Most-streamed track of the day by country

That was my first reaction, too. Generic, computer-generated mush. It doesn't take a skilled musician anymore to be a star.

Then I recalled my youth. I was an angry teenager in the early to mid 1990s. My parents hated the grunge and punk music I listened to. Now to be fair, that music has held up pretty good. But if you look at the top 40 music from that era... not so much. Trashy euro-pop dominated the charts.

I guess we'll have to wait for a decade or two to see what holds up and what don't.

"I keep hearing this, but I never see any of its arguers actually attempt to make a pop song. If it’s so easy, why do only some people have the knack for pulling it off (not the artist/singer; the composer (the person you never hear of))"

Because it is so easy to make, they are making massive numbers of garbage tracks - and it just so happens that some garbage tracks are popular. You need 'garage band' and possibly microphone - that's it. Have a look at how 'Chief Keef' had his music produced by 'Little Chop'. Most top tracks are of course somewhat professional produced.

But consider that 'music' is not the name of the game, it's 'video' (i.e. video killed the radio start), Instagram, twitter, Tumblr and highly visual content. You can see this with Lady Gaga (talented) and SixNine (well, creative, but garbage) - they're at least as visual as they are audial, as are most artists these days.

It's about the brand/image/meme. Someone in their basement, with very little skill, can make a loop, mumble over it, and this 'meme' can catch on. With a very little bit of production effort by a nominally professional engineer, it can sound 'produced'. At least as much of their effort goes into the look, the brand, the relationships, the Instagram, the video etc..

And it's worth adding, the 'talent' that is sometimes evident in this kind of production, may have little to do with the music, and more to do with anything else.

I actually respect the 'marketing' ability, if you want to call it that, of many of these acts. Post Malone has somehow worked his way into having his own festival with his 'Posties' followers. Genius marketing.

When P. Diddy started his label, he would ask his talent scouts "How did they look" - not "How did they sound". Somewhat cynically, P. Diddy was smart enough to know that pop acts are a lot (and ever more) about appearance. A pop artist is like a living brand.

Another feature of 'how modern music is made' is that the producer is now in the creative/driver seat - not the artists. Consider 'TheWeeknd' - his big hit, 'Can't feel my face' was by Max Martin, famous songmaker for Britney Spears and so many others. Without that hit, TheWeeknd would be nobody - we'd have never heard of him. But once his meme/brand was established, he has a 'following' and can churn out a lot of mediocre stuff.

This has always been the case to some extent: Michael Jackson was backed by Quincey Jones - who was Frank Sinatra's arranger. But Michael Jackson is a genius entertainer and true 'pop artists', and of course Quincey Jones is an off-the-hook musical genius producer.

This evident in 'live' music. I've been to countless shows where their music is just some canned track, the artist comes out and mumbles over it? Seriously? In most cases, this is not impressive.

Anecdote: I went to a show recently, bulleted as Brasilian/French/American rap thing in Montreal, I was so excited. The 'warmup' DJ played ... then the 'act DJ' played, a guy with huge fuzzy hair came out, jumped around like a hype man say 'boyeah' 'oi' and whatever into the mike, getting everyone excited ... we were ... anticipating the main act. But that was it!!! No kidding. Some idiot with a microphone, saying a word or two like 'yeah' 'oh yea' 'go go go' into the microphone not rapping or anything. He was passing himself off as an act! The crowd seemed to appreciate it. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone, it was absurd. To me, it signaled literally the end of music: loud, barely audible weird sounds coming out of a speaker, with a fuzzy-haired Brazillian dude sputtering occasional nonsense into a microphone and waving his hands. It's not even Kareoke. It was just noise and hand-waving. This to me is he audial version of the 'pet rock' or the $1M painting that's just a black dot - people can be induced to like anything.

So there are obviously talented pop artists. Ed Sheerhan, a legit musician who purposely writes for the radio. Bruno Mars & Co, are total geniuses. Lady Gaga. Kenrdick Lamar. Ariana Grande has wicked chops, she's obviously a talented singer/dancer/entertainer. Obviously many others, but the charts are otherwise polluted with irrelevant, unlistenable tracks.

Surely some people thought Jazz was easy to make, but I suspect that many were just jealous because they obviously knew they couldn't do it. Jazz is objectively not easy to make. Literally anyone who has tried knows how hard it is. Also, FYI, there's no counterpoint ... but the chord combinations, the speed of the changes, the variety ... is far more than in most forms of classical music.

Most pop music is very easy to make, and there are mountains of gibberish there for anyone to sort through. Fewer and fewer gems.

I have a theory about this. I think the song format is conforming to the needs of advertisers.

That’s why every top song is just a person talking over a beat, usually with the same kind of vocal style, usually the same kind of beat.

It’s really hard to sing the word “Lamborghini” and have that fit into the lyrics and be heard clearly and have the brand image positioned correctly.

It’s also a waste of advertising space to have any duration of a song not include clearly spoken lyrics.

Taking this example, DaBaby’s “Rockstar” sounds basically identical to hundreds of other recent songs that follow the same format of a person talking repetitively over a simple beat (every Drake song for example). Five possible instances of integrated advertising in the lyrics: Lamborghini, Chevrolet Suburban, Maybach, Glock, and Apple FaceTime. 2 of them in the chorus.

So what kind of music will people accept, that maximizes spoken word duration, speaks those words clearly, provides brand image maneuverability within the lyrics, doesn’t distract from the lyrics, and won’t have a fatal loss of integrity as a result of obvious product placements?

That list of requirements leaves us with basically one style of one genre, and it’s this style of rap / hip hop. To any extent that a song deviates, it becomes less effective as a channel for advertising.

I think the most convincing piece of evidence in support of this is this lack of differentiation among artists, even in terms of vocal style. In ‘90s hip hop every artist had a completely unique style, all present-day hip hop fans love all of those legendary artists... and yet, every modern artist is just mimicking the exact same cadence as Drake or Kendrick Lamar.

None of this can be reconciled with the notion that songs becomes popular purely because people like them.

Yes, Ed as an individual is amazingly prevalent, I was aware of that. But overall, that kind of music, is not. Have a look at the Hot100 right now:

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

I believe that a very important aspect of making music for young people is to ensure that old people don't like it.