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Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the

by wfme 6y ago

Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the top 10 are almost exclusively songs made popular on TikTok. I can't stand to listen to these songs, not because I necessarily dislike the songs (or TikTok for that matter), but because there are 15-30s sections of the song that I have heard dozens of times, posted on TikTok as a part of some new trend. As soon as I hear one of these parts, I instinctively skip, because I'm generally listening to Spotify to chill out, and hearing something that is so tightly associated with a social network really works against my "chill".

segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Back when I was in school, I really hated Billboard Top 10 for the same reason. Once I've overheard them so many times, often unpleasantly, the actual song became unlistenable, not because I dislike them.
- gre 6y ago
  With pop music you hear exactly the same track over and over with no variation and it gets predictable and monotonous. With classical, jazz, or live music there are many performances, so any two recordings will not sound identical. This is one reason I can't stand pop music after a few listens.
  - conception 6y ago
    This is also why people love pop music. It is predictable, safe and unchallenging.
    - zaptrem 6y ago
      People also like it because it's colorful and multidimensional, but not so multidimensional that you can't decipher it without focusing on it exclusively and retreating to a quiet room.
      - snvzz 6y ago
        However, there's high variance in the amount of layering and the overall richness of the songs. I'm drawn to complexity in music and I can still enjoy pop... jpop specifically, as it tends to have more effort put into it. reclines seat and listens to some µ's (Love Live) on his HD600.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      There seems to be a neurological basis for it: https://www.cracked.com/article_19426_5-things-you-do-every-day-that-are-actually-addictions.html https://www.cracked.com/article_19426_5-things-you-do-every-...
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Is music supposed to challenge you? To each their own, but if i wanted to be challenged i read a book, learn something new, etc. I think i listen to music because it has an effect of transfering emotional state/causes me to feel. Being intellectually challenging is not a good thing in that context. (Although i still want it to be unpredictable and not neccesarily safe)
      - fiblye 6y ago
        > Is music supposed to challenge you? Music can be whatever it wants. But music having complex melodies, varied lyrics, telling stories, and having social or political commentary has very much always been a thing. Plenty of that music still exists and is still being made, but it's not really found on modern pop stations (although older pop stations have slightly more complex work). Just walking by a radio today bothers me. I can't deal with the ear sugar that's completely flat and features non-dynamic instrumentals from start to finish and lyrics that are all just some variation of "yeah yeah club dance club club club club party party club club love you dance dance drunk drunk club club don't love you now". And I'm not even "old" yet. I can't tell singers apart (particularly women) because they seem to be melding into some non-unique vocal style and every pop artist has the exact same instrumental backing. Muzak has been used for decades to serve as non-distracting background noise. Simple instrumentals with no vocals or anything, used just to fill a void and assure people that they're alive and the business is probably operating. It's almost music, but not quite. Just budget ambiance. Now top 40 dance/pop hits are what play in elevators. Soulless, manufactured music, but now it's something with a manufactured persona stuck to it. Pop today has devoured muzak's market share and taken its role.
        hilbertseries 6y ago
        So if you listen to Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, Chun-Li by Nicki Minaj and thank u, next by Arianna Grande. You would say all of these women sound the same and have the same instrumentals?
        kjakm 6y ago
        My complaint would be less the instrumentals (it's formulaic but that doesn't make it bad) but the lyrics. Look up the lyrics to any of the songs you listed and read them. If you don't have the melody in your head they read awfully. They say nothing, make me feel nothing, and make me think of nothing. They don't resonate in any way. You could obviously look at someone like Bob Dylan as a counterpoint but even if you went to see some average local punk band you would find them singing words that say something and resonate with you. That's what I want from music. It's not right or wrong to like or dislike either of these approaches by the way. A lot of people want music to listen to in the background and that's easier to do when the lyrics are meaningless.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    I have no trouble listening to pop music from the 80s, 90s and early 00s. I don't know if that's old age and nostalgia or if music was just better then. I think in many cases, music was just better in prior decades, pop music in particular.
    - SimplyUnknown 6y ago
      I also think that's partly survivor bias. You listen to the best hits of those decades, tricking you into thinking that all music from those decades was like that. In reality, there was a lot of junk in those times too but we don't listen to it anymore. The same will happen with the 10s and the current 20s in twenty years.
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        With the virus, most of my exposure to foreign languages is due to YouTube these days. While the words for "heart" and "eyes" and various possessive pronouns are often among the first things I pick up on from the clips themselves, if I am curious enough to bother machine translating comments I often learn how to say "the kid's music is noise" just after "anyone listening in 2020?" (For me, the best examples are all the 2000's videos with comments saying "remember when we had real music?")
    - goto11 6y ago
      And in the 80s, 90s and early 00s people were complaining that music was just better in prior decades.
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        Yeah but you know I think because we listen to less and less music on the radio and more on streaming, I think it's harder for break out hits to happen today. New music has to compete on equal footing with old music that is more accessible than it has ever been and also has to compete with podcasts and other forms of audio entertainment that are available in much higher quantities today.
      - 6y ago
  - zo1 6y ago
    Some of us find that a feature, not a bug. I don't want to hear something "new" and "different" each time, with each performance being different. I want the same song that I have listened to before. Songs have emotions and memories attached to them, and you will never get that from something unique each time unless it's truly catchy/pleasurable on the first listen, which is practically rare.
swilliamsio 6y ago
In a lot of TikTok songs, the 15-30 seconds of the song that you've heard dozens of times is the best part of the song, with the rest of the piece being rather dry and bland. "Hit or miss, I guess you never miss huh" and "I'm already Tracer" are my quintessential examples of this.
- kjakm 6y ago
  Is this the natural progression from 'albums are full of filler I just want the singles'? Now it's 'the single is full of filler I just want the chorus'? It kind of hints that people nowadays only want the highest quality content which is ironic given the same content is used to soundtrack some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content (e.g. 10 second clips of people doing the same dance to the same music).
  - toyg 6y ago
    > some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content The point of meme content (which is basically what these "same dance" videos are) is not originality; the point is taking part, belonging to the hivemind. Human beings fundamentally want to belong, not to be original.
    - kjakm 6y ago
      I understand your point about taking part but what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? It's not just the dance videos too. There's very little interesting content on TikTok in my opinion. It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day but I think it's possible to do that and still be considered low quality and unoriginal.
      - toyg 6y ago
        > what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? I'd argue that the percentage has actually gone up pretty dramatically, when compared to the previous media (TV/cinema/theatre/music). In reality, I would argue, more people than ever now make or take part in "something". Because 90% of everything is crap, though, the firehose is inevitably returning more crap than ever. Do we need better consumption filters and better ways to emerge talent? Sure. Is this worse than before? I don't know, but it's definitely more democratic. > It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day Not at all like TV, then. Oh wait
gandutraveler 6y ago
Wonder how tiktok is changing the way pop music is produced nowadays. I'm sure music producers are focusing more on that unique 10-15s catchy tune that is easy to market. This is definitely not good for the future of music.
- ukyrgf 6y ago
  This has been going on for years in commercials. Have you ever heard the full version of a song used in a Target or one of those drug commercials? Outside of the hook it's basically just a beat from a Casio keyboard.
notsuoh 6y ago
Different observation, but I usually just listen to my playlist. I listened to Discover or whatever Spotify puts together and it was good for a bit, but then seemed to devolve into songs that YouTube personalities had made and posted on Spotify. It was really odd and sounded like it was made for edgy teens.

by wfme 6y ago

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

Back when I was in school, I really hated Billboard Top 10 for the same reason. Once I've overheard them so many times, often unpleasantly, the actual song became unlistenable, not because I dislike them.

gre 6y ago
With pop music you hear exactly the same track over and over with no variation and it gets predictable and monotonous. With classical, jazz, or live music there are many performances, so any two recordings will not sound identical. This is one reason I can't stand pop music after a few listens.
- conception 6y ago
  This is also why people love pop music. It is predictable, safe and unchallenging.
  - zaptrem 6y ago
    People also like it because it's colorful and multidimensional, but not so multidimensional that you can't decipher it without focusing on it exclusively and retreating to a quiet room.
    - snvzz 6y ago
      However, there's high variance in the amount of layering and the overall richness of the songs. I'm drawn to complexity in music and I can still enjoy pop... jpop specifically, as it tends to have more effort put into it. reclines seat and listens to some µ's (Love Live) on his HD600.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    There seems to be a neurological basis for it: https://www.cracked.com/article_19426_5-things-you-do-every-day-that-are-actually-addictions.html https://www.cracked.com/article_19426_5-things-you-do-every-...
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Is music supposed to challenge you? To each their own, but if i wanted to be challenged i read a book, learn something new, etc. I think i listen to music because it has an effect of transfering emotional state/causes me to feel. Being intellectually challenging is not a good thing in that context. (Although i still want it to be unpredictable and not neccesarily safe)
    - fiblye 6y ago
      > Is music supposed to challenge you? Music can be whatever it wants. But music having complex melodies, varied lyrics, telling stories, and having social or political commentary has very much always been a thing. Plenty of that music still exists and is still being made, but it's not really found on modern pop stations (although older pop stations have slightly more complex work). Just walking by a radio today bothers me. I can't deal with the ear sugar that's completely flat and features non-dynamic instrumentals from start to finish and lyrics that are all just some variation of "yeah yeah club dance club club club club party party club club love you dance dance drunk drunk club club don't love you now". And I'm not even "old" yet. I can't tell singers apart (particularly women) because they seem to be melding into some non-unique vocal style and every pop artist has the exact same instrumental backing. Muzak has been used for decades to serve as non-distracting background noise. Simple instrumentals with no vocals or anything, used just to fill a void and assure people that they're alive and the business is probably operating. It's almost music, but not quite. Just budget ambiance. Now top 40 dance/pop hits are what play in elevators. Soulless, manufactured music, but now it's something with a manufactured persona stuck to it. Pop today has devoured muzak's market share and taken its role.
      - hilbertseries 6y ago
        So if you listen to Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, Chun-Li by Nicki Minaj and thank u, next by Arianna Grande. You would say all of these women sound the same and have the same instrumentals?
        kjakm 6y ago
        My complaint would be less the instrumentals (it's formulaic but that doesn't make it bad) but the lyrics. Look up the lyrics to any of the songs you listed and read them. If you don't have the melody in your head they read awfully. They say nothing, make me feel nothing, and make me think of nothing. They don't resonate in any way. You could obviously look at someone like Bob Dylan as a counterpoint but even if you went to see some average local punk band you would find them singing words that say something and resonate with you. That's what I want from music. It's not right or wrong to like or dislike either of these approaches by the way. A lot of people want music to listen to in the background and that's easier to do when the lyrics are meaningless.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I have no trouble listening to pop music from the 80s, 90s and early 00s. I don't know if that's old age and nostalgia or if music was just better then. I think in many cases, music was just better in prior decades, pop music in particular.
  - SimplyUnknown 6y ago
    I also think that's partly survivor bias. You listen to the best hits of those decades, tricking you into thinking that all music from those decades was like that. In reality, there was a lot of junk in those times too but we don't listen to it anymore. The same will happen with the 10s and the current 20s in twenty years.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      With the virus, most of my exposure to foreign languages is due to YouTube these days. While the words for "heart" and "eyes" and various possessive pronouns are often among the first things I pick up on from the clips themselves, if I am curious enough to bother machine translating comments I often learn how to say "the kid's music is noise" just after "anyone listening in 2020?" (For me, the best examples are all the 2000's videos with comments saying "remember when we had real music?")
  - goto11 6y ago
    And in the 80s, 90s and early 00s people were complaining that music was just better in prior decades.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Yeah but you know I think because we listen to less and less music on the radio and more on streaming, I think it's harder for break out hits to happen today. New music has to compete on equal footing with old music that is more accessible than it has ever been and also has to compete with podcasts and other forms of audio entertainment that are available in much higher quantities today.
    - 6y ago
- zo1 6y ago
  Some of us find that a feature, not a bug. I don't want to hear something "new" and "different" each time, with each performance being different. I want the same song that I have listened to before. Songs have emotions and memories attached to them, and you will never get that from something unique each time unless it's truly catchy/pleasurable on the first listen, which is practically rare.

swilliamsio 6y ago

In a lot of TikTok songs, the 15-30 seconds of the song that you've heard dozens of times is the best part of the song, with the rest of the piece being rather dry and bland. "Hit or miss, I guess you never miss huh" and "I'm already Tracer" are my quintessential examples of this.

kjakm 6y ago
Is this the natural progression from 'albums are full of filler I just want the singles'? Now it's 'the single is full of filler I just want the chorus'? It kind of hints that people nowadays only want the highest quality content which is ironic given the same content is used to soundtrack some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content (e.g. 10 second clips of people doing the same dance to the same music).
- toyg 6y ago
  > some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content The point of meme content (which is basically what these "same dance" videos are) is not originality; the point is taking part, belonging to the hivemind. Human beings fundamentally want to belong, not to be original.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    I understand your point about taking part but what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? It's not just the dance videos too. There's very little interesting content on TikTok in my opinion. It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day but I think it's possible to do that and still be considered low quality and unoriginal.
    - toyg 6y ago
      > what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? I'd argue that the percentage has actually gone up pretty dramatically, when compared to the previous media (TV/cinema/theatre/music). In reality, I would argue, more people than ever now make or take part in "something". Because 90% of everything is crap, though, the firehose is inevitably returning more crap than ever. Do we need better consumption filters and better ways to emerge talent? Sure. Is this worse than before? I don't know, but it's definitely more democratic. > It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day Not at all like TV, then. Oh wait

gandutraveler 6y ago

Wonder how tiktok is changing the way pop music is produced nowadays. I'm sure music producers are focusing more on that unique 10-15s catchy tune that is easy to market. This is definitely not good for the future of music.

ukyrgf 6y ago
This has been going on for years in commercials. Have you ever heard the full version of a song used in a Target or one of those drug commercials? Outside of the hook it's basically just a beat from a Casio keyboard.

notsuoh 6y ago

Different observation, but I usually just listen to my playlist. I listened to Discover or whatever Spotify puts together and it was good for a bit, but then seemed to devolve into songs that YouTube personalities had made and posted on Spotify. It was really odd and sounded like it was made for edgy teens.