5 ms·

> 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 p

by 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.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > They say nothing, make me feel nothing, and make me think of nothing. That's because you're not their target market. The industry as a whole targets teenagers. It's been the same model since the '60s: turn teenagers into faithful consumers of acts (which are really just brands) and ensure they will buy for the rest of their life just to reminisce. Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish speak to teenagers. All teenagers do is hormonal-driven love drama, so all pop music talks about is love drama. Every generation gets their teenager love drama painted in a slightly different way, to grant the illusion of differing from their parents, but that's it. Even the likes of Led Zeppelin or Bob Dylan, underneath it all, is just love drama; that generation was simply having their love drama tangled up with other stuff because of historical happenstance.
    - kjakm 6y ago
      I take your point but I would argue you could remove 'me' from my statement and it would hold true. I think the pop stars mentioned make people 'feel' more through their social media and image than their music. Maybe I'm just an old man now but the lyrics to Bille Eilish's 'Bad Guy' surely can't resonate with anyone...
      - darkerside 6y ago
        If you're so old it's probably time to learn that the things that resonate with other people don't necessarily resonate with you, and vice versa. And that's ok. It's cultural diversity. You may at some point "get it" and start to like Billie Eilish (I'm mostly indifferent). You may not. But believing that nobody possibly could is the mark of an incomplete theory of mind.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- fiblye 6y ago
  I can tell Nicki Minaj from them, but I can't tell Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, or Ariana Grande apart and they've been looping on the radio for years. I can point out a specific song that I've heard before and looked up who it was, but whenever a new song pops up, I can't tell them apart. They've completely merged into the same media personality with the same music.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    To be fair, if I hear a new rock song with a lead male vocalist I'll also struggle mightily to identify them immediately. There are very few bands/singers with such unique styles that they can be told immediately apart. Same with any other genre really.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I think you need to be familiar with the songs' content in order to tell all these vocalists apart. If instead each of the top 5 male and female pop singers of today were to sing each others' songs, I challenge anyone to tell them apart. And I don't think it's an artifact of being old. It's more about how much pop production homogenizes these voices into one "ISO Standard Voice." Back in the nineties, I couldn't tell all the various grunge singers apart without having pre-knowledge of the songs. If you had Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice In Chains sing random songs, I wouldn't have been able to easily tell them apart either.
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        I don't think is a recent phenomenon though. Good luck distinguishing by voice alone the boy bands of the 90s, or the hair bands of the 80s, or the disco bands of the 70s, or the British invasion bands of the 60s either. And going back much further, can you really say you can distinguish the operatic and choral singers from each other either? I think it's always been the case that music has a particular sound that's in, and everyone is singing to that sound. There was no one singing in the grunge or mumble rap style a hundred years ago. It would have been unique and would've easily separated itself from the pack, but it simply wasn't even a thing that anyone was doing yet.
goto11 6y ago
> 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". Maybe you just don't like dance music? "Rock around the clock" or "Twist and Shout" had the same style of lyrics - simple, repetitive, rhythmic, accentuating the music rather than telling a story.

by fiblye 6y ago

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.
- toyg 6y ago
  > They say nothing, make me feel nothing, and make me think of nothing. That's because you're not their target market. The industry as a whole targets teenagers. It's been the same model since the '60s: turn teenagers into faithful consumers of acts (which are really just brands) and ensure they will buy for the rest of their life just to reminisce. Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish speak to teenagers. All teenagers do is hormonal-driven love drama, so all pop music talks about is love drama. Every generation gets their teenager love drama painted in a slightly different way, to grant the illusion of differing from their parents, but that's it. Even the likes of Led Zeppelin or Bob Dylan, underneath it all, is just love drama; that generation was simply having their love drama tangled up with other stuff because of historical happenstance.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    I take your point but I would argue you could remove 'me' from my statement and it would hold true. I think the pop stars mentioned make people 'feel' more through their social media and image than their music. Maybe I'm just an old man now but the lyrics to Bille Eilish's 'Bad Guy' surely can't resonate with anyone...
    - darkerside 6y ago
      If you're so old it's probably time to learn that the things that resonate with other people don't necessarily resonate with you, and vice versa. And that's ok. It's cultural diversity. You may at some point "get it" and start to like Billie Eilish (I'm mostly indifferent). You may not. But believing that nobody possibly could is the mark of an incomplete theory of mind.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
fiblye 6y ago
I can tell Nicki Minaj from them, but I can't tell Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, or Ariana Grande apart and they've been looping on the radio for years. I can point out a specific song that I've heard before and looked up who it was, but whenever a new song pops up, I can't tell them apart. They've completely merged into the same media personality with the same music.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  To be fair, if I hear a new rock song with a lead male vocalist I'll also struggle mightily to identify them immediately. There are very few bands/singers with such unique styles that they can be told immediately apart. Same with any other genre really.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    I think you need to be familiar with the songs' content in order to tell all these vocalists apart. If instead each of the top 5 male and female pop singers of today were to sing each others' songs, I challenge anyone to tell them apart. And I don't think it's an artifact of being old. It's more about how much pop production homogenizes these voices into one "ISO Standard Voice." Back in the nineties, I couldn't tell all the various grunge singers apart without having pre-knowledge of the songs. If you had Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice In Chains sing random songs, I wouldn't have been able to easily tell them apart either.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      I don't think is a recent phenomenon though. Good luck distinguishing by voice alone the boy bands of the 90s, or the hair bands of the 80s, or the disco bands of the 70s, or the British invasion bands of the 60s either. And going back much further, can you really say you can distinguish the operatic and choral singers from each other either? I think it's always been the case that music has a particular sound that's in, and everyone is singing to that sound. There was no one singing in the grunge or mumble rap style a hundred years ago. It would have been unique and would've easily separated itself from the pack, but it simply wasn't even a thing that anyone was doing yet.

goto11 6y ago

> 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". Maybe you just don't like dance music? "Rock around the clock" or "Twist and Shout" had the same style of lyrics - simple, repetitive, rhythmic, accentuating the music rather than telling a story.