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The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

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Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#61

Post by Raphael »

mwcampbell wrote: post #19

> The two most similar songs from 2007 to 2011 were Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and Kesha’s “We R Who We R” , and they indeed sound alike. I disagree. I just listened to both songs on Spotify, and they do not sound alike. Different keys, different vocal ranges, different voices, different instruments (or at least, different synthesized sounds). The Kesha song has more electronic effects on her voice. Kesha raps, whi…

The example I remember is two different songs by the same artists. ("California Girls" and "Tik Tok" are the same song.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2dPA2dCRNY

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#62

Post by sonnyblarney »

cma wrote: post #58
sonnyblarney wrote: post #53

Not just diversity, but quality. There are many very objective metrics we can use, but even by many creative metrics - it's worse. Lyrically: have you ever listened to what 2Pac or Biggie were saying? They were rhyming. There was an obvious lyrical flow. Now compare to Lil' Wayne who literally spouts gibberish. Lil wayne 'says words' to 'a beat' and that's it. Some people point out that 'there's always been bad music…

> Underlying issues are partly commercialization, but also - 'visualization'. Remember 'video killed the radio star?' - well YouTube is the new MTV and 'how it looks' is as important than 'how it sounds'. Pop stars now generally are more attractive. You had opera and musicals long before MTV and Youtube. And people mostly didn't hide their faces during live performances before or during the current period of recorded…

Opera and Musicals are inherently visual. And Opera singers are not necessarily pretty.

Nobody cares what the pianist looks like :)

To be fair: Taylor Swift and Beyonce - if you see them totally without makeup, are not super attractive, they look in the range of fairly normal. Also there's a double standard for men and women to some extent. Top male artist right now is Ed Sheeran and he is one ugly mofo, then again, to my point - he's highly talented ... when he's not writing pop tunes 'designed for a mass audience' he does some cool stuff. On Charlie Rose he basically admitted he writes a lot of stuff for commercial purposes, it's a business.

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#63

Post by sonnyblarney »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #54
21 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> quite narrow range of parameters I think it's just a statistical problem. Target A: you want your song to be liked by 10 thousand people Target B: you want your song to be liked by 1 billion people I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art.

"I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art" Technically you could say thins, but in reality I would say there is definitely 'less art'. Katey Perry is a product, not an artist, listening to her reminds me of walking into a nice, clean, new McDonald's. Sure there is 'art' even in Product Marketing and Segmentation ... but funny enough, most of this music does not la…

I should add - do you remember Justin Timbrlake song 'Lovin' it'?

And how McDonald's brand tag line for that time was 'lovin it'?

That was coordinated.

A huge star, worked with a mega fast-food brand so that the song / brand tag line would be literally the same thing. That was a brilliant but kind of shady move by both parties, but it shows the 'absolute corporatrization' of the music industry. Literally the music is there to push fast food. That goes way beyond using a hit song to sell cars - it's literally the creation of pop-stardom in alignment with marketing objectives of a major brand.

The fact that can happen right in front of us, while so many people are apparently unaware - or don't care - is pretty funny and sad.

Again one could take the 'it's still art' line ... sure, a kind of 'art of sneaky marketing' maybe, but it's more than fair to say that this will significantly compromise creative aspects of the music.

Big labels are the same as Big Hollywood and Big Corps - they are in the business of entertainment in a way.

And it's not to say that McD's is entirely crap, nor does it mean that Timberlake is not talented, it's just that it's corporatized. Timberlake came up inside Disney, a professional by his mid-teens. Not so much the path of the artiste ...

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#64

Post by s_trumpet »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #53

Not just diversity, but quality. There are many very objective metrics we can use, but even by many creative metrics - it's worse. Lyrically: have you ever listened to what 2Pac or Biggie were saying? They were rhyming. There was an obvious lyrical flow. Now compare to Lil' Wayne who literally spouts gibberish. Lil wayne 'says words' to 'a beat' and that's it. Some people point out that 'there's always been bad music…

> Lyrically: have you ever listened to what 2Pac or Biggie were saying? They were rhyming. There was an obvious lyrical flow. Now compare to Lil' Wayne who literally spouts gibberish. Lil wayne 'says words' to 'a beat' and that's it.

Firstly, a minor point: Wayne's dominant era is already a decade ago, and he is of the older generation of rappers now.

Wayne is not a "deep" rapper most times (although he has his moments, e.g. Tie My Hands and I Feel Like Dying). He's a punchline rapper - one who isn't trying to convey Meaning but just have fun on a beat. This tradition has a long history in hip-hop, going all the way back to the Sugarhill Gang and "Rapper's Delight".

His mixtape work is widely acclaimed as classic stuff - Da Drought 3, Dedication 2 and No Ceilings being the most prominent. His music has endless quotables, e.g. "real G's move in silence like lasagna"[0]. Rap heavyweights like Ice Cube, Eminem, Busta Rhymes, Kendrick Lamar, Nas and Raekwon have high opinions of his work, with hip-hop pioneer KRS-One calling him the "greatest rapper of all time[1]." Post-Wayne rappers betray a huge influence, with e.g. Kendrick Lamar, Young Thug, A$AP Rocky, and most prominently Drake.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tOAGY59uQ

[1] https://www.lilwaynehq.com/compliments/

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#65

Post by nxie »

joe_the_user wrote: post #23
bdjshsvajwv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that websites are intended to be functional while songs are intended to be works of art. Thats the problem. Why are we treating music like an industrial product? (The answer is money)

Two hundred years ago, most popular music existed primarily as simply a support for public dancing. The audience didn't expect to sit and listen to compelling virtuosos perform. It was only the advent of recorded music that allowed individual performers of popular music to gain specific audiences (with free jazz performers of 1930s being perhaps the first popular recording artists noted for producing "works of art").…

> "Two hundred years ago, most popular music existed primarily as simply a support for public dancing. The audience didn't expect to sit and listen to compelling virtuosos perform."

Have to disagree with you there. The most immediate counterexample that jumps to mind is Wagner. Hugely popular and audiences went to a Wagner opera not looking to merely be entertained but for the artistic merit of his works.

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#66

Post by sacado2 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #23
bdjshsvajwv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that websites are intended to be functional while songs are intended to be works of art. Thats the problem. Why are we treating music like an industrial product? (The answer is money)

Two hundred years ago, most popular music existed primarily as simply a support for public dancing. The audience didn't expect to sit and listen to compelling virtuosos perform. It was only the advent of recorded music that allowed individual performers of popular music to gain specific audiences (with free jazz performers of 1930s being perhaps the first popular recording artists noted for producing "works of art").…

Free jazz in the 30's ? That was more the era of early be-bop.

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#67

Post by mercer »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #63
sonnyblarney wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art" Technically you could say thins, but in reality I would say there is definitely 'less art'. Katey Perry is a product, not an artist, listening to her reminds me of walking into a nice, clean, new McDonald's. Sure there is 'art' even in Product Marketing and Segmentation ... but funny enough, most of this music does not la…

I should add - do you remember Justin Timbrlake song 'Lovin' it'? And how McDonald's brand tag line for that time was 'lovin it'? That was coordinated. A huge star, worked with a mega fast-food brand so that the song / brand tag line would be literally the same thing. That was a brilliant but kind of shady move by both parties, but it shows the 'absolute corporatrization' of the music industry. Literally the music is…

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I never got the impression that "I'm loving it" was anything less than a clear McDonalds/Timberlake tie-in. Was this really not obvious to parts of the world?

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #63
sonnyblarney wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art" Technically you could say thins, but in reality I would say there is definitely 'less art'. Katey Perry is a product, not an artist, listening to her reminds me of walking into a nice, clean, new McDonald's. Sure there is 'art' even in Product Marketing and Segmentation ... but funny enough, most of this music does not la…

I should add - do you remember Justin Timbrlake song 'Lovin' it'? And how McDonald's brand tag line for that time was 'lovin it'? That was coordinated. A huge star, worked with a mega fast-food brand so that the song / brand tag line would be literally the same thing. That was a brilliant but kind of shady move by both parties, but it shows the 'absolute corporatrization' of the music industry. Literally the music is…

> I should add - do you remember Justin Timbrlake song 'Lovin' it'?

No, and having researched it just now, from it's chart performance, I doubt all that many people outside of Belgium did even within a few months of its release, except for the part actually used in McDonalds commercials.

> A huge star, worked with a mega fast-food brand so that the song / brand tag line would be literally the same thing.

The song was written as a jingle, based on a pre-existing advertising campaign in Germany, before Timberlake became involved; AFAICT, his involvement was a straight take money to do cross-promotion deal.

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#69

Post by rainonmoon »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #54
21 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> quite narrow range of parameters I think it's just a statistical problem. Target A: you want your song to be liked by 10 thousand people Target B: you want your song to be liked by 1 billion people I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art.

"I don't think there is less art in a massively popular song. It's just a different kind of art" Technically you could say thins, but in reality I would say there is definitely 'less art'. Katey Perry is a product, not an artist, listening to her reminds me of walking into a nice, clean, new McDonald's. Sure there is 'art' even in Product Marketing and Segmentation ... but funny enough, most of this music does not la…

You say "most of this music does not last" but you're referring to music that was only produced a handful of years ago. It's too early to tell if it will or won't in a historical sense. In the minds of a lot of people below the age of 25, that music left an indelible mark, and very much will last. I'm not sure you've given Katy Perry much scrutiny if she reminds you of walking into a "nice, clean, new McDonald's." Perry's performance is sexually liberated and, if occasionally somewhat tone-deaf (e.g. Ur So Gay) comparatively transgressive. Further, although US literacy could be higher, most people are far from "borderline illiterate." But if you take exception with people not reading more broadly/deeply, consider reading some of the past 10 years of pop cultural criticism where the paradigm has shifted towards applying intellectual rigor to mass culture. You might learn something interesting.

Re: The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs

#70

Post by rainonmoon »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #7
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #2

I'm always gonna be fascinated by any analyses like this - but can I just say how incredible tired I am of everything containing "music" combined with "this generation". Everyone, everyone in the industrialised world and well beyond can purchase a device smaller than their palm and listen to literal billions of songs. Noone is stopping you from only listening to "Tibet monk techno punk instrumental remixes" for the r…

What you say is true, although it misses a larger point: that even though we CAN listen to unlimited variety, since the labels control the distribution systems (radio plays, featured music, music sold in big box stores, publicity etc etc) the music they produce becomes inevitably popular. Turn on the radio, walk into Walmart, turn on the tv, watch a movie and you’re not going to hear independent Tibetan chants. You’r…

I don't necessarily disagree, but I want to add that music taste has an important social component that often seems overlooked in favour of nebulous ideas like "artistic merit" (not from you, but elsewhere on this page.) If you and your friends only listen to Top 40, that music has personal and social resonance. It probably makes you feel good about your relationships, and also fosters the strengthening of those relationships. While some people prefer the individuality of their tastes, for plenty others there's a thrill to participating in a monolithic cultural event like One Direction or Ed Sheeran etc. These metrics of "good"-ness shouldn't be dismissed simply because the subjects of them don't play crazy polyrhythms where every song has 34 chords.
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