3 ms·

how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing? It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to '

how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing? It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to 'hear', love, and make a hit of a harmonically complicated song like Ray Charles' version of 'Come Rain or Come Shine', but now we seem incapable of doing so. Do you think there is no chance at all that audiences have been dumbed down?

coldtea 9y ago
>how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing? People liked simple melodies and harmonies for several millennia before the advent of a music industry and/or music marketing, so? >It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to 'hear', love, and make a hit of a harmonically complicated song like Ray Charles' version of 'Come Rain or Come Shine', but now we seem incapable of doing so. They might have gone to that, but not to Ornette Coleman or Schoenberg or Berg. >Do you think there is no chance at all that audiences have been dumbed down? I'd say, it's complicated. Basically, it's not the people's tastes in music that have been dumbed down per se, but the role that music plays in people's lives that has been dumbed down with mass constant access and music as muzak. But while you mention Come Rain or Come Shine or some such, I don't see e.g. Louie Louie being that elaborate, or Tea for Two for that matter. Heck, most rock n' roll of the 50s is the same BS chords and similar melodic lines over again with sophomore lyrics. And yet in the 70s people listened to 12+ minute long "opuses" and solos (that while requiring technical dexterity, aesthetically and culturally they were as much a joke as Nicky Ninaj, complete with King Arthur references and trivial re-uses of classical harmonies and pointless soloing). So, it's complicated.

coldtea 9y ago

>how much of what people currently 'love' is based on some natural meritocracy vs decades of big money marketing? People liked simple melodies and harmonies for several millennia before the advent of a music industry and/or music marketing, so? >It once wasn't a stretch at all for people to 'hear', love, and make a hit of a harmonically complicated song like Ray Charles' version of 'Come Rain or Come Shine', but now we seem incapable of doing so. They might have gone to that, but not to Ornette Coleman or Schoenberg or Berg. >Do you think there is no chance at all that audiences have been dumbed down? I'd say, it's complicated. Basically, it's not the people's tastes in music that have been dumbed down per se, but the role that music plays in people's lives that has been dumbed down with mass constant access and music as muzak. But while you mention Come Rain or Come Shine or some such, I don't see e.g. Louie Louie being that elaborate, or Tea for Two for that matter. Heck, most rock n' roll of the 50s is the same BS chords and similar melodic lines over again with sophomore lyrics. And yet in the 70s people listened to 12+ minute long "opuses" and solos (that while requiring technical dexterity, aesthetically and culturally they were as much a joke as Nicky Ninaj, complete with King Arthur references and trivial re-uses of classical harmonies and pointless soloing). So, it's complicated.