Pop Music in General

Dane777

Member
Im interested.
What are your guys thought on pop music and the
musicianship of the players today, how they should or
are approaching it, Is it a sell out to be a pop drummer,
is it overrated, under rated etc.
What have you guys got to say about?
 
Im interested.
What are your guys thought on pop music and the
musicianship of the players today, What have you guys got to say about?

Ok I'll step up....

Forgettable melodies terrible songs, no guitar solos (Un cool? = can't play 'em) & my main gripe is the voices of the so-called lead singers. Hardly good enough to be doing a backing harmony.

I watched The Killers a while back to listen to the drumming.....& once the lead singer opened his mouth my gf said he makes it sound like a middle school band doing their first gigs. I agree.
"The Editors is another. Coldplay...it's a huge list...miles away from talent/quality.
Being original doesn't mean you are good/talented.

If they are good drummers, they hide it well for the money. Single strokes all the time (Moony is the only guy that could get away with that, & he certainly did:^)
If you see them play the technique sucks as if they've never had a lesson. That's what makes drummers the butt of non musician jokes.

That's showbiz $£$£$£.= con the kids.
Musically literate?

Just saying.

Ok. Now flame me...we all drummers here. That's fine.
 
For one thing, pop is a pretty general term. So it really depends on the act.

From what I've come to know, a pop artist's band is comprised of top notch musicians. Sure it may not be the most technically demanding gig, but it's their job to play the part tightly and precisely. Some call it selling out. I call it success. I've got the up most respect for people who are able to land a gig such as this.

On the other hand, there are pop bands who somehow make it to the mainstream through their haircuts... good for them, enjoy it while it lasts.
 
Modern pop? Pop has always been a varied beast. There's always been some fairly soulless stuff with an emphasis on marketing. There's also always been pop music created by people who love what they do.

I find that some of the least inspiring music around has been made by schooled musicians - sessioners hired to propel a pretty or handsome face into the spotlight or to produce musak. Most times, however, if you make the effort to learn to play or sing well enough to play to audiences, then the chances are you put some passion into your music. Some may not care for your type of passion, others will.

I couldn't give a damn whether drummers plays single stroke rolls, doubles or flammadiddlyruffs. Does the drumming groove? Does it complement the song? Does it have a vibe?
 
To be quite honest I'm not sure what pop music is today. I have always used the term to mean popular music. In my neck of the woods, I can't even find what would be considered pop music. There is no weekly top 40 like there was when I was growing up. There are so many genres of music now that didn't exist when I was young. The music industry is so over saturated with different sounds that I guess I'm not sure what pop would be. I'm not saying that is a bad thing. When I grew up in the 60's and 70's we had pretty much Rock n Roll, Country, Folk, Soul that was played on the top 40 stations. Over time other genres joined the mix so that today there are probably 10 different types or more of just Metal. Because of this I think the talent pool is much thinner and groups that cut records today would not have made it 30 years ago. Also today if you can't get a label to sign you just start your own. It's like football. The more teams they add to the league the more less talented players make teams, a thinning of the talent. Just my thoughts.
 
Pop music is not supposed to be all that sophisticated. Be that as it may, a lot of those metal bands have pretty outrageous drummers: Jaska Raatikainen, Tomas Haake, The Rev. One could say "I don't like the music;" but that would be less a comment on the quality of the music and more a comment on the age of the person.

You listen to some of these artists like Jason Mraz or Katy Perry and ask, really what is there not to like. Then you have artists like Alicia Keys, John Legend or John Mayer and they are pretty good song writers. There are some great bands putting out great albums: Radiohead, Muse, Three Doors Down, The Roots. And I even like Coldplay, always did. Used to go see them when they played the clubs. I don't listen to them anymore but it's good pop. You have these prog bands like Dream Theater, Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree that have been putting out quality albums, some for two decades, and are still largely under the radar.

That might not be a popular opinion; but I really don't care.
 
I'm not sure what to consider pop these days. I just listen to music. I find kiss in the pop section at my local music store. I find led zep in the heavy metal section in some places.........uhh yeah i don't know about that one. All i know is that i'm not embarassed to play any type of music as long as i enjoy it. I even play some country from time to time.
 
Be that as it may, a lot of those metal bands have pretty outrageous drummers: Jaska Raatikainen, Tomas Haake, The Rev. One could say "I don't like the music;" but that would be less a comment on the quality of the music and more a comment on the age of the person.

Heh, metal's hardly pop. True, that it's reflective of age, though. I don't get the Cookie Monster vocal style. I never even worked out why it's called a death growl, since as far as I know dead people don't growl and zombies kind of go "uhhhhhhh ooouhhhhh".

As for pop drumming, Green Day has a pop drummer who won't be putting shivers down Billy Cobham's spine any time soon http://www.take40.com/music/music-library/recent/1?t=26541.3. Still, it's a decent drum arrangement, and composing an effective drum part is a HUGE aspect of pop drumming. I think fancy drum parts are considered a bit dated and naively showoffy modern music that's not metal/jazz/world unless you have someone rare like Stewart Copeland.

Dane, I used to think of players selling out but no more. Usually we'll say someone is selling out if they shift from original music to mainstream like, say, John Wetton going from King Crimson and early UK to Asia. But he'd played some amazing things, and if he wants to make some $$, then he's earned it. (He was the most poppy writer in the early/mid 70s incarnation of KC anyway). Most pop musos are into the music they play so it's not selling out IMO - they're just lucky enough to have a popular form of bad taste :)
 
If you listen to a lot of Bartok, Stravinsky and Elliot Carter, Heavy Metal is pop. What is pop? Is pop a genre? It only leads the way down to unanswerable questions.

Is Green Day really pop? How could Disturbed, Green Day, Brittany Spears and Hannah Montana all be pop? I guess if you listen to a lot of Bartok, they really don't sound that different. :)
 
Okay... let's just look at it this way: The Beatles started out playing pop... fortunately for the music world they moved away from the mainstream later in their career but the fact is that when their early stuff is really mostly candy-coated big dollar pop... Beethoven (since deltadrummer brought up classical) was pop... it was formulaic music composed to be good to the audience to listen to. I would say that composers like stravinsky, taichovsky, dvorak deviated from the forumlaic sound a lot and were still very successful but even chopin (whom i love btw) would have been considered pop by today's standards.
As for drumming and pop I will say that while a lot of it is not techincally sophisticated, it is not necessarily bad. A lot of "pop" bands or stars use drum machines (especially in hip-hop and rap) but when you listen to enough of it you'll find that occassionally there are truly good grooves (some you'd need 4 hands and 4 feet to play but still good). The point is that in all genres there is a lot of crap... 90% of music is crap and you'll occassionally find the other 10% that is decent. I don't necessarily like pop music as a genre but a catchy tune is a catchy tune... it sells tickets/albums and i would be thrilled to be as big of a success as the modern pop stars (even hannah montana and the like). For decades a lot of pop music has been written by a composer and performed by a star... this is not necessarily a bad thing either... the composers compose and the performers perform.
So like i said, you'll find that some pop drummers are technical and play really good fills and grooves but 90% of music will still always be crap and this is true for all genres.

ps: flammadiddlyruffs - I have to work on these :)
 
I don't see Green day & the like as pop. Mr T.Cool is cool.

To me, seeing the early teenagers screaming & shouting at some groups at one of the open air V festivals for example... that's my idea of pop.
That's were I see the bad drummers, rubbish voices, terrible song writing, which I find pathetic & sad.

We all have our own perceptions of course.

I will ad that there's music I dislike but can appreciate it's quality & don't slag it off.
David grey, good voice, good drumming but not for me thanks. Never liked Genesis (love Yes) but never put Genesis down.
Just because I don't like particular groups/music doesn't have me putting them down calling them rubbish.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.
That is all.

....................................................
 
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What do we make of this? "Metal can be thought of as pop" ... "Beethoven was pop in his day" ... "Green Day is not pop" ... "What is pop?" ... "Pop is not a genre" ...

There's plenty of music that most people would say is modern western pop. For me, there are these elements: Short. Melodic with at least one hook, usually in the chorus, repeated many times (often to a fode out). More often major than minor. Simple lyrics that most times are based on luuurve. No soloing, or a short solo after the second chorus.

Wikipedia puts it like this:

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:

  • a focus on the individual song or singles, rather than on extended works or albums
  • aimed at appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology
  • an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
  • an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over acoustic live performance
  • a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments
We all know there's much overlap between genres in most musical forms. Most times songs that people call pop are popularised (often saccharine) versions of R&B, soul, rock, funk, rap, disco, country, folk, metal etc. Sure, Green Day is a rock band, but the song is pop to my ears. Pop rock if you like. It was chosen as a single and is in the Top 40.

theLimpingToad said:
I don't necessarily like pop music as a genre but a catchy tune is a catchy tune... it sells tickets/albums and i would be thrilled to be as big of a success as the modern pop stars

And so say all of us! I'd say most practised their flammadiddlyruffadoublemacues at some stage.

No accounting for taste. When I see clothes in shops I am amazed that anyone even makes most of them let alone buys them. Same with music. I like music from all genres, although only very few in opera, metal and rap.

I guess the more closely we connect with something the more discerning we become because we come across irritations that superficial connections don't uncover - like snoring and squeezing the toothpaste from the middle. For a lot of people, what is a major passion in our lives - music - is nothing more than "wallpaper" in the "rooms" of their social lives.

Royal, can you you remember the names of the particular bands?
 
Royal, can you you remember the names of the particular bands?

I remember seeing (on TV) playing live as I said...Editors, The Killers...with an imitation lead singer...good luck to him, the're ok with their bank manager...but O my....
Some can sing very well but still have terrible voices.
Sorry...can't list other names...too painful to watch until the end.

Did see a band..The magic numbers/ or was it the doves tour Japan.
How the ... a bunch of boring amateurs....standing there...playing terrible , forgettable songs, no dynamics, looking down at their socks.
The drummer adding nothing.....no feel...

I like a raw, exiting performance, a couple of dud notes here & there is ok with me....natural passion, feel are important.
These showers had zero that....
That's entertainment/music?

I can't post on the subject without going into a rant. (Because I'm a music lover) so I'll end this transmission. Out.
 
Doesn't pop stand for popular? So pop isnt really genre, but more like a pinpoint to the music that is popular at a given time. I think the mainstream is a more sutable term. Cause The mainstream thing dosent say anything about quality, its whats selling. I have fairly open mind when it comes to music. Everything from modern classical music to mainstream stuff. And what I want is music that dosent need to sell me a image ( about sex, drugs, ganster attitude etc) because the quality of the music is so good that I can create my own and interpert it as I like.
 
Editors? I've not heard of them before. Do you mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uSqbMGGFDI

Not for me but I never understood why people liked music of that ilk. To me it just goes bla bla bla. However, if they're the same band as in the link, they managed to pull off a competent studio pop sound. Maybe they're better in the studio than live?

A few years ago I remember hearing a single of The Killers that I liked, but a lot of their stuff is that 80s pop rock which doesn't do it for me. Still, they clearly have it together in the studio.

So what's the trick? What is it that these bands have that lets them hit the big time while ostensibly more talented and/or creative musicians struggle?

They're cute. They write strong melodies. They're tight. They write, play and arrange with discipline and clarity of direction. How many of us are cute? How many of us eschew grunt, energy, complexity and texturing in order to focus on strength of melody? How many of us would give up the joy of eclecticism and variation in writing and playing order to make clear musical statements? How many of us skip those cool twists in arrangements in order to be accessible?

These bands would no doubt be well organised, and have worked out their interactions with the guys doing the lights and mix. Planning and hard work make a difference and it's something my old bands lacked. If only I knew 30 years ago what I know now ...

Unless you're a real pop-head there are significant musical sacrifices to be made in order to "make it". I woudn't make those sacrifices when I was young because I was into non-mainstream music. I won't make them now because I'm too old and there's no point :)
 
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Doesn't pop stand for popular? So pop isnt really genre, but more like a pinpoint to the music that is popular at a given time. I think the mainstream is a more sutable term. Cause The mainstream thing dosent say anything about quality, its whats selling. I have fairly open mind when it comes to music. Everything from modern classical music to mainstream stuff. And what I want is music that dosent need to sell me a image ( about sex, drugs, ganster attitude etc) because the quality of the music is so good that I can create my own and interpert it as I like.

Many people identify pop as a genre; but I think that such identification is so mired with bias that such categorization becomes problematic. Historically, in American popular music, where would you put a tune like Tea for Two, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Or singers like Fats Domino, Patti Page or Doris Day.
 
This.....
The singer...ha..,is interviewed by the dj's that are old enough to be his granddad...& he's treated like he was a genius.

Give me the real world anyday..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci4eb9CRmYA&feature=related

OMG, that link was really bad - lol. Ok, I see where you're coming from now :)

In the vid with the studio take it sounded like he was influenced by Jim Morrison's vocal style, and it sounded less natural for him than it was with Jimbo. He clearly didn't have the monitors on stage to help him pull off his faux-baritone voice. Funny what bad monitors can do to a singer. Plenty of decent singers have gone off key when they can't hear themselves. He pulls it off in the studio, and once people are fans they'll forgive a lot live.

Interesting point about pop, Ken. Still, what label could you apply to songs like Brian Hyland's Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini or The Archies's Sugar Sugar?

How about "commercial" instead of "pop"?
 
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