Why is modern pop music so terrible?

[kgdrum]

I have a slightly different perspective,yeah a lot of pop music is pretty bad and occasionally something really cool comes along.
I actually think it's been this way for a very long time if not always.
Generally we usually only remember the good pop tunes,imo there have always been an abundance of horrible pop music that we luckily forget about.
Myself growing up in the 60's and the 70's when pop music ruled there were some great tunes but I think if we heard all of the bad pop tunes from that era that we have forgotten we might have a different perspective.
For every great song we remember there were probably 15 or 20 songs we don't remember(even top 10 hits) that would be nauseating if we heard it now..........
imo Pop music's target audience is primarily kids, teenagers and younger adults certainly not seasoned older musicians who like classical music,jazz etc..... kids ears have kids musical taste.
I suspect if we were locked in a room and were forced to listen to all of the pop music of the 60's,70's,80's,90's etc...... not just the good tunes we happen to remember we'd think most of pop music from all eras was prefab junk.

[Shooshie]

I've been thinking about what's missing in modern pop music — at least, some of it. This may or may not be the answer, but I think it has to do with the misuse of the musical language. First, let me "define" what I mean by the musical language.

Just as primitive man uttered grunts and clicks that started becoming recognizable patterns, and began to associate those patterns with ideas, the musical language began to evolve with early man and it became more refined over time. Each culture developed their own such language which was stylized for their emotional patterns. Western music got a huge boost when Bach came along. His kids were simply on a higher plane than their peers, and they began laying the philosophical ground work for the direct mainlining of human emotions through music. Mozart picked up on it rather late in life, but it's evident in his operas. Beethoven was the hinge pin, if there was one, for after him the language had changed forever. Chopin mined the cave of musical emotions and found the power notes, the altered chords that pushed our buttons and pulled our heartstrings. Every composer after Bach added their cultural observations to their music. By the time of Wagner, we find giant works (operas) infused with leitmotifs that bear explaining in separate books for the slower witted. Those who have studied music right up the line and learned those emotional phrases and tones have little trouble identifying the leitmotifs and what they mean, who they belong to, how they are being used.

Fast forward to present day. We've been through the mill. Deconstructionists have taken it apart, put it back together, even left the tonal system entirely — so they say, but they still use it to convey emotions within their "atonal" works. Schönberg himself — the grandpappy of atonality, serialism and tone rows — claimed that he so missed the emotional content of tonal music that he could not be happy in a world consisting only of the musical philosophy for which he was the principle proponent. He even wrote tonal music again. Why? Because these people didn't make it up. They didn't create it. They FOUND it. In us.

When you listen to Richard Strauss's tone poems, you cannot help but to picture plots and themes and characters. They speak to you from within. His opera Salomé may have been set in biblical times, but it was clearly about the excess of German (Viennese) decadence. Maybe human decadence in general, but there was clearly a commentary on German politics. His late work for strings, Metamorphosis, is one of the most heart-rending musical works ever created. He essentially is aghast that his countrymen became Nazis and he humbly and emotionally begs forgiveness for his country for nearly destroying the world, changing it forever. He cries at the loss of civilization as it had been. You don't need program notes. It's in the music. Any time Strauss is being humble in music, you can be sure there is pure genius afoot.

This is the musical language. You hear jazz artists (and classical too, if you know your music) telling jokes and laughing in the music. They're inside jokes, but they are there. Barber's "Nuvoletta" is full of musical puns.

What am I saying? That the musical language is not necessarily the easiest thing to learn, but it comes to you with persistence, and you don't have to know all its ins and outs. The fact remains that it's in us. It has been extracted from our own cultural interactions with music over centuries of time. But in the late 20th century it got set aside. Lost. Deemed elitist and uncool, it was dropped by most recording artists for a new language developed in the 1950s. The thing is, that language was developed on the rules and sentiments of the language set forth by Bach and friends centuries before. It became a bad-ass expression of that language. It expressed coolness, hipness, individual desires, base instincts. And an industry copied it.

It was copied. It became a set form — melody, harmony, rhythm, chords, and drums with a strong backbeat. It followed — generally — simple progressions and stagnant forms, but in times like the 1960s & 1970s those became very complex and beautiful. The language was still there. But the industry did not speak the language. They merely developed an ear for copying its essence. When people like Simon Cowell claim to know a hit when they hear it, they are not talking about the musical content or language in a song; they are talking about the copied essence of a body of songs that a spreadsheet would show have been successful in sales. It's about sales. One could go on and on about the psychology of sales, but I assure you in the end you would find that it comes from a different place and leads to a different place than the psychology of art. The two aren't mutually exclusive, but one is creative and the other derivative.

It's that derivative thing that makes it dry and sometimes lifeless, while still statistically being right in the targeted path for sales. If you've followed me this far, you can finish it. I need to go. But I think there is something to what I'm talking about. Somewhere in the 60s and 70s it became derivative, and It has kind of gotten stuck. I think it just needs a critical mass of followers of old-style music to find a path for modern listeners that starts in their derivative world and brings them back to the live and pliable art of the musical language, so that creativity can flow again, and hopefully so that the industry can once again speak that language and reward those who do. I think that happens periodically amid the hum-drum of the vast warehouses of musical product, but it hasn't reached a critical mass, a renaissance. It hasn't achieve self-awareness. If and when it does, the world of popular music will change. The society will become more intelligent for it. Life will be better for it.

Shooshie

[terrybritton]

Well, let me just put this out there: Pop music is driven by the musical tastes of drunk people.

Bands have long had to attract a large following first to become items of interest to A&R scouts -- at least that kind of following has existed as a metric used by such scouts to sell the "numbers" to their bosses that the "property" was worth nurturing. That following had everything to do with bars.

So -- sales driving a culture, as was mentioned earlier.

I have played in bar-bands in my youth, and it always seemed curious to me that so much of the "future of music" relied upon the tastes of drunken patrons and bar owners. Still, the big-band era grew from such roots -- but I think the patronage were more sophisticated then, or at least the band-leaders held things to be so by virtue of their sophisticated offerings.

Perhaps we should separate "entertainment" from "music" in this discussion - pop seems to be mostly about entertainment, which is why comparing it to "music" may be a futile effort. Some "music" leaks through - so count that as a bit of luck.

Terry

[Shooshie]

And you know, Moroder provided some relief. I think this number covers the last 40 years or so. The way the last note devolves into a click track is absolutely brilliant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhl-Cs1-sG4

I don't know. I listened to it twice. The 2nd time I read the comments, and people were talking about their minds being blown and moments of genius. I don't hear it. I really tried, but I just don't. I think it's the lack of a human connection in the instruments. If others can feel it, that's great. I guess I just grew up with a different idea of music. Mine isn't better; just older. Want to blow the mind? Music for 18 Instruments by Steve Reich. It's hard to commit to music like that, because it takes an hour out of your life, hut if you're receptive it gives you back way more than just an hour of time. Or Shaker Loops by John Adams. These date me; I've heard more recent things, but don't have them memorized. Philip Glass wrote some cool stuff in the early days. Then he became a phenotype. I could go over to Pat Metheny, Stanley Jordan, or go back to Art Tatum, Art Rubinstein, or various string quartets, operas, and come full circle to virtuosic pop artists. The thing they all have in common is that they channel an audience's desires into a live performance and give them something that cannot be done without amazing talent and hard work. And it happens live.

I'm sure it's there in this, too. No question that he worked hard, and has amazing talent. But I just don't get it. I don't know why. My apologies. I'm not even equipped to talk about it! Maybe someday I'll finally get my mind blown by it. The ending, as you said, was indeed a brilliant idea. That much I got!

Shooshie

Disregard everything I said about "why" I could not get my head around the Moroder track. My potential explanation — lacking the human connection — would lock out tons of digitally created music, including my own, that I like very much. That's just not it.

It's really simple and needs no explanation: some things you like, some things you don't. I don't hate it; it's just not something I'd normally listen to.

Shooshie

[cuttime]

Disregard everything I said about "why" I could not get my head around the Moroder track. My potential explanation — lacking the human connection — would lock out tons of digitally created music, including my own, that I like very much. That's just not it.

It's really simple and needs no explanation: some things you like, some things you don't. I don't hate it; it's just not something I'd normally listen to.

Shooshie

All is cool. Perhaps my post about Sean Doran makes up for your effort!

[Shooshie]

AND...

my post about the evolution of the musical language is something I believe, but I didn't explain it very well. In it, I'm not saying that all the music since the 70s is bad. Just that there has taken over a marketing angle in which success is copied and repeated derivatively. That fits with the original video narrator's opinion that those companies will not take chances on something that does not fit their formula. 15 years ago, lots of music was being written by David Foster and his wife/GF/significant other. Never figured out those two, though I met them a couple times in Las Vegas at the Petrossian Lounge. It seems that different production companies have their writers, and each stays with what they know as long as they can.

The whole thing about the musical language is a long-winded way of explaining that we all share it because it evolved from us, its roots are our roots, and that now the derivative formula isn't about that at all, but about repeating patterns that generate sales. It's like someone figuring out that simple poetry sells more, so they find a thousand ways of writing "roses are red, violets are blue..."

Oh god... I just triggered a Bobby Vinton ear-worm. I'm outa here!

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

All is cool. Perhaps my post about Sean Doran makes up for your effort!

In spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs, my friend! That was really wonderful. Thank goodness for people's obsessions.

Shooshie

[bayswater]

AND...

my post about the evolution of the musical language is something I believe, but I didn't explain it very well.

I thought it was very well stated. It's difficult to go there and stay on planet earth.

[Shooshie]

AND...

my post about the evolution of the musical language is something I believe, but I didn't explain it very well.

I thought it was very well stated. It's difficult to go there and stay on planet earth.

All your music are belong to us. Somebody set up us the bomb!

Yeah, you got that right!

[Michael Canavan]

The whole thing about the musical language is a long-winded way of explaining that we all share it because it evolved from us, its roots are our roots, and that now the derivative formula isn't about that at all, but about repeating patterns that generate sales. It's like someone figuring out that simple poetry sells more, so they find a thousand ways of writing "roses are red, violets are blue..."

In a really simplistic way, there are three main 'branches' and two types of music to me: Jazz and Classical, the complex music, and "Pop" music, which encompasses country, rock, blues, R&B, Hip Hop and most electronic music, Folk music, Dance music in all it's forms, most traditional Ethnic music, some Big Band music etc.
Pop music, is all simple compared to Jazz and Classical, common man music, but when it eschews some minor sub label like Metal or Funk etc. and just calls itself "Pop music, well it can get really really bad. Record labels snatching some Micky Mouse Club kid and teaching them dance moves, hiring people our age to write watered down R&B tracks for them to sing autotuned nightmares over.

I'm not saying all this to knock popular music, I play and like rock, electronic music etc. I'm not a Classical or Jazz player at all. It's just awkward at best to compare I IV V music with a repeating melody over a big beat to Classical, the bard on the street corner with a hat down for coins singing slightly dirty humorous songs back in the classical era is a more appropriate comparison. Sometimes that guy wrote something good, sometimes not.

These days I would say Zappa got it right, we're in a down turn with pop music because the people signing bands aren't willing to take chances and are relying on the teen pop star who doesn't write their own stuff shtick...

[mikehalloran]

People are still signing bands?

At the moment I'm sitting in a national park in Israel waiting for a wedding to start. I'm in my wheelchair watching over things while final prep is underway. A very nice mix of music is being played over a pair of JBL Eon 615s — closest I've ever heard to hifi PA speakers — I'm way impressed.

Listening to a wonderful mix of American, Euro, Israeli and Arabic pop and I come to the conclusion that, well selected, it can all be good. Patsy Cline followed by Pearl Jam followed by The Pogues, Buddy Holly and then Hotel California in Arabic played on traditional instruments.

I'm loving it. There's always bad and good music. Try to listen to the good stuff. Ahhh... There's a friend I've not seen for forty years. She's the rabbi and singing along to one of the Israeli pop tunes with a couple of her children. Her brother says we may sing later. I don't care. I'm having a great time.

Somebody get me a drink!

[Michael Canavan]

People are still signing bands?

Hotel California in Arabic played on traditional instruments.

I'm loving it. There's always bad and good music. Try to listen to the good stuff.

Should have said, the people supposedly signing bands aren't willing to take chances and are relying on the teen pop star who doesn't write their own stuff shtick...

I need to hear this arabic Hotel California!

Good and bad music is an interesting thing. I have this idea for a cover band that only plays the most universally panned music out there, We Built this City, Nickleback, Creed, plenty of 80's hits, and modern teen pop etc. call the band Endurance Test. The point is to run the gamut, because here's the thing, everyone likes some song or another that everyone else thinks is total garbage. So if someone walks into a show and after 5 songs figures out that all our set is just the least liked songs, they get all smug and self satisfied in righteous piety, until we start playing something they like, and they completely don't get why it's on the list!

[Gravity Jim]

The current pop isn't terrible.

We're old.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

We're mature.

Most pop music is immature intended for immature consumers.

[Shooshie]

We're mature.

Most pop music is immature intended for immature consumers.

Let's see...

I wanna hold your hand
Please please me
Lay Lady Lay
Don't mess with my Blue Suede Shoes

Yeah, maybe we were just immature once, to call the singers of those songs "the best band" or "the King," or just Dylan.

Than again, country music seems targeted for a slightly older, less naive, possibly more cynical group:
I am a lineman for the county
Take this job and shove it.
Let's get drunk and screw.

But it's really all over the map. Dylan was... what... 21 going on 65 when he wrote "Don't think twice, it's all right." And Joni engages in mind sex when she writes things like "I wish I had a river," or "California." And Pink Floyd were vicariously 18 going on 60 when they sang "Us and Them," "Money," or "Run Rabbit Run."

You gotta admit, the events of the 1960s — war, riots, assassinations — made men and women out of boys and girls. The stuff that came out of our music back then was way ahead of our time. There were no Justin Bleebers in the 1960s, except for that group put together by TV producers, the Monkees. What's up with that? Glen Campbell played guitar on their most famous tracks. It was all studio stuff. But for the stuff that defines the 60s, that came under a different kind of pressure besides marketing and promotions. We were all looking down the end of a gun barrel, and that makes you think real fast. Suddenly the bubble gum, bobby sox rock of the 50s was the stuff of the Mickey Mouse Club.

As disturbing as the current events of today are, it's very likely that we'll see a transcendence of pop and rock music. I'd be willing to bet that the next Jonis and Dylans are out looking for representation as we speak. The same ol' songwriters who do all the "hits" aren't going to cut this. They'll come off disingenuous as hell in a pop tart, and people are going to gravitate toward music that has a message for those who are confused and scared. [forum cautionary advice: don't go there. Stay in the music so the thread doesn't get locked up or deleted.]

Shooshie