Pretty sure you'd say that about songs from whatever decade you grew up in, if those could be sorted by "most listened to" as well.
Top40 is already pablum, but it still has some tiny amount of curation (and therefore elitist dictation of taste) driving it. This chart, meanwhile, represents pure populist sentiment—it's "what the people want to hear." And populist sentiment has always been pretty much all of those things you said.
I don't think it's fair to say it's pure populist though. A _huge_ portion of Spotify users don't actively select their music, they just select an autogenerated (or even manually curated) playlist to go in the background. So the most streamed will inevitably be songs from whichever record company has bought algorithmic favour from Spotify.
You are correct, but keep in mind that the music that survives a certain era is only a subset of what was actually played during that ear. Its often the more sophisticated songs that survive.
Yeah, and people twenty years from now will listen to some subset of the popular music being produced today. They just won't listen to the mediocre parts, just like people don't listen to mediocre 90's hip hop.
Never seen the video. Was watching and waiting for a Crazy Frog (aka The Annoying Thing) to pop all of a sudden with its ringdingding. Thanks for posting.
Michael Bolton (Office Space character) listens to that music by choice--he knows all the words, it goes with his self-identity as a badass--see also the SEAL poster in his cube.
Its not just the lyrical content though (which is objectionable and sad enough), but everything else as well.
Universally auto-tuned and synthesized, short, overly repetitive, mumbling/distorted, and whatever backing track they do have could barely be called musical by any objective standard (i.e. a measure of complexity/interrelated instruments/harmonies/themes/tracks). It doesn't matter whether its an african-american mumbling about being a gansta or a breathy-autotuned tween girl, its the same issue.
Listening around the world, it seems to be universal with slight variations here and there.
Many of these comments are ridiculous, it's hilarious. Feeling "depressed" that popular music doesn't fit your taste? Asserting that these artists have no talent? Let people enjoy what they enjoy, rather than criticize the subjective!
I really like the website. It is interesting how popular music in the US appeared in other countries, for instance Bulgaria, and how other countries most popular song I'd never even heard of the artist.
Some rap songs have very interesting lyrics but the whole environment attached to this genre makes it complete trash: all that hood style, bling bling, idiotic oversized cars,money,drugs,etc. Oh,and visible underware too.
I for one agree with you. There are some hip-hop artists, some of whose tunes seem interesting and deep. But I am turned off by the braggadocio, weed shoutouts, and the tendency to simply rap about rapping found in these artists' work and across the genre in general.
In searching for hip-hop without braggadocio etc., I have repeatedly been told by hip-hop aficionados that these tropes are inherent to the genre and it would be unreasonable to seek hip-hop without them, just like oldies rock was inherently about dancing or sweethearts, and country music about personal woes and drink.
It is a shame, because the genre seems to have the potential for more lyrically. Hip hop is now a global phenomenon with innumerable performers. Is there really no hip-hop out there with a more abstract lyrical approach, like for example Climate of Hunter-era Scott Walker?
To add some more context, he's listening to Scarface, one of the members of the Geto Boys. Geto Boys also had two other tracks on the Office Space soundtrack, Still (from that scene where they beat the hell out of the printer) and Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta.
Not on that soundtrack, but Mind Playing Tricks On Me is another a really good song by them and not at all formulaic, misogynistic, etc. Not saying that anyone attacked the Geto Boys.
My point was that top40 (“most broadcast” + “most purchased”), and Spotify’s “most played” (i.e. “most listened to”) are distinct concepts. For the past, we only have access to the former, not the latter, because nobody can know exactly what songs people were listening to the most (e.g. which records/wax cylinders were purchased and then played more times in total; or, even further back, which pieces of chamber music were performed more times; or, even further back, which folk songs or hymns were sung more, rather than transcribed more.)
To focus on only the recent past: we only know about radio plays (determined by cronyist industry dealings) and about record/8track/cassette/CD/iTunes sales (where a record sale could represent a purchase due to virality—i.e. a purchase for status-signalling/watercooler-conversation/joining-a-subculture reasons, but where nobody actually listens to their purchase more than a few times; or it could represent a song everyone loves and puts on repeat all day every day. And a purchase could represent a fad that fizzles out; or a classic in the making.)
We can talk about what the top40 billboard charts were doing back then, but what people were “most listening to” is very likely a wholly different list with little intersection to the billboard chart. Just like this Spotify most-played list is actually an almost-entirely-distinct list from the current radio top40!
Good point, and yet I'm wary of anyone declaring that every time before now has always looked like now. Because first of all that's what everyone from now would naturally tend to think, since they don't truly know anything else. And secondly because it's just too Huxleyan or maybe it's Orwellian.
1) Chart toppers from previous eras are still listenable. Almost nothing on the charts today will be listenable in 2 years. Out-of-touch grandparents in the 1960s could have been convinced to listen to the Beatles. Nobody of a certain age will put up with Top 40 today.
2) It's not quite as democratic as you'd imagine. There are promotions, placements, trends, people sucking kids into clicks in big herds.
A major issue is that today music is more global, and there is a much wider, much lower common denominator.
It used to be 200M Americans, now it's 4B global listeners, Americans are a tiny fraction of that.
Plenty of Top 40 is still generic easy listening for anyone. Ed Sheeran - Perfect is the 8th most streamed song on Spotify and could have been released in basically any era. Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk is the 6th most viewed video on Youtube and sounds straight out to the 70s to me.
Absolutely - if Ed and Bruno were more prevalent, no doubt. But look at the actual Hot100. It's just not that, it's very dominated by unlistenable stuff.
> Chart toppers from previous eras are still listenable. Almost nothing on the charts today will be listenable in 2 years. Out-of-touch grandparents in the 1960s could have been convinced to listen to the Beatles. Nobody of a certain age will put up with Top 40 today.
That feels like being quite selective. The Beatles were not the only band existing in the 60s, and a lot of stuff that did top the charts in the 60s was entirely ephemeral.
And... the Beatles were relatively unique in that they had a moderately wide range of style, certainly compared to their most of their contemporaries. Yes, grandparents in the 60s probably would have put up with Yesterday, Michelle, Till There Was You, A Taste of Honey and similar 'ballad/acoustic/soft' songs. They would not have put up with or enjoyed Long Tally Sally or Twist and Shout.
Source: Mother-in-law who was a young parent outside Liverpool in the mid 60s, relaying the reactions of her parents' generation to the Beatles and "beat/rock" music of the 60s.
Top40 is already pablum, but it still has some tiny amount of curation (and therefore elitist dictation of taste) driving it. This chart, meanwhile, represents pure populist sentiment—it's "what the people want to hear." And populist sentiment has always been pretty much all of those things you said.