Just how bad has today's "popular" music become?

[craigb]

[pwal³]

10 hours ago, craigb said:

for me it boils down to the difference between art and product

ed sheeran is up on copyright charges in the uk at the moment https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60661895

he's one of the biggest stars in the uk, apparently came from a busking background, but if you look at the credits on the albums he's made since initially breaking through there are so many co-writers and producers... eg, https://www.discogs.com/release/9917395-Ed-Sheeran--Divide

seems like he ran out of ideas, like many young artists who start of with a couple of decent songs but surrender to the machine

 

[Bapu]

On 3/2/2022 at 5:05 PM, Adalheidis Daina Aletheia said:

My very long edited, two-dollar-cent bill thoughts....

 

This is such an interesting topic, and something that has been on my mind lately. Especially since I quit music for over ten years and just now re-embracing it.

With emerging online apps and smart phone beat makers I wonder if the younger generations have ever experienced grade school band, piano lessons with old ladies that make you hold tennis balls, a mother that was a music teacher, and if they know what I am talking about when I say "Supper's Ready", "JC-120", and "Suitcase Model". 

From my recent observations, it seems electronic and hyperpop are the two steady flowing genres that keep the attention of the younger generation, and these styles are way too easily created with a touch of few buttons. Some are overly redundant with the lack of creative composition.

But not all. I have heard many electronic artist that put more intricacy and thought into compositions than most. There is both allot of electronic and hyperpop artist that have created some amazing pieces, and some emerging and unknown artist that will never be known that really know what they're doing.

But in a way, this same scenario is not much different than that of the late eighties and early nineties when the alt rock grunge monotony was flourishing like crazy. It all sounded the same after a while, and my ears still ring today after seeing Jane's Addiction in the basement of an old vegetable cannery on the Nothing Shocking tour. But not all were bad, it just turned into a fad, just like the fads of other generations.

But that right there is the same place the younger generations are today. The experience is what we all wanted at 17. And it is the same thing 17 year old's want today. What is cool with all their friends, what's popular. And what’s popular now is really caused by main stream media and the equipment and software companies that are marketing and catering towards that touch and go electro-kid.

It's like all the other problems in the world, it’s main stream media and the corporation’s fault, they did it, because they want to make money with their own agenda and could care less about our musical and intellectual experience. If they could kill off everyone that was over forty they would, because they are just evil. And the electro-kid that will believe anything is more prosperous to their monetary motives. Then they will kill off them next for something new. Just like I was shammed in the eighties by Guitar Magazine, flaunting that I would never be as cool as that guitarist on the cover, walking down to the guitar shop everyday as a kid, wishing I had all the cool stuff marketed in the magazine.

I'm not even that old yet, but at least had the exposure of a wide range of musical styles from jazz, classical, actual Christmas Carolers coming to the front door(Mom? Why are people singing at our front door?), and my personal interest of prog rock in high school. I just ignored most of the eighties and went back to the seventies. But I did get to see that religious furber of the eighties like at a U2 concert where you don’t actually hear the concert, just the girl next to you screaming Bono over and over as if she is having a two hour long orgasm in your ear. It must have been that "show" experience. And what's hot at the moment seems to be the experience younger folks want. I know I was caught up in the experience mess in 1989, not knowing if I should listen to the emerging 90's music, catch up on the eighties, or just keep learning about the 60's and 70's. So much thrown at me from every angle I didn't know what I really wanted to listen to.

 

I like toying with the “spirit of the age” somewhat, but don't want to just quit music again because it's all just too overwhelming. It's just sad that smart phone music apps are now more accessible than a corner music stores and dive bars. And that Suitcase Model Electric Piano is easier to get through a VST plugin. The real thing is now such a collectors item, the price tag makes today's software look cheap.

 

On 3/3/2022 at 5:30 AM, Tim Smith said:

I guess we all had different experiences back in the day. In reading some of your experiences, I see some similarity to the way I see the younger generation and their music. To be fair, there are very talented people in every generation, and like you I see many good musicians buried in anonymity in both theirs and older generations. We have session musicians here who played in bands and are really good at their craft ,Kenny and  Batsbrew to name just a few. There are others who come here even though they don't use Cakewalk much. We once had more of those people but they have moved on or they don't come by as much.

I wasn't raised in any area where there was any kind of a serious music scene happening. I was in the rural south east US, and you had to invent something there or it wasn't happening.  I'm glad I wasn't anywhere near some of it TBH. We still had the music playing from those other places. I came from early music education and  played with a bunch of instruments. Not necessarily wonderful at any of them. My mother had me in a Baptist church early on and I think it was a good thing. The music was in contrast to anything else.  I am still on violin as torture for my character building. I even hired a skinny German teacher who likes pain and suffering, and who could really care less about humans.

I caught the Irish music bug but had a teacher beat the interest right out of me. I also met a person who had a siren voice that attracted people. You think I'm kidding. I think there was a spell on her which might have worn off. The music I was going into then was probably most like "New Age" music because that was what she sang and I decided I liked things about it. After some introspection I realized I wanted nothing to do with "new age" or any "spirit" of this age because I know too much about all of that. I know where it originates and I know where it leads.I know what it claims to be and what it isn't.

The tech can surely benefit everyone.

65 year olds with Vienna all loaded up composing symphonies isn't a bad thing. Anyone who ever dreamed of composing their own symphony, have at it. You could attempt to sell it even.

I don't chase after any fads. At my age I have realized I can still make music for people my age, and I do, and I get comments they like it. I get more out of that than chasing what's in and trying to copy it. It is getting a little more difficult to find good fairly priced hardware because the manufacturers are making teeny little electronic keyboards and hit boxes. And if that's where it's all going I'll be taking another route. And if my channels all get buried in social media I don't care. I really don't.

Not to be pedantic, but....

(ok, I am being pedantic)

The phrase you both were looking for in the context of your writing/musings was "and who couldn't care less" 

[InstrEd]

13 minutes ago, Bapu said:

 

Not to be pedantic, but....

(ok, I am being pedantic)

The phrase you both were looking for in the context of your writing/musings was "and who couldn't care less" 

Ed the English Professor 🧐   My Aunt would be proud

[Wibbles]

44 minutes ago, Bapu said:

 

Not to be pedantic, but....

(ok, I am being pedantic)

The phrase you both were looking for in the context of your writing/musings was "and who couldn't care less" 

That's what happens when you go round discarding ewes willy-nilly.

[craigb]

9 hours ago, Wibbles said:

That's what happens when you go round discarding ewes willy-nilly.

I believe that should be "go around" Nigel.

HTH! 😁

[Starship Krupa]

First: Paul Anka's #1 hit "Having My Baby" and Debby Boone's #1 hit "You Light Up My Life" each also had but one writer and one producer.

(The half a dozen each of writer and producer thing is because that's how behind-the-scenes creative people make money these days. It used to be that the person who did the arranging or, the Wrecking Crew player who came up with the hook that sold your single got paid for the session and that was it)

The corporations that churn out disposable pop, believe it or not, exist entirely to maximize shareholder value. How does a corporation do this? Create a product with a guaranteed market, make it as easy as possible to create more of that product, ensure that you will maintain that market. Taking risks is stupid when you can just stamp out the same thing and rake in the cash. If some smaller concern comes up with something that threatens to disrupt your hold on the market, just absorb it into your own product line. As much as possible, control or conspire with the distribution channels to ensure that your product is featured and others ignored.

This is a great discussion. I'm a member of a Facebook group called "Do You Remember the '70's" and my only reason for being there is for times when I'm in a mischievous mood. There's always someone posting a trollable question or statement like "What's your favorite song from the 1970's?" To which I answer something like "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division or "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus. Neither of which I actually heard until the early 80's, but still, it's fun to poke those who remember the '70's through a haze of cheap weed and Annie Green Springs.

As relates to earlier comments about people using computers to generate music, well, Brian Eno's been into music generated by systems for a long, long time, and gotten some high praise for the quality of what he's put out. Point I'm making is that the fact that a piece of music is created by someone cutting and pasting or using a chord generator or arepeggiator or whatever doesn't matter. They're all just tools for people to use or misuse as people will.

What can make it matter is when we want to maintain a fantasy image of how music is made. We like the idea of Black Sabbath getting heroically wasted and generating dirtbag masterpieces, or Frank Sinatra strolling into a New York studio to a patiently waiting orchestra and loosening his tie, or Oasis throwing fire extinguishers around in a fit of sibling rivalry and frustration, or Prince being up all night in the mysterious Paisley Park with his tape operator standing by to capture ideas, or for something later, Martin Garrix sitting in his bedroom with nothing but a laptop and working his way to international success. We want our music makers to be living lives we can relate to or wish we could have.

Speaking of Mr. Garrix, there's a documentary on EDM on Netflix called What We Started which I highly recommend for anyone interested in that genre or just interested in the music business these days. Among other things, it features part of his rise to fame and success, and he's a nice kid who just loves the music and wanted to make some. He watched Tiesto close the Olympic ceremonies and decided that he wanted to do that. Just like I watched The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and made a similar decision.

As I'm fond of asking people over 40 who pi55 and moan about how terrible music is these days, well, how much time and effort, vs. when you were in your teens and twenties do you put into finding new music that you'll like? My guess is that they're basing their opinions on sitting on their a55es watching the Grammies or some other awards show, or some event or other on national television and comparing what's being presented to them to what they used to hear when they spent hours a day listening to the radio, talking with hip friends, reading music magazines, going out to shows, etc. Music just stopped being cool to them at some point, adult life and other interests displaced their concern for music. In order to find music of the quality we remember from our youth, it's necessary to dig just as hard to find it as we did in our youth. I don't have the same energy I did back then.

Fortunately, there's so much great music out there that when I go looking for something I might like it's like trying to drink from a firehose. Storefront Church, Big Thief, The Black Angels, David Tipper, Delicate Steve, Meilyr Jones, Chris Zippel have all gotten my Bandcamp dollars.

(BTW @pwalpwal, based on your tastes, if you haven't already, check out MUGSTAR, from Birmingham. On Bandcamp. And BTW, I LOVE Gang of Four, so I'm envious of you probably having seen them live BITD)

The charts tell the story: Led Zeppelin had one single make it to the top 40. The Pixies, zero. If you listen to only the top 40, you will miss whatever is out there that's of similar quality. You can't compare what was mostly underground music of your youth to today's corporate-pushed music.

And I so agree with what @Shane_B. says about it being impossible to compare "quality" between what are essentially different genres of music. Wanna compare The Beatles to The Benny Goodman Orchestra? Benny Goodman had a guy whose job it was to write out every single musician's part for every song they played, then those musicians had to read the parts. None of The Beatles could read or write a note. They just collected chords and strung them together. If the chords sounded cool, then it could turn into a song.

Oh, and, ahem, Benny's Orchestra was proudly created to play dance music. There was no higher aspiration in those days than for a band to get people on the floor and moving. If you had told them that in 25 years there would be million-selling popular music bands whose audiences would come to basketball arenas and sit down to watch them perform they would have thought that was lame beyond belief.

Another thing: people over 40 are not supposed to like the pop music of the day. Parents are supposed to look down upon whatever music their kids like, it makes it more fun for the kids, to have their own special entertainment that the straight adult world doesn't understand. Things become less cool when old people get them.

[pwal³]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

The Black Angels

yes, enjoy them, prefer the earlier stuff, but live a couple of yrs back they were blown offstage (IMO) by the support act, a place to bury strangers ( a band i'd see live ATDOAH but rarely listen to at home)

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

MUGSTAR

yes! good stuff there

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Gang of Four,

a little before my time, so never caught them live AFAICR but may well have done, as friends do remind me of gigs i went to that until they remind me i don't remember haha

just checked my bandcamp, i have 175 in my collection, check it out if you're bored https://bandcamp.com/badfrot

so much great music that you have to find yourself because no marketing (either budget or mainstream not interested because doesn't fit their algorithm)

[Wibbles]

7 hours ago, craigb said:

I believe that should be "go around" Nigel.

HTH! 😁

Not where I be from.

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

so much great music that you have to find yourself because no marketing (either budget or mainstream not interested because doesn't fit their algorithm)

Heh, just like it's been since I can remember, with the big difference being that now you CAN find things yourself.

A friend once called me "one of those annoying glass half-full people." Guilty as charged.

A Place To Bury Strangers, eh? Blew The Black Angels off the stage, eh? They seem like my kind of toublemakers.😊

Not surprised you already dug MUGSTAR. Ever hear their version of "Tam Lin?"

[Tim Smith]

21 hours ago, Bapu said:

 

Not to be pedantic, but....

(ok, I am being pedantic)

The phrase you both were looking for in the context of your writing/musings was "and who couldn't care less" 

I care but I only care about what I care about. I just got a message from a younger friend and he had some beats for me to listen to. I encouraged him in it even though it isn't my thing. I might even help him to pump those beats up some.

One of the things I really do care about is his generation. I care that there are still pioneers out there experimenting with a set of musical tools. The younger generation needs something productive to do and making beats is productive and can be rewarding.

I just played with a group of 20 somethings and you know what ? It jelled. If my ears go maybe I can at least pass a baton. It isn't them and us. I see it more as me looking at me then or something similar and them looking at future possibilities. Them and us discussions probably aren't very productive. There is no age where a musician ceases to be one. They have more tools than I had which I think puts the cart ahead of the horse many times ( yeah that's an old man thing to say). The music is always old for me.

Putting the tech ahead of creativity is probably the biggest hurdle for this generation IMO.

Probably a bigger question I constantly ask myself after hearing some of the stuff I hear is, when does music cease to be music?

There seems to be a very WIDE swing there.

 

[pwal³]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

 

A Place To Bury Strangers, eh? Blew The Black Angels off the stage, eh? They seem like my kind of toublemakers.😊

live they're awesome, here's a recentish kexp thing but i totally recommend seeing them live if you can, best gig for me since then

 

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

live they're awesome

Oh that is some ferocity.

I love their setup. You kinda know they're gonna be great before they play a note. Roached-out modded Jazzmaster indicates Sonic Youth/My Bloody Valentine influence, chanted monotone vox drug reference lyrics (album title Pinned? Subtle😄) and pile-driving floor tom riding lady drummer, Velvets.

Oh, drummer is not only great musician, but also sweetie pie. And they're pedal builders!

I love how this ferocious band are so "aw shucks" and don't cop attitudes. Something I noticed when I was doing amp repair from 2005-2020, the dudes who came in who were covered with tattoos and piercings and brought me these 250W pant-flapping bass amps were also invariably the sweetest, soft-spoken people. It was obvious that whatever angst and aggression they were harboring was being successfully expressed onstage.

And kids are so darn nice these days! @Tim Smith, I don't know how old you are, but back when I was in my 20's and playing in bands, the idea of jamming with someone 10 years older than us was like the idea of jamming with a hippie corpse. And we all had to cop this "fsck it" attitude. I did push back on that somewhat.

Well, not only do they not make kids like they used to, they don't make old farts like they used to either. We make more of an effort to stay cool, and I think sometimes we're respected as the people who pioneered the music they're influenced by. When I tell someone half my age that I had a Lush/MBV-influenced shoegaze band in the early 90's, they think that's way cool.

Yeah, dig dig dig. Thanks.

P.S. If you want to check out a band with a similar configuration, but the lady drummer sings lead and sounds like Sandy Denny, try Heron Oblivion. The bass player was a repair client of mine.

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Starship Krupa
added Heron Oblivion

[Wibbles]

This is much more my sort of thing - a couple of middle-aged baldies with a load of 303s:

 

[Starship Krupa]

15 minutes ago, Wibbles said:

a couple of middle-aged baldies with a load of 303s

Very nice. I would love to do a gig like that. As yet, I don't have the live electronica chops to do it.

I think Underworld and Fat Boy Slim pioneered  Middle-aged Baldycore. They paved the way for the rest of us.

Middle-aged baldies are able to understand how heartbreaking the lyrics to Born Slippy NUXX actually are:

 

[pwal³]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Roached-out modded Jazzmaster

he tends to smash them up on stage haha

[kennywtelejazz]

As part of my guitar rotation . I have and practice on a Jaguar almost every day at home . Having said that ,

To me It sure looks like the guitar he is using in the video is beat to hell a modified Fender Jaguar w lipstick pick ups ....

It is easy to spot the difference between a Jag and a Jazzmaster because The Jazzmaster does not have all the extra switches on the lower horn  of the guitars body . Also The Jaguar has a chrome plate on the upper horn that houses the controls that offers a separate setting for the neck pick up that can be recalled by flipping the switch while leaving the other settings on the lower switches as they were to be recalled   .

The Traditional Fender Jazzmaster does have a separate control to dial in the neck pick up and set it autonomously from the 3 pick up switch , the thing is the switch on the Jazzmaster is built into the pick guard  while the switch on the  a traditional Jaguar is the chrome one separate from the pick guard  as clearly seen in his video .The few times I saw guitar closeups in the video it appears he may have kept the switch plate cover and not the switches on the lower bout . As far as the neck pick up goes it is hard to tell if it is MIA or a lowered neck pick up ....

Since the Jaguar is a short scale neck and the Jazzmaster is a long scale neck it is doubtful any one could swap necks and do a conversion easily ..for that to happen one would have to re drill and relocate the bridge 

 

Kenny

Edited March 11, 2022 by kennywtelejazz

[pwal³]

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

And they're pedal builders!

 

[pwal³]

16 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

I have and practice on a Jaguar almost every day at home . To me It sure looks like the guitar he is using in that video is beat to hell a modified Fender Jaguar w lipstick pick ups ....

It is easy to spot the difference between a Jag and a Jazzmaster because The Jazzmaster does not have all the extra switches on the lower horn  of the guitars body .

The few times I saw guitar closeups in the video it appears he may have kept the switch plate cover and not the switches. As far as the neck pick up goes it is hard to tell if it is MIA or a lowered neck pick up ....

 

Kenny

he rebuilds them between shows so probably a hotch-potch of bits haha

[kennywtelejazz]

25 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

he rebuilds them between shows so probably a hotch-potch of bits haha

I reedited my post to make it clearer . I don't doubt for a moment he makes guitars out of  a hotch-potch of bits . I'm sure he owns dozens of guitars.   I own a few dozen guitars myself and then some

To be honest with you I absolutely don't care one way or another about what type of guitar any guitar player plays  ....

Myself included ..if you can play you can play 😜

When and if  you re read my edited post you will see that I happened to mention  few facts that go beyond easy to tell the difference ....

ex,  A Jag is a short scale guitar and The Jazzmaster is a long scale guitar . The necks are not interchangeable unless you feel like re drilling and relocating the whole   bridge  assembly  . Also the electronics of these two guitars are totally different ...that could that be done easily , sure , but who would want to ...

 

42 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

As part of my guitar rotation . I have and practice on a Jaguar almost every day at home . Having said that ,

To me It sure looks like the guitar he is using in the video is beat to hell a modified Fender Jaguar w lipstick pick ups ....

It is easy to spot the difference between a Jag and a Jazzmaster because The Jazzmaster does not have all the extra switches on the lower horn  of the guitars body . Also The Jaguar has a chrome plate on the upper horn that houses the controls that offers a separate setting for the neck pick up that can be recalled by flipping the switch while leaving the other settings on the lower switches as they were to be recalled   .

The Traditional Fender Jazzmaster does have a separate control to dial in the neck pick up and set it autonomously from the 3 pick up switch , the thing is the switch on the Jazzmaster is built into the pick guard  while the switch on the  a traditional Jaguar is the chrome one separate from the pick guard  as clearly seen in his video .The few times I saw guitar closeups in the video it appears he may have kept the switch plate cover and not the switches on the lower bout . As far as the neck pick up goes it is hard to tell if it is MIA or a lowered neck pick up ....

Since the Jaguar is a short scale neck and the Jazzmaster is a long scale neck it is doubtful any one could swap necks and do a conversion easily ..for that to happen one would have to re drill and relocate the bridge 

 

Kenny

Kenny

Edited March 11, 2022 by kennywtelejazz