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must everything "pop"?

#21
There's always been someone critiquing popular culture, particuarly popular art. Theodor Adorno was publishing articles and books about this stuff decades ago. The fact is that sophisticated art has never really been mainstream. All of the iconic bands that are considered the paramount of artistic expression in rock music - Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rush - weren't exactly burning up the charts in their hey days. Even baroque and classical music were really the music of the nobles and upper-class, not the lower-class, who would have made up the majority.

Besides, I think it's a false dichtonomy that something is either legitimate sophisticated art or it's pop. The Beatles are a perfect example of writing pop songs that have a lot of artistic merit to them. I doubt Dream Theater would be the well-respected prog metal band that it is if they couldn't write the strong vocal hooks that they do.
 
#23
If you're doing this to make money, then there are better ways to make a living. If you're playing what you love, then don't sweat it. Let others define it. I don't give a crap about 'genres' or what's 'popular'. I like what I like. My tastes run across all kinds of 'genres', even my stuff can't entirely be stuffed into 'dub' or 'reggae' but people do it anyway.
 
#24
scorpionldr said:
Elevate myself? God forbid! Yes, shame! Smite me for wanting to evolve art rather than give the people in grocery stores something catchy to listen to!
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Evolution isn't directed and favors whatever is best for the environment - whether that means an increase or decrease in complexity.

Pop music is a great example of something that is perfectly evolved for its environment.
 
#26
scorpionldr said:
well its musical growth! I mean Gaga........it all sounds reminisce of a shampoo commercial's music.
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And both may have been written by the same person, for all we know. It could easily be that individual's musical growth.

The thing you may be missing, is that most popular music, through the ages, has been largely about dance, courtship, celebration, escape. I fail to see a problem, unless Lady Gaga makes a deal with the phone company to replace all ringtones in my home with her latest single, or something. I've lived an amazing portion of my life being supremely unaffected by what other people listen to, and it's been good.

Why does this all bother you so much? It's not like it's new. It's been going on for centuries, if not longer.
 
#27
Chebass88 said:
Is this Phase One of bragging how you are better than others due to your "unique" selection of auditory amusement?
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nah, this is actually phase three, if you really want to bother yourself with looking through my posting history. Just its ironic, my folks liked Zappa, and surprize! Zappa's dead! "Oh, well, Beyonce will work. Jim, why can't you sound more like Beyonce?"

Is there some sort of misunderstanding that by being "myself" I don't want to sound like a dozen other names by default?

If you're doing this to make money, then there are better ways to make a living. If you're playing what you love, then don't sweat it. Let others define it. I don't give a crap about 'genres' or what's 'popular'. I like what I like. My tastes run across all kinds of 'genres', even my stuff can't entirely be stuffed into 'dub' or 'reggae' but people do it anyway.
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I want to make a name for myself. I've played with the cover band, my name is invested into all sorts of motown and ice-cream parlor era jingles. Frankly, it's getting tiring. I feel I've payed my dues, and people in my life just don't get this entire issue that it's time to work for me for once, and not concern myself with this ordeal of whether or not I'm going to reach mass appeal madness. I've always been accompanyment for people's projects.
 
#28
scorpionldr said:
Elevate myself? God forbid! Yes, shame! Smite me for wanting to evolve art rather than give the people in grocery stores something catchy to listen to!
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Your concept of artistic evolution is completely subjective. Your views about art and entertainment are the same as every other critic since art became a publicly consumed commodity.

A more accurate assessment would be that there are some art forms that apparently have value to a great many people that don't have similar value to you.

Attempting to hold your favorite forms above those you just don't get serves no purpose other that to make you feel good about yourself by creating a false underclass of artistically naive people.

If that's not the case, please explain to me how making condescending remarks about music you don't appreciate has any other redeeming value.
 
#30
tZer said:
Your concept of artistic evolution is completely subjective. Your views about art and entertainment are the same as every other critic since art became a publicly consumed commodity.

A more accurate assessment would be that there are some art forms that apparently have value to a great many people that don't have similar value to you.

Attempting to hold your favorite forms above those you just don't get serves no purpose other that to make you feel good about yourself by creating a false underclass of artistically naive people.

If that's not the case, please explain to me how making condescending remarks about music you don't appreciate has any other redeeming value.
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I'm sorry, the gods never determined that there were only a selection of about 5 different chord progressions approved to be used in every pop work. Its time for some expansion, rather than simply slapping them around to the next hit artist.

I never said if it was not metal that it was garbage, I said you'd commonly find more talent in that genre. its up to other people to look and find value that people dismiss simply because it's "not their thing".
 
#33
scorpionldr said:
well its musical growth! I mean Gaga........it all sounds reminisce of a shampoo commercial's music.
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I can't believe you don't see how subjective all this is. I don't care for Gaga, without the visuals her music sounds to me like rehashed low-quality Madonna B sides. But so what? She is still an artist, and her art is largely visual, nothing wrong with that. I don't care for a lot of modern metal either, but who cares what I think about it?

And what is music? Organized sound? What is art? It's not in the sounds or the visuals, it's a reaction we have when viewing or hearing something. It's not in the works, it's in us.

Different people get different things out of the same piece of music. Some days I will listen to a song I hated the day before, and appreciate something about it - a cool bass or guitar timbre, an unusual chord voicing, a sad lyric, whatever.

Everything has layers of meaning. So often when somebody complains "they just don't get it", it's really the complainer that doesn't get "it".
 
#35
scorpionldr said:
I'm sorry, the gods never determined that there were only a selection of about 5 different chord progressions approved to be used in every pop work. Its time for some expansion, rather than simply slapping them around to the next hit artist.
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Then follow your muse and see where it takes you. Maybe you'll find the audience that you're looking for, even if it's a niche market. However, whining that the audience doesn't get you isn't exactly being productive. In the music biz, pretentious artsy types who write (what they think) is ground-breaking amazing music and then complain that the untapered sheep aren't artistically sophisticated enough to understand them are, frankly and ironically, a dime-a-dozen.
 
#37
LiquidMidnight said:
Then follow your muse and see where it takes you. Maybe you'll find the audience that you're looking for, even if it's a niche market. However, whining that the audience doesn't get you isn't exactly being productive. In the music biz, pretentious artsy types who write (what they think) is ground-breaking amazing music and then complain that the untapered sheep aren't artistically sophisticated enough to understand them are, frankly and ironically, a dime-a-dozen.
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and the problem is over and over again, some producer will suddenly "believe" in them and sign them again and again.

Rehashing does nothing but create uniformity in an industry that should be thriving.
 
#38
scorpionldr said:
I'm sorry, the gods never determined that there were only a selection of about 5 different chord progressions approved to be used in every pop work. Its time for some expansion, rather than simply slapping them around to the next hit artist.

I never said if it was not metal that it was garbage, I said you'd commonly find more talent in that genre. its up to other people to look and find value that people dismiss simply because it's "not their thing".
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Sarcastically, the "gods" actually did apparently insist upon music being not only simple, but so simple that a lot of people are able to use it to sing their praises.

Getting back onto somewhat less hyperbollic grounds, your hypothesis on where you will find "more talent" is entirely specious and characteristically subjective.

I am still open to an explanation of how your feelings do anything more than make you feel artistically superior to those who appreciate pop.
 
#39
scorpionldr said:
and the problem is over and over again, some producer will suddenly "believe" in them and sign them again and again.

Rehashing does nothing but create uniformity in an industry that should be thriving.
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Well, if it bothers you that much, you'd probably have more of an impact teaching a music appreciation class at a community college than making some fundamental change in the music industry with your own music. It's never been any big secret that record companies do what they do to make money, and if that means following a formula, it means following a formula.
 
#40
tZer said:
This is an ironically cliche' gripe usually presented by those who seek to elevate the value of their own choices by dismissing things they do not appreciate.
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There really is a profound irony in this thread, isn't there? The OP criticizes glam rockers who were, in their day, trying to stretch boundaries, and then criticizes the music industry for being homogenous.
 

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