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Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

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Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#181

Post by dredmorbius »

menybuvico wrote: post #156
dredmorbius wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 every…

Oh, I don't have a problem with explicit lyrics and am perfectly well aware of sex' and love's statuses as the most common tropes in lyrics. It's just that this particular "song" is so horribly bad that I simply can't understand how anyone could endure it.

I will admit that even "Drop your pants" has some playful redemption which evokes a smile that I've yet to appreciate in WAP.

But musically, "Drop" is pretty pants.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#183

Post by UncleMeat »

ehnto wrote: post #166
tobr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think they mean pop music lacks musicality, most of what they listed were to do with sonic tricks that are not really tied to musicality or musicianship. Anyone with even a vague understanding of music can write a song on the same level as a pop song. Every now and then a great musician makes it into the pop scene, and you get interesting chord progressions, melodies and rythms. So it's not the pop style that's bad…

Complexity in pop music is driven by timbre and instrumentation rather than harmonic or melodic complexity - but timbre and instrumentation are no less valid forms of musical expression and complexity (talk to Ravel or Varese). The desire to judge all music based on the dominant ideas of 16-19th century european classical music seems to exist not to better understand musical expression but instead to let people feel superior to others.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#184

Post by JoeAltmaier »

UncleMeat wrote: post #183
ehnto wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean pop music lacks musicality, most of what they listed were to do with sonic tricks that are not really tied to musicality or musicianship. Anyone with even a vague understanding of music can write a song on the same level as a pop song. Every now and then a great musician makes it into the pop scene, and you get interesting chord progressions, melodies and rythms. So it's not the pop style that's bad…

Complexity in pop music is driven by timbre and instrumentation rather than harmonic or melodic complexity - but timbre and instrumentation are no less valid forms of musical expression and complexity (talk to Ravel or Varese). The desire to judge all music based on the dominant ideas of 16-19th century european classical music seems to exist not to better understand musical expression but instead to let people feel…

Ooorr... because those measures correspond to something in the experience, that humans have been found to value.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#185

Post by ndespres »

chrisseaton wrote: post #145
theshrike79 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio just works. Someone else is choosing the playlist and you kinda hear the music in between the ads and annoying hosts. At home, I can select what I want to hear. I don't need to keep my attention on the road.

Do you not have radio stations where you value how the host selects, curates, and gives the background to the music for you? What about the current affairs, plays, comedy, history? I can’t imagine going without the radio!

No, not really in America. There are a few freeform music stations that still have actual DJs in the booth selecting records that they like, but mostly al the FM broadcast stations here are owned by 1 or 2 advertising companies who play preselected songs, have canned DJ banter, and a very low music-to-ad ratio.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#186

Post by Dumblydorr »

hrktb wrote: post #74
swiley wrote: post #3

This would be great. The idea of “best ranked music” results in mediocre, bland music that’s mostly ranked based on the social connections of the artist. Musical culture and genres are extremely diverse and trying to rank individual pieces of music makes discovery harder. I doubt they’ll actually do this of course. Their monetization model relies on ranking.

Blandness is a feature for my family. We have wildly different tastes, and it’s hard to come with a consensus on what to listen in the car. The top 40/50 has a high chance of being “fine” for everybody. That’s what I would put in the background if I had to make random people wait in a room for an hour. There are “discovery” playlist outside of the ranked ones, so I wouldn’t be surprised if my use is not so far from t…

This concept allowed Nickelback to make it into arenas and stadia. Their music is the dry toast of rock, no one loves it but it is the lowest common denominator for "rock".

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#187

Post by Dumblydorr »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #6

"In a seminal 2004 essay in Wired titled "The Long Tail," journalist Chris Anderson argued that digital culture would help niche music, books, and movies thrive. With fewer gatekeepers and more avenues to find likeminded fans, people would be more likely to indulge their true interests, rather than just accept what was offered by the mainstream." Nice idea, there is some truth to it based on what we've seen so far, b…

I'd disagree in music. Many of the industry's top musicians started lo-fi in their room or basement, like Lorde or Billie Eilish, or all the garage rock, punk rock, hip hop, etc. Those artists get propelled by mass media, but they were nobodies and had basic equipment. So even in the Poppiest of genres, you have breakout by unheard of people. Then, expanding to folk or jazz or electronic, Spotify allows a measly income and exposure for very obscure, niche players and their small record companies. Power has been widely distributed by Napster, Spotify, and many others. They barely gatekeep these obscure artists, they use algorithms, though they do not share a decent % of profits with artists, IMO.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#188

Post by rsynnott »

simias wrote: post #127
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Commercial art in general has been that way for centuries. Doesn't mean that it's intrinsically devoid of quality. Many of the classical masterpieces were made to order to cater to the fancy of some rich patron.

Many? Virtually _all_, either for a rich individual or the church. An artist just making a thing, and seeing if people like it, is a pretty new invention. Probably a big part of why post-19th century art is so much more interesting and diverse; Western art pre-19th century was largely about technical competence in whatever the current fashionable style was.

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#189

Post by rsynnott »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #164
freyr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has "pop music" ever been anything other than this? Since the beginning, it has typically been manufactured by producers and songwriters for mass appeal.

Not only that, but it's such a young form of cultural expression that saying it isn't what it used to be is kinda pointless. For thousands of years, we had people singing songs badly in pubs. Maybe someone could afford an instrument. And then someone invented the wireless and the record player. According to the myth, it quickly reached its optimum time when some fashionable person was in their youth. And it has been…

> And then someone invented the wireless and the record player.

Even before that, you had music halls as popular entertainment (and music hall music was indeed very formulaic, arguably more so than modern pop music).

Re: Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

#190

Post by rsynnott »

rahoulb wrote: post #155
ehnto wrote: post #53

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

I'm in the UK and in my 40s. For me the Top 40 used to be one of the few places where you could hear stuff that wasn't just pop radio - because in the UK it was a sales chart, not an airplay chart and genuinely represented what people were listening to, not what the pluggers and labels had successfully pushed. However, since streaming, that equation has totally changed.

What labels pushed on the radio did certainly feed into what people bought, though.
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