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Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

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Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#91

Post by lucasverra »

watwut wrote: post #79
adamsea wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t someone take what you just said and replace the word “music” with “book”, or “film”? IMHO art (all the arts), art is like food. There’s nothing wrong with ice cream, or McDonald’s sometimes. Not everyone has to be vegan. Eat junk food all the time, though, and it’s unhealthy for you. I think the same is true for music, film, the visual arts, literature, fashion, design, etc. It’s your loss, IMHO. It’s like s…

Junk food is bad comparison, because listening to unchallenging music will not harm you at all. For that matter, the same goes with visual arts and fashion and design. There are movies and books that can actually harm you (when it teaches wrong history or facts for example, when violence is more then you can handle), but I would argue the cheap predictable popular ones are rarely those. It is cheap argument to try to…

Being cognitively unchallenged by music or visual arts could be considered "harm". I know i do but anectada I guess.

The fact that you imply his argument is "cheap" or that you very quickly judge it as "bad comparison" with no more arguments than whatever you think could be interpreted as "his point exactly".

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#92

Post by dredmorbius »

menybuvico wrote: post #76
tomcam wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WAP.

I got curious and listened to it, and after listening to that load of rubbish, I simply don't feel connected with society anymore. Do people actually listen to this and like it, or is it just the perceived shock value that counts?

"Rock and roll" is an explicit reference to the sex act and "jazz" the usual male contribution to same. Mick Jagger couldn't "get no satisfaction", the Beatles asked "why don't we do it in the road", Nina Simone wanted "some sugar in my bowl", one-not-really-a-hit-wonder Hillary instructed listeners to "drop your pants around your ankles" (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wu9Zps8vnEY), and then there's pretty much everything about Barry White.

WAP isn't the most nuanced contribution to this tradition, but it's hardly the first work exploiting the common-denominator. Its shock value largely lies in its novelty. In another 2-6 decades it will make the transition to familiar and then oldy. No predictions if it will be ranked with Simone, White, Jagger, the Beatles, or Hillary.

Not my cuppa, though I got off the pop train a few decades back.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#93

Post by watwut »

lucasverra wrote: post #91
watwut wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Junk food is bad comparison, because listening to unchallenging music will not harm you at all. For that matter, the same goes with visual arts and fashion and design. There are movies and books that can actually harm you (when it teaches wrong history or facts for example, when violence is more then you can handle), but I would argue the cheap predictable popular ones are rarely those. It is cheap argument to try to…

Being cognitively unchallenged by music or visual arts could be considered "harm". I know i do but anectada I guess. The fact that you imply his argument is "cheap" or that you very quickly judge it as "bad comparison" with no more arguments than whatever you think could be interpreted as "his point exactly".

> Being cognitively unchallenged by music or visual arts could be considered "harm".

Is being cognitively unchallenged by something being harmed by that something in general? That is extraordinary claim that would require evidence. That is not standard we apply to other daily activities. And listening to music is not even activity, it is just something you put onto environment as you do something else.

If I go somewhere without listening to music, arguably getting even less challenging sounds into my ears, am I being harmed even more?

> I know i do but anectada I guess.

Do you have anecdote of someone being harmed by unchallenging music? Anectada require anecdote that confirms one case of it happening. I see only claim itself, but no anecdote.

> The fact that you imply his argument is "cheap" or that you very quickly judge it as "bad comparison" with no more arguments than whatever you think could be interpreted as "his point exactly".

Me thinking and saying that is comparison is bad and arguing by no harm is not proving "his point exactly". He did not wrote any arguments for why unchallenging music harms listener. He avoided need to put in such arguments by avoiding direct claim, opting for implication instead. It is common tactic when people want to appeal to emotions and instincts. It is also completely valid to answer it.

It is quite literally valid disagreement with quick judgement someone else made. Also, I did not implied his argument is cheap, I said it openly.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

watwut wrote: post #79
adamsea wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t someone take what you just said and replace the word “music” with “book”, or “film”? IMHO art (all the arts), art is like food. There’s nothing wrong with ice cream, or McDonald’s sometimes. Not everyone has to be vegan. Eat junk food all the time, though, and it’s unhealthy for you. I think the same is true for music, film, the visual arts, literature, fashion, design, etc. It’s your loss, IMHO. It’s like s…

Junk food is bad comparison, because listening to unchallenging music will not harm you at all. For that matter, the same goes with visual arts and fashion and design. There are movies and books that can actually harm you (when it teaches wrong history or facts for example, when violence is more then you can handle), but I would argue the cheap predictable popular ones are rarely those. It is cheap argument to try to…

I think to make a food comparison work, you need to set the reference point straight. Since your body (and your mind) doesn't require any music / movie / book to survive, the proper comparison is to food eaten on top of nutritional baseline - to all the extra things you eat above minimum survivable calories/nutrients.

This way, pop music can be correctly likened to McDonald's food: won't harm you at all, and it's one of the most pleasant things you can get with low effort. The "movies and books that can actually harm you" can be likened not to fast food, but to poisoned food. E.g. infected with E. coli because it wasn't prepared properly.

And another extra danger reveals itself: just like you can hurt yourself by overeating, you can hurt yourself by overconsuming entertainment.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#95

Post by d--b »

It must be an algorithm change in the spotify recommendation engine.

Either because the top50 playlist overstated the correlation between "liking Drake" and "liking Taylor Swift", or because they found that by trying to broaden the spectrum of what people listen to, they get people to listen to more music, and they get less-than-top50 artists happier.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#96

Post by kjakm »

swilliamsio wrote: post #89
wfme wrote: post #5

Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the top 10 are almost exclusively songs made popular on TikTok. I can't stand to listen to these songs, not because I necessarily dislike the songs (or TikTok for that matter), but because there are 15-30s sections of the song that I have heard dozens of times, p…

In a lot of TikTok songs, the 15-30 seconds of the song that you've heard dozens of times is the best part of the song, with the rest of the piece being rather dry and bland. "Hit or miss, I guess you never miss huh" and "I'm already Tracer" are my quintessential examples of this.

Is this the natural progression from 'albums are full of filler I just want the singles'? Now it's 'the single is full of filler I just want the chorus'?

It kind of hints that people nowadays only want the highest quality content which is ironic given the same content is used to soundtrack some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content (e.g. 10 second clips of people doing the same dance to the same music).

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#97

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

tobr wrote: post #85
laurent92 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is astonishing when you realize it. Since the MCM times, we’ve transferred music bands from sound to image, and we noticed the commercial drums (and repetition on radios in particular) produced linear return in investment, and music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it. To the point that today, any music will do. It’s much easier for the labels, since they can pimp anyone among the 1-10% of the population who…

You say “music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it” but then you list a number of specific characteristics that make music more likely to work on radio. That suggests the opposite of “any music will do”. Only music with very specific qualities will do. Or maybe you just meant to say you don’t like pop?

It means pop has turned into a social psychology experiment designed to maximise the return invested in production, and not an individually expressive art form.

The obvious end point will be AI-generated muzak which tweaks all the right receptors but is devoid of any disturbingly non-optimal fleshy surprise.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#99

Post by kjakm »

hilbertseries wrote: post #86
fiblye wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is music supposed to challenge you? Music can be whatever it wants. But music having complex melodies, varied lyrics, telling stories, and having social or political commentary has very much always been a thing. Plenty of that music still exists and is still being made, but it's not really found on modern pop stations (although older pop stations have slightly more complex work). Just walking by a radio today bothe…

So if you listen to Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, Chun-Li by Nicki Minaj and thank u, next by Arianna Grande. You would say all of these women sound the same and have the same instrumentals?

My complaint would be less the instrumentals (it's formulaic but that doesn't make it bad) but the lyrics. Look up the lyrics to any of the songs you listed and read them. If you don't have the melody in your head they read awfully. They say nothing, make me feel nothing, and make me think of nothing. They don't resonate in any way. You could obviously look at someone like Bob Dylan as a counterpoint but even if you went to see some average local punk band you would find them singing words that say something and resonate with you. That's what I want from music. It's not right or wrong to like or dislike either of these approaches by the way. A lot of people want music to listen to in the background and that's easier to do when the lyrics are meaningless.
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