Proof of the Apocalypse

[The ClayTaurus]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173346,00.html

 

[Hagbard Celine]

Hahaha! I'd be more prone to thinking this is evidence that Americans have no class or taste.

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Hahaha! I'd be more prone to thinking this is evidence that Americans have no class or taste.

Pop music is frightening. When someone hears a Stevie Wonder song and goes "hey someone remixed Will Smith!" *shudder*

What I love about hip-hop leads to what I hate about hip-hop and pop music in general... but that can be said about anything, I suppose. Being uneducated about anything, music included, leads you to mediocrity and the common denominator.

 

[Abbey Normal]

Pa-thet-ic

 

[5stringJeff]

Today's pop music doesn't deserve to get played on any radio station. It takes zero talent to produce, and it certainly takes no talent to "sing."

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Today's pop music doesn't deserve to get played on any radio station. It takes zero talent to produce, and it certainly takes no talent to "sing."

Actually, most of the talent goes into production.

 

[Dan]

Yeah, pop music's pretty pathetic these days. Isn't it amazing to think that at one time stuff like Elton John was considered "pop"? Compared to modern pop, Elton John's music is like huge expansive classical masterpieces.

The producers truly are the talented ones, but even at that, they're not THAT talented. Here's how you write the average pop song these days: come up with a halfway decent little keyboard riff, no longer than 10 seconds long. Put a drum beat below it and repeat for about 3 minutes. Oh, and make sure you've got Pro Tools open so you can do a little tone adjustment on the vocals.

And, meanwhile, the real MUSICmakers out there are barely scraping by because the five pop stars that are actually on the radio need to be replayed 50000 times a day.

:finger: radio
:finger: MTV
:finger: all the losers who are buying this music and supporting this garbage.

Seems like I make these rants fairly often, huh?

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Yeah, pop music's pretty pathetic these days. Isn't it amazing to think that at one time stuff like Elton John was considered "pop"? Compared to modern pop, Elton John's music is like huge expansive classical masterpieces.

The producers truly are the talented ones, but even at that, they're not THAT talented. Here's how you write the average pop song these days: come up with a halfway decent little keyboard riff, no longer than 10 seconds long. Put a drum beat below it and repeat for about 3 minutes. Oh, and make sure you've got Pro Tools open so you can do a little tone adjustment on the vocals.

And, meanwhile, the real MUSICmakers out there are barely scraping by because the five pop stars that are actually on the radio need to be replayed 50000 times a day.

:finger: radio
:finger: MTV
:finger: all the losers who are buying this music and supporting this garbage.

Seems like I make these rants fairly often, huh?

We should talk more often

It's incredible the number of artists who use vocal correctors these days...

 

[5stringJeff]

Actually, most of the talent goes into production.

Agreed... but since they all sound the same, they all must be doing the exact same thing in every song, which involves very little talent.

 

[5stringJeff]

Yeah, pop music's pretty pathetic these days. Isn't it amazing to think that at one time stuff like Elton John was considered "pop"? Compared to modern pop, Elton John's music is like huge expansive classical masterpieces.

The producers truly are the talented ones, but even at that, they're not THAT talented. Here's how you write the average pop song these days: come up with a halfway decent little keyboard riff, no longer than 10 seconds long. Put a drum beat below it and repeat for about 3 minutes. Oh, and make sure you've got Pro Tools open so you can do a little tone adjustment on the vocals.

And, meanwhile, the real MUSICmakers out there are barely scraping by because the five pop stars that are actually on the radio need to be replayed 50000 times a day.

:finger: radio
:finger: MTV
:finger: all the losers who are buying this music and supporting this garbage.

Seems like I make these rants fairly often, huh?

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Agreed... but since they all sound the same, they all must be doing the exact same thing in every song, which involves very little talent.

You'd be surprised, actually. Some of it might be repetitive, but today's producers are quite talented. Which goes against basic logic, why would all the skilled people want a background job? Interesting, no?

The reason why the stuff on the radio all sounds the same is because that's where the money is. And the producers are smart enough to realize they can collect a fat check off of recycling the same 20 sound clips rearranged in different fashions. Pharrell does a shitty Gwen Stefani song or two so that he can fund all the whacky other stuff he's involved in that wouldn't make any money.

 

[5stringJeff]

You'd be surprised, actually. Some of it might be repetitive, but today's producers are quite talented. Which goes against basic logic, why would all the skilled people want a background job? Interesting, no?

The reason why the stuff on the radio all sounds the same is because that's where the money is. And the producers are smart enough to realize they can collect a fat check off of recycling the same 20 sound clips rearranged in different fashions. Pharrell does a shitty Gwen Stefani song or two so that he can fund all the whacky other stuff he's involved in that wouldn't make any money.

So how do we change the system so the crappy drum-machine songs get left on the shelves and the good artists actually get played on the radio?

 

[The ClayTaurus]

So how do we change the system so the crappy drum-machine songs get left on the shelves and the good artists actually get played on the radio?

You have to make it profitable for the radio station. And to do that, well, you have to infiltrate the screwy payola that goes on through the record companies.

I wouldn't even mind some of the music on the radio today if it wasn't played once an hour. I think people listen to the radio these days for shorter and shorter periods of time, and they all want to hear the hottest 10 songs out there. So, that's fine if you tune in for 10 minutes, you hear everything you want. But when you listen for an hour, it becomes painful.

MTV has sort of turned into it's own beast, the music video has taken focus away from the music and placed it more on the visual aspect of entertainment. It's good, because some music videos are beautiful or funny or provocitive, but the pandora's box that opened has lead us to the after-school special equivalent of things like TRL and the like. I actually get MTV2, MTVjams, and VH1Soul which at least play the good videos, so there is at least some market for it. But then there is MTVhits, which basically serves as TRL but plays the whole video...

MTV has been the best and worst thing for the music industry...

 

[Dan]

Jeff, I think there is probably no way to ever get popular music, or even the music industry, back to the way it was. "Music" these days is about 85% image. The fact that downloading has become fairly rampant, that has kind of given record execs an excuse to focus even more on image and less on music. They can say "well, yeah, people are downloading the music, but they'll buy the album because of the hot picture on the cover, or the hip DVD we're including with the CD." Don't get me wrong, I do like owning an official release rather than just a burned CD, but I think they should put forth an effort to maybe make the music worth the money they're charging for it, or else sell the CDs for less.

Maybe it's just that we're getting older. But, I mean, I'm only 22. Fifteen years ago, I would've been the target market for MTV, Rolling Stone, etc. Now, I look on the cover of Rolling Stone and see Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake or whoever, and it just makes me sick.

ClayTaurus, you're right about the voice corrections. I knew it was out of hand when I heard voice corrections in the friggin' new Bloodhound Gang CD!!!!!! Ridiculous. It's gotten to the point now where I'm really appreciating someone like Bright Eyes a lot more because he's at least trying to sing for real. He doesn't hit every note, but that's what music's all about. It's not about perfection!

Steve Jobs had a brilliant interview in Rolling Stone a couple years back. He said that record companies need to stop giving recording artists these huge million dollar advances, instead give them a bigger percentage of the record sales. As it is now, the band or singer makes about $0.14 on the average $15 CD sale. So, where's the incentive for them to make a great album if they're not going to make crap off of it anyway. The industry's set up to where they encourage bands to put one or two good songs on an album, so they can send them to the radio stations (who, by the way, actually have insider deals along the lines of "if you pay us ___ amount, we'll play this", or "we'll let you have this Britney song, but you've also got to play this other, shittier song, too").

Crap, I gotta go to class. I am not finished here, I have a lot more to say (whether you guys like it or not!!!).

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Jeff, I think there is probably no way to ever get popular music, or even the music industry, back to the way it was. "Music" these days is about 85% image. The fact that downloading has become fairly rampant, that has kind of given record execs an excuse to focus even more on image and less on music. They can say "well, yeah, people are downloading the music, but they'll buy the album because of the hot picture on the cover, or the hip DVD we're including with the CD." Don't get me wrong, I do like owning an official release rather than just a burned CD, but I think they should put forth an effort to maybe make the music worth the money they're charging for it, or else sell the CDs for less.

Maybe it's just that we're getting older. But, I mean, I'm only 22. Fifteen years ago, I would've been the target market for MTV, Rolling Stone, etc. Now, I look on the cover of Rolling Stone and see Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake or whoever, and it just makes me sick.

ClayTaurus, you're right about the voice corrections. I knew it was out of hand when I heard voice corrections in the friggin' new Bloodhound Gang CD!!!!!! Ridiculous. It's gotten to the point now where I'm really appreciating someone like Bright Eyes a lot more because he's at least trying to sing for real. He doesn't hit every note, but that's what music's all about. It's not about perfection!

Steve Jobs had a brilliant interview in Rolling Stone a couple years back. He said that record companies need to stop giving recording artists these huge million dollar advances, instead give them a bigger percentage of the record sales. As it is now, the band or singer makes about $0.14 on the average $15 CD sale. So, where's the incentive for them to make a great album if they're not going to make crap off of it anyway. The industry's set up to where they encourage bands to put one or two good songs on an album, so they can send them to the radio stations (who, by the way, actually have insider deals along the lines of "if you pay us ___ amount, we'll play this", or "we'll let you have this Britney song, but you've also got to play this other, shittier song, too").

Crap, I gotta go to class. I am not finished here, I have a lot more to say (whether you guys like it or not!!!).

I think when people look back, they will see this as kind of a split in music, where the pop side of it almost turns into a theatrical genre, where huge arenas are sold out for multiple costume-change dancers and stage props, the new generation of musicals, if you will, and the non-pop side will sort of regress a bit into more intimate settings. Which is fine by me in some aspects, because the number of quality small shows I've been to far outweighs the number or quality large shows I've been to.

I'm telling you, the new generation of music is nothing but repackaged broadway musicals.

 

[Palestinian Jew]

I'm guessing you guys don't want to sign my petition to give Milli Vanilli their grammy back.

 

[GotZoom]

I'm guessing you guys don't want to sign my petition to give Milli Vanilli their grammy back.

I actually liked some of their songs.

 

[The ClayTaurus]

How far we've fallen in 10 years.

Milli Vanilli was found to be a bunch of lip-singing frauds, and they were justifiably dismissed from the pop culture scene.

Fast forward to today, and Ashlee Simpson gets busted for the same thing on Saturday Night Live. The difference? Her next album debuted at #1.

 

[Shattered]

I actually liked some of their songs.

I actually have a MV CD in my car.

 

[GotZoom]

I actually have a MV CD in my car.

I always knew you had good taste.