My rant on today's pop music

INOG, we play Sunshine and Spooky too (admittedly, a bit quirkily) and as a chillout band we sure as hell aren't too keen on playing to young audiences any more than the young groups want to play to oldies.

After all, if we oldies don't play music for other oldies, who will?
 
INOG, we play Sunshine and Spooky too (admittedly, a bit quirkily) and as a chillout band we sure as hell aren't too keen on playing to young audiences any more than the young groups want to play to oldies.

After all, if we oldies don't play music for other oldies, who will?

ha ha - how true! :)
 
I think the thread has wandered more into the old debate about live musicians versus electronic programmed music, rather than the failures of the pop music machine that it kind of started off as.

I see no problem with either electronic or programmed music as long as it is the intended method of music creation by the artist. The key is artist, and not producer. My main beef is with music producers that use it as a cheap and poorly executed means to crank out low cost pop music today. Simplistic beats with cartoonish sounds, accompanied by three note riffs played over and over again seem to be the standard of the day on pop radio anymore. I think the audience is just getting tired of this cheap garbage they are passing off as music, and it is showing in this malaise and indifference that people are showing towards music and musicians today. I am sure the self proclaimed experts that run the industry will disagree, but I think they are the reason the industry is in shambles today.
 
ha ha - how true! :)

I don't mind youth culture being pushed so heavily in the media ... more into music, pocket money to spend, pass on the torch etc. Still, while most of the contemporary western commercial scene is dominated by kids' stuff, occasionally oldies will creak their way out of their arm chairs, shine up the ole walking frame and venture out in search of food, wine and music.

That's when bands like ours POUNCE! At that point it feels like all the budding-breasted little boppers with their autotunes and drum machines are a million miles away ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoE5kGMUpcg :)
 
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I think it's a luddite reaction, I really do. Why that's the case, I'm not sure.


Sure it can, although the examples seem to be less numerous that 'vocal' music (although that term is starting to loosen!).


Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of the music being ranted about here is genuinely terrible, I certainly wouldn't listen to it out of choice and I'd probably only hear it after about eight pints in the back end of some Godawful night club, but that's just the current trend - terrible though it may be. Pop charts move slowly, but in a couple of years it will be something different. The democratisation of recording is going to make a bigger splash in the next couple of years and the idea of something genuinely new excites me.

It's a Luddite reaction but one that is not without merit. If the hypocrisy on the side of those who argue against the mechnization of pop music is that they are limiting the sounds they are hearing and deeming some genres not fit for aesthetic enjoyment, certainly the hypocrisy on the other end is talking about the development of instrumental or aesthetic culture in a world where there is no audience being cultivated for it. Will those Justin Beiber fans someday go to an electronic music concert? There are fifty somethings that still go see David Cassidy. I've been around long enough to know that in today's world it isn't the "art music" snobs who are the least open to change; but it is those who diet relies most heavily on a daily intake of pop music, those forty or fifty somethings who still listen exclusively to classic rock. They talk about how great music was back then and how everything today is crap. You know those people. :p So it is easy to say instrumental or experimental music can be popular, and more difficult to make that a reality in a culture where people tastes have not been cultivated to enjoy it or value it. Instrumental was more so in the 1970s with fusion and jam bands. Music was so great back in the day.

English culture is a bit different as well because it has rarely had a strong experimental or instrumental music culture; but it has always had a strong popular music culture, perhaps because it has a strong theater culture. Where as Italy, Austria and Germany esp and even France and Russia have had stronger experimental and instrumental musical cultures. In America there has always been a source of contention between the two. The Northeast has always had a strong experimental and instrumental culture and the rural south and midwest have a strong popular music culture.

Pol, NY punk definitely has a connection to Cage and the NY avant-garde. the idea of noise as political protest is directly related to performance art and goes back to Dada. You probably see that more with the Sex Pistols or The Clash, i.e London punk than with NY punk of the mid-1970s. You also see it as well in hip-hop culture of the later 1980s and early 1990s with bands like NWA, Public Enemy and Ice T. I don't think that Cage's thinking it has much to do with Marx. But the folk music explosion of the 1950s and 60s is directly related to leftist politics and this idea of the democratization of music. That was definitely a result of Beatlemania, and I am thinking we can make a connection between the decrease of the use of traditional instruments in pop music today and the decrease in musical instrument sales.

Don't forget the Orchestrion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361542n
 
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English culture is a bit different as well because it has rarely had a strong experimental or instrumental music culture; but it has always had a strong popular music culture, perhaps because it has a strong theater culture. Where as Italy, Austria and Germany esp and even France and Russia have had stronger experimental and instrumental musical cultures. In America there has always been a source of contention between the two. The Northeast has always had a strong experimental and instrumental culture and the rural south and midwest have a strong popular music culture.

Yes
Pink Floyd
Emerson Lake and Palmer
Allan Parson Project
Manfred Mann
Jethro Tull
King Crimson
early Genesis
early Supertramp
early Queen
ELO
 
Yes
Pink Floyd
Emerson Lake and Palmer
Allan Parson Project
Manfred Mann
Jethro Tull
King Crimson
early Genesis
early Supertramp
early Queen
ELO

I hate to be the one to break it to you. But this music is not experimental or groundbreaking. Many people would classify it as pop. But in any event, I am speaking of five hundred years of musical history, of which whatever happened in that ten year period may or may not be of any consequence in the big picture. I like a lot of those bands. But I am still no going to compare it to Bach or Beethoven, or American composers like Copland and Ives, or Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. I am sorry, I'm just not, and maybe that is part of the problem that MFB speaks about.
 
I think King Crimson are about as experimental as Rock will ever get.

If you're wanting contemporary, actually experimental composers, then you're talking Sachiko M., Masami Akita, Christian Marclay some Truax (although that's not even experimental anymore) Antti Saario, Mark Wastell, Tetuzi Akiyama and a whole host of other names it's unlikely you've heard of. I would actually say that the big 'experimental' hub of the last fifteen years is Japan. Real experimentalism is largely non-existent here, although I like to think that I do a share of that sort of work myself.
 
I hate to be the one to break it to you. But this music is not experimental or groundbreaking. Many people would classify it as pop. But in any event, I am speaking of five hundred years of musical history, of which whatever happened in that ten year period may or may not be of any consequence in the big picture. I like a lot of those bands. But I am still no going to compare it to Bach or Beethoven, or American composers like Copland and Ives, or Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. I am sorry, I'm just not, and maybe that is part of the problem that MFB speaks about.

Well, this IS a thread about pop music. :p

Bach or Beethoven, not much room for a drum set in those compositions.
 
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Is today's pop music even played with real(acoustic) drums anymore? most of it is drum machine no soul crap.

Bonzolead
 
Is today's pop music even played with real(acoustic) drums anymore? most of it is drum machine no soul crap.

Bonzolead

Agreed. Here is a typical recent pop standard. The only part that has a groove is the human part - the vocals. The synthesizer is ridiculously simple, and the drums must have been programmed by a friggin clown, because they are a comedy of lifeless automation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_RqWocthcc

I wonder if the whole composition wasn't written a capella, and the producer just slapped the musical crap together in a few hours by himself.
 
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I hate to be the one to break it to you. But this music is not experimental or groundbreaking. Many people would classify it as pop. But in any event, I am speaking of five hundred years of musical history, of which whatever happened in that ten year period may or may not be of any consequence in the big picture. I like a lot of those bands. But I am still no going to compare it to Bach or Beethoven, or American composers like Copland and Ives, or Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. I am sorry, I'm just not, and maybe that is part of the problem that MFB speaks about.

I'm sorry Ken, I'm not buying it.

They certainly thought they were being experimental, at least with in the context of Rock-N-Roll. Much like those in free jazz thinks it's experimental, but they still confine it to umbrella of jazz.

And really, in terms of the last 500 years, you could argue

1) All music with a drum set is pop because it's a recent popular invention.

Or

2) All music with a drum set is clearly experimental because it's a recent invention that human kind is still experimenting just what a human can do with it. And that the fact it might become obsolete in favor of computers shows just how much of an experiment it is.

Of course, both arguments are rubbish and not worth a hill of beans.

But you can't sit here and argue one can't determine what is crap pop music based on criteria A, B, and C, but then turn around and say you CAN determine what is or is not experimental music based on similar criteria. Sorry, that is getting into hypocritical territory.

I could easily say, well, in the context of the last 3000 years of music, Beethoveen is just a pop artist too. In the context of the last 50,000 years of sound, anything human made is just pop. In terms of the last 20 million years, human kind is just natures version of pop art. It's just silly and non-sense if you draw out far enough.

In the end, it's all relative.
 
Agreed. Here is a typical recent pop standard. The only part that has a groove is the human part - the vocals. The synthesizer is ridiculously simple, and the drums must have been programmed by a friggin clown, because they are a comedy of lifeless automation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_RqWocthcc

I wonder if the whole composition wasn't written a capella, and the producer just slapped the musical crap together in a few hours by himself.

Not my cup of tea, but there are much worse pop songs played on the radio these days.
 
I'm sorry Ken, I'm not buying it.

They certainly thought they were being experimental, at least with in the context of Rock-N-Roll. Much like those in free jazz thinks it's experimental, but they still confine it to umbrella of jazz.

And really, in terms of the last 500 years, you could argue...

Snip!

In the end, it's all relative.

One definition of 'experimental' is the precedent. Is there a precedent for what you're hearing? If so, how ingrained is that precedent?

Let's take Beethoven as an example. I will argue that Beethoven - in his time - was largely experimental. He follows a level of tradition, but Beethoven's style of composition is actually radically different to anything before it. The differences are subtle to modern tastes, but they are profound and kickstarted the Romantic movement.

One thing that is drilled into you at an academic compositional level is precedent awareness. Can you talk about previous composers that have influenced you? Or concepts that have inspired you - and in doing so, can you differentiate yourself sufficiently and distinctly? Then there is the question of the naive. Are you naive? Can you not find a precedent? Can your music be approached naively?

All music at some point is experimental to a degree - but there are levels of importance within that. If we take a band like The Beatles whose later catalogue is experimental for the time, you can then look at that and trace roots of what they were doing to more avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen (whether they were aware of it or not) and you finally arrive at somebody who was 'ahead of their time', i.e. with a less traceable precedent. Then you're usually in the grounds of the experimental proper.
 
One definition of 'experimental' is the precedent. Is there a precedent for what you're hearing? If so, how ingrained is that precedent?

Let's take Beethoven as an example. I will argue that Beethoven - in his time - was largely experimental. He follows a level of tradition, but Beethoven's style of composition is actually radically different to anything before it. The differences are subtle to modern tastes, but they are profound and kickstarted the Romantic movement.

One thing that is drilled into you at an academic compositional level is precedent awareness. Can you talk about previous composers that have influenced you? Or concepts that have inspired you - and in doing so, can you differentiate yourself sufficiently and distinctly? Then there is the question of the naive. Are you naive? Can you not find a precedent? Can your music be approached naively?

All music at some point is experimental to a degree - but there are levels of importance within that. If we take a band like The Beatles whose later catalogue is experimental for the time, you can then look at that and trace roots of what they were doing to more avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen (whether they were aware of it or not) and you finally arrive at somebody who was 'ahead of their time', i.e. with a less traceable precedent. Then you're usually in the grounds of the experimental proper.

And I can buy that.

But at the same time, you're making my point exactly.

It was experimental, with in a defined context. After all, there are only 12 notes in Western Music. Near endless combinations of said notes, but still, (nearly) everyone in our culture from the dark ages to Rebecca Black are using the same 12 notes to create, be it "new" or "recycled" musical ideas.

Unless you're pulling sounds out of thin air, everything has some level of precedent. As you pointed out, how much precedent determines level of experimentation. But at the same, precedent IS STILL there.

As you very well explained (thank you for that), it is the level of precedent, which automatically makes it relative. And because it is relative, there is no clear line in the sand. You can draw one, but it's still a relative line.

Pink Floyd had a relative level of experimentation. You can argue it was NOT the same level of experimentation as Beethoven, due to different levels of precedent, but you can't just say this is and this is not, when it is a relative measurement to be determined based on context. And different context gives you different results.
 
It's a continuum, then. But I'll still argue that the bands listed above aren't truly experimental. Why? Because the concepts and ideas were far from new then and because what they were doing was very easily traceable. The experimentalism is partly down to the naiveity of the listener, but I think the 'real' measure is a far more objective referentialism. And by that I mean the number/significance/relationship of other work, which is actually fairly easy to objectively ascertain.

Most of the 'experimentalism' I'm talking about doesn't use 12 notes. The stuff I'm really talking about barely uses any. The last piece I made had about six and only one of them was a traditionally definable 'scale' note and I'm not that close to the top of the real avant.
 
And I can buy that.

But at the same time, you're making my point exactly.

It was experimental, with in a defined context. After all, there are only 12 notes in Western Music. Near endless combinations of said notes, but still, (nearly) everyone in our culture from the dark ages to Rebecca Black are using the same 12 notes to create, be it "new" or "recycled" musical ideas.

Unless you're pulling sounds out of thin air, everything has some level of precedent. As you pointed out, how much precedent determines level of experimentation. But at the same, precedent IS STILL there.

As you very well explained (thank you for that), it is the level of precedent, which automatically makes it relative. And because it is relative, there is no clear line in the sand. You can draw one, but it's still a relative line.

Pink Floyd had a relative level of experimentation. You can argue it was NOT the same level of experimentation as Beethoven, due to different levels of precedent, but you can't just say this is and this is not, when it is a relative measurement to be determined based on context. And different context gives you different results.

Well, you bought it when he explained it, which you did very well, thanks Duncan. Well, it was your point to begin with.

I think that what is revealing is that INOG listed a good dozen bands, none of which came into being after 1980. What about Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Muse, or some of the more mainstream pop bands like Blur, Coldplay or Doves. MFB would know better, I'm sure. Has music stopped since 1978, or was it 1984 as Orwell put forth. After all didn't The Police break up then. If you listen to a lot of American music stations, you may actually believe that, and that is the problem, not the defense. I won't deny that time was a fertile period in Brit popular music. But I would venture to say that the recordings of Porcupine Tree and Radiohead are just as 'inventive' and interesting as anything that came out of that period.

And, we are talking about pulling sounds out of thin air. :)
 
Funny thing is, of the bands you listed there Ken, only Doves and Radiohead are bands I like and Doves I've only heard a few tracks.

I'm not actually particularly well informed in terms of mainstream taste and there is a level of hypocrisy there. I can accept that, but it's really refreshing to hear bands putting out music that is challenging, not even experimental. It's part of my Radiohead fandom that they had the balls to put out 'Kid A' to begin with - it's a good example of fairly challenging music crossing over into the mainstream. And I wish more bands did that. And I wish the mainstream weren't so focussed on an easy sale.

There is inventive music everywhere. I just don't think a lot of it is challenging.
 
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