5 ms·

art and music do require skill, and people will pay for good art/music no matter the availability. take pop music (of all sorts) for example. the money that po

art and music do require skill, and people will pay for good art/music no matter the availability. take pop music (of all sorts) for example. the money that pours into it is puzzling if you consider the music on its own merits. the melodies are catchy and the lyrics too, but no one really considers it high art. any barroom crooner could sing and play it. (in fact singing is probably the most accessible and widely distributed art form. we're all born with the instrument and a little practice is all that's needed for passable entertainment.) so why do pop stars make so much money? it's simply not scarcity that drives the price. it's fashion, or culture, or whatever you prefer to call it. it's the need to forget our troubles. it's our secret hopes and dreams routed through a channel for bonding with our fellow man. that's what we're paying for. and we'll likely always pay for it. but whether the marketing machine of yesteryear can continue to maintain a stranglehold on access and taste is really the open question.

tomcam 8y ago
> no one really considers it high art. any barroom crooner could sing and play it Um, no. I say this as a holder of season tickets to the opera and as a trained operatic tenor myself. Many, many pop singers are incredibly good and far outstrip the skills of most barroom singers I have experienced.
- mamon 8y ago
  It's not that pop singers aren't talented. It's just that pop music as a genre is pretty much boring, and the artists that appear every season, or every "America's got talent" edition, they all are easily forgettable. You could switch covers and sell Selena Gomez album as Ariana Grande album and noone would even notice the difference. Pop music is a commodity, and as any commodity it's pricing/value is basically a race to bottom.
  - tomcam 8y ago
    That’s not the point GP made. Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande have roughly similar genres but Ariana is a musical titan who can famously sing in any style she chooses.
- throwaway8879 8y ago
  Oh definitely. I don't think people know how much work goes into the typical pop song, even though it may sound like anyone could write and record it. People think they could sing Britney Spears just like her until they get behind a mic to record. Most people don't even know the cringey feeling of "God, I didn't know my voice sounded like that" after having heard their own recorded voice for the first time. Or how out of tune and rhythm they actually are. So no. Everybody thinks they could sing the typical pop song, but I doubt that they could.
- clairity 8y ago
  sure, some pop artists have great skill, but that's beside the point. my point was that singing entertainment (e.g., pop) is widely available (someone sitting near you right now can probably sing well enough to be entertaining), so not scarce. you can find millions of decent takes on pop songs on youtube. and further, the level of passable entertainment is low, both because plenty of people can sing passably, and because enjoyment of the music comes not from admiring the skill but mostly from other factors.

tomcam 8y ago

> no one really considers it high art. any barroom crooner could sing and play it Um, no. I say this as a holder of season tickets to the opera and as a trained operatic tenor myself. Many, many pop singers are incredibly good and far outstrip the skills of most barroom singers I have experienced.

mamon 8y ago
It's not that pop singers aren't talented. It's just that pop music as a genre is pretty much boring, and the artists that appear every season, or every "America's got talent" edition, they all are easily forgettable. You could switch covers and sell Selena Gomez album as Ariana Grande album and noone would even notice the difference. Pop music is a commodity, and as any commodity it's pricing/value is basically a race to bottom.
- tomcam 8y ago
  That’s not the point GP made. Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande have roughly similar genres but Ariana is a musical titan who can famously sing in any style she chooses.
throwaway8879 8y ago
Oh definitely. I don't think people know how much work goes into the typical pop song, even though it may sound like anyone could write and record it. People think they could sing Britney Spears just like her until they get behind a mic to record. Most people don't even know the cringey feeling of "God, I didn't know my voice sounded like that" after having heard their own recorded voice for the first time. Or how out of tune and rhythm they actually are. So no. Everybody thinks they could sing the typical pop song, but I doubt that they could.
clairity 8y ago
sure, some pop artists have great skill, but that's beside the point. my point was that singing entertainment (e.g., pop) is widely available (someone sitting near you right now can probably sing well enough to be entertaining), so not scarce. you can find millions of decent takes on pop songs on youtube. and further, the level of passable entertainment is low, both because plenty of people can sing passably, and because enjoyment of the music comes not from admiring the skill but mostly from other factors.