6 ms·

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

by 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.

by gre 6y ago

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.