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Author Topic: Distressing trends in modern pop music  (Read 26821 times)

Patrick

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Distressing trends in modern pop music
« on: 27 Apr 2013, 18:19 »

Let us discuss them. How about we begin with song titles/choruses that involve words like hey, oh, ho, hum, etc.

For example:, "Ho Hey" by The Lumineers. Is this song about a 'ghetto' colloquialism for a prostitute? Not at all. Fuck I don't even know what it is about,  honestly, I've never listened to it front to back before. It's a love song, maybe?

Carry on with your own observations, my lovelies.
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Redball

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #1 on: 27 Apr 2013, 18:24 »

And while I'm probably not likely to listen to it -- although now my curiosity has been nudged -- there is a tradition of using vocal sounds for rhythm, i.e., hey nonny nonny, tra-la-la-la-la-lah, etc.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #2 on: 27 Apr 2013, 21:14 »

pop seems to have one of three sounds nowadays;

-folk-music-ish stuff that sounds like it should be sung around a campfire
-overprocessed pseudo-techno
-white kids trying to "sound black" (not meaning to be racist but i have no idea how else to say it - its a pretty blatant effort)



needless to say, i don't enjoy almost anything out of any of those categories.

(except Little Talks by Of Monsters And Men. that song is so catchy it's ridiculous)
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Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #3 on: 28 Apr 2013, 03:01 »

kick drums and kick tambourines
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Zingoleb

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #4 on: 28 Apr 2013, 05:20 »

autotune is dead
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #5 on: 28 Apr 2013, 06:10 »

The lack of damned instruments.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #6 on: 28 Apr 2013, 06:36 »

Everything was better when I was young.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #7 on: 28 Apr 2013, 06:58 »

I am young, and I never liked popular music.

QFT:
The lack of damned instruments.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #8 on: 28 Apr 2013, 07:14 »

-folk-music-ish stuff that sounds like it should be sung around a campfire

Oh my god can we kill Mumford and Sons, please?
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #9 on: 28 Apr 2013, 08:57 »

when in doubt, Cat Stevens.

Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #10 on: 28 Apr 2013, 10:20 »

-folk-music-ish stuff that sounds like it should be sung around a campfire

Oh my god can we kill Mumford and Sons, please?

yep I'm definitely glad you're back, Kris
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #11 on: 28 Apr 2013, 12:23 »

Hey now, to be fair Mumford And Sons have one good song... they just choose to record it 12 times for each album.

Seriously, how does a band fuck off for three years and come back sounding EXACTLY THE SAME?
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pwhodges

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #12 on: 28 Apr 2013, 15:01 »

Clearly they have a vision....
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #13 on: 28 Apr 2013, 15:51 »

Don't get me wrong, one thing that bugs me nowadays is bands that go away for three years and come back TOTALLY different - but some evolution whatsoever would be great.
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IDMG

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #14 on: 28 Apr 2013, 16:16 »

Overuse of dynamic range compression.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #15 on: 28 Apr 2013, 18:21 »

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #16 on: 28 Apr 2013, 21:29 »

Absolute dogshit lyrical content. Nearly every sad song is a break-up song, and nearly every non-sad song is a party-hard song. Modern popular music is heinously uncreative and restrictively binary.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #17 on: 28 Apr 2013, 21:41 »

and nearly every non-sad song is a party-hard song.

Or a love song.

Or, worst of all, a motivational song.
« Last Edit: 28 Apr 2013, 22:09 by mtmerrick »
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Jimor

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #18 on: 28 Apr 2013, 21:50 »

It's not that pop music doesn't often have weak repetitive lyrics, that's to be expected to some extent. It's that the songs people point to as great examples of contemporary songwriting are no better than what I hear at local open mics.
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #19 on: 29 Apr 2013, 00:05 »

This 'modern pop music is all like this!' stuff is kinda showing a lack of research.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #20 on: 29 Apr 2013, 01:10 »

No research needed. I'm subjected to it many hours a day.
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Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #21 on: 29 Apr 2013, 01:40 »

This 'modern pop music is all like this!' stuff is kinda showing a lack of research.

clearly the US and Britain don't have much in common in terms of music that winds up on pop radio, then.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #22 on: 29 Apr 2013, 01:49 »

This is very true.

It's normally six months to a year before UK stuff gets over here.
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KingOfIreland

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #23 on: 29 Apr 2013, 03:22 »

Overuse of dynamic range compression.

Oh god, this. But that actually happens in non-pop too. A lot of CD's I have are virtually unlistenable due to overcompression.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #24 on: 29 Apr 2013, 04:00 »

"Haters" not realizing they are part of the overall marketing strategy and shutting the fuck up accordingly.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #25 on: 29 Apr 2013, 08:39 »

I'd like some kind of explanation as to why it's "distressing". I mean, a lot of the stuff mentioned here I hate too, but I don't really find it distressing. Distressing would indicate it somehow scares me that most kids like to listen to music with dynamic range compression and stupid lyrics. And I don't. They can listen to whatever the fuck they want.
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #26 on: 29 Apr 2013, 09:56 »

I think maybe our definitions of 'pop' are differing, when I say pop I'm referring to 'anything that's not jazz or classical' pretty much.

As far as what you guys are calling pop, that is to say, the radio, I'd say that pop music is as bad now as it has been for decades, no worse.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #27 on: 29 Apr 2013, 09:58 »

I'd say that pop music is as bad now as it has been for decades, no worse.

simply a different kind of bad :P
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #28 on: 29 Apr 2013, 10:27 »

Exactly. Different, not better or worse. And there is great pop music in any decade, and there are great non-pop songs with pop elements (structure, chorus, melody, hook).
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Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #29 on: 29 Apr 2013, 12:34 »

And there is great pop music in any decade

Yes, absolutely. In the wise words of Nicki Minaj, "I beez in the trap." How can anyone argue with that?
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #30 on: 29 Apr 2013, 12:49 »

Fuck you, Pat, you don't even like Pink Floyd *shakes fist*

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT GUITAR MUSIC NOT LIKE YOU PLAY GUITAR AND MADE AN AWESOME ALBUM OR ohhh....
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Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #31 on: 29 Apr 2013, 13:22 »

yeah that's because they, like Mumford and Sons, wrote like 4 good songs and just choose to record them over and over and over
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #32 on: 29 Apr 2013, 13:48 »

"I Will Wait For You" would be a much better song without the banjo  :psyduck:  the fact that "pop" music contains a banjo at all is distressing.
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Thrillho

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #33 on: 29 Apr 2013, 14:16 »

yeah that's because they, like Mumford and Sons, wrote like 4 good songs and just choose to record them over and over and over

That's hardly fair, that's three more than Mumford wrote.
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Cire27

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #34 on: 30 Apr 2013, 05:38 »

"I Will Wait For You" would be a much better song without the banjo  :psyduck:  the fact that "pop" music contains a banjo at all is distressing.

I don't know what you're talking about; banjos are fuckin' great.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #35 on: 30 Apr 2013, 20:48 »

And while I'm probably not likely to listen to it -- although now my curiosity has been nudged -- there is a tradition of using vocal sounds for rhythm, i.e., hey nonny nonny, tra-la-la-la-la-lah, etc.
HEY LAI LA HEY, LAI LA HEY, LAI LA HEY, LA LA LA LA LA
(Not pop, but immediately thought of this)
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #36 on: 30 Apr 2013, 23:26 »

I don't know what you're talking about; banjos are fuckin' great.

http://vimeo.com/1941168
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IDMG

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #37 on: 01 May 2013, 14:35 »

I'd like some kind of explanation as to why it's "distressing". I mean, a lot of the stuff mentioned here I hate too, but I don't really find it distressing. Distressing would indicate it somehow scares me that most kids like to listen to music with dynamic range compression and stupid lyrics. And I don't. They can listen to whatever the fuck they want.

Why I find the use of compression as an easy way to make shit sound artificially loud distressing:

1.) It's destroying the quality of the music I listen to, not just music like Katy Perry.
2.) It's terrible for your hearing.
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Kugai

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #38 on: 01 May 2013, 18:58 »

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James The Kugai 

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #39 on: 03 May 2013, 07:17 »

everything is bad now. Ugh. Can't even control rage enough to comment reasponably. Suffice to say, I'vwe started digging bands I hated in the 70s-80s because I had no idea all other pop music would suck in the future. /a little too harsh //still no jetpack
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #41 on: 06 May 2013, 10:26 »

On a slightly-related note, if you haven't yet seen it, watch the movie Idiocracy immediately.
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Lupercal

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #42 on: 18 May 2013, 16:37 »

I want to argue nothing's original. But nothing's really ever been original. Clapton made a living from singing songs originally done by black guys in the 30s and 40s, but nobody heard of them. Same goes for the Stones. 70s 'neo-blues' was a hip new kind of thing.

So I feel like people like Bruno Mars are just taking the popularity of Sting/The Police, the pertaining love for Bob Marley, and just infusing it with a slab of mediocrity so that it sounds like a rip-off rather than something original. I also kind of dislike the lack of bands that I know of that seem to do songs that aren't later going to be turned into 3-minute radio jizz or an 'anthemic' stadium song that has a chorus 20,000 people can remember (essentially - do bands bother with 'deep cuts' anymore, or is it just filler? Does a song become a deep cut after
  • amount of people have decided it's a great non-single track?)


I'd like to also put my foot in to say, fuck off pop-folk crap. Please, folk is a fairly neat genre that I haven't really explored but the stuff I've heard I've liked. Mumford doesn't do anything for me...

Hey, I'm a grumpy old man at the age of 22! I think what this really means is I must EXPAND MY MUSICAL HORIZONS and get into some bands that are decent and that tour the UK.
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Patrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #43 on: 20 May 2013, 02:23 »

I want to argue nothing's original.

There's a little individuality in anything I think is worth hearing. It's the combination of influences that makes it all special.
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mtmerrick

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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #44 on: 20 May 2013, 02:34 »

Very few things ever created are truly original. Pretty much everything is inspired by, a derivative of, an evolution of, based upon,  or springboarded off of something else. This goes for all things,  and music is no exception.

Now shamelessly ripping someone off is a completely different story, but you can't expect everyone to be 100% original in everything they do.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #45 on: 20 Jul 2013, 04:32 »

and LEd Zepellin apparently never had much original to say. Still they were kind of special.
http://everythingisaremix.info/ EDIT====
specifically > https://vimeo.com/14912890
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #46 on: 20 Jul 2013, 04:58 »

Well, to be fair, Led Zeppelin was heavily grounded in the folk movement, and they did record a huge amount of original compositions too..
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #47 on: 20 Jul 2013, 05:10 »

Hell, even Van Halen's early work was based on Surf music.

Let's compare:


with


Very dramatic, the chords mirror the often surprising changes found in a lot of west-coast music of the time. Part of VH's shock value was the fact that a lot of their stuff wasn't based in the blues, but rather in Surf Rock.
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #48 on: 26 Jul 2013, 08:02 »

REMIX
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Re: Distressing trends in modern pop music
« Reply #49 on: 14 Aug 2013, 11:14 »

A distressing trend in pop music is that it still exists. We seriously could live without it in my opinion.. there are so much more varied and "better" (for lack of a better word) genres of music.  I never liked pop music.. it sucks the life out of everything... once someone gets a taste of it, that's what they expect everything to be.

Of course this is all in my own experience and my opinion only. :)
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