The Demise of Contemporary Music...

Ugh!! Please. Let me get this out of my system here.

My flame is about the state of modern culture- specifically, music. I hate this cute pop…I hate artists (can they even be called artists), being judged on how much cleavage they show. I’ve hated this for awhile. Almost everything has sold out. It’s like all this totally comercial stuff has taken over…

Today I was really PO-ed to turn on MTV (no I DON’T watch it often), to see a group of square looking guys trying to look tough with falsettos (that would be the backstreet boys) rating some of the greatest bands and singers in the hisory of music. Yes, this was a top one hundred pop countdown. Similiar to what they do on VH1.

Okay first of all:
Carson Daly actually had the fatuity to compare Beatle-mania with the Backstreet Boys. Hello? Anyone else find this a BIT offensive? The Beatles wrote their own music (and had intelligent lyrics at that), and their fans were NOT confined to teenybopper females.

Second- Satisfaction, Born to Run, My Generation, Losing my Religion, and Like a Rolling Stone are NOT pop songs, and should NOT by any stretch of the imagination be put on the same rock list as Baby One More Time, I Want It That Way, and All the Small Things. That’s just wrong. It was also bizarre hearing the members of 98 Degrees and Destiny’s Child disuss the Who, Marvin Gaye, and Otis Redding.

Sigh. This has just always annoyed me and I need a place to rant. And don’t get me started on MTV in general because I just might not finish…

Whoo. I’m done.

Well, I think the countdown you’re referring to was actually created by Rolling Stone in their current issue - whaddaya expect from a corporate rock mag? They’re so predictable it’s laughable, especially when they try to be unpredictable (Guns’n’Roses a POP band? How daring!). Hook them up with MTV, who basically exist to suck the asses of the major record labels (and cater to 13 year-old suburban kids) and you’ve got a recipe for creating a whitewashed, bland music environment. Carson Daly, as far as I can tell, has no credentials to offer his jackass opinions on music at all. Of course the BSB/Beatles comparisons are ludicrous, but they trudge out the same argument for every #1 flash-in-the-pan crap group to contaminate the airwaves, so it’s not that surprising. My advice: turn off the MTV, go down to the local indie record store and get something decent (there’s still plenty of great music being made today, even if you can’t depend on college stations to play it anymore) and read a copy of Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus. It’ll help to put things in perspective.

Some things never change. I remember back in the mid-80’s when MTV jocks were seriously (and repeatedly) comparing Duran Duran to The Beatles. The Fab Five indeed.

The Beatles early songs were very teeny bopper and quite shallow. ‘She Loves You,’ et al. They didn’t become deeper until years later. Let’s not give them credit where it isn’t due. Moreover, I do not think the Backdoor Boys will get to that depth, but they do write some of their ‘music.’

But they, Britney, Chestina Aguelera, and the rest are why I don’t listen to anything but NPR on the radio.

Fuck all the purveyors of pop smegma. All the shit at the top of the charts will just be a bad memory 5 or 10 years from now. I stopped watching MTV years ago (when I was about 14, I think.)

I recommend a direcTV satellite. You can get a ton of music channels (20 or 30) that encompass pretty much every genre you can think of. Also, direcTV has MTV2, which is not completely and utterly foul (though I still don’t really watch it.) If you are in an urban area, try scanning the radio dial more- maybe you can find a college /classic rock that doesn’t suck/hard rock that doesn’t suck/ some other music that doesn’t suck radio station.

I absolutely sympathize with you, Zoggie. I cannot stand the shit that passes as music these days. If Britney Spears and Christina A didn’t show up half naked all the damn time, no one would buy their albums. I would never expect to see Ani DeFranco or even Jewel strip to a see-through bikini on stage, but Britney has to do it to sell albums. How putrid.

As for the countdown, it disgusted me. The brief part I watched showcased *NSYNC, and one of the songs was by CCR. JC started talking about CCR and I was like, How would you even know? - I read that BS’s “Hit Me Baby” was #24!!?? How ridiculous. And the audience was all teenage girls anyway - do they know who Smokey Robinson or Roy Orbison even is? I was abolutely horrified.

Give me Wilco, Ani, Ben Harper, Travis, even Lenny Kravitz any day of the week over those no-talent wannabes. They are not fit to spitshine Ringo Starr’s boots.

The only REAL talent on the whole thing was Paul McCartney. I wonder who was repsonsible for drugging him into doing that bit of media whoredom. Sheesh.

This same thing happened when ABC aired The Beatles Revolution a couple of weeks ago. Little twits from NSYNC invoking the name of Paul McCartney. One of them actually called The Beatles the “original boy band” - like he and his group of untalented hacks are following in the footsteps of The Beatles. Ick. One of them even tried to sing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” And big surprise…he botched it. I guess they wouldn’t let him lip sync. Posers like these shouldn’t even be allowed to say Beatle.

Ah yes, “The Beatles”. I seem to recall their off-key caterwauling on the old Sullivan show… What was Ed thinking?

Very nice.

May I suggest this quote as well:

“Have the Rolling Stones killed!”
“But sir, those aren’t–”
“Do as I say!”

–Mr. Burns, after the Ramones sing Happy Birthday to him

There was a period in the '70s when the Bee Gees were being compared to the Beatles in the same way.

Actually, that comparison is somewhat more credible than the BSB comparison because the Bee Gees had a huge role in the popularity of the Disco genre that was then cresting. Their role, however, is nothing compared that of the Beatles, who changed almost all genres of popular music that followed in their wake.

Ah gotta love the Simpsons. They did for TV what the Beatles did to music. (Yes, I think thats an apt comparision.)

Let me add…
“You’re George Harrison!” <gasp> “Brownies!”
“What a delighful fellow…”

“…and we both love the Rolling Stones.”
“Yes, not for their music, but for their efforts to preserve old buildings.”

How about if we all just stop comparing bands to the Beatles? You know…just for a couple of hundred, maybe thousand years. Then when someone really good comes along…

And its not just pop bands that annoy me- I truly depise this Slim Shady character. Why do people fawn over him? I was nearly physically ill everytime I heard his first song…forget the name…but they’re so repetitive and irritating. I just don’t get music.

Hm. Starting to wonder. If I’m this disillusioned now, how will I be when I’m thirty or forty and (maybe) have kids who listen to popular music? I wonder…

Hehe this brings up a point that I was thinking a couple of years ago, which was the more arrogant act ,
Lennon comparing the popularity of the Beetles to Jesus,
or Gallagher comparing the popularity of Oasis to the Beetles.

Then you should be overjoyed to hear that his mother is releasing a rap album also. She wants to respond to her son and tell him how she feels. Ugh.

It isn’t that I think the Beatles are the end all be all of music and the only talent worth mentioning (although… ;)). It’s just that acts like BSB, NSYNC, and Britney, et al aren’t talented enough to claim Beatle influence (John’s rolling over in his grave!). They have no talent and no staying power.

Definitely.

I have an Oasis album, can’t remember which one (“Don’t go away” was on it). In the liner notes there is a picture of stone wall and someone scribbled, “The Beatles? Good band. Oasis? Much better” or something alone those lines.

Gee, in their, hmmm, 3 years of existence, they managed to produce a body of work in which every song sounds alike, and in which NONE of the lyrics make sense, and in which I wasted my $15.

However, I own every single Beatle album, including the Anthologies, the Live at the BBC double album, and Red and Blue albums, the Live Interview album, and singles from the Anthologies. This roughly equals…$380. Wait, the Live at the BBC CD was a gift. So $350. And it was alllllll worthwhile.

Stupid gits. How dare they even compare themselves to the Beatles! Sheesh.

Not completely true. Their song structure, even in such earlier gems as “Please Please Me”, “Baby’s In Black”, “No Reply”, “Misery”, etc. show tremendous, revolutionary creativity, which was followed by “Girl”, “In My Life”, etc. Remember, too, that “Please Please Me” (their first record) was released in 1963, IIRC, and “Rubber Soul”, which many regard as their best album (as Brian Wilson said, not one song was wasted; there were no B-sides on the album), was released in 1965, followed in 1966 by “Revolver”. As a recorded band, the Beatles were together for only 7 years; think of what they accomplished in that time.

Come on, think about why they need to make these comparisons:

  1. It’s MTV. Music far down their list of priorities. Reality programming makes up a majority of their progrmming now. So it’s probable that your average MTV writer/DJ could list more Real World members than current musical acts.

  2. MTV isn’t exactly a free-thinking network. They peddle whichever acts come pre-packaged from studios. They did have a show called 120 minutes that showed a spark of free-thinking, but I haven’t seen it in a long time.

  3. Intelligent and talented music critics are not drawn to work MTV. Also, comparing Backstreet Boys to Beatles takes no thought and the average viewer doesn’t question it. I mean, we hear groups compared to the Beatles and young male stars to James Dean so often that it doesn’t register anymore.

  4. The show’s producers are aiming for a younger audience and have dumbed things down. Though to be fair, I think there are kids today who know their music. I mean, when I was 13 or 14 I was familiar with a wide range of music, from Nat King Cole to Led Zepplin. I think MTV underestimates the intelligence of their audience, which is a shame.

Yer taking my name in vain, Zoggie. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m sorry. Truly…

but i’d do it again in a heartbeat!
::runs::

Who are the Beatles?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by beakerxf *
**

I agree that MTV is pretty much a marketing machine to 13 year olds-it exists to make money for its owners, not expose true talent. But I DON’T agree that there are a lot of smart 13-14 year olds out there. These are the same kids who watch MTV in droves, after all. They get their ideas about music FROM MTV. Most have no basis of comparison for whether something is really good or not.

I agree totally with the spirit of the OP, but not with Christina Aguilera’s inclusion in the category of “shallow pop act” by some posters. I actually went out and bought her first album and listened to every single song on it. I considered it worth the money. Her material isn’t that profound, but it could be a lot worse. (Hey, she was only 16) It’s definitely better that Britney Spears’ stuff, and is actually a lot better than you might expect. And Christina Aguilera can actually SING. People forget that Maria Carey and Whitney Houston shook their asses in their early videos too (Carey has only gotten worse), and no one would try to say those two are untalented. Aguilera has genuine talent, no matter how she showcases it.

I wonder if many people think-as I do-that pop music goes in cycles? Remember back in the late 80s when groups like Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, and MC Hammer were big? People said a lot of the same things about those guys that posters here have said about the current crop of teeny-bopper favorites. Then grunge came along and swept all that away. I see the music business as a continual fight between what is truly fresh and original and the big-money exploiters who want to bottle that originality and sell it by the gallon.

But having said all that…what about that “other” teen group, Hanson? They’ve never seemed to come in for as much criticism, probably because they have always written all their own material. I actually heard their latest, and when you consider that the average age of the guys in the group is about 16, is sounded pretty good to me. I think these guys are going to go somewhere.