as crap, but to me as long as it contains at least a certain level of musicianship it qualifies as not being crap. A few examples of these types of songs and bands would be Afternoon Delight, Do The Hustle, Love Will Keep Us Together, and most of the music of post-Terry Kath Chicago and bands such as The Little River Band and Air Supply. But as long as these songs are melodious and contain genuine musicianship, I’m fine listening to them even if I’m not particularly taken with them.
But still, there was a lot of heavyweight talent at the top of the charts all during the rock era. As an example, here are the top ten artists from the week ending January 10, 1981, a time I picked at random:
John Lennon
Neil Diamond
Barbra Streisand
Blondie
Bruce Springstein
Air Supply
Rod Stewart
Heart
Kenny Rogers
Leo Sayer
The next 10 on the list?
The Police
Pat Benatar
Diana Ross
Barry Manilow
Eddie Rabbit
Kool & The Gang
Steely Dan (a longtime personal favorite)
Stevie Wonder
Andy Gibb
Queen
I’m seeing nowhere near 95% crap there. But the last few years? Here’s the top 20 from May 2014 (again selected at random):
Pharrell Williams
John Legend
Katy Perry
Jason Derulo, 2 Chainz
Pompeii
Lorde
American Authors
Justin Timberlake
One Republic
One Direction
Ellie Goulding
Demi Lovato
Chris Brown/Lil Wayne
Paramore
Jerrod Nieman
Jerrod Nieman
Avicii
Avicii
Kid Ink/Chris Brown
Imagine Dragons
In my opinion the best of this group would pretty much be a low-to-mid-level-talent compared with the 1981 group, and the remainder don’t even belong on the list. So in terms of performer combined with backing musicality, I’m going to assign this group a crap level of around 60 - 70% And it’s only gotten worse in the two years since. YMMV of course (and most likely will), but those are my two cents.
THe sad thing is, there’s a lot of talent there, especially in artists like Jason Derulo and Demi Lovato, but the market sucks musically right now. Both have produced great songs in the past, but currently it’s all about repetitive beats and cute turns of phrase that don’t actually work all that well. Whatever happened to that stable of Swedish songwriters that could at least turn out good hooks?
You mean Mattman and Robin, co-writers/co-producers of this tasty little party tune?
Note the presence of melody and of musicians playing actual music on actual musical instruments. Not Queen, Police or Steely Dan level music admittedly, but it’ll damn well do. If more stuff like this was on the charts I’d be a considerably happier camper.
I think this is the key. Pop is pop, regardless of decade. It’s all disposable fluff with great hooks. What’s interesting are the non-pop songs that climb the pop charts. That used to be rock and rap/hip hop. Hip hop is still there as much as or more than ever, but rock has largely been replaced by country. Yuck.
For my money, the last great age for rock in the charts was from 1999 to 2001. And even though rock has largely been replaced by country, we still get the occasional taste. Radioactive sure feels like rock to me. (Plus, Alexandra Daddario!)
In terms of pop, compare like with like: Taylor Swift wipes the floor with Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, for example. And for my money, I’ll take Katy Perry over Madonna any day. (But I concede that reasonable people can disagree on that one.) If you’re going to limit your comparisons only to the 60s and 70s, your argument is 40 years old, and is already starting to yell at younger arguments to stay off its lawn.
Here’s how I think of and grade pop music for the past 50 years:
60s: A+ (British invasion, birth of rock)
70s: C (disco)
80s: D (hair bands and synthesizers, birth of rap)
90s: B+ (grunge, hip hop)
00s: B+ (rock resurgence, hip hop)
10s: C (auto-tuned bubblegum)
A month or so ago I was watching the latest Daniel Tosh stand up special, and he walked out on stage to the song Pepper. I immediately thought to myself: “Oh man, I totally forgot about that song. It rocks. What other great songs have I forgotten?” So over the past month I’ve been going through the Billboard Top 100 for each year since I was in high school: late 80s to present. I finally finished 2015 yesterday. I haven’t detected any significant drop-off in the number of songs per year that caught my fancy, though of course the older the song the more it pinged my nostalgia meter. In general, I grabbed a few from every year. For me personally that means that pop music is about the same for the past 30 years.
To quote this: I think this is key. Part of this discussion is how you view Pop from back in the day. Comparing Taylor Swift to ABBA or Tiffany is a whole lot different than comparing her to Joni Mitchell.
It feels like part of the point is that, back in the day, non-Pop music would make the Pop charts more. I agree; it sure appears that music is more fragmented and the Pop charts are more “distilled pop” - with the ability to access other music via SO MANY other channels.
So - is Avicii on the charts because there is no cool singer/songwriter music to hear these days, or is it because you can access cool singer/songwriter music so many different ways these days that Pop is left to its own chart?
Part of the problem is that there’s also been something of a blurring of what is “pop”, and what’s singer/songwriter, rap, hip-hop or R&B. Back when stuff was more… segregated(?), the standards were higher- pop was Madonna, Britney Spears, Air Supply, Cyndi Lauper, and rap was Public Enemy, BDP, Digital Underground, metal was Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, etc…
A lot of what we have on the top 40 is the modern-day equivalent of hair bands, and rap acts like the Fatboys. 70% pop, 30% whatever genre they’re ostensibly from.
The pop acts like Katy Perry or Taylor Swift are pretty good when comparing them to say… Madonna, Air Supply, New Kids on the Block, or Backstreet Boys. (I’ll leave Cyndi Lauper out; she seems to transcend pop to a great extent in my mind.)
Rock n Rollers and guitar gods pretty much are dinosaurs these days, but they were monsters once upon a time and neither their influence nor their musicianship have been eclipsed by what followed.