The state of pop music

mikyok

Platinum Member
Bit of a rant here but I don't think I'm alone on this one.

Had to learn some god awful song by Ed Sheeran 'Thinking Out Loud' for a first dance on Saturday. Heard it once on my lunch break and it's ready to go without playing it. I don't put that down to me being a good player but just a reflection on how poor music is nowadays. Really predictable structure, no dynamics, no feel and goes nowhere.

Here's the track for reference all will become clear in a mo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQLqu-ThMOY

As you'll hear the track is exactly the same as Marvin Gaye, same tempo, chord progression and the same key (I think). Can you get sued by a dead guy? But I put the Marvin track on and in comparision I was blown away, it's a simple track but the quality of playing is phenominal. The rhythm section of James Jamerson on bass and Uriel Jones on drums make a pocket so big it's scary, the drums lock the groove but the bass line goes between the groove and the melody and still locks everything in.

For reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QZn9xiuOE

Does anyone else find that taste and feel are lost in pop music? I think it's another factor that made older pop songs so great and stand the test of time but good musicianship is lost in songs now as is songwriting!
 
Sometimes I forget that "side" of music even exists. There is very very little worthwhile pop music because:

Pop music = pre-packaged, recycled music which corporations craft to "set the standard" in the ear of what consumers will purchase, to streamline mass production and make it easy to reproduce the "standard" sound and hit. Basically, it's corporations musically selling conformist types pink polo shirts with khakis. ;)
 
I get the comparison between the two songs, & I get the differences in approach / feel too. I completely agree re: state of most pop music, but I think generally, Ed Sheeran is one of the better ones in the current crop. I also think this particular song is quite well constructed, produced, & performed. It's not great - far from it - but it is good IMHO.

Another aspect is exposure. There are some stunningly good modern pop artists, but quality mostly sits off the radar, leaving the safe "generic fad" stuff to dominate.
 
It’s hard to be ground breaking and a seminal musician in a genre that has been effectively covered and in a genre that is formulated around what is popular. What was pop in the 30's 40's and 50's are now standards. What was fab in the 60's and pop in the mid 60's thru the early/mid 70's has transformed and will constantly change. That's was pop music is all about. The target audience remains about the same age which would lead me to believe that pop music is what is happening to each generation at a certain point in that generation and that generation only. Everything else is outdated. Is this really generational or is it business driven? Perhaps both. Sadly there are cost drivers that affect bands and profit, or even to make a living wage as an artist. Workarounds are developing at home studios and product is uploaded where the audience resides.

If copying is the highest form of flattery, and if emulation continues to flourish there will be less advancement and more of the same. The advancements in the last couple of decades have seen movement from the street musicians to the top of the charts with a good dose of world and ethnic fusion and that is very healthy. Where will the next renaissance come from?

Jazz goes through this every 2nd or 3rd generation and hybridizes into something a bit different and alters course to suit. Pop does too. Look forward to it and keep your ears open.

What I have seen happen and others too is that musicianship is now more internalized at the home studio and interaction with other musicians and the audience has been drastically reduced. I personally think while this may be expedient to the home studio musician it is not in itself a healthy direction over the long term. TV shows such as Idol etc... display a false assumption that to be a musician all one has to do is get out of the shower and on to the stage and a star is born. The machinations of the production are hidden behind the curtain, and the viewers are not paying attention to what is behind that curtain. Is that the future for those who study the art and seek a living from it?
 
I get the comparison between the two songs, & I get the differences in approach / feel too. I completely agree re: state of most pop music, but I think generally, Ed Sheeran is one of the better ones in the current crop. I also think this particular song is quite well constructed, produced, & performed. It's not great - far from it - but it is good IMHO.

Another aspect is exposure. There are some stunningly good modern pop artists, but quality mostly sits off the radar, leaving the safe "generic fad" stuff to dominate.

I think Ed Sheeran has been polished from his breakthrough album and big producers have done more than the artist in his more recent stuff, probably at the behest of record companies aiming at 12 year olds with pocket money.

Not really a fan of his earlier stuff but it was quite fresh compared to everything else.

Totally agree about exposure that there are some amazing pop artists out there but there's an ever decreasing circle of venues which means musicians can't cut their teeth anymore.

I think the X Factor culture plays a part as well but I'm in danger of getting kicked off using language this bad!
 
I think the X Factor culture plays a part as well but I'm in danger of getting kicked off using language this bad!
Indeed, terrible language!!! Unfortunately that show (the show that shall not be named) is only symptomatic of a music industry production line change that's been evolving for decades. As it's grown in popularity, it has (the show), in itself, become a driver of further downward slides into mediocrity.
 
I listen to lots of pop music and I agree that the overall quality now is not great. I think there's lots of very good music being made, but getting it into Top-40 territory is difficult with the current music business model.

I don't watch the talent shows, but one positive I think has come from them is it actually has people paying attention to singing skills, something I thought was waning in the 90s and early 00s.
 
I think what many of us perceive as a lack of talent is really just a shifting of sensibilities, culture, and technology. Like another poster mentioned, this is music for the 18-35 crowd (although I'm in the top end of that demographic, so i must be an outlier). The history of music is filled with the older schools of thought knocking the current popular music or it's simplicity and lack of artistry. Realistically, every style of music is just as valid as the last, they just go about expressing their musical ideas in different ways.

In the 16th century, we were able to print music for the first time. There are several sources that show that many musicians thought this was the end of creativity in music and oversimplified the organum style of playing. In the 9th century, organum was where the band would play a consistent rhtyhm with chord changes while a singer or instrumentalist would create a new melody or use counterpoint on the existing melody (today we'd call it a solo).

In the Baroque period we saw the coposer of songs start to dictate ornamentation lines rather than leaving it to the musician. This caused uproar among musicians who felt they weren't able to be creative, but instead had to play pre-written parts.

In the classical period, composers like Mozart worked to get rid of improvisation all together, causing the same discontent musicians to complain about the simplicity of that days music.

Go forward a couple of centuries, and jazz came onto the scene. Taking simple, yet catchy, melodies and then allow musicians/singers to imrpovise over the form. People were equally upset, claiming that the musicians could barely play and the songs had no sophistication.

Rock and Roll wasn't far behind, with catchy simplified melodies and driving rhythmis patterns. Many thought that was the end of music all together, some songs were now written with just three chords!

Now we're in the electronica age, where the music has mostly been replaced by one person using technology to write catchy hooks with powerful back beats behind them.
 
I listen to lots of pop music and I agree that the overall quality now is not great. I think there's lots of very good music being made, but getting it into Top-40 territory is difficult with the current music business model.

I don't watch the talent shows, but one positive I think has come from them is it actually has people paying attention to singing skills, something I thought was waning in the 90s and early 00s.

It makes me think auto tune earns it's money!

We have a show called the Voice and Will.I.Am is a judge, that's a better definition of irony than Alanis Morrisette ever had!
 
I think what many of us perceive as a lack of talent is really just a shifting of sensibilities, culture, and technology. Like another poster mentioned, this is music for the 18-35 crowd (although I'm in the top end of that demographic, so i must be an outlier). The history of music is filled with the older schools of thought knocking the current popular music or it's simplicity and lack of artistry. Realistically, every style of music is just as valid as the last, they just go about expressing their musical ideas in different ways.

In the 16th century, we were able to print music for the first time. There are several sources that show that many musicians thought this was the end of creativity in music and oversimplified the organum style of playing. In the 9th century, organum was where the band would play a consistent rhtyhm with chord changes while a singer or instrumentalist would create a new melody or use counterpoint on the existing melody (today we'd call it a solo).

In the Baroque period we saw the coposer of songs start to dictate ornamentation lines rather than leaving it to the musician. This caused uproar among musicians who felt they weren't able to be creative, but instead had to play pre-written parts.

In the classical period, composers like Mozart worked to get rid of improvisation all together, causing the same discontent musicians to complain about the simplicity of that days music.

Go forward a couple of centuries, and jazz came onto the scene. Taking simple, yet catchy, melodies and then allow musicians/singers to imrpovise over the form. People were equally upset, claiming that the musicians could barely play and the songs had no sophistication.

Rock and Roll wasn't far behind, with catchy simplified melodies and driving rhythmis patterns. Many thought that was the end of music all together, some songs were now written with just three chords!

Now we're in the electronica age, where the music has mostly been replaced by one person using technology to write catchy hooks with powerful back beats behind them.

I would argue that heavy metal has many similarities to Baroque. Pre baroque was mainly papal music i.e. Council of Trent , I have some painful memories of lectures at uni studying this stuff!

Classical music can't really be called popular music of that time because you had to be monied and educated to be able to listen to it and until the 20th Century the vast majority weren't plus radios were't around or readily available nevermind radio stations! Further more composers were more experimental by the 20th C i.e John Cage.

All pop music is a catchy hook with a powerful back beat behind it. But all good pop music draws it's influences from Jazz/Blues/Latin as the musicians that played it were good enough to handle different genres and incorporated it into songs.

Musicians knock modern pop music because musical ability is being taken away from it. Mozart didn't have copy and paste, auto tune, programable drums, orchestration programs, programable bass/keys auto harmonizers. Thankfully thay get found out live!
 
Everything seems to be about the singer now while the music is being neglected in Top 40 radio. It's all whiny singers with a nothing rhythm track behind them and they win Grammies.

Whatever, they can have that, there's plenty of great music out there for me to love. As long as people want the sugary pap, whatever. There's room for everyone, even people who don't really care if their music has any redeeming qualities.

At least there's more choices than Top 40 radio, and I can listen to selected genres all day long if I wish. So in one aspect (top 40 radio) music is anti-inspirational, but on the other hand there's dedicated music services now, and I don't have to whine because I have way better options than crappy Top 40 radio.

As a related sidetrack, how do you guys feel about auto-tune? I kind of despise it.
 
Popular music is dead. There are some smaller bands putting out great music, but you have to search for them. There are many reasons but a few are- too many damn computers and clicks, bands don't take enough time to craft songs, protools and kids recording stuff in their basement that sounds like crap, and so called musicians not being able to really play his instrument, and one of the biggest is labels not pushing real bands and investing money into advertising, which is how every legend came to be
 
As a related sidetrack, how do you guys feel about auto-tune? I kind of despise it.

I call it turd polish. Does exactly what it says on the tin!

Trying to recreate an autotuned sound is impossible. We recorded some demos for the wedding band and did Pharell Happy, I had to record all the backing vocals and hitting the notes isn't hard but it's holding the power of the note that you can't do.

It's the singers equivalent of triggers, drum mapping programs etc
 
As an old fart, quite frankly in a genre of auto-tuned, studio created non-talented "pop stars" I think Ed Sheeran deserves some props. He's a song writer, can seriously play the guitar and if you hear him perform on live TV he can sing WITHOUT the normal and ever present lip-synching to a pre-recorded track.

I remember my father who played, guitar, sang, played drums, played trumpet and always had a band saying the same things about top 40 music in the 60s and 70s..the stuff you all hold reverent today.

Thankfully we are all free to listen to what we like, turn off what we don't.
Same goes for playing, I'd rather play an Ed Sheeran track than have to play Freebird one more time.

Just sayin...
 
Amen on Freebird used to play that every gig. Hate it with a passion!

Same with Sweet Home Alabama.
 
Yes I have to agree with others here. Not a fan of pop but Ed Sheeran is no doubt a talented bloke. But generally yes, pop music has taken on a form that no longer requires talented musicians for the most part, is utterly repetitive and just boring. I don't know how the world has allowed this to happen but obviously many non musicians don't have high standards for the music they listen to.
 
a reflection on how poor music is nowadays. Really predictable structure, no dynamics, no feel and goes nowhere.

As you'll hear the track is exactly the same as Marvin Gaye, same tempo, chord progression and the same key (I think). The Marvin Gaye tune is a simple track but the quality of playing is phenomenal.

I think our job as musicians is to make the Ed Sheeran song sound phenomenal.

Let's stop with the producer mentality of making cover songs sound exactly like the original.
Have you ever heard a cover song sound better than the original? Do I need to show you some examples?


.
 
As an old fart, quite frankly in a genre of auto-tuned, studio created non-talented "pop stars" I think Ed Sheeran deserves some props. He's a song writer, can seriously play the guitar and if you hear him perform on live TV he can sing WITHOUT the normal and ever present lip-synching to a pre-recorded track.

I remember my father who played, guitar, sang, played drums, played trumpet and always had a band saying the same things about top 40 music in the 60s and 70s..the stuff you all hold reverent today.

Thankfully we are all free to listen to what we like, turn off what we don't.
Same goes for playing, I'd rather play an Ed Sheeran track than have to play Freebird one more time.

Just sayin...
I agree with this sentiment. There was some incredible album rock in the 70s. But take a look at the music that shows up on the 70s decade hits CD selling on TV. Pop is pop and always will be. I like some pop but not most. Remember the 60s had some really bad pop too.
 
Amen on Freebird used to play that every gig. Hate it with a passion!

Same with Sweet Home Alabama.

At least it keeps the drunks from throwing stuff at the stage.

Played a gig in Yakima Washington as a side gig on the way to playing in Seattle.

The first time I ever saw chicken wire in front of the stage and thank God for Freebird.
 
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