If you think I’m “mad” or “defensive” about mainstream modern pop music, you’ve never seen my Spotify play list (Which, granted, you haven’t but that doesn’t stop you from jumping to conclusions)
I just don’t think the music he makes is anything I want to listen to so, whatever technical qualities he has aside, I’m not interested in his opinions on what’s “good”. Kanye is widely lauded as an exceptional talent and I don’t doubt it but I don’t care for his stuff either. If Kanye put out a video about what makes music good, I’d skip it because I know what he considers to be good music. The main difference being that every music thread doesn’t devolve into a bunch of breathless “But… but… KANYE says…” videos
You are making a lot of assumptions about those of us defending popular music or critiquing Rick. Overall, I like Rick. But there’s no use in a conversation here, as you’ve made it clear you are not interested in another viewpoint on modern music. You’ve made up your mind.
Well, by the very definition of the word, when someone defends something, they are being defensive. And if we are being honest, it sounds like you’ve made up your mind as well, because you like modern pop music. We can still debate despite our differences in opinion, or you can take your ball and go home. Either way is fine with me. I’m still going to state my opinion, however unpopular it may be.
I didn’t defend modern pop music. I said that I’m glad Beato is unhappy with modern music based on what I’ve heard from Beato’s produced music. It was a slam on Beato, not accolades for the current Billboard charts.
There’s a lot of modern pop music I don’t care for. Beato’s stuff still sounds bad to me and I’m bemused by how many people hang on his opinions. I suspect it’s more to do with them being mad that music didn’t freeze in 1978 and finding a guy who share that opinion than them actually thinking Beato is a great artist.
A producer is hired to see a project through to fruition. He didn’t write that music. He was paid to produce it. He may have taken the job because he thought it had potential, but it shouldn’t be considered a sole reflection on his musical tastes. A producer works for an artist, they are not the artist. At least they weren’t back then. Currently, however, the producer seems to have become the artist. And by the way, where did anyone suggest that Rick is a great artist? Nobody here, and certainly not Rick.
I pretty much feel every genre, every era has much to contribute if you are open to it. If that is having my mind made up, I suppose it is in a way. There’s no genre I think sucks. There’s many that I don’t get or don’t do it for me (like prog rock or K-pop) but they don’t suck. They just don’t tickle my fancy.
But the only reason I’m supposed to care about his opinion versus the random guy at the bar is because he’s “Grammy Award Winning Producer Rick Beato”.
If being a producer doesn’t reflect on that, he’s just some angry rando preaching to the choir.
(I’ll leave it at that since we’re far afield from the OP)
Huh. That’s not why I respect his opinion. I respect it because his videos demonstrate his immense knowledge of music theory, not by what music he produced in the past.
But yes, you are right. We are way off topic. I’ll stop now as well.
I used to feel that way, and for the most part, I still do. There are plenty of modern artists I enjoy immensely, just not in the genre of pop. What is being put out is a corporate product, with artistry so far down the totem pole that it’s laughable. It’s pure formula generated by people who are not artists. The artist is just the face put on it. That’s not art in my opinion. The vast majority of the artists of the past were unique. Oh sure, there were plenty who tried to sound like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, but those almost always paled in comparison. Today, sounding like someone else is not only preferable, it’s expected. And if you don’t follow the formula, or sound like the latest hit, you don’t get a contract. So, in essence, we get robbed of all of those unique artists who may be quite good, because they didn’t fit the cookie cutter mold. It’s also why auto-tune is used on everything, and sampling is so popular. The originality and quality has suffered severely. But if nobody notices it, it’s okay.
It’s very easy to avoid that formalized crap you describe and find new(ish) bands that still produce exciting and inventive music. We have all the music of the world that’s ever been produced at hand, though you have to get a little active to separate the wheat from the chaff. I still rely on traditional means like following recommendations from equally musically interested friends and sometimes even from printed music magazines, but I also follow websites for my regular doses of great new music. Allmusic.com has been a trustful resource for keeping up with music, especially their new releases section. (but be warned, though the content is top-notch, the site is overloaded with crap advertisements, and you have to disable any adblocker to access it. That’s the little price I pay).
Oh but I would’ve LOVED to see Yngmie onstage with with Jack and Meg.
Arpeggios, hammer-ons, pick-scrapes, finger-tapping, foot up on a monitor - the whole she-bang - it would have been absolutely beautiful to see the other two trying to get a bead, somehow, on all that. And maybe get Jamie Muir out of retirement for this.
Funny that it would take an old-timer (Cher) to get that crap going.
Hehehe, yeah, there should be a corollary to Godwin’s Law about Beato. I love loud music, and he’s genuinely bad at producing it. My first exposure was someone on the board linking to a video of his favorite production techniques, and it was like a long list of everything I dislike about modern production. It sent me into a rage.
And really, anyone who complains about pop/rock music being simple doesn’t understand the styles in the first place. To quote Paul Leary of the Surfers (a very smart guy from a particularly inventive band that I still love) “Rock and roll isn’t about being smart.”
I wish I still had Briefcase Full of Blues. It’s a great album and not commercially available currently anywhere. I think Aykroyd and Belushi were great frontmen, which is not necessarily the same as being great singers.
Well, the post you cited specifically concerned today’s 20 - 30 year-olds as consumers of that old music. Everyone knows many old people listen to much old music, but that’s not it.
(Which, granted, you haven’t but that doesn’t stop you from jumping to conclusions)