4 ms·
I think part of it is how much other music you've listened to, and how much you know about music. For example I watched Shang-Chi the other day, which is basic
by Nition 5y ago
I think part of it is how much other music you've listened to, and how much you know about music.
For example I watched Shang-Chi the other day, which is basically pop music in film form. As someone who's watched a fair amount of films, it's easy to see how it follows all the usual generic story beats - it's good but formulaic and relatively predictable. But if it was the first film you'd ever seen it would be amazing.
You have films that intentionally subvert expectations, relying on the fact that the audience knows how the story usually goes. That's jazz music. Classical often as well. But that relies on people both knowing the usual tropes and also wanting something different - there's some comfort in the known. Many people just want the superhero film. After all, the simple formula is the most inherently powerful regardless of the audience's internal knowledge of narrative or notation - that's why it's so commonly used.
- hardwaregeek 5y agoThere's nuances and an art to pop though. Take Ocean's Eleven. It's fundamentally a crowd pleaser movie with a star studded cast, a conventional genre and a happy ending. But it's executed perfectly. Soderbergh has a mastery of the form that shows even when he's making pop. You see this with The Beach Boys or The Beatles or even Ed Sheeran, where the music is superficially enjoyable but there's a depth to it nonetheless. Take Jacob Collier's deconstruction of Stevie Wonder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZP6nogQYPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZP6nogQYPg
- Nition 5y agoYeah, so the Beatles and The Beach Boys manage to take relatively complex music (chord choices etc) and have it still appeal on a fundamental level, which is much harder than just taking the easy route and following a formula. Often making complex music loses mass appeal (I'd put Jacob Collier in that category), making it less viable commercially than the simple formula approach. My guess is that the serendipitous combination of high-level artistry + mass appeal + marketing dollars is simply much less common than the combo of "good at basic formula" + marketing dollars. Every now and then something really clever and different makes it into the top 40 just by sheer luck. Seems like I was wrong above about the simple formula being the most powerful though doesn't it. Maybe a brand new formula can be even more powerful but is just that much harder to execute.
- anm89 5y agoI feel personally attacked that you are lumping Ed Sheeran in with the Beatles or Beach Boys.
- hardwaregeek 5y agoI'm not a huge Ed Sheeran fan but I do think there's some interesting ideas in his songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpMNJbt3QDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpMNJbt3QDE
- BeFlatXIII 5y agoSubverting expectations also has larger downsides. A competently-made movie that just isn't that good is simply a boring movie that looks pretty. A subversion that goes wrong subverts your expectation of watching a good movie with one of watching an incoherent movie.