Agree with many comments. If music were the way to describe society everything went to the hell. The problem is not only the computers usage in the music, is that in terms of composition, lyrics, emotions, everything sucks.
Any of these songs are crap that someone with the most basic knowledge on a DAW could make. "Roses" which is the less shity song sounds like a crap version of "Moonlight" from Gaullin.
It would be awesome to have a complete musical review something like genres, rhythms, duration, "instruments" you know even if those are drum loops and synths, etc.
I’m reminded of when Jazz became a thing and practically everywhere said “it’s not classical, it has no soul, etc. and therefore sucks”. It’s pop music because... well... it’s popular. You may not like it, but a lot of people do. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Adam Neely had a really good video showcasing newspapers and editorials denouncing the Jazz genre when it appeared. It seems to have been taken down, unfortunately.
Basically, as you get older, selection bias regarding music becomes more prevalent, and you forget the bad music you liked and end up only remembering “the classics”. Just because a song charts doesn’t mean it’ll last.
Jazz was IMO the finest American art form, and it was objectively instrumental in desegregating the US. It gave America a ton of black heroes like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. It left a permanent stamp on music and paved the way for rock'n'roll. It pushed the technical boundaries of many modern instruments.
I get what you're saying about becoming older and selection bias, but many of the contemporary criticisms of jazz were rooted in racism.
I agree that is some selection bias at play when we think of popular music now vs. popluar music in the 80's. But jazz exists in a whole different dimension from Top 40 music from the last 50 years.
Nobody with any sense could look at Jazz musician and say they didn't have talent. Just the opposite: most musicians watching Jazz would just be floored at what's going on, that it's even possible. So while they may or may not like it, it's basically impossible not to respect.
You’re ignoring the point. The point is that, at that time, people hated it. Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hates jazz; they’ll recognize it as instrumental, but they won’t like it.
The hatred towards modern pop is the same thing. It’s just a fad. In 20 or so years, the younger people who like it will hate the pop of the 2040s or 2050s.
"The hatred towards modern pop is the same thing."
No, this is not true at all.
"People hated Jazz" - agreed.
"People hate pop music now" - agreed.
'Change is generational thing', ok, yes.
But what you're missing is that 2020 pop music doesn't require any skill, at all.
Jazz - to any musical observer - requires an immense amount of skill.
However much anyone 'hated Jazz' - if they understood music in the slightest, they had to respect it. This is a big difference.
The proof is the fact that Jazz is still alive and thriving.
Whatever is on the Hot100 right now will be dead next year and never heard from again.
Edit: I should be more specific - pop music doesn't require a lot of skill, because most acts aren't doing anything, they're generally not even behind their music - the producers are behind it. That said - it's definitely hard to be famous. Being a trend on YouTube is a kind of a skill, it just may not be musical.
> But what you're missing is that 2020 pop music doesn't require any skill, at all.
I keep hearing this, but I never see any of its arguers actually attempt to make a pop song. If it’s so easy, why do only some people have the knack for pulling it off (not the artist/singer; the composer (the person you never hear of))
> Jazz - to any musical observer - requires an immense amount of skill.
I really wish I could show you the video as Neely argues it better than I could, but basically, at the time, the features of Jazz were what was hated, not the genre.
According to Wikipedia, Jazz is characterized by a heavy emphasis on improvisation. In the 1920s (when Jazz became a thing), the detractors argued that (I’m paraphrasing) improv “lacked musical talent” and that “anyone could throw notes together to make music”. I’m not making this up. Those are really the arguments they made. People would argue that the absence of counterpoint meant it was an abomination.
Sure, racism played a part, but for the most part, Jazz was hated for the same reason people hate pop today: “it’s easy to make”. Which is just not true.
"I keep hearing this, but I never see any of its arguers actually attempt to make a pop song. If it’s so easy, why do only some people have the knack for pulling it off (not the artist/singer; the composer (the person you never hear of))"
Because it is so easy to make, they are making massive numbers of garbage tracks - and it just so happens that some garbage tracks are popular. You need 'garage band' and possibly microphone - that's it. Have a look at how 'Chief Keef' had his music produced by 'Little Chop'. Most top tracks are of course somewhat professional produced.
But consider that 'music' is not the name of the game, it's 'video' (i.e. video killed the radio start), Instagram, twitter, Tumblr and highly visual content. You can see this with Lady Gaga (talented) and SixNine (well, creative, but garbage) - they're at least as visual as they are audial, as are most artists these days.
It's about the brand/image/meme. Someone in their basement, with very little skill, can make a loop, mumble over it, and this 'meme' can catch on. With a very little bit of production effort by a nominally professional engineer, it can sound 'produced'. At least as much of their effort goes into the look, the brand, the relationships, the Instagram, the video etc..
And it's worth adding, the 'talent' that is sometimes evident in this kind of production, may have little to do with the music, and more to do with anything else.
I actually respect the 'marketing' ability, if you want to call it that, of many of these acts. Post Malone has somehow worked his way into having his own festival with his 'Posties' followers. Genius marketing.
When P. Diddy started his label, he would ask his talent scouts "How did they look" - not "How did they sound". Somewhat cynically, P. Diddy was smart enough to know that pop acts are a lot (and ever more) about appearance. A pop artist is like a living brand.
Another feature of 'how modern music is made' is that the producer is now in the creative/driver seat - not the artists. Consider 'TheWeeknd' - his big hit, 'Can't feel my face' was by Max Martin, famous songmaker for Britney Spears and so many others. Without that hit, TheWeeknd would be nobody - we'd have never heard of him. But once his meme/brand was established, he has a 'following' and can churn out a lot of mediocre stuff.
This has always been the case to some extent: Michael Jackson was backed by Quincey Jones - who was Frank Sinatra's arranger. But Michael Jackson is a genius entertainer and true 'pop artists', and of course Quincey Jones is an off-the-hook musical genius producer.
This evident in 'live' music. I've been to countless shows where their music is just some canned track, the artist comes out and mumbles over it? Seriously? In most cases, this is not impressive.
Anecdote: I went to a show recently, bulleted as Brasilian/French/American rap thing in Montreal, I was so excited. The 'warmup' DJ played ... then the 'act DJ' played, a guy with huge fuzzy hair came out, jumped around like a hype man say 'boyeah' 'oi' and whatever into the mike, getting everyone excited ... we were ... anticipating the main act. But that was it!!! No kidding. Some idiot with a microphone, saying a word or two like 'yeah' 'oh yea' 'go go go' into the microphone not rapping or anything. He was passing himself off as an act! The crowd seemed to appreciate it. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone, it was absurd. To me, it signaled literally the end of music: loud, barely audible weird sounds coming out of a speaker, with a fuzzy-haired Brazillian dude sputtering occasional nonsense into a microphone and waving his hands. It's not even Kareoke. It was just noise and hand-waving. This to me is he audial version of the 'pet rock' or the $1M painting that's just a black dot - people can be induced to like anything.
So there are obviously talented pop artists. Ed Sheerhan, a legit musician who purposely writes for the radio. Bruno Mars & Co, are total geniuses. Lady Gaga. Kenrdick Lamar. Ariana Grande has wicked chops, she's obviously a talented singer/dancer/entertainer. Obviously many others, but the charts are otherwise polluted with irrelevant, unlistenable tracks.
Surely some people thought Jazz was easy to make, but I suspect that many were just jealous because they obviously knew they couldn't do it. Jazz is objectively not easy to make. Literally anyone who has tried knows how hard it is. Also, FYI, there's no counterpoint ... but the chord combinations, the speed of the changes, the variety ... is far more than in most forms of classical music.
Most pop music is very easy to make, and there are mountains of gibberish there for anyone to sort through. Fewer and fewer gems.
"I don't think that I could do it. Do you think that you could?"
This is a misunderstanding.
'Hit songs' are like 'viral videos'.
Could you create a video, that by accident, went viral? Possibly. If you set your mind to it, there would be a better chance, but still no guaranteed.
Nobody writes what they think will be guaranteed to be a hit song except for Max Martin. People 'make songs' and then hustle and market - some go viral, some require more support.
The 'barrier to making a song' is considerably lower than it was 20 years ago, and much lower than 40 years ago.
Making an album in 1985:
- Spend years learning to play an instrument
- Learn to write music, lyrics that are least on some level passable.
- Find other musicians
- Practice for a while
- Rent a major studio, producers, engineers
- Master
- Market etc..
The barrier to entry was high, the people pulling the strings generally wanted to see 'talent' in some form: entertainment, musicianship, popularity.
Many acts were manufactured, but that process still had to be followed:
Making music in 2020:
- Some music (Ariana Grande) is made roughly the same way (though with more people, different release cycles, margins etc) but it's comparable.
- A lot of music is made in tiny little studios. Mac Miller was always a tiny production, he made and produced stuff often in his basement, due to the power of tech and simplicity ultimately of what he was making.
Mac, and many other small artists are talented, so in some ways the 'low barrier' is good - but - for every Mac Miller there are 1000x fools.
>>>> It is as easy to make a song as it is to make a little video animation. Some of those video animations will go viral and get big.
- This 'basic approach' can be made by people with big creative talent, I guess Drake would be an example. Drake doesn't make his music or write his lyrics. Think of Drake as the 'head of a fashion label' but this label is not clothes, it's music. What Drake obviously has is 'really good taste'. Drake, is the 'art Director' of Drake Inc.. What is required to make a Drake track is very minimal, but there's creative talent ... much like making a marketing video.
- In the middle, and even with some of the more 'respectable pop artist names' like Ariana Grande, Dua Lipo ... you still have quite a lot of production and commodification, which turns out really generic, boring, derivative, music.
'Jazz', however popular, nor not, or controversial it was - is going to be around for hundreds of years, because there's an intense amount of creative legitimacy in it. Jazz musicians love Jazz for the sake of Jazz, they are amazing. It's very pure in that sense.
The origins of Hip Hop are really authentic, which helped it rise to the fore. Some aspects of HipHop are going to be around for a while.
The flavour of 2020 will not be around in 2 years.
I think that music production and composition is more important when it comes to making a hit song than musical talent (singing, playing an instrument) - and it's been that way for decades. And I think that production is absolutely a craft that some people have a talent for and hone over time, and it's something that I have a lot of respect for.
Some other people might get lucky and manage to write a song that millions of people listen to without really knowing what they are doing. I think this is actually relatively rare, and even if it does happen I certainly don't begrudge their success. They still set out with the intention to write a song and by luck or intuition or whatever other means managed to produce something that millions of people enjoyed.
> 'Jazz', however popular, nor not, or controversial it was - is going to be around for hundreds of years, because there's an intense amount of creative legitimacy in it. Jazz musicians love Jazz for the sake of Jazz, they are amazing. It's very pure in that sense.
> The flavour of 2020 will not be around in 2 years.
I think it's unfair to compare the entire genre of "jazz" which has spanned more than 100 years now to a particular flavor of hip hop in 2020. Jazz has changed a lot over the years - just as much if not more than "pop" music has. There are jazz musicians who were commercially successful in decades past who I am sure nobody listens to any more. And not all jazz musicians are amazing... jazz musicians are just as capable of being derivative and uninspiring as any other type of music.
And it's hard to predict what musical trends will endure. A lot of people had written off 80s music as being fake and cheesy. But recently there has been a resurgence of classic synth sounds in popular music, and songs like Toto's "Africa" have found widespread appeal with new audiences.
If music were the way to describe society - I'd say it shows that we are connected globally but also have a diverse range of tastes. A top hit song can quickly go viral globally now, yet the global number one song on Spotify usually only has around 5 million streams/day. Considering Spotify has ~300 million users, clearly people are listening to a wide range of stuff beyond the charts. Pop songs have had a simple beat, simple chord progression and simple lyrics since the dawn of recorded music. Anyone with the "most basic knowledge" of music could have made an early Beatles number one has well.
I've always hoped https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm-oBpLZ0WY was genuine, someone listening to Led Zeppelin for the first time. There is a lot of good music out there, including current releases, but Spotify doesn't seem to be how to learn about it. So many with their tastes still set on 'default'.
I think that most popular music is trash for most of the reasons you provided, but that's not because it's easy to recreate in Ableton or your DAW of choice.
The skill required to recreate a song have no relevance to the quality of the song, and as a corollary the ability to play an instrument is orthogonal to compositional ability. Anyone with the most basic guitar knowledge can play Wonderwall, yet it's still an iconic song, and just because a pianist can play Chopin doesn't necessarily mean they can compose a work as great as Chopin's.
