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One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

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Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#101

Post by alexvr »

I'm an elitist when it comes to music, but I admitted to myself that Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble and a couple Backstreet Boys' songs are catchy, well-composed tunes. Good melodies are good melodies. But I'm glad I don't have to credit Taylor Swift anymore :p

A lot of these songs have much more musical merit than a lot of pretentious indie songs, which tend to be repetitive and lacking in melody. Contrary to unpopular belief (by the "hip" minority), you're not necessarily unsophisticated if you enjoy a wildly popular band like Coldplay.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#102

Post by rch »

twerquie wrote: post #99
rch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's more complicated than you're hinting at. In this case, could it be at least in part a function of the likelihood that people will listen to and/or perform a piece of music after the copyright on that work has expired? Assuming such a thing is possible, of course.

Why wait until the copyright has expired?

To reduce the influence of external factors in the 'value' term. It just makes it easier to measure if one is purposefully factoring out marketing, branding and so forth.

It's fine to expect the sales of a work to go up if someone performs it well for a large enough audience, but is that measuring the value of the work, the performance, or the exposure? And basing the function on a period after copyright expires reduces the influence of stakeholders in the work who might pay for exposure.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#103

Post by twerquie »

rch wrote: post #102
twerquie wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wait until the copyright has expired?

To reduce the influence of external factors in the 'value' term. It just makes it easier to measure if one is purposefully factoring out marketing, branding and so forth. It's fine to expect the sales of a work to go up if someone performs it well for a large enough audience, but is that measuring the value of the work, the performance, or the exposure? And basing the function on a period after copyright expires redu…

I suppose. For me music is like fashion, it is in and of a moment. It is inspired by what came just before it, and it inspires what comes directly after it. Beyond that it takes on some sort of historical context.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cover+teenage+dr...

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#104

Post by TylerE »

busterarm wrote: post #91
TylerE wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes way back before that. The whole Brill Building/Tin Pan Alley era, Holland-Dozier-Holland, etc.

How Motown slipped my mind completely I don't understand but yes you're right, but I wasn't under the impression that at Tin Pan Alley the songwriters did the production themselves. That said, I hadn't done much research into that era of recording.

There wasn't really production back then, as that stuff was usually cut live to two track, then the vocals overdubbed. But the song writers were also the arrangers in many cases.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#106

Post by rch »

twerquie wrote: post #103
rch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reduce the influence of external factors in the 'value' term. It just makes it easier to measure if one is purposefully factoring out marketing, branding and so forth. It's fine to expect the sales of a work to go up if someone performs it well for a large enough audience, but is that measuring the value of the work, the performance, or the exposure? And basing the function on a period after copyright expires redu…

I suppose. For me music is like fashion, it is in and of a moment. It is inspired by what came just before it, and it inspires what comes directly after it. Beyond that it takes on some sort of historical context. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cover+teenage+dr...

That's absolutely valid. One might call that assessment subjective though.

Check out the blues available on archive.org sometime. It's pretty amazing, in my opinion.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#107

Post by indianapolisan »

tedks wrote: post #17
joelrunyon wrote: post #14

I don't understand all the hate. Okay I get we don't have a lot of backstreet boy or Britney fans here (not one either) & I get the whole "pop music sounds the same lament, but at the same time, there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that. Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field.

>there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that. There's also a market for black tar heroin, nuclear missiles, drones, slaves, and so on. >Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field. Is pop music a good thing for the world? (It obviously isn't as bad as any of the things I listed above to avoid claims of hyp…

You ask if pop music and the people who are writing it are doing a good thing? I think so. Pop music is abhorrent to me. I actually get nauseous listening to it. My wife on the other hand loves it. Before we got married I asked her why she liked it so much. She works in a Pediatric ER. She said, "Well, in my job and the horrible things we see, I have learned to cope with what I have to by doing four things: debrief with the other nurses, cry if I have to and not hold back, imagine that all my patients survive and go home to kind and loving parents, and listen to Top 40. It does not tax my brain any further after a 12 hour shift and is usually upbeat and tells a love story." So from my single anecdotal perspective, yes, some people need the escapism and bubblegum. Makes sense to me.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#108

Post by vinceguidry »

ronaldx wrote: post #87
dopamean wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I think it's important to note that just because its pop music doesn't mean it does not take an incredible amount of skill to produce well. There are a handful of producers that dominate the field because they are the best ones. Dr Luke is an example of another.

What I dislike about Dr Luke is that his artists are autotuned to the extent that they all sound exactly the same. Katy Perry's voice could be swapped for Avril Lavigne's and many people would barely notice. This accusation is not new in pop music, and I do like his work, but it seems no more skillful by now than finding the right formula and milking it to death with marketing machinery. It find it negative for creat…

> Katy Perry's voice could be swapped for Avril Lavigne's and many people would barely notice.

What an absurd statement. They sound nothing alike.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#109

Post by eaurouge »

smackfu wrote: post #68

You would also be shocked by how many pop songs Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic has written.

I'm not. But that's only because I heard his interview on All Things Considered in 2012 [1]. Really like the song he wrote for Leona Lewis.

1. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/15/145233608/ryan-tedder-a-hit-ma...

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#110

Post by tedks »

alan_cx wrote: post #97
swombat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously comparing pop music to heroin and slaves???

No he didnt. All he did was say that its not an instant justification for something just because there is a market for it, by listing examples of things that have a market, but society doesn't want sold. Just because there is a market for something, it doesn't mean it should be sold. I disagree that pop music is some how damaging, bad or undesirable, thats just snobbery. Its not my thing, but then I dont expect other…

Thanks for being understanding and discerning.

I wouldn't say pop music is damaging or bad, but it does seem undesirable in that it's very obvious that you can do far better. Listening to pop music (not necessarily popular music, but branded pop music like the Backstreet Boys and other groups mentioned in this article) seems like a waste of time in comparison to all the other things a human could do with their mental cycles.

I have pretty broad taste in music, and many other things, but it's still obvious even if I don't like something whether or not it's worth someone's time or not. This is also contextual; i.e., someone who listened to pop music and had an ear for the evolution of pop over time, was aware of people like the subject of this article, and understood the musical justification for things like catchy pop songs is probably doing a much better job of listening to pop music than I was at age 11 when I liked the Backstreet Boys.

Humans are amazing creatures full of potential. Is pop music really the best we could do? I doubt it, which is why I dislike it, and think that it's a pretty bad market to participate in.

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