Why is modern popular music so awful?
Here’s an interesting video for a change of pace. Some of the music isn’t au courant, but that’s probably because it was made three years ago. But the points are still relevant, I think:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
It was amusing how a few days ago Montage claimed that the arts, including popular music, are thriving.
neo and a few other commenters begged to differ. Montage, as I recall, failed to respond.
All of us, as we grow old, become nostalgic for the popular music of our youth, although, of course, what will endure is the truly great music of the European tradition from the Elizabethans such as Byrd and Tallis through the great Germans, foremost among them Bach, through the modern masters). Nevertheless, popular music has its place and is often done well; yet even such a talented contemporary singer as Taylor Swift (whose videos of Love Story and Wildest Dreams are charming pop classics) has been severely compromised by “woke” SJW virtue-signaling.
Why is modern popular music so awful?
1. The suppliers
2. The demanders
Lots of reasons it went bad…
a decade ago i posted an article on it from jerry garcia here…
but you can also add things like womens liberation making debasement sell
performance over ability
money over love of music (like garcia said)
you can even blame autotune… [if your ear can hear the difference]
https://www.antarestech.com/product/auto-tune-pro/
but dont worry…
GAN networks (Generative Adversarial Networks) will soon wipe out the need for actors, painters, and even music writers… (i didnt want to insult composers)
if you like jazz, Clara can write some for you
jazz piano selection generated by Clara
http://christinemcleavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/jazz.wav
Clara can even do duets
http://christinemcleavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/0-2.wav
some fun here
Generating Songs With Neural Networks (Neural Composer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWxfnNXlVy8
I’m baffled. What do the pictures of inflatable sex dolls have to do with music? Embedded mp3 players? If so, where are the speakers? I’ll be waiting for the answer(s).
Rick Beato is my go-to guy on this stuff. One of his theories, aside from computer-massaged music, is that rock, anyway, got away from the blues.
Many of the sixties musicians say that the labels are now relentless when it comes to grabbing some medium talented kids and forcing them into a sellable category.
Performers like the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills & Nash would never have made it past the first interview for being too weird and/or visually unappealing.
Oh, a topic after my heart.
Rick Beato did a video about this topic a while back and if memory serves he mentioned the 3 notes that this guy does as being present in an unbelievably high percentage of current popular music and by contrast the Beatles had exactly one song using these three notes and that is one reason why their songs remain so fresh and catch people’s attention after 50 years.
Another major issue that this guy alludes to is the advent of ProTools recording equipment about 20 years ago. Now everything is run through ProTools and ‘fixed’. What this does is take out that little human touch where maybe the drummer is a little out of time or the bassist missed a note or whatever that makes the song sound ‘real’ even if we don’t realize it when we listen.
And lyrically is probably the most obvious. In the past the most popular acts also were great lyricists and could write songs that were deep or moving. Take a couple of examples; the guy in the video mention ‘Sgt Pepper’ and listen to a song on that album ‘She’s Leaving Home’ written by McCartney and told from the vantage point of the young woman and from her parents in an extremely moving and mature way and then throw in the melody and Lennon’s response of ‘bye, bye’ it’s a brilliant song and McCartney was 25 when he wrote it. Another is ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ by the Rolling Stones which it’s impossible to imagine any top flight act today having the knowledge base to write.
Music I think is the one popular art form that has definitely declined over time in my opinion.
He left out one more music manufacturing giant… – Jeff Lynne
Of course there are many artists out there doing very creative and interesting things but the problem is they are not the most popular artists so they don’t have the influence on the greater culture that the greats of earlier generations did.
Huxley,
I tend to agree with Beato. I look back, and I believe the process accelerated very quickly around 1992/94. Ironically driven by one of the last somewhat original bands Nirvana. About that time is when I noticed a huge stratification between the 2 most popular music genre pop and grunge. Every artist started to really be grouped into the two. And with fewer exceptions, began sounding the same. It also is around that time that processing power in computers really started to explode. Allowing more control over the entire process. Then as grunge started to fall away. Every ounce of energy has been put into pop. Leaving us where we are today.
While I agree that mass produced popular music has declined, advancements in recording technology and music sharing sites have made it possible for anyone to record and share music. My son is a musician ans it’s amazing what you can do for a only a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. So if you look a little harder there is a lot of music out there for almost anyone’s taste. I think the same is also true for publishing. There are a lot of awful books that are very popular but self publishing is so easy that people are no longer dependent on publishing houses to get their books out there.
Well, the video certainly explained why I find the piped-in music in my supermarket the second most annoying aspect of my weekly grocery runs (the first being the chirpy announcements about masks and social distancing repeated every five minutes). I clean out my ears and brain with Bach or some other classical composer when I get home. There’s also a local radio station that plays ’50s and ’60s hits, and songs from groups like the Kingston Trio and the Sandpipers are reminders of just how low pop music has fallen in recent years.
Also as the overall talent base has eroded. The importance of looks has exploded. Find me one popular artist that isnt considered at least one full deviation above average in attractiveness. You wont find many Joplin, or Mama Cass among them
Rick Beato did a video about this topic a while back… –Griffin
–Rick Beato, “The Four Chords That Killed POP Music!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGt-ZG39cU
A hoot and only 4:20 minutes long.
Beato is a god. I first ran into this idea from the Axis of Awesome several years ago, and Beato references it. Also great fun.
_________________________________________________
…all you need to be a pop star is four simple chords.
–The Axis of Awesome, “4 Chords”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ
Gregory Harper,
One of my points is that we should want the most talented and original artists to have huge success and make lots of money because that will encourage others to follow their lead where as now the lead being followed is this watered down sameness.
So, yes it’s true that a person can find really great music if you really look it kind of sucks that those making that great music can barely (if at all) make a living from their music.
huxley,
Yep, that’s the Beato video I was referencing.
At the local grocery story that I most often frequent (as opposed to the ones that I frequent slightly less… frequently)… {well, what do you want me to say? there are 3 within a ten-minute drive}… anyway, at the first of those, I’ve noticed that whoever decides on the piped-in music sometimes has a kind of eighties night going on. It amuses me. I think there’s someone at the other store around the corner who likes classic rock on the evening shift.
I’ve never been a big pop-music listener, but I’ve noticed there are people with considerable talent that sneak between the cracks on the Internet. I’m thinking in particular of a couple of European cover bands that came to my attention. Talent is therefore not dead, but it’s gone underground, I think.
That was fascinating. Maybe because of this my experience with music has been different – Covid may change this. For the past 15 years I have been following very small bands and singers. They connect through email, Facebook, YouTube and I’m sure other means as well. Their fans attend venues in small bars, malls, and in the case of some of the singers – private homes. The cost is nowhere near the cost of a large concert. You get to actually see the performers and, if you want, you get to interact with them. The bands/singers usually have a day job – but not all of them. Some of them live off their recordings and live appearances and some of them (not any I’ve seen) “hit the big time.” Maybe the music business during the 60’s + was/is an anomaly. Performers prior to those days made way less money and played to much smaller audiences. I think we’ve come full circle.
Oh, PA Cat, so I’m not the only one who hates the sound track in the grocery store! This past pre-Christmas season, they played modern pop versions of Christmas songs which were so awful I could hardly stay in the store.
This was a very informative video! To me, modern pop is all loud and it all sounds the same. The video gave me reasons for that.
The video gave me reasons for that.
Kate: Don’t doubt you or neo, but I really need more to watch a 20 minute video.
What reasons?
Mythx:
Here are two.
Billie Eilish. Who is certainly not unattractive, but is not particularly specially attractive, and who does her best to look less attractive rather than more.
Ed Sheeran. Again, not the least bit awful-looking. But rather average in appearance, at least to my way of thinking.
They are both very popular singers.
And lyrically is probably the most obvious. In the past the most popular acts also were great lyricists and could write songs that were deep or moving.
See Jo Stafford’s commentary about changes in popular music production in the 1950s. She complained about the conflation of roles, maintaining that singing, songwriting and other tasks were properly kept distinct and performed by different parties. “There were usually several versions of a song circulating at once, and a song had a chance to find itself”.
neo: But how do Ellish and Sheeran compare to Mythx’s examples — Mama Cass (way overweight) and Janis Joplin (pitted with acne scars)?
Plus, so far as I can tell, neither Ellish nor Sheeran are major stars compared to Cass and Joplin in their salad days.
huxley, I’ll try. Loss of depth or variety of instrumentation. A fifth-third-fifth sound which appears repeatedly in almost all songs. Most songs now written by two people, one a Swede and one an American. Dynamic compression, which makes the recorded notes all the same value in loudness on each track. Reduced attention span in listeners, which causes artists to put the “hook” in their music early and often. Marketing, in which the song is repeated everywhere you listen. You may not like it but it sounds familiar. The high cost of promoting new artists, which excludes new talent. I think that’s the gist of it. He had studies and examples to demonstrate some of this.
Kate: Thanks. I’ve heard that elsewhere, so I don’t need to watch.
Dynamic compression drives Bob Dylan mad BTW.
huxley:
As I said, these two are more average-looking than anything else. But they are certainly not exceptionally attractive, and that’s why I pointed them out.
They are major stars, however, I have no idea how to make a direct comparison to someone like Cass Elliot, but Sheeran is a big big music star. From his Wiki page:
And the following is from Eilish’s Wiki page. She is not as huge as Sheeran, but she’s plenty big:
neo: Well, you ignore the obvious visual defects of Cass and Joplin in your comparisons plus IMO it’s easy to rack up a bunch of awards these days and still be a nobody in two years. Meanwhile Cass and Joplin will be remembered for a while yet.
I’ll check some of the 20/30-somethings at my cafe and see if they think much about Ellish and Sheeran.
huxley:
I’m not ignoring anything. I was responding to a very specific statement of Mythx’s (not of yours): “Find me one popular artist that isnt considered at least one full deviation above average in attractiveness.”
I addressed my first comment when I mention them to Mythx, but I actually should have addressed my second comment to both you AND Mythx, because that’s what it was a response to.
By the way, I prefer the looks of both Joplin and Cass to the looks or Eilish and Sheeran. Call me strange, but Joplin and Cass were very distinctive and Eilish and Sheeran are (to me) boring-looking.
Ed Sheeran has the potential to be remembered for years to come and to risk the wrath of some I’m not sure Cass Elliott is remembered as an all time great but more as a member of a successful group and Janis Joplin had a rather short career for obvious reasons. They both fall into the category of death taking them to mythical levels.
As for their appearance for me unfortunately Joplin looks too much like a junkie at least in her most famous (and last) years.
neo: Here’s a super-hot, hip-hop chick from 2008, M.I.A., who was a critical darling then and with a list of accolades for best and most influential of the 21st century longer than anyone’s arm:
__________________________________________________
Among M.I.A.’s accolades include two American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) awards and two MTV Video Music Awards. In addition, she is the first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for an Academy Award and Grammy Award in the same year.[3] She was named one of the defining artists of the 2000s decade by Rolling Stone in its “Best of the Decade” list in December 2009. Time named her one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2009, and Esquire ranked M.I.A. on its list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century. According to Billboard, she was one of the “Top 50 Dance/Electronic Artists of the 2010s”.[4] M.I.A. was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for her services to music.
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.I.A._(rapper)
__________________________________________________
You remember her, right? No, of course you don’t. These days she’s pretty much a nobody.
neo: I’m glad you can find Cass and Joplin more attractive than Ellish and Sheeran, but I challenge you to find a current pop star as overweight or scarred as Cass or Joplin.
Spoiler: There aren’t any.
huxley,
Overweight? That’s easy.
Lizzo
In addition to what this video said, I’d add that it’s all about the visuals these days. I know what Taylor Swift looks like but couldn’t identify anything she sings. That’s partly because I refuse to try.
huxley,
Don’t know about all those awards and maybe she was bigger in the UK but M.I.A. was pretty much a one hit wonder in the US with ‘Paper Planes’ which is a pretty catchy number. Could fill a book with the super attractive one hit wonders.
M.I.A. was pretty much a one hit wonder in the US with ‘Paper Planes’ which is a pretty catchy number.
Griffin: Exactly. And the hook to “Paper Planes” was sampled from the Clash.
I’ve no gripe with one-hit wonders. I love so many of them. I can even get into “Paper Planes.”
My point is that neo’s lists of accolades for Ellish and Sheeran are almost certainly as ephemeral as MIA’s, especially compared to the achievements of Cass and Joplin.
Not sure how we got on Ed Sheeran but he has four platinum (3 multi) albums something like 7 top ten hits in the US including a couple #1’s with a couple of them massive hits. He is as big for his time (if not bigger) than Janis Joplin. The fact that she died young allows us to place all kinds of future success on her when we have no clue what would have happened all we know is what did.
Billie Eillish less so for sure.
Griffin: neo mentioned Sheeran and Eilish as counter-examples in terms of looks with Cass and Joplin after Mythx’s challenge.
I’m not well-versed when it comes to Sheeran and Ellish, but I’m unimpressed with neo’s and your arguments about their successes compared to Cass and Joplin.
My take is that S & E are just the current flavors who will be forgotten as easily as MIA, although in 2008 MIA was lauded as one of the most important people on the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cab_XlnJZjc
This was mass market popular music collected by adolescents.
Judge for yourself:
American Greatest Hits by Year, 1840-2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9VvaKNW28
Huxley,
I’m not a big fan of either but we are not young and there was probably some old guys in 1974 disputing that Joplin and Cass were as good as (insert name). Eventually we will be gone and someone else will be arguing for Ed Sheehan as far better than some new star.
Neo- I actually originally thought of Sheeran. But frankly as a guy I am not the best judge exactly how average he is. I admit am unfamiliar with Ellissh.
After looking I suppose Lizzo would count. But her entire shtick seems to be to go against the grain and push “body positivity” as a social message.
So Its fair to say my point was at least somewhat repudiated.
But I think overall looks have become even more important to being a star than pure talent. Honestly the only artist I can think of who completely diverges from this in the last 25 years would be John Popper of Blues Traveler.
And in the video to their one hit song. They actually lampoon the industry for its focus on looks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ousaiByU1ko
I’m not a big fan of either but we are not young and there was probably some old guys in 1974 disputing that Joplin and Cass were as good as (insert name). Eventually we will be gone and someone else will be arguing for Ed Sheehan as far better than some new star.
Griffin: That’s one theory. However, in practice I’ll be surprised.
I went through this with modern poetry in the 90s/00s. Poets then kept saying, well, we can’t assess just yet. Surely someone writing now will appear in retrospect as important as Williams, Eliot, Pound, Jeffers, Ginsberg, and whoever else was a private fave.
But you know, it’s been 20-30 years and no one then looks like a comer today.
Mythx,
Part of it may be the death of rock. There were always plenty of rock singers that weren’t all that much to look at. Axl Rose, Brian Johnson, Elton John are just a few. Looks were not the thing that drew people to them.
This probably started to change with the rise of MTV and totally changed in the age of social media.
Music became visual as well as aural.
I wasn’t an art student in college, but some of my friends were and they were all reading Sir Herbert Reade’s “A Concise History of Modern Painting.” So I read it and it’s still a text I will recommend with enthusiasm.
Anyway. Sir Herbert drew my attention to an earlier critic, R.G. Collingwood, who said (and it was like a lightning bolt to me):
__________________________________________
But in art, a school once established normally deteriorates as it goes on. It achieves perfection in its kind with a startling burst of energy… But once it is achieved, there is a melancholy certainty of decline.
__________________________________________
Without blaming anything or anyone, I think that’s a big part of the problem with current popular music.
How does anyone follow up Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Beatles etc. today?
Griffin; huxley:
Overweight: Adele. At least, she used to be (although not as overweight as Cass Elliot). I hear she’s lost a lot of weight lately. But she was popular for a long time at a weight considered heavy. She was always very pretty, though.
huxley: As far as Joplin and acne scars go, I guess at the time she was popular I never really noticed a close-up photo of those scars. In other words, I never noticed. What I did notice was that she was plain-looking, but had interesting hippy-ish clothes and also wore no makeup as far as I could tell. She just had a really different “look,” which seemed unique to me and still does.
neo,
Yeah there have been a few over the years. Ann Wilson of Heart comes to mind as does Wynonna Judd in country music. And don’t forget Meat Loaf. ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ sold like 15 million copies.
I think it comes down to what you want to sell. I remember when she came out with her first album ’19’ she didn’t really have a visual image and even when she blew up big time with ‘Rolling In The Deep’ it was about her voice and the song not her appearance.
neo: We can throw down on weight and acne scars, but, aside from cherry-picking and nit-picking, do you really doubt there is a greater emphasis on looks today in pop music versus the 60s/70s?
Various notes:
Joplin looked very much like a woman in a couple of my classes in college. That would have been mid to late Sixties. So, for some reason, I was more interested in her songs the first couple of times I heard them and then…..
I’ve heard some endless Pandora lists and the vocals don’t seem to have a melody. The accompaniment goes along, the vocalist stretches the vowels here and there, adds intensity, but the possibility of discerning a melody is minimal. What on earth is the point?
.Used to be “easy listening” radio stations where you could hear older, more sedate songs, plus easier arrangements. One tv station played only orchestrations of songs from Thirties Broadway to rock and folk and anything else. I kind of liked that, since I recognized many of the songs.
Youtube will give you all kinds of music when you ask for a particular song with a particular performer. Hildegarde von Bingen to….forty-leven different versions of The Gael. Pick an instrument and search for it, solo or otherwise. Will go forever.
Not much on rock. Found it boring into the mid sixties and actively annoying after that.
Still. Elvis doing gospel or American Trilogy. Sacred Harp singing.
Nancy B.
Judge for yourself:American Greatest Hits by Year, 1840-2013:
I knew more songs from the first 30 years than from the last 30 years.
Unlurk… my early 20s kid doesn’t know any of the musicans mentioned here. I barely do. Taylor Swift has at least crossed my recognition horizon. The samples sound boring.
What gets listened to in our house is stuff from Miracle of Sound/Gavin Dunne, The Aviators (found Godhunter first), and Blind Guardian (started with Nightfall on Middle Earth. Me – that’s a rather screamy piece, you don’t normally listen to screaming. oh, Mom, that’s Fingolfin’s challenge to Morgoth. WHAT?) there are others, but these I hear frequently. Works with melody and intelligent lyrics that are mostly comprehensible and often tell stories – in the Fingolfin piece the fight is done all in the music – sometimes across whole albums or more than one album.
There is interesting stuff out there, it’s just not given push.
huxley:
I don’t doubt it for a minute.
neo: Dick Cavett and Janis Joplin had marvelous chemistry. I’ve watched that interview a couple times before. I do believe they truly liked each other, celebrity-to-celebrity. That wasn’t the only time she appeared on his show.
One wouldn’t suspect how effed-up they both were at the time. Janis, we know, but Cavett himself was clinically depressed during those years.
I don’t disagree with the assertion that popular music has declined. Admittedly I can’t speak to very young artists but there are a number of today’s artists in their early to mid 30s that are of high quality. Adele, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Katie Melua, Norah Jones, Pentangle, Sarah Cahill, Shelby Linn, Jesse Cook, Yuko Mabuchi are just a very few.
…Jack Johnson…
Geoffrey Britain: Bless you, my son!
JJ was a serious surfer until he almost got his brains knocked out and lost a few teeth at the Pipeline.
His laid-back surf-flicks/soundtracks are unequalled.
I don’t have time to watch that video, though I sort of think I’ve seen it before. But I’ll throw in my agreement with those saying there is still plenty of really good music being made today. It just doesn’t get that much commercial exposure and success. Trying to think of some cases…Jason Isbell’s Southeastern is brilliant. Sort of country-folkish. Gillian Welch’s The Harrow and the Harvest–not brand new but not old, either, and a classic. I’d put it up there with pretty much anything ever done in what you might call the singer-songwriter genre-folkish, though Gillian Welch herself says “Gillian Welch is a two-person band called Gillian Welch.” The two people being herself and guitarist-singer Dave Rawlins.
I saw Ed Sheeran on Austin City Limits a while back and just shrugged. I don’t think I watched the whole performance. Eilish I have not heard at all.
In my mind there is a whole sub-genre which I designate as “commercial pop” and which in general I cannot tolerate. It seems like audio Cheez-Whiz to me: processed sound product.
Re: Gillian Welch…
Mac: Welch is the only sorta-recent musician who has made me say, “Whoa,” then collect all her CDs after I first heard her in 2000-something.
I still say, “Whoa.” And Dave Rawlins is a force too.
Where to start? She plays old-time country even though she’s an 80s hippie who went to UC Santa Cruz. Her foster parents did the music for the Carol Burnett Show.
How about here:
–Gillian Welch, “Time (The Revelator)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYG-Nh_AxU
This is one of the most intense music videos I have experienced. Totally plain, black-and-white, in a nondescript studio.
I had believed, like most of her fans, she was some country-girl in a cheap dress singing her songs, not a latecomer-hippie out of the Hollywood machine.
But in this song she set the world straight.
______________________________
Darling, remember
When you come to me
I’m the pretender
And not what I’m supposed to be
But who could know if I’m a traitor
Time’s the revelator
______________________________
Well, I believe time has revealed her … as an authentic talent, if not what she initially appeared to be. Still love her.
Her output has slowed with age, but I’ll buy anything she records.
I just discovered a cool new band – Bon Jovi. OK, I’m still wondering what Phil Collins is doing without the rest of Genesis…
Mac, huxley,
The country/Americana genre is maybe the best example where there is a ton of great music being made. People like Cody Jinks and Tyler Childers are just amazing. Could listen to Jinks’ ‘Loud and Heavy’ all day long and Lori McKenna has a great new record out that’s a real singer songwriter type thing.
Then there is Colter Wall who is like 23 years old and from Canada and looks very unassuming until he starts singing then wow. There is a video of him singing his song ‘Kate McCannon’ on youtube that is very impressive.
It’s people like this that deserve all the success they can achieve. They are real artists.
Pop music to me is, and will always be, Motown. There was a time in the ’80s when I loved ’80s music. I didn’t much care for the ’60s and ’70s when I was in my teens. I played in several school bands so we played mostly what our parents listened to. We did not have a vocalist so it was all instrumental. Everyone of us, in our teens in the band, loved Maynard Ferguson. My father told me he saw Ferguson showing off his stuff when my Dad was in college years earlier. So at least for us band geeks we admired our parent’s generation as well as our grandparents. I am ashamed to say that I did follow Madonna all the way up until she went S&M. That was the end, for me.
I wish I could say that this was my marching band but it is not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVJ3Ho83Ksg
I would give my left ******** to be part of it.
Gringo on July 31, 2020 at 10:25 pm said:
Nancy B.
Judge for yourself:American Greatest Hits by Year, 1840-2013:
I knew more songs from the first 30 years than from the last 30 years.
* * *
Well, that was fun!
(Except for the graphics in some years, but the disjunction of song and history was interesting to see.)
Our family had a (as in, one) very comprehensive songbook at my home that contained hits and other popular songs in America from before the Revolution to the 1940s*, which was arranged simply enough my sister could play most of them (but they were not boring or simplistic, which is a tricky thing to manage), and I sang along, because we literally had nothing else to do at night — other than reading books, the couple of hours of prime-time TV, and sometimes band/choir/drama practice.
My parents had recordings of popular music from their day, so that covered the Big Bands and big names of the WW2 era.
In 1970, I left for college and (Believe it or Not!) had no radio or reel-to-reel tape player (we didn’t even have cassettes in those days); after that, working and raising kids didn’t leave much money or down-time, and I hadn’t developed the habit of radio listening.
So here are my stats:
From 1840 to 1969: I knew, some very well and some just in passing, 101 of the 130 songs (never heard of 29, and only one of those seemed worth looking up – Well-a-Day in 1846).
From 1970 to 1999, I still recognized 5 of the 30 (I knew the names of some, just because people talked about them, and still do).
From 2000 to 2013, I don’t remember hearing any of the hits (sorry guys, that’s just the way it is!).
I used to joke that I quit listening to popular music when Simon and Garfunkel broke up, but that is literally true.
Other random trivia, assuming I counted correctly:
I can’t imagine a hymn making the best hits list today (unless you are a Welsh Rugby follower), or a children’s song (although many were not age-associated when written — Chopsticks!); nor an operatic aria (1) or orchestral piece (4 – ya gotta love Bolero, I don’t care who you are).
The Beatles had 5 hits; Presley, 2; Nat King Cole, 3; Bing Crosby, 4; Al Jolson, 3.
Of the top songs between 1848 and 1864 (17 years), 7 were by Stephen Foster; from 1848 to 1854, he was only knocked off the top once, in 1851, then there was a 10-year gap.
*The Fireside Book of Favorite American Songs
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1662822.The_Fireside_Book_Of_Favorite_American_Songs
We also had a book of operatic arias that had been transposed and simplified for amateur musicians, and I learned quite a few of those in English translation.
Fun times!
“A Treasury of Grand Opera”
And Gilbert and Sullivan, of course.
Mac,
Thanks for turning me on to those albums. When it appeals, I do like some country. Quality is quality whatever the genre. For me, these certainly qualify.
“See Jo Stafford’s commentary about changes in popular music production in the 1950s.” – Art Deco
I don’t know anything about Stafford, but Mark Steyn’s commentaries on popular music are the go-to for the inside dope on The Great American Songbook.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3024847-mark-steyn-s-american-songbook
Individual posts are also featured weekly on his website.
https://www.steynonline.com/section/18/steyns-song-of-the-week
“songs from groups like the Kingston Trio and the Sandpipers are reminders of just how low pop music has fallen in recent years.” – PA Cat
Running through Nancy B’s video of 174 years worth of hits shows that for sure.
There was far more variety and musicality in the past, even if some of the hits then are kitsch now.
huxley – there was a great joke right at the top of the Beato comments.
“What’s the difference between a pop musician and a jazz musician?”
“A pop musician plays 4 chords for thousands of people and a jazz musician plays thousands of chords for 4 people!!”
–The Axis of Awesome, “4 Chords”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ
huxley – that was truly awesome.
“So at least for us band geeks we admired our parent’s generation as well as our grandparents.” – Brian Morgan.
In about 2003-2004, I found one of our boys and his friends singing Frank Sinatra songs while one of them played guitar. They admitted that our old-folks music was just more fun (and easier) for kids hanging out together to sing.
Brian Morgan – the Japanese marching band was beyond awesome.
Anybody who skipped it, repent!
A commenter summarized well:
“This high schools marching band is crazy hard working. As a marching band person myself I can’t even imagine how much hours of work they put into this. Like it’s one thing to march and play at the same time but it’s another one to dance and still have a good tone. Like how do they remember all those dances while having to remember the beat, which foot to step, the music, making sure your in line with everyone and to listen to the whole band. And the most crazy part is that they are doing it exceptionally well and they they even sound good after doing all that.”
And catch the dancing xylophones at about 5:30!!
They play without the music!!!
AesopFan – It’s the Japanese girls that get into it! Here is a 10-minute clip from a movie called Swing Girls made in 2004.
From the comments:
“The girl’s performance here is actually live, not prerecorded and pantomimed, which is what makes this film and the music particularly interesting. All the music scores in the movie were actually performed by the actresses themselves; they were not dubbed. Many of the actresses had never played an instrument before. They took intensive music lessons at Yamaha Music School for several months before the shooting began. To promote the movie, the actor and the actresses performed live in concerts in Japan and the USA.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDhLJeU455w
What I can relate to is how the audience gets into the music. By the end they are on their feet, clapping and dancing. The same happened in my high school at one of our Jazz/Rock Ensemble’s concerts. We played a particularly good “In The Mood”. It was by far the best time of my life. I am so happy that I joined the band.
In 1973 I went to college and pretty much checked out of current music (except Steely Dan, of course!) and started going backwards. Jazz, big band, swing, musical theater, standards, ragtime and so on. Basically pre 50’s American popular music. The more boring and anemic pop music got the richer the older music seemed. Now this could be because the chaff had been sorted out and I didn’t have to live through the mediocre filler. Every once in a while my mid 20’s daughter will play something for me she thinks I will appreciate and I can usually get her point. BUT! Is it me or is there a tendency among the female singers of the last 20 years to sing, well, kinda, flat? Is it a trend or are they just bad singers in an attractive package? Whatever, it always gets me running to Ella.
I wish I had a better understanding of classical music – unfortunately my exposure is based almost entirely on figure skating! However, I don’t need to know anymore than I do about it to state unequivocally that Nessun Dorma is the best damn piece of music ever written.
In 1973 I went to college and pretty much checked out of current music (except Steely Dan, of course!) and started going backwards.
Not quite 20 years ago, Time-Life produced a set of CDs of popular music by decade. One thing you realized listening to it is that there was a lot of schlock produced prior to 1955, especially in and among the vocal music generated in the first ten years after the war. By way of example, the (male) singer with the largest audience ca. 1952 was a man named Johnny Ray. You’d only listen to his signature songs as an amateur anthropologist, not to enjoy yourself. There is a body of handsome material to appreciate (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Eydie Gorme, Teresa Brewer); then there’s…Johnny Ray. In re jazz, recall Lawrence Welk was a jazz performer. I’d like to know why people appreciated Lawrence Welk, in large measure because I suspect his audience was composed of those who in their mundane lives were better human beings than I’ll ever be; I’d like to do that while minimizing the amount of time I have to devote to listening to Lawrence Welk.
One wouldn’t suspect how effed-up they both were at the time. Janis, we know, but Cavett himself was clinically depressed during those years.
So what? ‘Depression’ is spoken of as an ‘illness’ because there’s a body of professionals telling you they’ll ‘treat’ it.
The man is very much alive, worked consistently from his early 20s to his early 60s, and has never been through a divorce proceeding in his life (nor been the protagonist in notable scandals). The one obtrusive deficit in his life is that he doesn’t have any children.
Geoffrey Britain: you’re welcome.
huxley: I’ve lived in the deep South all my life. I remember thinking when I first heard Gillian Welch that she was certainly a southerner–I guessed Tennesse or North Caroina–and was very surprised to find out that she’s not. I heartily support her cultural appropriation.
There’s an intriguing aspect of her biography, though. She was adopted, and according to Wikipedia her biological mother may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Welch
And I’m irrationally delighted to see that she shares my birthday.
Historically, MOST music has been horrible in any era.
It’s just that most of that horrible music from bygone eras is long forgotten.
Today is no different, the vast majority of what’s made now will be forgotten in 10 years, 20 at most. And most of the rest clung to only by people with sentimental connections to a specific song or artist because it reminds them of loved ones or special occasions in their lives.
While I agree with much of the commentary in this video, I take exception to his explanation concerning dynamic range compression
It is NOT a new thing, but a practice long associated with the music industry and dictated by the likely play back environment
For example: in the 1970s when radio DJs still spun 45s, it was common for the 45 version of a song to have significantly more dynamic range compression than the album version. The reason? The 45 version was likely to be played over a car AM radio, while the LP version over a proper stereo system. The limited range and environment of the automobile dictated the compression strategy to allow the song to be heard without constant volume adjustment
I believe that this explains what we are seeing today as well. I would guess that the vast majority of pop music is listened to in the form of mp3 or mp4 audio files played using players/phones through headphones or using blue-tooth to a car stereo. The actual bandwidth content of digital audio files is typically only 10-20 percent of a CD or LP. Given the limited bandwidth and relatively limited final audio (car stereos or God-Awful headphones) relative to real stereos systems, the use of dynamic compression is to be expected to present the user with music that does not require constant volume control adjustment
Just my 2 cents…
I’ve posted on this theme before, but I’m sickened about the state of music produced by Black musicians. So much wasted talent! We’ve gone from The Spinners, The Four Tops, Ashford and Simpson, The Supremes etc to the rappers of today.
I’ve become a big fan of today’s country music. Tonight I’ll be in Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska listening to Lloyd McCarter and his Honky Tonk Revival band. Texas swing, for the most part, and a wonderful voice. I’m a regular at a music venue in Venice, Nebraska called Buck’s.
Great innovation and talent in this sector. And live music is so wonderful.
We’ve gone from The Spinners, The Four Tops, Ashford and Simpson, The Supremes etc to the rappers of today.
Nope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saqmo1n2E7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLTJ95kj9ng
Isn’t one of the problems that almost every song today is geared toward tween girls? It seems as though we’re locked into one genre that permanently dominates the music industry. Outside of the confines of rap, of course, which is largely ignored by white media to avoid having to deal with the very unwoke nature of the genre.
Mike
Thx, jscd3 – compression is good for car listening music, bad only for the very few times one listens.
With a good stereo. (Quad was so 70s; tho surround sound might be coming).
Without doing other work.
Maybe 2-5% (10%? hmm, less) of my listening time is like that. Mostly I listen in the car; or at home doing housework/ cooking/ cleaning up; or while I’m working on the computer / reading. 95% of the time compression is better.
I like good pop, but not so much Ed Sheeran nor Billie Eilish – tho both are bigger “stars” than iconic Janis. (Can you name 5 songs from her? Me only 2.) I far more loved Mama Cass, and many Mama’s and Papa’s songs. But comparing greats of different eras is great – in person, over beers.
No accounting for taste.
Also, I don’t much like most top hit / pop radio. So I more often listen to alternative internet radio, like Soma FM or Jango.
https://somafm.com/bagel/ (What alternative rock should sound like!)
https://somafm.com/indiepop/
https://somafm.com/poptron/
https://www.jango.com/music/Mumford+Sons/_highlight
A bit like the college radio alternative I listened to in college in late 70s,
KFJC, still weirder than me, but not by much:
https://kfjc.org/
The FM hit radio business is increasingly tough.
“The business of putting music on disks in boxes and selling them for high prices is in trouble. The making of music is doing fine” (paraphrase of David Byrne last decade, still true.)
My older kids like various metal music – not me. Nor talked about here.
It seems music has always been on a downward trajectory. It’s an almost certainty that Cro-Magnon parents and older log knockers complained about their kids adding bird bone flutes and river rocks to the band. And why did they have to complicate song tradition with words?
My parents told me their parents objected to that horrid Tin Pan Alley sound. Personally, I objected to the 1950s novelty songs even when I was a kid. Mom and Dad hated degenerate RocknRoll. We gag at today’s music when compared to OUR music that has no peer.
Well, even our golden age of music had the same elements as today’s tuneless tunes. You would be surprised at how many songs were written and produced by the same three men. The ’60s and ’70s had Bubblegum Music and it is just as misunderstood as anything Girls acts and Boy bands can come up with.
“Bubblegum music is typically defined using two sets of criteria that are only sometimes related. 1. The characteristics of the recorded song itself- the vocal style, the simplistic or childish lyrics, and an 8/8 or otherwise upbeat rhythm structure. 2. A marketing strategy aimed at a young naive audience (e.g. fictional bands, double entendre lyrics, recycled songs). A song might be Bubblegum under one rule, but not the other. Jackson 5’s ABC is Bubblegum, but they were not a Bubblegum band. The Cowsills were a Bubblegum act but Hair is not Bubblegum. By the way, I haven’t included Lemon Pipers because they don’t seem to fit under either criteria.”
How many of these do you remember fondly or as great rock songs? https://youtu.be/-Vz44R5EuL0
Anyone notice that music really took a nose dive as the digital era enveloped us?
Is there some connection?
The price of ‘original’ music has dropped since the advent of the iPod. Artists and bands used to tour to sell records. Now they tour just to survive. Which means a lot of gigs all the time.
When I find a musical talent I like I try to buy their CD on the theory that they’ll make a little more money from a CD sale than a downloaded digital version of one song or some tiny streaming royalty.
From the video above, I moved on to videos about the millenial whoop, to “all songs sound the same,” to a mashup of 6 country songs, to a few videos of dancers doing the History of Dance, to barbershop quartets, to the sickest celebrity burns and comebacks.
Priceless. Thanks for an evening’s entertainment.
The short-lived Joe and Eddie–mid sixties–could sound like a quartet with just their two voices. A number of pieces on youtube. Call it black/folk/gospel.
But for fun…sacred harp singing.
Richard Aubrey:
I wrote about them back in 2014, in this post.
Neo. Okay. That’s where I found them. Thanks.
I’d mentioned the youtube Brothers Four at UCLA. Looks like my crowd in those days, but the looks….. Couple of hundred dead a week in SEA. Riots. Uncertainty. That audience wanted to be in Brothers Four country, at least for a while.