Well, I can argue with it, but it starts and ends with “I don’t particularly like it.” Also, Principal Skinner has always admired my ability to be personally offended by broad social trends.
And yes, thank’s to the triple M for running this show!
Eh … I missued this comment, but, yeah, “Uptown Funk” is the “fliuffiest” of the bunch for me, as well. It just sounds so … calculated, for lack of better word. It feels like an AI copy of an actual funk tune. I mean, despite that, I like it well enough, but it’s just so clean. “Hey Ya!” has a bit more “air” to it for me, plus I like their unconvention rhythmic structure, which is three bars of 4/4, a bar of 2/4, and two bars of 4/4. That little 2/4 “hiccup” is a nice touch to keep the rhythm interesting.
Yeah, I like “Uptown Funk” a lot but “hard funk” is not how I’d describe it any more than, say, “Young Guns” by Wham was hard funk. I mean, you can electric slide to it but it’s not like it’s got a Bootsy Collins bassline.
More effusive thanks to MMM for all his efforts. It’s been a lot of fun and an education into all sorts of new and interesting artists and songs. As I said, I’m looking forward to the playlist when it’s available.
@pulykamell beat me to it (again): 1. Uptown Funk sounds too much like an attempt to recreate a 70s sound. It’s great, but not best-of-the-last-24-years great; 2. Hey Ya! wasn’t one of my three picks…but it would have been my fourth or fifth, in part because of that odd time signature.
And, another thanks to mmm. You can take that ten-bob note out of your nose now!
My list of thanks:
- mmm, for running all this.
- WNXP-FM in Nashville, an NPR-affiliated new music station. I’ve heard them play the vast majority of the songs I’ve nominated; furthermore, I’ve heard every artist I’ve nominated with exactly one exception (“Guns and Ships” from Hamilton – and even then, they’ve played Daveed Diggs’s rap group, clipping.)
- Pitchfork, for having good enough taste in music and easy-to-data-scrape Top 200+ lists for the 00s and 10s to jog my memory.
- Alvvays, Chvrches, the New Pornographers, and Radiohead; I didn’t check, but they probably have the most songs I’ve nominated.
- You (yes, you!) for nominating your fair share of good songs.
I’m now used to my choices losing, but “Lose Yourself” was #3 on this list for me and much closer to #1 (“Hey Ya!,” if you don’t want to scroll back up) than #4 (“Uptown Funk” by a nose over “Rehab,” I guess).
Thanks for all the thanks! It was a good bit of work, but a lot of fun. I’d been making random and usually weak attempts to keep my music knowledge current, and this went a long way toward that goal.
The Spotify playlists are complete. There are two:
Just the finalists, which contains 251 songs (16 hours, 23 minutes)
The full list, which contains 2,224 songs (145 hours, 11 minutes)
Send me a PM if you’d like the links.
mmm
Number of nominations for a few random artists:
Taylor Swift – 38
Radiohead – 27
Adele – 23
The Killers – 22
Eminem – 20
Amy Winehouse – 15
Pink – 15
Lady Gaga – 12
Rihanna – 12
3 Doors Down – 11
Green Day – 10
Imagine Dragons – 10
Olivia Rodrigo – 10
The White Stripes – 10
Beyoncé – 9
Miley Cyrus – 9
Steely Dan – 9
Vampire Weekend – 9
Wet Leg – 9
“Weird Al” Yankovic – 8
Billie Eilish – 7
Dua Lipa – 7
Florence + the Machine – 7
Outkast – 7
Daft Punk – 6
St. Vincent – 6
The Strokes – 6
The Weeknd – 6
Justin Timberlake – 5
Lorde – 5
Paul McCartney – 5
Sia – 5
The Lumineers – 5
The Shins – 5
Coldplay – 4
Maroon 5 – 4
The Black Keys – 4
Kelly Clarkston – 3
Matchbox Twenty – 3
Ed Sheeran – 2
John Mayer – 2
Lizzo – 2
U2 – 2
50 Cent – 1
William Shatner – 1
After such a great list of artists and songs, please don’t anybody say they don’t make good music anymore.
True! And, this (as I recall) was one impetus for the project.
But, for me, this journey has also reinforced the opposite: that so much music, especially very popular music, has “plateaued” in quality, at least in terms of musical complexity and creativity (not to mention the atrocious lyrics of dreck like “Like That,” a current hit by Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar*. No one nominated this sort of crap, to be clear).
This sounds contradictory, but it isn’t. Both can be true. Spend a few hours “with” Rick Beato (i.e., enjoying his videos), and you’ll get another’s perspective on this.
Mainly, I suggest each of us do three things:
-
Enjoy local live music events (from open-mic coffee shops on “up” – meaning, in so many ways, on “down”). Take your kids, if you have 'em.
-
Enjoy music from all over the world – for example, using this awesome app, where you click on a virtual globe to hear what radio stations are playing now, from New Guinea to New York. (If your first couple choices don’t work, keep trying – once it starts to “click in,” it works great):
https://radio.garden/ -
Enjoy curated shows by DJ’s with eclectic tastes and good ears. One of my favorites is John Kelly (no relation, I swear!), of RTE (Ireland’s “BBC”) – his show is called “Mystery Train”:
Mystery Train with John Kelly - RTÉ lyric fm
*I nominated the Insane Clown Posse’s “Please Don’t Hate Me” (2000) to one of these polls, so don’t think I can’t stomach a filthy rap battle – but it’s gotta at least have some humor and cleverness!
Clarification: I don’t resent that this song exists – it has certain merits (sonic and lyric). I’m just a little worried that it was the number one most popular song in the country for several weeks, and is still high on the charts.
(I might worry if the Insane Clown Posse song I’d nominated had also been a monster hit. ETA: The album it’s on did peak at #20. So, an almost-hit. Call it their “Fall On Me.”)
While I would never say that, what I will say is that doing these polls did not alter any musical opinions I held going in.
mmm
One thing I learned is that the music video continued to be a creative and important medium for decades after its 1980s heyday (and still is today, I’m pretty sure). This includes many songs I knew and (often) loved from the 2000s, but I had never seen their videos.
The medium was born in the cable TV era, but happened to br ideal for the YouTube era, which started in earnest around 2005, if I recall correctly.
I’ve enjoyed several videos from these polls when I didn’t find the music particularly interesting.
The difference is, fans don’t wait for the music video to show up randomly on MTV, they search for them specifically on YouTube.
True!
Well, as I’m sure plenty of people found out, you watch a couple YouTube music videos and suddenly your suggested feed is populated with dozens of them from various semi-related artists. So a catchy splash screen and good video is probably still a plus when trying to promote your music.
I’ve had a great time with these polls, the 2000s poll was an eye opener for me.
Some artists I’d never heard of are on my regular playlist now:
The Veronicas
Alice Merton
Dead Sara
ZZ Ward
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Sasha Alex Sloan
Carsick Cars
And I’ve broadened my appreciation of artists like Alicia Keys, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Haim, and Gillian Welch.
Never heard of any of those songs, and only recognise two of the artists (Eminem and Winehouse).
Well, the internet is sitting right there, looking at you. It’s not hard to listen to any of it, really.
…if you gaze long enough into the internet, the internet will gaze back into you.
Heheh, and if you look at it really hard, and decide you hate email and people should stop tacking other fucking protocols and extensions onto it to make it something it’s not, twenty five years later it’ll become your entire fucking life.
Oh wait, that’s just my problem. IGNORE ME!
ETA: Fun Nietzsche reference, thankya!