People complain that all of this R&B/Pop Stuff is all about getting sloshed and having sex and about how much they love whoever, yet I've seen Rock Bands sing about the exact same thing and noone bats an eyelid. I really don't see what difference it makes if you're using a Bass Guitar or a Synthesizer, you either love or hate the song. And then there are people that say that people using electronic instruments are cop-outs, as if somehow one who uses a real instrument puts much more effort in than someone who doesn't. We all like what we like and that's fine, but just because something isn't your taste, doesn't mean it took no talent and it's a bit insulting to say so.
Yes I agree I don't like pop music at all, but some people do and that's their opinion. I'm not going to go around spreading hate like an idiot. I listen to lots of rock music (pretty much only), and yeah, there are plenty of songs about sex. I don't like pop music because the sound isn't for me. Just not my thing. But some will say the same about the music I like. Everyone is different.
People that say those don't understand music, or electronic instruments. If someone can rip a synth they're just as talented to me as someone that can play the trumpet, piano.....etc. What I don't think is the most talented is sampling songs. I've sampled music before and remixed/ edited, and it is VERY easy to make a beat using this technique. WHat is hard is composing your music electronically. That is just as difficult and takes just as much knowledge of music as any other type of musical composer. Some people can sample and throw in originality, but sampling is basically the problem you're talking about. Also POP music is anything thats popular, therefore every genre has the potential to be considered POP. The majority of rappers/ bands that people listen to are no different than Britney Spears....etc, they're being mass marketed to make money. Music has been turned into a business and less of an art form. This song is synthetically created, but it's a lot better than what most "guitar" players can accomplish. The PLUCKING sounds so god damn real in this song. [youtube]xxfqAqknxj4[/youtube] Also I'd like to see someone create something using a real instrument that is as original and unique as this band Prefuse 73, their sound is like decades ahead of it's time and it's ALL ORIGINAL. [youtube]rc99zBOIuYw[/youtube] This song is way more impressive than someone playing the guitar; guitars are not original or bizarre. [youtube]1pZznNedGjM[/youtube]
MOST Pop music is about having fun in general, and it shows in how overall simple the accompaniment, tune, and lyrics are. I like some Pop songs, but I'm very much focused on complexity when I listen to music. I like to analyze lyrics, and listen to the combination and patterns of sounds, and how it compliments the lyrics, and the song in general, and conveys an idea, or brings about a particular feeling. For this reason, I don't enjoy much Pop. It's not that it requires little to know skill, it just doesn't occupy me enough. With that said, there are several rock bands that I don't enjoy for the exact same reasons. And while I do enjoy MORE rock bands and songs, and not so many Pop songs, that doesn't mean that I think it's less musical. Also, I admire a groups ability to create something from scratch. The bands that I listen to write their own music and lyrics. And being a bit of a musician myself, I always enjoy listening to other play their instruments, and it gives me some improvement to strive for myself. When you push a button for a beat..., well, where's the fun in that? I'm not saying I've never burst out dancing in the car or in the living room. I can seldom enjoy it for what it is, but most often, it just isn't what I seek in a music group/artist.
I have to admit I like the beats on a couple of Pop songs. And I listen to some Pop music; Outkast, a bunch of rock, Biggie Smalls, Lil Wayne, I like some of Deadmaus songs. Not all pop music is happy, a lot of it is whiney progressive rock, I hear it all the time at work. It's the most depressing music. Same with a lot of R & B pop like Alicia Keys.....etc, Avril Lavigne sings whino depressing music, so much pop music is downer. And a lot of pop musicians are very talented. You can't say the Beatles, Elton John, U2(hate them), Rush(hate them), Mariah Carey(good voice), Whitney Houston(good voice), blah blah blah, have no talent. They were actually performers/ musicians that happened to become popular. But their are a lot of people out there that won't get coverage they get because they aren't as marketable but they're even more talented. That is what is wrong with pop music, it's all about marketability. You think every musician out there is hot? No way, but they won't get a chance unless they have Charisma and Good Looks, that starts to out weigh talent in marketability. That's why I think rap music isn't as bad as it seems. Ya pop rap has bad videos...etc, but most rap artists aren't super good looking, even the popular female ones. Nicki Minaj looks fucking weird, Lil Kim was a gremlin, Snoop Dogg looks like an alien, Biggie Smalls looked like a bug. Same goes with older rock, back in the day rock stars weren't comparable to models, they looked like drugged out crackheads. It was their talent that got their attention. Now girls just gravitate towards "love" rock music performed by some stud. Girl musicians and singers have sort of always been targeted to be good looking only. Only rap has sort of stopped that bias. FOr the most part you have to be super hot with a good voice to make it. There are blips that lack what I said above from year to year, but for the most part you need to be packaged into something shiny and mesmerizing to get any sort of break in the music business. The song "video killed the radio star" don't like it, but had a truth in it. Music Videos have basically killed any prospect of music being a legitimate industry.
I dislike the opinion that most people have about pop music, that it's neutral and that everyone likes it. I listen to various genre of music, my friend told me I'm pretty f*** up when he saw my music library, but I don't prefer any genre, if the song is good it is. But I admit that in my opinion love songs in metal/rock genre are way better than in pop songs.
I think the 2 main problems people tend to have with the top 40 stuff you hear are the following: 1. Autotune as a crutch. I'm not talking about things like Daft Punk. They have a legitimate artistic use for it. I haven't done very much research about them, but it seems that they want to project the kind of robot-ness that humans tend to have as a whole. What I am talking about is when legitimately good singers, who can sing better than the autotune can make them sound, end up using autotune for some reason. 2. Lack of dynamics. This is a key part of music that makes it an art. I'm not saying this is with all top 40 stuff, or even in a certain genre. But I've heard a lot of times when there really isn't much of a roller-coaster ride in the song, and it's just quite flat. I've heard it in many genres, including some of my favorites, but it's abundant in the songs you hear all the time on the radio (and sadly, in my experience, with country music. It's the main difference between John Denver/Charlie Daniels and Alan Jackson). And a lot of times, I haven't heard too much with electronic music. Perhaps there will be a lot more in the future. If there is, I do hope to hear it, because when I do hear it, it ends up as one of my favorite songs. Until then, I'm probably going to constantly yearn for dynamics.
It really shouldn't matter what genre it is. Music is just music in whatever shape or form it can be made. It shows different ways of presenting ideas and entertainment.
My problem with modern pop isn't the subject matter. I listen to a lot of classic rock Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crüe or Talk Dirty to Me by Poison are just as bad as anything on the radio today. Like Ryuichi said my problem with modern music is the lack of life in the music. Auto tune and electronic instruments have sucked the life out of music. Ryuichi already touched on auto tune. It creates a very flat vocal performance without the small errors that give music life. It is the small fluctuations that makes a performance more human and differentiates one artist from the next. Auto tune has destroyed this and a lot of modern artist sound the same. Why would I want to listen to the radio when I'm just going to hear the same cookie cutter auto tune performances over and over. Electronic instruments do the same thing. There is a difference between an electric instrument and an electronic instrument. An electric instrument like an electric guitar produces sounds based on what the person playing it does. For example you can bend a string and produce reverberations at will and with infinite variation. Electric instruments are real instruments. An electronic instrument is a standard noise produced when it senses a input. An example of this is an electronic drum set. When you hit the pad for the hi-hat it produces the same noise EVERY TIME without any variation what so ever. Modern E-drums are getting better because they are adding more sounds that play based on where/how hard you hit the pads but still will only produce about 20-25 different sounds on a standard 7 piece kit. You could do that on a damn computer keyboard it just looks different. These may give the feel of a real instrument but they aren't anything more than a fancy computer keyboard. I'm not saying that it takes more/less talent to play real instruments vs electronic ones. I'm saying that if you give a talented artist a real instrument and an E-instrument they will make the real one sound so much better because of the subtleties. A rim shot on a E-drum's snare sounds the same no matter the technique used. A rim shot on a real snare can produce subtle differences based on technique. If you hit the rim and drum head together in a striking motion (standard rim shot) you get one sound. Take the stick lay one end on the drum head and strike the rim with the other and you get a slightly different sound. Flip the stick around and put the other end on the drum head and the sound changes again. It also changes depending on how tightly you press the stick to the drum head. You can't do that with an E-drum. It makes the standard rim shot sound no matter how you play it. I know people have said what I'm about to say before, but I actually explained what I mean. I don't have a problem with the subject matter in modern music. I don't listen to it because IT HAS NO LIFE!!
It does matter. You need to group things together. People prefer certain genres and without labels, it's hard for them to find it. Now, is it worth arguing over genres, like titles and such? With those idiotic extremely specific genres? No. That's when it gets annoying. But you need those general genres, and their respectful sub-genres. Like for Dubstep. Skrillex, Blackmill, Just A Gent, Flume, Seven Lions and Adventure Club all make different kinds of dubstep; but it's still dubstep. Some people looove AC but hate Skrillex, others love AC, Blackmill, and SL, but not the others. Some people just prefer Flume and JAG. For them to find music like them, you'd need to have those sub-genres.
This is the only part of your argument I have any problem with. You are correct that e-drums are getting better. But I'm not entirely sure you know that Yamaha's newest e-kit has way surpassed Roland's V-drums. This is in very recent years. I tried it out, and it's very close to what you can do on an acoustic kit, as far as dynamics go. The other thing is that any artist can change the volume of these things. I'm not sure if that would actually give it more or less life, but it might do something. Pro Tools (which is industry-standard software) and other such programs have ways where you can set points at which the music gets louder or softer. The problem here is that I hear very little of this, if any at all.
