We’re not going to have anything to discuss if you want to misstate and misinterpret what I say. I don’t actually think those songs are the same at all. One is a terrible, terrible, pretty much objectively terrible song, and the other is (to me) an example of the 80s excess that made a lot of great artists put out a certain type of (to me) annoying song. I do dislike the song “Sledgehammer,” however.
Weird, I thought I was discussing things pretty civilly here. Mileage varying and all that, I guess.
Not talentless hacks, but they are the puppets of others, and I don’t know why that’s considered so reputable. I read an interview with System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian, in which he was expressing bafflement at the popularity of American Idol and its ilk, in which the music was entirely being contrived in full view of the viewers! I share in that sentiment, which is part of the reason why the 2009 “Killing in the Name” Christmas campaign made me so happy. I loved how Tom Morello commented on not only was it great to defy Simon Cowell for his mean-spiritedness, it was also great to counter all the schmaltzy ballads emanating from shows like that.
That’s why Guns 'N Roses were seen as legit amongst all those hair bands, who, despite writing their own songs, wrote shitty songs. It’s why it was so great to see Nirvana knock the simpering Mariah Carey out of the spotlight. Victory for real music!
If you mean by “civil” folks trying to answer your question by bringing the POV of people who actively listen to Beyonce’s music and you not listening, then sure.
Looking for that Sledgehammer quote reminded me how many times you start threads on music that begin with a POV that just doesn’t make sense. Again, that’s why I am not commenting on Beyoncé anymore and (thanks Starving Artist) am outta HEAR…
List of biggest-selling artists who have debuted since 1992 (Beyonce debuted 1997):
120-199 million records sold:
Eminem, Rihanna, Taylor Swift
100-119 million sold:
Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Backstreet Boys
80-99 million sold:
Katy Perry, Kanye West, Shania Twain, Lady Gaga
75-79 million sold:
Bruno Mars, Robbie Williams, Black Eyed Peas, **Beyonce, ** Spice Girls, Andrea Bocelli
My opinion as an old white guy who doesn’t care for any of the above and doesn’t seek out information about any of them is that the OP is on to something. From the amount of Beyonce-related material that filters into my consciousness from the media, I would have guessed she was much further up the list than she is. I thought she was comparable to Eminem and Taylor Swift, not to the Spice Girls.
So, although obviously everyone on this list is, objectively speaking, a huge star, my personal experience has been that Beyonce does indeed seem to be more in the public eye than several of her peers who are significantly more popular.
The same reason that I don’t care if an actor writes the movie that they are in. It’s kind of nifty, I guess, but I’m ultimately interested in the end product, not the technical thrill of seeing someone be good at two things at once. I mean-- what happens to the brilliant songwriter with a horrid voice?
Ultimately. I don’t go to pop music for authenticity. I like restaurants that offer daily menus featuring local in season produce. But I also like Taco Bell.
Film-making is different, but even so, aren’t you impressed by the auteurs who can write/direct/produce/act in their own material?
I’m a big fan of Leonard Cohen. Lots of people have never liked Bob Dylan’s voice. Technically speaking, Patti Smith doesn’t and Ian Curtis didn’t have great voices, but that’s totally irrelevant to their awesomeness.
Indeed, that’s why I don’t go to “pop” music at all. I listen to alternative rock and its brethren for authenticity, and there are myriad other musicians in various styles who, whole I don’t necessarily listen to them, have plenty of authenticity.
And a bunch of people agreed with me. That’s why I put up some but not all of my musical posts: to debate. Do you think we should just put up only orthodox opinions that will garner mostly agreement? You seem to be positioning yourself as the stalwart defender of the conventional wisdom in this thread. And getting mad about stuff in the process.
Fair enough, but you took what I said and made the worst of it, that I think “Built This City” and “Sledgehammer” were equivalent in quality. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about how music industry would cram bad music down our throats in a media blitz.
I don’t give a shit. Again, your point seems to be that no one should say something popular was bad. I hated “Sledgehammer” and still do. Not really a big deal.
Apparently “arguing back” is equivalent to not listening? Perhaps you are on the wrong message board.
Yeah, like the recent thread where I started off saying how great Aaliyah was. That was incomprehensible!
First, I agree with you that it’s definitely a good thing when artists do their own material. It does make for the highest grade of artist, perhaps it is fair to say. Here is what I see are the complicating factors:
What about bands in which the lead singer doesn’t write much or any of the material? Does the entire band take on the “singer-songwriter” level by virtue of someone in the band writing the material? Oasis is a good example, in which the frontman doesn’t write at all and the writer doesn’t sing at all. Or do each of the Gallager brothers end up a lesser artist than a single dude who combines both talents?
What about people who are just songwriters but not performers, such as Irving Berlin? I think they are rightly respected as among the greatest of creatives. But there needs to be someone to do their material.
What about the truly great interpreters of material, such as Sinatra, Whitney, etc.? I think perhaps “puppet of others” is unfair in such a case.
Not too long ago I heard a Casey Casem Top 40 show, I think from 1972, in which he noted that just a few years ago most material was not written by the artist but now most was. Why did this shift occur?
I have a guess. I think that good songwriting is much harder to find than good singing, guitar playing, etc. Songs, in other words, are the pop music bottleneck. So if someone can write good songs, often they can demand that they be the performers in order for the record companies to get to those valuable songs. Even weak singers (in terms of either being in tune, singing powerfully enough, or both) have been able to get solo careers based on their strong material. Carole King I think is a good example. She has a pretty thin, somewhat nasal voice but was proved herself as a killer songwriter and was able to have a solo career.
Put another way, a lot of singers out there would never have been able to sell a solo career based on their voice alone.
No, I meant that the process of making a movie is rather different than that involved in making music, thus leading to different valuations of contributions.
Liam wrote some songs, and Noel sang occasionally. The whole band counts as legit, but there’s a reason why, when the rest of the band changed but the Gallaghers stayed constant, it didn’t destroy their cohesion. Other bands are really more than the sum of their parts, however. I would have to listen to some of the material Liam wrote, with Oasis and afterwards, to assess him in that way. Plus, I’d be surprised if he never did any editing of Noel’s words and melodies at all. That happens in other bands in which the singer is not the primary lyricist.
The second-most-recent issue of Rolling Stone (with Madonna on the cover) has an interview with Noel Gallagher, in which he laments the rise of people like One Direction, who have a whole team of songwriters behind them.
There does need to be someone to do their material, and that’s why in straight-up art music, this divide is not usually relevant. If I was in the position of someone like Berlin, or Lieber and Stoller, I would have linked up with others to perform (and further develop/improve) my work collaboratively. Come to think of it, that’s how a great many bands work, and that’s why they’re more than the sum of their parts, ideally, and why solo careers can be so disappointing.
I have to concede here that I can’t even relate to this sort of thing. The songs that Sinatra and Houston interpreted have never resonated with me in any way, have said nothing to me about my life, and, in the end, still just seem like product.
I’d like to think it was because the audience demanded authenticity, but you might be right. I don’t mind that answer either!
I tend to gravitate toward music by bands myself. Even if was the primary songwriter, I would rather be in a band (a real one, not just a group of musicians at my command) than be a solo artist.
I enjoy a good cover, however, and I think doing covers shows respect for music in general. I like a bunch of the Beatles’ covers and think it’s cool that they did them. (Yes, it’s true they were also lacking for material in the early days…)
I think that may indeed be another factor. I think it’s easier to relate to an artist that is the whole package and not simply doing someone else’s work. That relatability is mostly positive but not entirely. I don’t think Bieber’s music stands on its own, and I don’t think it would have sold very much if people had not related to him as a teen idol. I.e., in certain cases, the music is a mode of fantasy/worship and not the main object of appreciation.
I’m not a Beyonce fan and I’m not sure I could even name three of her songs off the top of my head, but according to her Wikipedia entry she’s sold 75+ million records as a solo artist PLUS another 60 million as a member of Destiny’s Child. Destiny’s Child’s first single was released in 1997, but Beyonce didn’t release a solo recording until 2003. So if you’re counting her output back to 1997, she’s actually sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 135 million records, which does put her in the same neighborhood as Eminem and Taylor Swift.
And while I’m not a fan, I don’t get why the OP thinks Beyonce shouldn’t qualify as a pop “megastar”. She’s a hugely successful entertainer who’s been popular for nearly 20 years.
I am mainly an alternative music fan myself. I’m the only 90’s girl I know who was never in to a boy band. I weep when I hear certain Pearl Jam songs. My friend got spit on by Bradley Nowel! No one would ever describe me as a “pop fan” (but now in my older years I’m turning in to a rap fan)
But I’m also a music fan, and a talent fan, and an artistry fan. I realize that not everyone can be Lennon-McCartney or Eddie Vedder or Stuart from Belle & Sebastian. And not every song can reach out and touch me. Whatever I like about Michael Jackson has nothing to do with the stuff I like about Nirvana. I can’t say that I own any Lady Gaga songs but I’ve read enough about her as an artist to respect her talent. I don’t own any Billy Joel either but I’ve seen him in concert (for free) and turns out he puts on a great show.
Beyonce brings a certain something to the table too. I do own several of her songs - they are great for a workout playlist. And I love to watch her videos on YouTube. Those songs I have actually do speak to me more than anything Live, Creed, Three Doors Down or Linkin Park could ever do. I don’t know who wrote the songs, and I don’t care. She’s the one who they were written for, she’s the one who sang them and she’s the one who was behind them coming to my ears.
I don’t know why you are so uptight about what the Rules Of What Is Music And What Should Be Allowed To Be Popular are, exactly. But you should chill out and realize that for most of the history of popular music there have been singer-songwriters, and there have been entertainers/singers/performers and they have co-existed. And sometimes singer-songwriters sing songs they didn’t write (Johnny Cash, Nirvana, The Beatles, Pearl Jam) and sometimes performers end up writing songs they sing (Aretha, Michael Jackson) and they are all here for the love of music, performing and money.
And the world of music isn’t just Bob Dylan vs. American Idol. There is a slew of great shit inbetween. Just like GNR gets a pass for shitty music because they wrote it themselves, you should consider giving Whitey a pass because she really put her own magnificent spin on stuff she happened to not write.
Beyonce is popular because she does all sorts of amazing stuff that doesn’t include writing music. And she is fucking gorgeous to look at. End.
That sounds more right. The list I linked, also from Wikipedia, had her “debuting” in 1997, so I assumed that it was counting the DC stuff in her total, but maybe not. That’s Wikipedia for ya…
Those are some pretty unimpressive bands, for the most part. Straw bands?
(Emphasis mine.) That’s a big problem.
I don’t listen to music (or make it) to be entertained. If that was all I cared about, then the making-of process would mean little to me. As it happens, I have little appetite for phonies, and one of the quickest ways to spot one is to see that they’re just a product, assembled by a team of professionals who want to sell said product to people just looking for entertainment. Michael Jackson and Madonna assembled themselves, in large part. So does Lady Gaga. All of those people compose(d) much of their own material. I may not listen to it, but they aren’t phonies.
No, I meant that all those phony hair bands did write their own songs, but they were terrible, and obviously inauthentic. GNR were obviously legit.
I didn’t start this thread. I didn’t read the beginning of it, actually. I don’t have an opinion on her as a megastar, or for that matter as an artist. I don’t know enough about what her contributions are. I just felt I had to chime in here, because it’s a topic that’s near and dear to me. I like it when humans use non-human puppets, but I don’t like it, or even respect it, when humans themselves become the puppets of others.
