Opinions on modern day pop music?

The music industry is in deep financial trouble. Therefore the incentive to join has decreased meaning that the number of musicians have decreased who will spend their life doing music. This means that exceptional musicians are in short supply this means that the only musicians out there are just doing the same old crap. It's not just in pop musics it's in most types of musics. Even metal not that good nower days. What is mastrodron compared with metallica?

Having said that pop music has always been crap because it concentrates on whats popular not what good music. And as most people have not developed any sort of musical taste pop music tends to be crap.

 

I can only agree with you vhrebel. The music is horrible, monotonous and just plain bland. I think it could get better. I think it could. But that is going to take some exceptional. I just hope it does

I listen to a bunch of older music now (1970s-early 2000s) That is all the good stuff.

 

The garbage being played all night and day next door, when I'm trying desperately to sleep?


Eh, I shouldn't be judgmental like that but you can tell I'm...biased

From a technical stand-point it's terribly written (you should hear my music-major friends drone on about how awful it is all day long).

But then, the general public has often not much cared if something is "technically well-written" or not. And shun a lot of stuff that is...


So no matter how much from an academic standpoint it's viewed as "intolerable," it does have its value. And I have to respect it as art...even if it does make me want to take a bat to my neighbour's stereo. :lol:

 

If you want to find good music, look to you're local music scene! Those are folks who do it just for the love of the music and the people who aren't pretty enough or image obsessed enough to make it big. Even small towns have local bands of varied genres if you look for it.

 

I love it. It does what it is meant to do.

 

Eeeeh, it's honestly not my cup of tea. Here's a small breakdown:

Dubstep/Dance: All I seem to hear is "BZZZ BZZZ ZZZ BZZ BZZZ!!"

Bieber/NSYNC/Backstreet Boys/Jonas Brothers: I don't give a shit about them. Honestly, I don't. I'm not entirely apalled by Justin Bieber, but I'm not a huge fan of him, either. He sings decently, but there's nothing that he does that's truly inspirational. Same goes with the other groups.

One Direction: Get this band off now. They should have been sued and taken out of the business by the Beatles and the Ramones when they performed obvious copyright infringement on 2 very well-known trademarks of both bands. I know having an inspiration is a great thing as an artist and nod-offs are okay too, but completely copying someone's work and performing plagiarism does 2 things: 1. It proves you're not as creative as you advertise yourself to be, and 2. by definition, it's stealing. It's theft, which is criminally punishable.

Autotune in general: For albums, it's okay. When it turns into a tool for live performances that the singer relies upon, that's when the line is drawn. Here's a good example of what I mean:

Rush's lead singer, Geddy Lee has been singing extremely high notes for decades, and it's really starting to show. If you watch a live performance of them from the past few years, you can really hear Geddy's voice straining towards the higher notes, and disappearing at even higher ones. Their newest album, Clockwork Angels, has autotune in it to bring Geddy's voice to the note he's trying to hit. Hiding this is all of these sound effects and reverb not only for hiding the autotune, but to also bring you into the mood of the album. Artistically, that's what should be done with autotune. To make the album sound good as well as have an artistic use to it like it used to in its earlier days, instead of following a bandwagon and having it being used as a crutch.

If you've been reading my posts, you'll know I've been listening to some Classic Rock. I've been listening to the following bands for the following reasons:

Rush: A very artistic band with an amazing singer still nowadays with songs written by and performed with Percussion by one of the greatest, if not the greatest. Neil Peart takes you in his own life experiences and thoughts and whatnot, introducing you to the deepest parts of humanity and the world we live in, giving you at least seven possibilities on one topic. Plus, the performance of almost every song is absolutely stunning. Anyone who's tried to play as Geddy or Peart would instantly remember how tired they were after whatever song they played.

The Who: Pete Townshend is an amazing storyteller who introduces you to very crazy characters. The Who themselves are characters, as well. Pete's writing of both lyrics and music gets progressively better, and eventually you have a great album that almost nobody knows about because Keith's death came right after its release. That album was "Who Are You" Yes, the song we all know and love is from that one, but it's the only one where we hear from that album of great songs. Quadrophenia is also an awesome album that takes you back to your teen years, or if you're a teen right now, listening it to it would be almost like learning that every thought in your head was already recorded before you were born.

CCR: This band is just fun to listen to, plain and simple. They do touch upon some moments in history when their songs were written such as "Pride" and "Fortunate One", but for the most part, I just like listening to them.

Grateful Dead: This band has only one message that I love: "Why can't we all just chill out and jam?" You can hear it in every one of their songs. It's such a carefree band with a pretty good sound. All they want to do is jam. RIP, Jerry Garcia.

The Doors: This band has quite a variety of music on their title album ranging from Honkey Tonk to a bit of Country to Psychedelic. Very artistic band with Jim Morrison (You gotta admit he's pretty hot) leading you into the deepest depths of the jungle of the world we live in.

I know it might be egotistical to put up what I listen to, but I'm doing so to say why I listen to these bands instead of what is played on Pop radio.

---------- Post added 4th Jun 2013 at 05:57 PM ----------

Yes, this too.

I usually don't listen to rap, but I was given a rap album by the artist himself who is trying to make it big. His group is called the Rivalz. This rap is so much better, so much more insightful and much more artful than anything I've heard anyone bump from their diamond-studded car in the 'burbz.

 

I am getting old...but this One Direction/Bieber/Jonas stuff is utter crap. I guess I just don't see where any talent is anymore. It's all tuned bull and what I hate is these kids act like they are some geniuses. Same thing with rap now. Rap is basically all about "look how cool I am, I'm a rapper and the bets rapper ever." And yet I've never heard of any of these people. Music is all about selling out and doing it quickly

but then again...maybe I am just old

Foxface

 

There was a lot of crap in the 60s and 70s; we just don't remember it as fondly or they're entirely forgotten.

Conversely, there is good pop music today. Robyn, M.I.A., Lily Allen, Rye Rye, Capsule, and Ladyhawke are all really awesome. And IDGAF, Carly Rae Jepsen can write one hell of a catchy tune.

 

The reason older music looks better than new music is because we only remember the Adeles and Bruno Marses of the past, while the One Directions and Biebers of the past get rightfully forgotten. If you actually look at some pop charts from back in the day, there was a LOT of garbage on there, and the stuff we idolize today rarely made it into the top 10. There's a lot of great music coming out right now--most of the music I discover these days that I love ends up being from the past few years--but you need to take some responsibility for your musical intake if you want to hear it. You're never going to find it if you just listen to what the radio brings you; you need to take some initiative to find it yourself.

 

Mostly terrible, occasionally fun to listen to.

I used to hate pop music with all my being, but then I likened it to Andy Warhol's "pop art" revolution back in the day. It's not supposed to be good, or deep, or touch the soul in any grand way. It's supposed to be fun to dance to, and sometimes it is. I discovered that I like "Call Me Maybe", 1D's "What Makes You Beautiful" (despite its paradoxical final chorus line) and Taylor Swift's "22", even though I normally consider myself above listening to such chaff.

Pop music's a lot like carnival food. Alright, as long as it's consumed very sparingly, or else you just might die.

 

Two words: less autotune

 

^^Billy Joel was considered pop/rock in the 70's through the early 90's, and I think he's in maybe the top 5 greatest musicians ever. He had his bubblegum kid stuff like "Uptown Girl" too, though, so I can see it. But his worst is better than most of today's best.

Sorry if I fan squee over him way too often, but as famous as he is, IMO his music still doesn't get the admiration it deserves.

 

My best friend and I have our "bad celebrity music" playlist...seriously, there's tons of songs done by celebrities trying to be singers. It's terrible but really fun.

This rings true to a portion of pop music....it's bad, sounds the same, and is just..blehh.

However, it's AMAZING when you can find stuff that's really off the beaten path. I think there's amazing stuff out there that's probably close to pop that's just....not necessarily what we think of it.

 

Have you heard Jackie Chan sing? I'm not sure if it's legit, but he has at least one video of him recording a song, and he's great. Is there anything that guy can't do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SLJJc8siyU