11 ms·

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop

by ehnto 6y ago

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

laurent92 6y ago
It is astonishing when you realize it. Since the MCM times, we’ve transferred music bands from sound to image, and we noticed the commercial drums (and repetition on radios in particular) produced linear return in investment, and music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it. To the point that today, any music will do. It’s much easier for the labels, since they can pimp anyone among the 1-10% of the population who can sing, and therefore they can choose people on character and ethnicity. Studies on thousands of pieces showed that melodies recouped more and more, the chorus started earlier in the song, songs got shorter, and instrument-based tricks reduced. Meanwhile loudness increased (screams and whisper are at the same volume) to make it fitter for bad-quality players (radio, speakers etc.)
- jimbob45 6y ago
  I think you’re right and I’d argue that American Idol proves that there is a surplus of talent for labels to choose from, allowing them to be picky in regards to secondary requirements (ethnicity, backstory, work ethic).
  - awalton 6y ago
    The difference being that American Idol contestants are often actually quite artistically good - they only managed to get where they are because of skill and looks and luck, instead of just the latter two. (This isn't universal; it's often the case they pick someone up who is actually pretty awful but is interesting for the whole mechanics of the show, either being very attractive or standing out in some other way... but it still holds that the show has actually managed to scout real talent on the whole - just look at how many of the people who didn't win managed to snag successful music careers afterwards.) But that's beside the point here. My biggest peeve is that there are plenty of "Top 40" "artists" that can barely hold a note. And it's been that way since the 90s, thanks to the magic of Auto-Tune. Anyone with a marketing budget and access to an industry insider who can make the right moves can just start dropping albums and buying hit slots. What's changed is that now, anyone with a YouTube or Twitch channel can just start publishing music. Create a Soundcloud and you can get rotation in any one of a dozen DJs podcasts. TuneCore will put your stuff in the Music Stores. Spotify and Pandora are a little harder to break into, but not much. Setup a Twitter account and talk directly to your fans without needing a publicist. A whole industry's worth of Kingmakers have been turned into online services, and that's really changing the landscape of the industry.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      I think it's going to be better for it in the long run. I know it's hard for bands to make ends meet off album sales now, but on the other hand it doesn't cost 100k to produce and distribute anymore. Some people don't even have to spend a dime, it can be home produced and still have an audience.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      I think a lot more of them can hold a tune than you give them credit for, it's just that pitch adjustment in the studio is stretching them beyond their natural vocal range, so when they try to reproduce it live, quality suffers. Unless you're specifically talking about artists like T-Pain, but their whole thing is that autotune is their vocal instrument.
      - ehnto 6y ago
        That was definitely the way he marketed himself. He knew exactly what he was doing and is a great example of marketing vs music. T-Pain knows music, and is a fantastic musician, check out his NPR gig with just a keyboardist and his natural voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc
- tobr 6y ago
  You say “music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it” but then you list a number of specific characteristics that make music more likely to work on radio. That suggests the opposite of “any music will do”. Only music with very specific qualities will do. Or maybe you just meant to say you don’t like pop?
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It means pop has turned into a social psychology experiment designed to maximise the return invested in production, and not an individually expressive art form. The obvious end point will be AI-generated muzak which tweaks all the right receptors but is devoid of any disturbingly non-optimal fleshy surprise.
    - wjnc 6y ago
      "has" should be "is" right. Most mainstream music has been, from what I understand for a few centuries, a combination of artists expressing themselves while trying to cater to an audience. Otherwise it's an art or a hobby. I don't know any "music as a (pure) art" and I guess with me most causal listeners.
    - simias 6y ago
      Commercial art in general has been that way for centuries. Doesn't mean that it's intrinsically devoid of quality. Many of the classical masterpieces were made to order to cater to the fancy of some rich patron.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        Many? Virtually _all_, either for a rich individual or the church. An artist just making a thing, and seeing if people like it, is a pretty new invention. Probably a big part of why post-19th century art is so much more interesting and diverse; Western art pre-19th century was largely about technical competence in whatever the current fashionable style was.
        6y ago
- jcims 6y ago
  You can even see the difference with individual artists in their studio vs live performances. For some unknown reason I’ve been geeking out on Miley Cyrus lately. Her studio releases have that glossy, overproduced sound of too many cooks in the kitchen. Her live performances on the other hand rely on the power of her vocals and a really tight band that has been together for a stretch now. Just compare the studio release of Slide Away [1] with what they did on the BBC Live Lounge [2]. Lyrically the song is what it is, but there’s so much more energy and feel (to me anyway) in the latter. [1] https://youtu.be/rrvFv6j3-sM https://youtu.be/rrvFv6j3-sM [2] https://youtu.be/liRu4mhUF7I https://youtu.be/liRu4mhUF7I Then of course her Backyard Sessions have been a treat for a while now, but would never grace the airwaves: https://youtu.be/wOwblaKmyVw https://youtu.be/wOwblaKmyVw
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Then there's Katy Perry, whose studio releases sound fine but on stage, she sounds like someone strangling a cat.
- bby 6y ago
  MCM?
jcims 6y ago
Top 40 was born in an era where a large part of the economic equation in music was album sales. The tribal signal helped overcome the activation energy required to shell out the equivalent of a half day’s labor for a teen at the local music store. Streaming services have killed the album, so the top 40 really has no calling.
- sjwright 6y ago
  It hasn’t killed the album, it’s just changed the rules of the game for marketing “popular” music by reducing the power of radio and increasing interest in the long tail.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    Streaming didn't kill the album, but something did. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ Looks like piracy did it in.
    - skciva 6y ago
      I don't think focusing on album sales paints the full picture on how modern artists find success. I've heard artists mention how albums don't really make them much money. Things like touring and merch sales account for the bulk of their income. I'd guess with streaming, podcasts, social networks, etc. artists have found ways outside of releasing a traditional album to stay relevant to the listener.
      - jcims 6y ago
        That was my point about killing the album. It’s no longer a particularly relevant milestone or attribute. The songs stand or fall in their own merit.
svantana 6y ago
On the other hand, music has historically been a very social thing that have brought people together. The decline into a sollipsist "service" has been gradual since the dawn of recorded music, but Spotify et al are definitely making it worse than ever. My 11-year old daughter loves music but she and her friends all listen to different things, there is no music that they all know. I may have hated top40 stuff in my day, but at least we all knew it.
- darkerside 6y ago
  Don't worry, they still rally together around songs as they go "viral". Music has always had a big social component and always will. It's wired into us.
- SyneRyder 6y ago
  I'm not sure that's entirely bad. I met up with my cousin (nearly 20 years younger than me) and one of her first questions was "Show me your playlists! Music is how I get to know people." We spent ages talking about genres, recommending bands to each other, scrolling through each other's Spotify libraries and offline MP3s. I was thrilled that she was interested in a wide range of genres, across several decades. Far more diverse than when I was the same age. It's still social to be recommending music and trying to find new bands your friends will like. As for knowing the same songs, I made friends through genre-related social groups - the goth/industrial nightclubs, and the Eurovision fanclubs / events. It's nice that generally everyone knows the same Max Martin songs, but there's deeper friendships to be had at clubs where everyone knows your obscure niche - whether it's arguing that Euphoria is still better than Heroes, even if Mans & Petra are the best hosts. Or if it's goths bitching over the shared experience of falling down the stairs trying to get onto the goth club dancefloor before Dero from Oomph yells "Gott Ist Ein Popstar" or "Augen Auf, ich komme"....
- CincinnatiMan 6y ago
  Damn that’s scary. A world where no one has anything in common. I’m in my 30s and my friends and I reference songs from our childhood all the time. Shows and candy and all sorts of things.
rahoulb 6y ago
I'm in the UK and in my 40s. For me the Top 40 used to be one of the few places where you could hear stuff that wasn't just pop radio - because in the UK it was a sales chart, not an airplay chart and genuinely represented what people were listening to, not what the pluggers and labels had successfully pushed. However, since streaming, that equation has totally changed.
- ehnto 6y ago
  We have the same thing here with JJJ hottest one hundred. It is still mostly local underdogs so that is rad, but like you noted, the tides are changing thanks to streaming and every year gets a bit more mainstream.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  What labels pushed on the radio did certainly feed into what people bought, though.
  - rahoulb 6y ago
    Yes - but the Chart Shows (both the BBC and the commercial stations) were the places where the stations were obliged to play songs, during the daytime, that weren't on their playlists.
loxs 6y ago
Yup, exactly like democracy and "big government". It's not good, it's just the "common denominator".

by ehnto 6y ago

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

laurent92 6y ago

It is astonishing when you realize it. Since the MCM times, we’ve transferred music bands from sound to image, and we noticed the commercial drums (and repetition on radios in particular) produced linear return in investment, and music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it. To the point that today, any music will do. It’s much easier for the labels, since they can pimp anyone among the 1-10% of the population who can sing, and therefore they can choose people on character and ethnicity. Studies on thousands of pieces showed that melodies recouped more and more, the chorus started earlier in the song, songs got shorter, and instrument-based tricks reduced. Meanwhile loudness increased (screams and whisper are at the same volume) to make it fitter for bad-quality players (radio, speakers etc.)

jimbob45 6y ago
I think you’re right and I’d argue that American Idol proves that there is a surplus of talent for labels to choose from, allowing them to be picky in regards to secondary requirements (ethnicity, backstory, work ethic).
- awalton 6y ago
  The difference being that American Idol contestants are often actually quite artistically good - they only managed to get where they are because of skill and looks and luck, instead of just the latter two. (This isn't universal; it's often the case they pick someone up who is actually pretty awful but is interesting for the whole mechanics of the show, either being very attractive or standing out in some other way... but it still holds that the show has actually managed to scout real talent on the whole - just look at how many of the people who didn't win managed to snag successful music careers afterwards.) But that's beside the point here. My biggest peeve is that there are plenty of "Top 40" "artists" that can barely hold a note. And it's been that way since the 90s, thanks to the magic of Auto-Tune. Anyone with a marketing budget and access to an industry insider who can make the right moves can just start dropping albums and buying hit slots. What's changed is that now, anyone with a YouTube or Twitch channel can just start publishing music. Create a Soundcloud and you can get rotation in any one of a dozen DJs podcasts. TuneCore will put your stuff in the Music Stores. Spotify and Pandora are a little harder to break into, but not much. Setup a Twitter account and talk directly to your fans without needing a publicist. A whole industry's worth of Kingmakers have been turned into online services, and that's really changing the landscape of the industry.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    I think it's going to be better for it in the long run. I know it's hard for bands to make ends meet off album sales now, but on the other hand it doesn't cost 100k to produce and distribute anymore. Some people don't even have to spend a dime, it can be home produced and still have an audience.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    I think a lot more of them can hold a tune than you give them credit for, it's just that pitch adjustment in the studio is stretching them beyond their natural vocal range, so when they try to reproduce it live, quality suffers. Unless you're specifically talking about artists like T-Pain, but their whole thing is that autotune is their vocal instrument.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      That was definitely the way he marketed himself. He knew exactly what he was doing and is a great example of marketing vs music. T-Pain knows music, and is a fantastic musician, check out his NPR gig with just a keyboardist and his natural voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc
tobr 6y ago
You say “music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it” but then you list a number of specific characteristics that make music more likely to work on radio. That suggests the opposite of “any music will do”. Only music with very specific qualities will do. Or maybe you just meant to say you don’t like pop?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  It means pop has turned into a social psychology experiment designed to maximise the return invested in production, and not an individually expressive art form. The obvious end point will be AI-generated muzak which tweaks all the right receptors but is devoid of any disturbingly non-optimal fleshy surprise.
  - wjnc 6y ago
    "has" should be "is" right. Most mainstream music has been, from what I understand for a few centuries, a combination of artists expressing themselves while trying to cater to an audience. Otherwise it's an art or a hobby. I don't know any "music as a (pure) art" and I guess with me most causal listeners.
  - simias 6y ago
    Commercial art in general has been that way for centuries. Doesn't mean that it's intrinsically devoid of quality. Many of the classical masterpieces were made to order to cater to the fancy of some rich patron.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      Many? Virtually _all_, either for a rich individual or the church. An artist just making a thing, and seeing if people like it, is a pretty new invention. Probably a big part of why post-19th century art is so much more interesting and diverse; Western art pre-19th century was largely about technical competence in whatever the current fashionable style was.
      - 6y ago
jcims 6y ago
You can even see the difference with individual artists in their studio vs live performances. For some unknown reason I’ve been geeking out on Miley Cyrus lately. Her studio releases have that glossy, overproduced sound of too many cooks in the kitchen. Her live performances on the other hand rely on the power of her vocals and a really tight band that has been together for a stretch now. Just compare the studio release of Slide Away [1] with what they did on the BBC Live Lounge [2]. Lyrically the song is what it is, but there’s so much more energy and feel (to me anyway) in the latter. [1] https://youtu.be/rrvFv6j3-sM https://youtu.be/rrvFv6j3-sM [2] https://youtu.be/liRu4mhUF7I https://youtu.be/liRu4mhUF7I Then of course her Backyard Sessions have been a treat for a while now, but would never grace the airwaves: https://youtu.be/wOwblaKmyVw https://youtu.be/wOwblaKmyVw
- bitwize 6y ago
  Then there's Katy Perry, whose studio releases sound fine but on stage, she sounds like someone strangling a cat.
bby 6y ago
MCM?

jcims 6y ago

Top 40 was born in an era where a large part of the economic equation in music was album sales. The tribal signal helped overcome the activation energy required to shell out the equivalent of a half day’s labor for a teen at the local music store. Streaming services have killed the album, so the top 40 really has no calling.

sjwright 6y ago
It hasn’t killed the album, it’s just changed the rules of the game for marketing “popular” music by reducing the power of radio and increasing interest in the long tail.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  Streaming didn't kill the album, but something did. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/ Looks like piracy did it in.
  - skciva 6y ago
    I don't think focusing on album sales paints the full picture on how modern artists find success. I've heard artists mention how albums don't really make them much money. Things like touring and merch sales account for the bulk of their income. I'd guess with streaming, podcasts, social networks, etc. artists have found ways outside of releasing a traditional album to stay relevant to the listener.
    - jcims 6y ago
      That was my point about killing the album. It’s no longer a particularly relevant milestone or attribute. The songs stand or fall in their own merit.

svantana 6y ago

On the other hand, music has historically been a very social thing that have brought people together. The decline into a sollipsist "service" has been gradual since the dawn of recorded music, but Spotify et al are definitely making it worse than ever. My 11-year old daughter loves music but she and her friends all listen to different things, there is no music that they all know. I may have hated top40 stuff in my day, but at least we all knew it.

darkerside 6y ago
Don't worry, they still rally together around songs as they go "viral". Music has always had a big social component and always will. It's wired into us.
SyneRyder 6y ago
I'm not sure that's entirely bad. I met up with my cousin (nearly 20 years younger than me) and one of her first questions was "Show me your playlists! Music is how I get to know people." We spent ages talking about genres, recommending bands to each other, scrolling through each other's Spotify libraries and offline MP3s. I was thrilled that she was interested in a wide range of genres, across several decades. Far more diverse than when I was the same age. It's still social to be recommending music and trying to find new bands your friends will like. As for knowing the same songs, I made friends through genre-related social groups - the goth/industrial nightclubs, and the Eurovision fanclubs / events. It's nice that generally everyone knows the same Max Martin songs, but there's deeper friendships to be had at clubs where everyone knows your obscure niche - whether it's arguing that Euphoria is still better than Heroes, even if Mans & Petra are the best hosts. Or if it's goths bitching over the shared experience of falling down the stairs trying to get onto the goth club dancefloor before Dero from Oomph yells "Gott Ist Ein Popstar" or "Augen Auf, ich komme"....
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
Damn that’s scary. A world where no one has anything in common. I’m in my 30s and my friends and I reference songs from our childhood all the time. Shows and candy and all sorts of things.

rahoulb 6y ago

I'm in the UK and in my 40s. For me the Top 40 used to be one of the few places where you could hear stuff that wasn't just pop radio - because in the UK it was a sales chart, not an airplay chart and genuinely represented what people were listening to, not what the pluggers and labels had successfully pushed. However, since streaming, that equation has totally changed.

ehnto 6y ago
We have the same thing here with JJJ hottest one hundred. It is still mostly local underdogs so that is rad, but like you noted, the tides are changing thanks to streaming and every year gets a bit more mainstream.
rsynnott 6y ago
What labels pushed on the radio did certainly feed into what people bought, though.
- rahoulb 6y ago
  Yes - but the Chart Shows (both the BBC and the commercial stations) were the places where the stations were obliged to play songs, during the daytime, that weren't on their playlists.

loxs 6y ago

Yup, exactly like democracy and "big government". It's not good, it's just the "common denominator".