My rant on today's pop music

Never got into Rush. Annoying vocals and heavy rock with fancy bits. Soundwise it was pretty standard compared with other prog acts. Dream Theater seem to have similar taste issues to ELP. Tool's my fave of the new(ish) breed, and Don Cab. Have to say all those bands have tremendous drummers.
.

This is the discussion I have with my wife all the time. She hates Rush, but loves Tool.
But when I listen to Tool, I hear such a huge Rush influence, just tuned down. Similar melodies, song structures, and heck, even some of Tool's music video's are similar-ish to some of Rush's music videos. Tool is Rush Jr, updated for the next generation. So always find it odd she can't at least have a mild appreciation for the parent band.

I do agree with one point you made about Prog lyrics not being all love songs. I think that was a huge draw to me as well. Sure, I love Journey, but one can only take so many darn love songs. Please, let's discuss something else.

But at the same time, I can't get into the fantasy lyrics some bands put out. I don't care about how you have the golden ring that you need to get to the volcano so you can slay the dragon to save the land of whatever. Ugh!

Which is why, even as a huge Rush fan, I don't care about By Tor and the Snow dog. Stupid lyrics that make no sense.

2112 was at least a giant metaphor for individual against great power, and the power of music to be something highly important to the individual even when it does not appeal to the mases.

Oh, come to think of it, going back to some other thread, we were discussing about grunge and heroin and why I was never ever tempted to do drugs I think goes back to Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" album, as it had a big anti-heroin theme. As did the fun-but-cheesy Aldo Nova song "Monkey on Your Back" from the early 80's.
 
I remember when M released the song, Pop music.

He sugggested we all "Talk about, pop pop pop music".

I hope he's reading this thread. That such a simple song is being discussed in detail so many years later must be a real boost to M's ego.

That drummers would take his suggestion so literally is a subject worthy of a detailed psychological paper.


I mean the song was ok. But it wasn't The rite of Spring!!!???
 
I remember when M released the song, Pop music.

He sugggested we all "Talk about, pop pop pop music".

I hope he's reading this thread. That such a simple song is being discussed in detail so many years later must be a real boost to M's ego.

That drummers would take his suggestion so literally is a subject worthy of a detailed psychological paper.


I mean the song was ok. But it wasn't The rite of Spring!!!???

Reminds me of the 1997 Hanson song MMM Bop I heard on the radio last weekend. I want to hate the song, but it is so daggone catchy...... :)
 
This is the discussion I have with my wife all the time. She hates Rush, but loves Tool.
But when I listen to Tool, I hear such a huge Rush influence, just tuned down. Similar melodies, song structures, and heck, even some of Tool's music video's are similar-ish to some of Rush's music videos. Tool is Rush Jr, updated for the next generation. So always find it odd she can't at least have a mild appreciation for the parent band.

I do agree with one point you made about Prog lyrics not being all love songs. I think that was a huge draw to me as well. Sure, I love Journey, but one can only take so many darn love songs. Please, let's discuss something else.

But at the same time, I can't get into the fantasy lyrics some bands put out. I don't care about how you have the golden ring that you need to get to the volcano so you can slay the dragon to save the land of whatever. Ugh!

Which is why, even as a huge Rush fan, I don't care about By Tor and the Snow dog. Stupid lyrics that make no sense.

There might be some similarities between Rush and Tool, but I find the vibe very different. Tool's music is darker, more exotic, more psychedelic and it flows more. I find Rush music more mainstream - be it metal or AOR - whereas Tool never does.

I miss a lot of lyrics so if the vocals aren't way up and the singer's diction isn't great, then chances are I'll just tune into the music and treat the vocals as an instrument.

Agree that lyrics talking of the evil faeries planning to take over the peaceful kingdom of Zorothastclasm don't do it for me either. And this coming from a huge fan of fantasy fiction :) Weird, but in music it just seems to come off as goofy.

There are some classic bad prog lyrics out there. I always thought that Crimson's Cirkus was an outstanding track but ...
Night: her sable dome scattered with diamonds,
Fused my dust from a light year,
Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon,
Strung my warp across time
Gave me each a horse, sunrise and graveyard,
Told me only I was her;
Bid me face the east closed me in questions
Built the sky for my dawn.
"Bid me face the east"? ... lol ... uh, that's pretty medieval, Pete. Maybe 400 years late? I almost prefer "get down and boogie, yeah baybee, ooo ooo" ... almost :)
 
There are some classic bad prog lyrics out there. I always thought that Crimson's Cirkus was an outstanding track but ...
Night: her sable dome scattered with diamonds,
Fused my dust from a light year,
Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon,
Strung my warp across time
Gave me each a horse, sunrise and graveyard,
Told me only I was her;
Bid me face the east closed me in questions
Built the sky for my dawn.
"Bid me face the east"? ... lol ... uh, that's pretty medieval, Pete. Maybe 400 years late? I almost prefer "get down and boogie, yeah baybee, ooo ooo" ... almost :)

I've gotten in trouble for saying this as well, but these guys were young and they really had not idea how to write a lyric. The first thing you learn about lyric writing is that the alliterations have to go. the first two Crim albums were full of them if I recall. paranoia's poison door. Wait, In the Court of the Crimson King. The album title was an alliteration.

The purple piper plays his tune,
The choir softly sing;
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue,
For the court of the crimson king.

Three alliterations in one quatrain. It sounds good. But you know that he is generating ideas from the sounds of the words and the rhymes, not from ideas.

The second thing you learn is that the adjectives (and adverbs) have to go. Not everything needs to be modified. Sinfield wrote pop lyrics in the 1980s. I don't know how good they were. When Gabriel simplified his language and came up with "In Your Eyes" you understood why those guys swore off prog.
 
I've gotten in trouble for saying this as well, but these guys were young and they really had not idea how to write a lyric. The first thing you learn about lyric writing is that the alliterations have to go. the first two Crim albums were full of them if I recall. paranoia's poison door. Wait, In the Court of the Crimson King. The album title was an alliteration.

The purple piper plays his tune,
The choir softly sing;
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue,
For the court of the crimson king.

Three alliterations in one quatrain. It sounds good. But you know that he is generating ideas from the sounds of the words and the rhymes, not from ideas.

The second thing you learn is that the adjectives (and adverbs) have to go. Not everything needs to be modified. Sinfield wrote pop lyrics in the 1980s. I don't know how good they were. When Gabriel simplified his language and came up with "In Your Eyes" you understood why those guys swore off prog.

When I was thinking of some of prog's bad words I was thinking of In the Court but ... somewhere along the line I feel like it's an analogy for something too clever and deep for me to discern.

Yes, the main function of adjectives in a lyric IMO is to align the rhythm of a rhyming doublet :) Really, it's hard enough to squeeze in coherent ideas into something as short as a lyric (unless your singer has a Dylan's memory) without having extraneous words in there.

And do you remember Sinfield's terrible misjudgement in Ladies of the Road?
Two fingered Levi'd sister
Said, "Peace", I stopped I kissed her.
Said, "I'm a male resister",
I smiled and just unzipped her.

High diving chinese trender
Black hair and black suspender
Said, "Please me no surrender
Just love to feel your Fender".

Stone-headed Frisco spacer
Ate all the meat I gave her
Said would I like to taste hers
And even craved the flavour

"Like marron-glaced fish bones
Oh lady hit the road!"
Tragic. Written by Howard Wolowitz??

I heard someone say - and I'm inclined to believe them - that prog bands should not do sex (lyrically). In this case, I think purple pipers would be less embarrassing. The saddest thing is that musically the song is outstanding. Bob Fripp's imitation of a bad guitarist in his solo is a riot. You have to be good to pretend to play that bad.
 
I'm going to go right out and say it.

There are very few Rock bands with good lyrics. In fact, there are very few bands out there with good lyrics. Maybe I'm going to come out as controversial here, but I honestly think that a lot of what puts me off of older Rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple isn't just the pomp, but it's the terrible, terrible lyrics they shoehorn in. There are massive exceptions - Bowie wrote some great lines, as did Pink Floyd sometimes (some albums are better than others) and the lyrics aren't always a deal-breaker for me; but sometimes I actually get embarrassed listening to them. It's like listening to John Wetton singing - it's just not very good and you can't redress it any other way.

I will openly admit, however, that I don't really listen to the vocals in a lot of songs. If there's a group of people listening to a song, I will be the last to tell you what they actually said and I'm much more likely to reply with a comment about the recording technique, dodgy editing or bad key change. Wether that's the result of listening to a lot of really bad lyrics and just giving up or natural propensity, I'm not sure. But when I'm enjoying something on a musical level and cringing at the vocals, I'm not enjoying it.

Furthermore, I'm absolutely with Polly. Prog had the worst lyrics of all - and still does. Do I want to hear any Dream Theater lyrics? No. Absolutely not. Do I want to hear any Dream Theater? Well, I think you can answer that one yourselves. Tool are the exception that proves the rule, but even they come out with some cabbages from time to time.
 
I'm going to go right out and say it.

There are very few Rock bands with good lyrics. In fact, there are very few bands out there with good lyrics. Maybe I'm going to come out as controversial here, but I honestly think that a lot of what puts me off of older Rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple isn't just the pomp, but it's the terrible, terrible lyrics they shoehorn in. There are massive exceptions - Bowie wrote some great lines, as did Pink Floyd sometimes (some albums are better than others) and the lyrics aren't always a deal-breaker for me; but sometimes I actually get embarrassed listening to them. It's like listening to John Wetton singing - it's just not very good and you can't redress it any other way.

I will openly admit, however, that I don't really listen to the vocals in a lot of songs ...

+1,000,000 lol ... Deep Purple's Highway Star has the worst lyrics. It makes Ladies of the Road seem like high art ...
Nobody gonna take my car
I'm gonna race it to the ground
Nobody gonna beat my car
It's gonna break the speed of sound

Ooh it's a killing machine
It's got everything
Like a driving power big fat tyres
And everything

I love it and I need it, I bleed it
Yeah, it's a wild hurricane
Alright, hold tight
I'm a highway star

Nobody gonna take my girl
I'm gonna keep her to the end
Nobody gonna have my girl
She stays close on every bend

Ooh she's a killing machine
She got everything
Like a moving mouth body control
And everything

I love her, I need her, I seed her
Yeah, she turns me on
Alright, hold tight
I'm a highway star
"I seed her" ... creeeeepy ...

John Wetton has a rich tone between the rough ones but he sings a lot of flat notes and he always sounds a bit messy, as though he has trouble spitting out fast consonants.

Still, modern pop takes the cake for vacuous lyrics ...
Na na na na
Come on
Na na na na
Come on
Na na na na na
Come on
Na na na na
Come on, come on, come on
Na na na na
Come on
Na na na na
Come on
Na na na na na
Come on
Na na na na
Come on, come on, come on
Na na na na

Feels so good being bad (Oh oh oh oh oh)
There's no way I'm turning back (Oh oh oh oh oh)
Now the pain is my pleasure cause nothing could measure (Oh oh oh oh oh)

Love is great, love is fine (Oh oh oh oh oh)
Out the box, outta line (Oh oh oh oh oh)
The affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more (Oh oh oh oh oh)

Cause I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me
"Love is great, love is fine (Oh oh oh oh oh)" ... OMG
 
Rhianna is total rubbish, I agree.

But that doesn't make 'Highway Star' any better lyrically. It's Godawful.

I never could stand Wetton's singing, but at least the vocals-to-instrumental ratio is in a positive balance.
 
I understand what you guys are saying. Lyrics have always been of great importance to me. Growing up I really liked Elton John. I loved the piano. To this day it is my favorite instrument. I have two in the house. Everyone in my family have taken some lessons, but none of us have stayed with it. I could sit and listen to the piano all day long. Bernie Taupin wrote some great lyrics for Elton that I still sing and remember to this day. Yes there was some fluffy ones in there, but they were for fun.

My older brother listened to heavier stuff during my Elton John stage. I picked up my next influence from him. He listened to Max Webster, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and many others of that Genre. One band I hung on to was RUSH. They just didn't sing about girls, and rock, and drugs. Neil had some pretty heady lyrics. Sometimes too heady. They were hard to figure out. At least they had, for the most part some substance to them.

A lot of rock lyrics throughout the ages has been very simple. The 50's were probably the worst. My memory sucks, so I have a hard time thinking up song titles as examples, but I have heard enough of them to know that they were pretty thin.

Today bands like Nickleback are a complete joke to me. There lyrics are pretty much fluff, and they can't seem to write any lyrics without swearing in them. It seems kind of pointless because they are a popular band, and all their stuff gets played on the radio. Then they have to mute out the lyrics. Kind of wrecks the song. A rock band that I really like nowadays is Alter Bridge. They seem to put some thought into what they write about.
A good exampleis this song.

"In Loving Memory"

Thanks for all you've done
I've missed you for so long
I can't believe you're gone
You still live in me
I feel you in the wind
You guide me constantly

I've never knew what it was to be alone, no
Cause you were always there for me
You were always there waiting
And ill come home and I miss your face so
Smiling down on me
I close my eyes to see

And I know, you're a part of me
And it's your song that sets me free
I sing it while I feel I can't hold on
I sing tonight cause it comforts me

I carry the things that remind me of you
In loving memory of
The one that was so true
Your were as kind as you could be
And even though you're gone
You still mean the world to me

I've never knew what it was to be alone, no
Cause you were always there for me
You were always there waiting
But now I come home and it's not the same, no
It feels empty and alone
I can't believe you're gone

And I know, you're a part of me
And it's your song that sets me free
I sing it while I feel I can't hold on
I sing tonight cause it comforts me

I'm glad he set you free from sorrow
I'll still love you more tomorrow
And you will be here with me still

And what you did you did with feeling
And You always found the meaning
And you always will
And you always will
And you always will

Ooo's

And I know, you're a part of me
And it's your song that sets me free
I sing it while I feel I can't hold on
I sing tonight cause it comforts me

I like the band Tool very much musically, but they are just so dark and their lyrics really aren't family friendly. My kids are getting older now, but when they were younger I just did not want to play this stuff with them in the house. Heck dark lyrics really seem to effect me in a negative way. This is a big reason I don't listen to heavier forms of Metal.

With my new band I want to write lyrics that have a meaning, with music that is up beat and has an edge. Here is an example of something I just wrote. I take a big chance putting it out there, but what the heck. What better place to be torn apart than the internet.

Dead Leaves

I saw it in the sky
As the clouds rolled in to stay
Summers warmth is fleeting
Winters cold, on its way

The leaves fall from the trees
Those silly cats begin to chase
When they finally capture
You can see it on their face

The prize they thought they had
Was only dead and dry
No one could tell them different
They had to chase, believe the lie

From time to time, just like those cats,
We begin to stray
When what we have is here to stay.

Don’t waste your days, chasing dead leaves
There here today, then blown away with a breeze
Hang on to living things, roots firmly in the ground
In my wife, this I’ve found

Another winters passed
New life is on its way
Seems like things are steady
Complacency held at bay

The sun beats on our face
Flowers sprout from the ground
It all seems so beautiful
No distractions can be found

We go about life’s daily tasks
Balancing work and play
Trials and tribulations
Seem forever in the way

When it all seems overwhelming
And our grass seems kind of grey
Just remember those cats at play

Don’t waste your days, chasing dead leaves
There here today, then blown away with a breeze
Hang on to living things, roots firmly in the ground
In my wife, this I have found
 
I'm going to go right out and say it.

There are very few Rock bands with good lyrics. In fact, there are very few bands out there with good lyrics. Maybe I'm going to come out as controversial here, but I honestly think that a lot of what puts me off of older Rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple isn't just the pomp, but it's the terrible, terrible lyrics they shoehorn in. There are massive exceptions - Bowie wrote some great lines, as did Pink Floyd sometimes (some albums are better than others) and the lyrics aren't always a deal-breaker for me; but sometimes I actually get embarrassed listening to them. It's like listening to John Wetton singing - it's just not very good and you can't redress it any other way.

I will openly admit, however, that I don't really listen to the vocals in a lot of songs. If there's a group of people listening to a song, I will be the last to tell you what they actually said and I'm much more likely to reply with a comment about the recording technique, dodgy editing or bad key change. Wether that's the result of listening to a lot of really bad lyrics and just giving up or natural propensity, I'm not sure. But when I'm enjoying something on a musical level and cringing at the vocals, I'm not enjoying it.

Furthermore, I'm absolutely with Polly. Prog had the worst lyrics of all - and still does. Do I want to hear any Dream Theater lyrics? No. Absolutely not. Do I want to hear any Dream Theater? Well, I think you can answer that one yourselves. Tool are the exception that proves the rule, but even they come out with some cabbages from time to time.

1000% agree...Prog lyrics suck...except for Zappa's which were satirical, biting and supremely funny in a clever 10 year old boy kind of way.

With that said I really hate when people throw Zappa into that prog heap /like I disrespectfully did to make an obvious point/ Zappa was Zappa period and some of that stuff like Gregory Peccary was pure brilliance.

Gregory Peccary...now that was one cool libretto. I've probably listened to the Lather compilation 800-900 times.
 
Agreed, I don't put Zappa in with those other bands. He's a satirist and a composer, which is a totally different thing. My favourite Zappa album is actually 'Freak Out!' with the Mothers of Invention. I used to listen to it all the time, but I lost my copy and I won't pay £15 for a CD these days. His music was quirky, but in a totally different way to Prog - Prog became a formula very quickly which actually meant that it wasn't 'progressive' after more than a couple of years and I'm totally with people who don't want to be labelled pejoratively as a 'Prog' band.
 
Agreed, I don't put Zappa in with those other bands. He's a satirist and a composer, which is a totally different thing. My favourite Zappa album is actually 'Freak Out!' with the Mothers of Invention. I used to listen to it all the time, but I lost my copy and I won't pay £15 for a CD these days. His music was quirky, but in a totally different way to Prog - Prog became a formula very quickly which actually meant that it wasn't 'progressive' after more than a couple of years and I'm totally with people who don't want to be labelled pejoratively as a 'Prog' band.

If you are going to use words like pejoratively you need to put the definition for us simple folk ;)
 
Well, it's easy to point out bad or silly lyrics, because there are so many of them.

But to say an entire genre of music has bad lyrics is just not paying attention and giving into stereotyping. We don't say all jazz is boring because the record store puts a certain Musak artist in the jazz bin.

Dream Theater has some great lyrics, and some really stupid ones, depending on the album/song. Same with Rush, some are brilliant, some are lame.

But I agree too many bands want to focus on just recycled love song themes. That does get old. And I admit, I've never understood why Aerosmith is so popular, given all there songs (save two) have pretty silly lyrical concepts.

What I really can't stand are fantasy lyrics. It's the main reason I can't not get into Nightwish, even though they have a lot of talent. And one of the big reasons the last two Dream Theater albums blew chunks.
 
Well, it's easy to point out bad or silly lyrics, because there are so many of them.

But to say an entire genre of music has bad lyrics is just not paying attention and giving into stereotyping. We don't say all jazz is boring because the record store puts a certain Musak artist in the jazz bin.

Dream Theater has some great lyrics, and some really stupid ones, depending on the album/song. Same with Rush, some are brilliant, some are lame.

But I agree too many bands want to focus on just recycled love song themes. That does get old. And I admit, I've never understood why Aerosmith is so popular, given all there songs (save two) have pretty silly lyrical concepts.

What I really can't stand are fantasy lyrics. It's the main reason I can't not get into Nightwish, even though they have a lot of talent. And one of the big reasons the last two Dream Theater albums blew chunks.


I agree, Ian. Of course the doc goes into the pretension of Rush's prog songs. But when "I have dined on honey dew and drank the milk of paradise." gave way to Moving Pictures or even Spirit of Radio, Peart's simpler lyricism was creating some more interesting lyrics. Same with Peter Gabriel who wrote some really thought provoking lyrics in his prog days, and emerged as a great pop songwriter after Genesis. Take apart Supper's Ready verse for verse and you will a guy who knew his Milton and Blake. I also thought DT Metropolis was a great concept. I don't really remember how well it was written lyrically.

Ian Anderson was another satirical writer that came out of the prog days, and in my opinion probably better than anyone mentioned here. He got into trouble with Robert Plant in the early 1980s for saying he had always wondered what his lyrics would sound like with Jimmy Page's writing. Those two bands came up together, but Plant was not happy with that statement, which he took to mean, I wonder what Jimmy Page's music would sound like with some good lyrics. Of course , that's how we all took it. We knew what he meant.

If you want to good lyricist for American popular music look no further than Paul Simon. I had a friend years ago who was a songwriter on a small label. I asked him who his favorite lyricist was and he answered Paul Simon. I asked why and he said, "because he edits so well." One day looking at this lyric I knew what he meant. Nice rhyme of colors with summers. There are multiple level of meaning in this little pop ditty that could be a commercial.

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's
a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together
for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
Everything looks worse
in black and white
 
I agree, Ian. Of course the doc goes into the pretension of Rush's prog songs. But when "I have dined on honey dew and drank the milk of paradise." gave way to Moving Pictures or even Spirit of Radio, Peart's simpler lyricism was creating some more interesting lyrics.

heh.....I knew someone would bring up Xanadu.

Granted, that song does contain odd lyrics, although he there is a moral to the story, but it might take listening to the song 100 times to understand it. (be careful what you wish for, you just might get it end up miserable) But yeah, his lyrics got much better into the 80's. He went to back to hit and miss in the 90's.
 
Ken, Paul Simon is great. I'm not big on Simon and Garfunkel, but his solo work is almost uniformly fantastic, particularly lyrically.
 
heh.....I knew someone would bring up Xanadu.

Granted, that song does contain odd lyrics, although he there is a moral to the story, but it might take listening to the song 100 times to understand it. (be careful what you wish for, you just might get it end up miserable) But yeah, his lyrics got much better into the 80's. He went to back to hit and miss in the 90's.

I wasn't specifically references the song, but the documentary where 'Glee' talks about how UFO called him Glee and made fun of the band, specifically writing that lyric on a banner. I loved those early albums and I bought them all when they first came out. But it was a very different time. I remember going to see Rush, or Zappa who I saw from the second row one night, and people listened to the music. They were relatively quiet. And then NWOBHM came along and you had these unruly mobs at all the concerts, jumping on seats, and shouting.

A friend sent me a clip she took of Rush playing YYZ, and the people were just screaming. It made me wonder of they were really listening or just excited that they were doing this song, that for all intense and purposes they could be listening to at home on their ipod. That's why I love jazz; it's always different.
 
Back
Top