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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
by 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 agoI 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 agoIf 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]