Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
One reason why AI and Pop hits are proving to be in a relationship - the bar is set so low. This YouTube feature does cover some familiar territory, like the Loudness Wars, but it is worse than I had previously thought. I had no idea that two under the radar clowns have penned so many pop hits. The music industry practices, like pushing songs with vast amounts of cash until we like them, are as homogenizing as they are depressing. Another long-festering problem is the huge Classic Rock hangover. This feature begins with Sergeant Pepper's and lauds it as the greatest album ever. I guess John Coltrane must have been spinning his wheels in dipshitsville.
My sister has long favored unsigned bands and my tastes in newer music run all the way to left field. (This feature does acknowledge that many, many really good bands are out there and explains why "none of them will ever be signed".) Creativity has retreated to the fringes. I now understand why Neil Young and Crazy horse recorded "That's why we don't wanna be good". Record company clowns indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII
Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears
Thank you very much for both links. Being a well aged man (71) I have long thought that pop stuff was deteriorating. I guess it's suspicions confirmed. As for the A.I. stuff "this mission is far too important to let Seawolf jeopardize it. This conversation can no longer serve a useful purpose."......or something like that.
KEEP ON LISTENING!
Ed, I'm 71 and my sister is 74. I think we three grok the music landscape and resist the brainwashing pretty well. I can bear witness that there is a ton of great talent out there, under the Pop Hits radar. A good time to be alive if you love music and craft brewed beer.
Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears
Colleagues, Here are a few thoughts on the degradation of pop culture music. I believe that Rock music as an art form, reached its zenith between 1963 to1975 or maybe into the 80's. My taste ran towards the folk/country/rock. although in form the music was tonic/dominant aba, there were variations, and many groups were experimenting with new stuff, like the Beatles, and some putting out just great tunes with great lyrics. Some that come to mind are All along the Watch Tower, Long Cool Woman, Mr Tambourine man, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Green grass and High Tides, and on..and on. Katie Perry is delightful to behold but with the sound off. And so here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price, you gotta pay to get out of doing all these things twice.
KEEP ON LISTENING!
For at least a couple of centuries (the ones we know about, in other words), easily ninety percent of music has not been very good. That is not going to change anytime soon and probably never. Most Big Band music was lame. Most small combo Jazz recordings were lousy. It's just that we - and history - remember the high spots with 20/20 hindsight. The Nineteenth Century Romantic (Classical was before that, but it is all semantics anyway) period could be in really bad taste. The Carnivals Of Venice is the worst single piece of music I have ever heard, Katy Perry included, but it was so well thought of by contemporaries that big-name composers - the ones you have heard of and still dominate the concert halls - wrote endless variations on it because they so loved it.
In Rock ("Rock" followed Rock 'n Roll as we old fogies recall), I do consider Country Rock to be a, if not the high point of talent applied to the art. Like Rockabilly, the cream rose right to the top and that is very unusual in popular music. After that, every once in a while a band would make a sharp left turn from what came before and what was going on, the most spectacular being The Pretenders in 1979/80. Certainly, PJ Harvey is in that class though she has never sold well enough for most to have heard her. She's not alone there. One of the lamest developments was British Art Rock. One of the so many genres that thought lyrics and concept rendered actual musical content irrelevant. Which is Classic Rock's particular curse, it seems. Every era of Rock, and Pop, has consisted of mostly offerings with very low musical content. Rap was far from the first kind of music that valued lyrics and attitude over musical talent to an absurd degree.
For several decades "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans was considered the worst song recorded in pop music. That was a long time ago and the competition has overtaken it thousands of times. Which does not change the fact that there will always be a ton of musicians and composers who are really great and most of which we will never know about. The music business, well, it's a business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ry_rock_albums
Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears
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