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[Tom]

Ho does it not?

[Jimmy the Squid]

I told a girl at my work that she is a walking hipster cliche but, to be fair, she is.

[SleeperCylon]

People shouldn't be forced to listen to music they find really terrible.  Especially if that music comes from somebody like Justin Timberlake who represents all the superficial, financial, image-obsessive, non-musical influences on music.

It's good to be tolerant and not to make a fuss if there's nothing you can do about it anyway, but you don't need to take every opinion equally.  People who are casual listeners tend to only focus on the vocal melody and the skin-revealed quotient of the singer.  They don't listen to lots of different music and decide on their own what they like best, they listen to whatever their friends are listening to.  They aren't listening with an open mind and will probably flatly dismiss anything that sounds different from the kind of music they tend to listen to.

Whereas people who listen to lots of different music and think on their own gain more music listening experience and take the entire piece into account.  The vocal melody, the beat, the instruments, chord progressions, riffs, etc.

You absolutely do not have to take opinions based on the former thought process on the same level of respect as opinions based on the latter thought process.

[Kai]

Yeah, I like to pretend that because I listen to music more than someone else obviously makes my ear just naturally better than those plebeians. How dare they listen to things they could quite possibly actually enjoy? I mean, how can you even enjoy music without having heard that every record the Fall ever put out? (See, it's funny because that's like 8000 records)

[Ballard]

Heh, it's not ear training so much as preference. If you've checked out every kind of music that's out there, from Top 40 to the most obscure, and you enjoyed SexyBack more than anything else, far be it from me to berate you. That's what you enjoy, and you have every right to enjoy it. But it's basically proven fact that a large portion (not going to make up numbers here) of people who listen to Top 40 do so out of sheer laziness, even if they don't realize this themselves. What's most easily available is what they listen to. Not only this, but they will most likely have listened to only one or two tracks- the singles, by that artist. They're too lazy to go buy (or even download) the album and hear it through though they supposedly like the single.

[KharBevNor]

Even the best top 40 pop song is like a fish that lives in an ocean of piss. You don't want to touch that sucker unless you really need to. Most people just don't know its piss. Because...ok, fuck analogies. Popular music of all genres has sucked roughly since the mid 80's. I would say the terminal decline begins in 83 or 84 and bottoms in 87, maybe there is a slight increase in quality in the very early 90's, but basically by 1994 every new song you will hear on the radio sucks. This is the situation we are in today.

[monkandmovies13]

The thing is, once music that's not your average top 40 music gets around and well known, people who listen to that top 40 stuff mostly like it. I don't really have any friends who are music geeks like me, and they listen to Rihanna and Sean Paul and whoever. But when I give them some Andrew Bird or some Neutral Milk Hotel, they really really like it. And everytime I've seen a song be used in a commercial or TV show or something where people who normally wouldn't listen to that type of music are able to hear it, it gets a great response. Like Feist or Ingrid Michaelson or Sufjan Stevens.

And FYI Sleepercylon, I listen to a huge variety of music and I almost never think of anything I listen to in techincal terms. I'm never like "Oh great chord progression!" or "The instrumentation is so complex!" or "That riff is so well executed and and creative in they way it moves around the pentatonic scale!" Contrary to what you believe, I don't think that there should be a "thought process" in realizing which music you like. When you break music down into technecalities and start deciding why you should like something or not like it, it takes away a lot of the magic. When I hear a song I like, I don't want to waste time deciding why I enjoy it. I could be using that time just enjoying it.

[amok]

I listen to a huge variety of music and I almost never think of anything I listen to in techincal terms. I'm never like "Oh great chord progression!" or "The instrumentation is so complex!" or "That riff is so well executed and and creative in they way it moves around the pentatonic scale!" Contrary to what you believe, I don't think that there should be a "thought process" in realizing which music you like. When you break music down into technecalities and start deciding why you should like something or not like it, it takes away a lot of the magic. When I hear a song I like, I don't want to waste time deciding why I enjoy it. I could be using that time just enjoying it.

Hear hear. I don't know the first goddamn thing about music theory but I know what I like.

[Kai]

Oh god. This is not going to turn into a music theory thread. I refuse to let it.

[KharBevNor]

Fuck that.

What I've always loved is how people tend to have absolutely no problem with elitism in the visual arts, or film, but will defend chart pop music till they die. This sort of hypocrisy is most noticeable in journalists from New York. It's a stupid position. When you defend chart music, you are saying that there is as much merit in 2 Fast 2 Furious as Man With a Movie Camera.

Think about that whenever you say that a Britney Spears song is 'not that bad' or that Justin Timberlake is 'well crafted'.

Just think.

[monkandmovies13]

Fuck that.

What I've always loved is how people tend to have absolutely no problem with elitism in the visual arts, or film, but will defend chart pop music till they die. This sort of hypocrisy is most noticeable in journalists from New York. It's a stupid position. When you defend chart music, you are saying that there is as much merit in 2 Fast 2 Furious as Man With a Movie Camera.

Think about that whenever you say that a Britney Spears song is 'not that bad' or that Justin Timberlake is 'well crafted'.

Just think.

Well I feel basically the same way about all arts as I do about music. It's an extremely subjective thing and it depends what you want out of the art, and what it's supposed to be to you. It's all about what the person is looking for and what they think something should be.

And uh I don't think anyone here is "defending pop chart music until they die." I'm defending the rights for people to listen to pop chart music without being looked down upon by music snobs and their indier-than-thou elitism.

[KharBevNor]

No, but someone will come in here saying how good chart pop music is and arguing for its artistic integrity. It is inevitable.

[monkandmovies13]

Well then that's a situation where I probably would say that that person actually is misguided. It's ridiculous to listen to that kind of music for "artistic integrity." Anyone who listens to Justin Timerblake for deep lyrics is probably a little bit stupid.

[KharBevNor]

Nah, it's something to do with the people being right and 'serious' music being full of straight white men, or something.

I can't really remember.

[SeanBateman]

Man if you can't hear the difference between a Michael Jackson or the new JT and something like Dream Street, then you're just very simply foolish. And if you can't respect the artistry that goes into a really good pop song, from producer to writer to insturmentals etc, then you're even more foolish.

[a pack of wolves]

Fuck that.

What I've always loved is how people tend to have absolutely no problem with elitism in the visual arts, or film, but will defend chart pop music till they die. This sort of hypocrisy is most noticeable in journalists from New York. It's a stupid position. When you defend chart music, you are saying that there is as much merit in 2 Fast 2 Furious as Man With a Movie Camera.

Think about that whenever you say that a Britney Spears song is 'not that bad' or that Justin Timberlake is 'well crafted'.

Just think.

No, your argument makes no sense. Saying that there are things of merit in certain pieces of popular music does not mean you're saying that everything popular ever is as good as everything else. I can't see how you could possibly have reached this conclusion, it would be like saying Waking The Cadaver have exactly as much merit as Blut Aus Nord since they're both metal bands and your argument conflates everything in hugely broad categories.

'Sexyback' is a decent song. Not amazing, it's no 'Toxic', 'Something Kinda Oooh' or 'Umbrella' or anything but it's solid enough. I shook my ass when they dropped it at the club last night, and that's exactly the point of it. It's dance music, it's designed for people to move their bodies to. As for pop being worthy of serious attention... frankly I think it's ridiculous to suggest that because something's popular it's not worthwhile. It affects the piece, certainly, but the massive popularity makes it if anything more worth looking at than something only a handful of people will hear. It's more of a presence in a society's culture.

As for elitism in the visual arts, a lot of that stems from modernism, and modernist elitism was largely about trying to keep working class people out of culture. Much as I enjoy modernist art of various forms I take a certain satisfaction from reading and enjoying TS Eliot when he would have hated the fact that somebody of my class was able to understand his work, so I have no respect for that attitude.

On a slight tangent, Girls Aloud are continuing to completely dominate pop. Superb, Timberlake will never touch them and they piss all over 99% of the dreary indie and metal bands people who bash pop generally cream over.

[SeanBateman]

No way are you claiming that fucking Rhianna is better than JT.

That song is so obnoxiously repetitive, without the exciting backdrop that sexyback provides.

Sexyback is one of the worst songs on the record though.

[monkandmovies13]

No way are you claiming that fucking Rhianna is better than JT.

That song is so obnoxiously repetitive, without the exciting backdrop that sexyback provides.

Sexyback is one of the worst songs on the record though.

I'm happy that I can now say that I have that record on my iPod and really really enjoy it. But I disagree. I think SexyBack is actually one of the best.

And I like that song, but it gets annoying much quicker than SexyBack.

[a pack of wolves]

Rhianna is definitely not better than Timberlake. I have never understood the fuss about Pon De Replay, it's such an unremarkable song and Shut Up And Drive is average at best. I oscillate wildly when it comes to Umbrella, sometimes I find it underwhelming but at others I really get into it. I think part of it's that it was a number one for so very, very long and there's something about that coupled with the almost noise backing part on the chorus and the umbrella metaphor... something about all that being quite so popular really draws me to it, but then just as often it'll fall back into just being ok. Jay Z needs to fuck right off from that track though, so superfluous.

[KharBevNor]

See. Told ya.

Anyway, I think Jacksons safe, I said pop musics decline began after 84, I'm not enough of a git not to accept that Thriller is, objectively, some good pop music.

Justin Timberlake though, seriously? Actually, mentioning him in the same sentence as Michael Jackson makes some sort of sense, as I suppose you could describe Justin Timberlake as a crap, white Michael Jackson wannabe.

Also, artistry? Seriously? Man, there ain't much artistry to be found in pop music. It's more a combination of good market research, technical proficiency and HUGE amounts of money. Vocal tuning and pitch correction are fiddly, and require expensive software to pull off well, but they're not exactly profound artistic statements or particularly talented. Arranging samples of Soft Cell and paying proffessional session musicians to rip off old Motown tunes in an arrangement dictated by a syndicate of song-writers and lyricists to pander to specific market demographics, all with no other express purpose than to make huge quantities of cash? Nah, fuck it. Sorry. Soulless garbage.   

Edit: Elitism in the visual arts stems from Modernism? Say what? And I'm not arguing for elitism, I'm arguing for a universal application of the concept of artistic merit.

[a pack of wolves]

First of all, why is artistic integrity a necessity for something to be worthwhile? Like me I know you enjoy some art where the creators were very unpleasant (NSBM being the obvious example), yet this doesn't necessarily prevent the enjoyment. Therefore we can separate out the art from the creator, wouldn't you agree? As for a universal idea of artistic merit, well... sorry, but that seems really narrow and restrictive. Different things require different approaches. As for your description of contemporary pop, although it does describe a fair few artists it doesn't do a good job for all of them at all.

I wasn't saying all elitism in visual art comes from modernism but I'd say that a lot in contemporary practice can be traced back there, yes. It can hardly be denied that it was hugely elitist.

[KharBevNor]

Hmn, admittedly the parallels do break down at around this point. I consider contemporary visual art far too elitist, whereas here I'm saying that I don't think a lot of the major strands in contemporary music criticism are elitist enough, but the essential difference is what the fine art establishment ignores tends to be genuinely populist, or even modern folk culture, as in art created by the people: graffiti for example. I don't think anyone would ever argue that Thomas Kinkade should be mentioned in the same breath as Caravaggio. That's kind of what the pop music things like. It's a whole different process of creation. In fact, there are I suppose some parallels you could draw between pop musicians and, say, the YBAs, like Damien Hirst and his army of assistants who actually saw the cows in half and embalm the sharks and diamond stud the skulls whilst he doodles ideas on the back of cigarette packets. But again, there are key differences. I suppose I come off as 'rockist', or whatever.

The problem with seperating chart pop from its creators is that the whole edifice is so image based that the musican, their image and their celebrity baggage are pretty hard to extricate from the music itself. If you do remove the context, it stops becoming actively insulting and merely becomes boring, which I suppose is an improvement.

I never seperate NSBM from its creators. Otherwise I might forget not to buy things from them.

[Johnny C]

The problem with seperating chart pop from its creators is that the whole edifice is so image based that the musican, their image and their celebrity baggage are pretty hard to extricate from the music itself. If you do remove the context, it stops becoming actively insulting and merely becomes boring, which I suppose is an improvement.

At best this is a subjective statement.

[KharBevNor]

At best, your mother can be described as an 'escort'.

[a pack of wolves]

Hmn, admittedly the parallels do break down at around this point. I consider contemporary visual art far too elitist, whereas here I'm saying that I don't think a lot of the major strands in contemporary music criticism are elitist enough, but the essential difference is what the fine art establishment ignores tends to be genuinely populist, or even modern folk culture, as in art created by the people: graffiti for example. I don't think anyone would ever argue that Thomas Kinkade should be mentioned in the same breath as Caravaggio. That's kind of what the pop music things like. It's a whole different process of creation. In fact, there are I suppose some parallels you could draw between pop musicians and, say, the YBAs, like Damien Hirst and his army of assistants who actually saw the cows in half and embalm the sharks and diamond stud the skulls whilst he doodles ideas on the back of cigarette packets. But again, there are key differences. I suppose I come off as 'rockist', or whatever.

Artists have been using teams of assistants to create a lot of their art since way before the YBA's, Rodin did the same thing for a lot of his sculpture doing only certain parts himself. That's by the by though, and the YBA's often made it a more deliberate part of their practice. I see the parallel but personally I'd say contemporary pop is more similar in process and result to commercial design or architecture. A hugely different creative process to, say, a sculptor making a public art piece on commission from a local council but they can all produce things which are worthy of attention.

[KharBevNor]

Very true. But I think this philosophising is really overlooking the fundamental fact that modern popular music sucks goat balls.

[a pack of wolves]

You're just mad because you wanted to be the one to bring sexy back but now you think you'll look like a copycat if you go around doling it out. Not only that but the motherfuckers will probably have learned how to act from their previous experiences with Mr Timberlake, and who wants prepared motherfuckers? It would spoil all the fun.

[KharBevNor]

Where did sexy actually go? Did anyone notice its absence? I didn't.

[a pack of wolves]

To be fair, he doesn't stipulate how long he had sexy for, just that he's bringing it back. He probably just took it when we'd nipped down the shops for some bread and then quickly returned it in song form. Like when a cheap kid finds an object around the house and quikly wraps it up for mothers day in the morning, hoping the cute will see him through.

[KharBevNor]

Justin Timberlake is a thief and a liar.

[Johnny C]

Congratulations, in the span of four posts this thread has become a Facebook group.

[Liz]

Man if you can't hear the difference between a Michael Jackson or the new JT and something like Dream Street, then you're just very simply foolish. And if you can't respect the artistry that goes into a really good pop song, from producer to writer to insturmentals etc, then you're even more foolish.

I used to like Dream Street.

There are very few things in this world that I am more ashamed of.

[Inlander]

Where did sexy actually go? Did anyone notice its absence? I didn't.

I think it just went behind the toilet block for a quick smoke. Got tired of being hassled all the time. Sexy's actually a bit of a loner at the end of the day.

[JimmyJazz]

Sexy died when James Brown died.

YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE.

[Ballard]

Man, I almost saw him live too. He died on Christmas day 2006. I was going to spend $500 on two tickets to see him play at B.B. King's Bar & Grill on New Year's Eve.

I'm thankful that I hesitated to buy the tickets before he passed away, though. They were non-refundable and they booked some random jazz band because they couldn't find a decent replacement on such short notice.

[supersheep]

I saw him live the last time he played in Ireland. I was on my own in the middle of a crowd and the people around me were boring and not dancing and a lot of my mates went to see the Foo Fighters instead. I still had fun.

[Ballard]

They went to see the Foo Fighters over James Brown?

Get new friends.

[Kai]

Sexy died when OH WAIT PRINCE IS STILL ALIVE

[JimmyJazz]

I appears I have been bested by Kai, Prince and the latter's phallius-like guitar.

[Ballard]

You obviously haven't seen the Wangcaster.