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Why is modern pop music so terrible?

#41
I have to add, there are some good things for music in 2017.
Technology made high quality production available for small/home studios. Good studio-ready instruments have never been cheaper. Good and even great musicians are also more available. Getting through to your audience and fans is also easier, in sense that you can publish to internet.
Having all this in mind, if you filter out cr*p, you can find lots of music made by people, for people. Maybe even more than ever before...
 
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#42
tpaul said:
Maybe, but the point of the OP's video is that fewer and fewer original artists are now given the opportunity to satisfy the growing demand. Instead, in order to reduce risk, record companies have stopped signing original new artists and instead manufacture new artists complete with new hits that sound just like the old hits by the previous hot new artists, because they were written by the same people and recorded using the same digital instruments and techniques.

You can see the same trends in other art forms. Take movies - I go to the cinema and look at the posters for upcoming movies, and at least half of them are franchise films. In other words, the movie studios are trying to reduce risk, just like the recording companies, by rehashing the same movies over and over. Instead of coming up with something new, we get another X-Men movie, another Avengers spin-off, and so forth. I'm a big Star Wars fan, but let's face it, The Force Awakens was yet another retelling of the original Star Wars from 1977. It's the same movie, and we've seen it three times now.

The tragedy is that there are countless talented, creative artists in all genres that aren't being given the chance to be heard or seen by the public because all the corporate dollars go to the least risky investment - the next boy band, the next blond waif singer, the next franchise film, the next book series about wizards or vampires pitched to teenagers who will reliably buy all the merchandise, see the inevitable film adaptation, and go to the theme park.
Click to expand...

We have a winner! That is EXACTLY the point. And to that end, the decline of the overall culture by, well. Turning the culture itself into a corporate product.
 
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#44
Pop has always been terrible at times. Even at the best of times.

But most of it is disposable and forgettable, so we don't remember it and somehow pretend current music is worse.

1972 is a great example. One of the better years in popular music.

Bill Withers Lean on Me, Neil Young's Heart of Gold. America's Horse with No Name.

All good songs. Tbh all great songs imo. They all hit #1 that year.

But. So did Chuck Berry's "My ding a ling". In a year of titanic timeless songs, a song about Berry's wiener was #1 for two weeks.

It knocked Mj's "Ben" out of #1. That song, while a bit melodramatic, is infinitely more deserving of a #1 slot than the Berry tune.
 
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#45
RattleSnack said:
I have to add, there are some good things for music in 2017.
Technology made high quality production available for small/home studios. Good studio-ready instruments have never been cheaper. Good and even great musicians are also more available. Getting through to your audience and fans is also easier, in sense that you can publish to internet.
Having all this in mind, if you filter out cr*p, you can find lots of music made by people, for people. Maybe even more than ever before...
Click to expand...

100% true. It's just not as easy to find as it once was. But the digging, often results in pure musical gold!
 
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#49
ZenG said:
Today's music ain't got no soul.
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+1

Yup, give me that old time Rock and Roll.

Although I doubt we'll ever have an era like the mid 60's again, there has always been lots of dreadful music produced. It's just that when looking back on the older music, only the good stuff really is still being played. Remember "Billy, don't be a hero" "Seasons in the Sun" "I think I love you" "Daddy don't you walk so fast" "The night Chicago died" and many other awful songs.
 
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#50
lfmn16 said:
+1

Yup, give me that old time Rock and Roll.

Although I doubt we'll ever have an era like the mid 60's again, there has always been lots of dreadful music produced. It's just that when looking back on the older music, only the good stuff really is still being played. Remember "Billy, don't be a hero" "Seasons in the Sun" "I think I love you" "Daddy don't you walk so fast" "The night Chicago died" and many other awful songs.
Click to expand...

Of your list, Billy Don't Be a Hero was the least bad.... But then again I remember hearing it a LOT growing up...
 
#52
tpaul said:
Maybe, but the point of the OP's video is that fewer and fewer original artists are now given the opportunity to satisfy the growing demand. Instead, in order to reduce risk, record companies have stopped signing original new artists and instead manufacture new artists complete with new hits that sound just like the old hits by the previous hot new artists, because they were written by the same people and recorded using the same digital instruments and techniques.
Click to expand...

Fewer artists are now given the opportunity? I'd argue that there are more than ever. The distribution channels have changed. Judging pop music by what is in MTV or the radio isn't the way to look at it, nor is the size of a record deal. Look at Spotify, and you'll see a sea of artists. Look at SoundCloud or YouTube and you'll see more. Many of these people are making money using mechanisms like Patreon.

Blaming digital instruments is a lousy argument. Pre-computer days involved the same studio musicians playing on every pop album because they were proven and known. Anyone who thinks the modern use of a computer is an easy way to just crank out a track is misguided. It simplifies elements of the workflow, but opens up previously impossible options. Crank open a VST like Massive inside of Ableton Live. You can select wave forms, run LFO's, sidechain parameters, build complex dynamic macros, and then automate the parameter changes. It's an entirely different skill set. It's more production focused than instrument focused. The use of compression in modern tracks involves compression as a dynamic instrument, which wasn't an option in days gone by.

Pop music is still using the same three chords and a hook formula. Only the hook has changed. It's still not a thing I'm interested in, but I can respect it for what it is.
 
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#53
Yep, the "millennial whoop" is a real thing and it is heinous. As somebody who makes part of his income scoring TV commercials, I can't tell you how many times I've had to incorporate something like that into a gig. Was fine at first--was kinda fun actually--but it is now so overdone. It's just soooo lazy, writing-wise. The other thing that I'm over is the fact that 80% of the new pop music I hear uses almost the same chord change. Again, super lazy writing. Not saying it's gotta be Steely Dan, but . . .
Mind you I'm talking about the really commercial pop stuff. Like the Rihanna, Bieber, et al type stuff. I'd put Bro Country in there too--just horrendous.
But I do think there's gobs of great new music out there--some really innovative stuff too. Hip hop, alt rock, indie, electronic--whatever--there's lots of great stuff happening in many genres.
 
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#54
Why modern pop music is terrible? The reason is, you dont have to make a good song to be successful anymore, all you need is same old chord pattern and a good "product" and most likely it will sell.

You shouldnt compare classical music to pop music, they were firstly composers, not entertainers. Also saying that there were awful songs already in the 60's and 70's, yea that's true, but those songs never got that big popularity, it were the well composed and performed songs that got popular.
 
#55
pbass2 said:
...
But I do think there's gobs of great new music out there--some really innovative stuff too. Hip hop, alt rock, indie, electronic--whatever--there's lots of great stuff happening in many genres.
Click to expand...

Man, the more I dig into Deadmau5, the more I think that guy is on top of his game. Have you heard Death Grips? Those guys are really mixing it up. It almost reminds me of when I first heard Die Antwoord, but it goes even weirder. Not that Death Grips is a huge name, but Deadmau5 and Die Antwoord certainly have climbed up the ladder.

I suppose it is all a matter of what you like and what you are exposed to. I loved the industrial metal scene in the late 90's and early 2000's, but I can't get behind djent. I like raw, old-school black metal, but I can't get on board with the more modern stuff with better production. So, based on that, I can't say that I don't understand the gripes many folks have here. I feel like the kids on my lawn don't know what it was like when I was their age, but my elders didn't get "my" generation, nor did their elders get their music.

Lots of good food for thought in this thread, considering it is a bit of a dead-horse topic. Good work TB :)
 
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#58
Are we really doing this... Again? Good grief.

On my phone, so hard to reply fully. I've seen thr OPs video before, and while it has some good points, there are flaws on the thesis.

The main issue is a shell game bait and switch. Because what it's effectively asking is, why is new music ON THE RADIO so awful? But to grasp that, you need to think about modern radio (and the corresponding top 40).

The fact is that radio is in trouble. Thanks to the internet, the market has fractured. The top 40 no longer rules the roost. Hits are expensive to produce so they're safer and more canned than ever, that's true. But they also just aren't as big hits as they used to be. The market has shrunk.

Meanwhile, there's more good music than ever. It just isn't on the radio or the top 40. But it's finding its audience and getting along all right financially.
 
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#60
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