Is it possible that popular music doesn't suck

Cafe Society
1

Okay I tried this OP a few times and kept getting a blank post
I am now 34 and my daughter is now 14 1/2. I was a little bit older than her when I found the alternative to the dreck that was being played on MTV and Top 40 radio when I was in high school. Thanks to the cool older brother of my best friend I discovered bands ranging from The Replacements and Robyn Hitchcock to Public Enemy to the Velvet Underground. As part of that discovery of good music I also realized that the prevailing popular music was really terrible and there was so little music that was worthwhile around that I discarded the lot of it.

When I take a look at the Billboard Top Twenty for a date from my youth it seems clear that I wasn’t imagining things. Popular music really did suck by almost any measure. Looking at 1988 the top songs for the year featured acts like Rick Astley, Richard Marx, Debbie Gibson and The Bangles. The only bright spots were the awesome “Wishing Well” by Terrence Trent D’Arby and the all time great “Sweet Child O’Mine” by GNR. Those were anomalies though in a landscape of hair metal and bubblegum pop.

Part of our family ritual is to sit and watch today’s version of the top 40, VH1s top 20 videos on Saturday morning. Aside from this diversion I am completely unaware of popular music today. I listen to independent music and old favorites. My daughter has better taste than the average fourteen year old, but her favorites are things like the All American Rejects and Dashboard Confessional. Today’s version of safe boy band pop, but even that is of a higher quality than the analogous NKOTB of my youth. So today I had already seen the Red Sox highlights twice on Sportscenter and I was working from home. I spent almost two hours listening to videos on VH1. Here are some of the highlights.

Regina Spektor - “Fidelity” - She reminds me a bit of a less annoying Tori Amos, or even Joni Mitchell before her voice went downhill. Nice fun song with a good hook. I have listened to some of her other stuff and it may not be for all tastes, but it is original and interesting.

Amy Winehouse - “You Know I’m No Good” - To be honest I thought this was amazing. It has been a long time since I have bought an album after hearing one song, but this reminds me of when I heard “Hey Ya” for the first time. It didn’t matter that this isn’t really my genre of music. She combines jazz and R&B with a Cockney accent and almost punkish lyrics. I am sure she has been a big star in Britain for some time, but this is the first time I have heard her. I am just can’t stress enough how fascinating I find her music and her persona.

Lily Allen - “Smile” This isn’t great art, but it is an insanely catchy tune. Well produced and infectious, I am not going to run out and buy the album but I wouldn’t delete the single from my IPod.

The Killers - “Read My Mind” - They are the band most likely to still be around ten years from now. They aren’t super edgy, but they are impossible for me not to like. They remind me a little of Oasis or Green Day. They are not different enough to be threatening, but they are innovative enough to change their sound and stay relevant. This is a really good song.

Brandi Carlile - “The Story” - Kind of from the Lillith Fair emo songwriter line. The kicker is that her voice isn’t just pretty, it is really interesting. She sounds more like Patsy Cline than Sarah MacLachlan. The lyrics were pretty pedestrian, but I enjoyed the song. Kind of sounded like a young Loretta Lynn forced to sing rock and roll.

Shakira - “Hips Don’t Lie” I don’t need to say any more here. This is one of the best dance songs ever made and the video is mesmerizing.

These were the highlights. The rest was dreck, including Maroon Five, Nickelback, some non-descript emo guys in white t-shirts. There were also two terrible R&B songs that were so unoriginal they could almost serve as parodies. By and large though the quality of music I heard was pretty good to very good.

Does this mark an era of quality in popular music? Did I happen to catch a streak of good songs in a sea of crap? Or do I just have bad taste?

I think that it has become almost axiomatic that popular music sucks. It is part of the package people buy into when they discover independent music and start to move beyond the mass marketed stuff on MTV. It is also indisputable though that there are eras where the prevailing popular music is high quality and has a lasting impact. I am on the fence as to whether anyone will remember these songs in a decade, but I found my foray into my daughter’s musical world to be a pleasant surprise.

2

Well, while I agree about the quality of what the 80’s and 90’s produced in the way of popular music, if you are going to attempt to assert that you have taste in music and in the same breath nominate Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” as anything other than the same sort of stupid pop dance dreck that you’ve condemned above, just updated to the sounds of the 2000’s, you seriously undercut your case. :smiley:

3

True, but my God man have you seen the video?

4

If you only pay attention to the good parts you neglect the majority that is garbage. And I don’t see how a ‘mesmerizing’ video has anything to do with a good song.

5

I think popular music was pretty good in the 90s. I could go on for five hours about this, but I’ll just say that there were solid bands on the radio with great pop songs all the way until 98 or so, including a lot of alternative rock that was lyrically creative and melodically interesting. And I’m talking about the popular radio music here, not Built to Spill and Pavement.

99 until 2005 was a stagnant period where obnoxious rap-metal, emo-core, radio rap, and a lot of other crap floated to the surface.

But recently I think it’s been getting better. I’m not a huge fan of the Killers but I like that they’re trying to go in a new direction. Likewise for Regina Spektor. Modest Mouse is getting a lot of recognition, even though they’ve been around since the dinosaurs. I don’t get Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy at all - I can’t see what’s so great about them, and as far as I can tell they’re Good Charlotte with slightly better lyrics.

6

Actually I was joking about the video. I would argue though that you may not care much for dance pop, but if you judge all the dance pop ever made you would find that “Hips Don’t Lie” is right near the top of its genre. I don’t much care for the genre but I recognize Shakira is much more tightly and intelligently produced that the terrible late eighties dance pop I have been subjected to on occasion.

7

I think that a lot of pop music today is more interesting and original than pop music of past eras. But the stuff you find on your college radio station, that does not get played anywhere else, is still far far superior.

-FrL-

(I will confess it: For an MTV-Pop song, I do not think Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” is stupid. It actually makes some good interesting musical moves in fact!)

(I do however think Shakira sounds like a muppet.)

8

VH1 has videos?

These bands sound like chicken to me. They all basically sound the same, but can be prepared in many different ways. They can quite often be very bland, sometimes not good at all, other times they’ll put out something quite tasty. No one really passionately dislikes them. When one of their songs come on the radio, it’s like being served the ol’ baked chicken breast at a work luncheon or banquet-- meh.

9

Well, we’re in agreement there. My regular station is WIUX. You can hear their live stream on that website. I’ve been turned on to some great new groups and artists by that station. The Blow, Benjy Ferree, Decibully, David Vandervelde, and Arrah and the Ferns, to name a few. They also play stuff like The Decemberists, Broken Social Scene, Destroyer, Grandaddy, My Morning Jacket, etc. When their sports show is on, I listen to oldies stations.

10

I dont think theres anything wrong with the current wave of popular music. But then again the last five cds I bought have been by FOB, Panic, Jacks Mannequin and Nada Surf.

And I like them…

11

I certainly think we’re getting a lot more diversity in our popular music–popular artists are mixing it up with rappers, country singers, jazz artists, alternative musicians…

I don’t think we’re immune to trends, which is why you get the plethora of pop tarts like Britney, Christina, Jojo, Hilary Duff, etc.–there’s good artists, and there’s agents finding the niche that works and marketing lesser artists in the same styles. So you get a lot of chaff along with the wheat.

But does popular music completely suck? No way–there’s great, catchy, fun, interesting songs out there. They just tend to get buried.

12

I think that trying to judge whether popular music is good or not, is very largely a matter of opinion. Alot of my friends are guitar geeks and such, and they tend to really hate anything thats on the radios.

As a songwriter myself, I think that there is much more to music that what appears at the surface. I tend to think that, because such and such music is popular, it therefore must be “good”.

All of my friends would always make fun of Fall Out Boy, how they’re such a terrible band, especially live, and how they’re bland and trendy. This actually swayed me to actually listen to their music and see if my friends were right. And you know what? A total reversal occurred. Fall Out Boy has become one of my favorite bands.

13

It is certainly possible for popular music, even insanely preposteruosly hysterical-girly-fans-running-amuck-popular music, not to suck.

Exhibit A: The Beatles
QED

14

If it’s far superior, though, how come it’s not popular?

15

If you’re going to make this argument, do you also consider Coca-Cola to be ambrosia?

16

I don’t understand this. Do you think that the majority of people are catching on to the stuff below the surface?

-FrL-

17

Why would it be…?

-FrL-

18

and songs with really long names.

I enjoy their music (which apparently is called “Emo” Punk), but probably because I also enjoy the music of:
Good Charlotte
Lit
Sum 41
+44
Blink 182
Yellowcard
Green Day
The Violent Femmes
The Clash
and The Ramones

19

Thank you. I keep making this argument. I fundamentally do not believe that there is superior music out there that only college radio stations, or MySpace, or indie music festivals play and the rest of the world remains entirely ignorant of. A few groups that get cult audiences and never make it big, yes. The entire gamut of good music, no. It can’t happen.

I tend to agree with fruitbat that there suddenly seems to be music that sounds like music appearing in mass markets. I’ve seen many performers on late night shows that have had interesting sounds and hummable tunes. There are songs by KT Tunstall, Guster, and a few other groups that aren’t springing to mind right this moment that are addictive. This hasn’t happened to me for a while.

What there seem to be less of are groups that appear to all have gone to same school of guitar drone. Maybe a new sound is emerging. When it does, the whole listening world will know.

20

Your argument makes absolutely no sense, if I’m understanding you correctly (if I’m not, correct me - but I take it you’re saying that bands that are obscure are inferior to bands that are popular.) It’s like saying that a painting painted by an obscure painter is not a good painting simply because nobody’s heard of it. Or that a steak from a cow on some small rancher’s farm out in rural Indiana is inferior to a McDonald’s hamburger, because the McDonald’s hamburger is popular. Or that a wood bureau crafted in an obscure Amish village is inferior to one that you’d buy at Ikea, simply because Ikea is more well-known.

If I’m wrong, correct me.