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Discussion: Is Pop Music Empty?
Member Since: 8/23/2011
Posts: 11,596
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Pop Music — Is This the Worst Era in Decades?
Source: http://blog.sfgate.com/mlasalle/2012...ra-in-decades/
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A couple of months ago I decided to become familiar with what’s going on in pop music, or at least the women of pop music — hence the idea for the gallery (below) that ran earlier this month.
Now all my life post-30 I have been very reluctant to make any pronouncement about popular music, because I understand that it’s not for me. It’s not intended to speak to moi. Also I remember the 1970s, when pop music was remarkably good, listening to geezers talk about it — either 35 year old geezers talking about how everything has been downhill since BLONDE ON BLONDE or 50 year old geezers saying that nothing has been good since THE TENNESSEE WALTZ.
At the same time, it is a fact that pop music — though it is ALWAYS loved by whoever happens to be 16 at the time, for the simple reason that there ain’t nothing like being sixteen, even if you’re a serf in the year 1312 — pop music, like movies, goes through periods of boom and bust.
Things were pretty interesting, for example, from the point that singers stopped rolling their r’s and started singing like normal people (circa 1927) all the way through the end of WWII. The came a pretty miserable ten year period. Not everything, but here is where you get HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW?
Then rock and roll is BRIEFLY interesting, until anybody any good is either dead or drafted.
Then a flurry of life with the BEACH BOYS — and then boom, the British Invasion, Motown, etc.
I’d say the seventies were as good as the sixties (especially as they were LONGER. The sixties were really only six years.) The eighties and nineties not as good.
But Hip-Hop, for a time, was alive when rock and roll was pretty much spent of life and originality.
Which brings us to now.
Like I said, I’ve been just listening to the women. And I’ve been listening to them A LOT. But only the women. Adele, Britney, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Kesha (imagine me listening to Kesha), Pink and others.
This is my impression. This stuff, for better or worse, is incredibly infectious: “You’re . . . so . . . hypnotizing,” “. . . would you hold it against me????” — get this stuff in your head, and that’s it for the day. Yet after listening to this . . . it’s so empty. You don’t feel good about yourself. You don’t feel good, period.
Some of these people are better than others. Britney Spears, to my surprise (I know, I’m rushing back from the front with news everybody has), is truly awful. Can’t sing. But also her songs are just embarrassing. I think WOMANIZER may be the worst song in ten years. Just garbage.
But Pink can write a good lyric. She’s pretty good. Katy Perry seems to be incredibly plugged into the youth experience in a way that would speak to me tremendously if I were a teenager, plus she’s very pretty . . . But a steady diet of Katy Perry feels empty, and after only a short period of time. Rihanna is OK — a few of them are OK, but as a movement so many of these songs are saying the same thing. Either “I’m great.” “You’re great.” Or “We’re great.” So much is about idiot self-assertion based on nothing but the panache and power to assert. There’s such little ambition there.
I also think a lot of current singers aren’t writing their own material, which brings us back to a state of affairs that existed after the war.
The one person I think of as a real artist — and at first I liked her the least — is Lady Gaga. She’s the only one who got BETTER the more I listened to her, whose songs have the power to surprise, whose lyrics are good but also whose music goes into different directions, who sounds sometimes like Madonna, sometimes like Gwen Stefani, sometimes like Beyonce, sometimes only like herself, who seems to be a skilled and intelligent amalgam of a bunch of different pop music trends. The saving grace of Lady Gaga is that she is very, very smart.
But does she stand out because she’s great, or because she’s good and everybody else isn’t? This I don’t know.
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Is pop music empty? Will this period be remembered as a low for pop music?
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Member Since: 11/17/2011
Posts: 52,363
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Its empty calories...like a doughnut
You consume it but you're not satisfied and still hungry
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Member Since: 8/20/2011
Posts: 4,292
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As somebody who despised pop music for a long time and is now finally interested in it I can say without a doubt this is the most INTERESTING full of life era of pop music. I would consider the most empty moment in pop to be that period after the 90s up until a few years ago. I don't even remember any standout stars during that period. It was so... boring. The videos- everything.
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Member Since: 7/9/2010
Posts: 42,506
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Yes, we need Gaga back with new music 
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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No it's not the worst. We had Beyonce's 4, Drake's Take Care, Lady Gaga's Born This Way, etc etc. which were all full of ambition and life (like them or not!).
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Banned
Member Since: 2/18/2012
Posts: 259
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Quote:
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The one person I think of as a real artist — and at first I liked her the least — is Lady Gaga. She’s the only one who got BETTER the more I listened to her
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That is true.
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Member Since: 10/24/2011
Posts: 3,702
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Quote:
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The one person I think of as a real artist — and at first I liked her the least — is Lady Gaga. She’s the only one who got BETTER the more I listened to her, whose songs have the power to surprise, whose lyrics are good but also whose music goes into different directions
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This is so true 
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Member Since: 3/9/2011
Posts: 11,102
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Quote:
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Some of these people are better than others. Britney Spears, to my surprise (I know, I’m rushing back from the front with news everybody has), is truly awful. Can’t sing. But also her songs are just embarrassing. I think WOMANIZER may be the worst song in ten years. Just garbage.
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I'm pretty sure the person who wrote this was a little monster. 
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Member Since: 10/18/2010
Posts: 29,224
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Why do you think Rihanna and Katy are releasing albums like the plague? There's little substance to last for two years, which used to be the minimum, and the general public, nowadays, are fickle with their music... 
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Member Since: 1/3/2010
Posts: 21,098
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This is one of pop's bust eras. Honestly, it's because everyone's doing the same genre. We need that variety again. There were the good ol' days when you could turn on the radio and hear a rap song one mintue, then a pop rock song the next. Now it's just one continuous loop of dance songs, the same five and a half songs over and over again. If the songs played in a spaced out manner with songs from other genres, no one would get listener's fatigue. 
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 12,539
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Yes , this is the worst and most embarrassing era of Pop Music I've ever lived.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 11/5/2011
Posts: 6,204
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No, Pop was empty like 6 years ago. Right now it's filled with life.
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Member Since: 1/24/2012
Posts: 3,704
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How is it empty when its the most competitive we've seen it in recent years??
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Member Since: 3/16/2011
Posts: 6,580
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Quote:
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I also think a lot of current singers aren’t writing their own material, which brings us back to a state of affairs that existed after the war.
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Most of the artists he mentioned write their own material. 
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Member Since: 6/1/2010
Posts: 65,177
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Maybe, but we're only three years into the decade and I'm convinced that the electropop era will fade soon enough. I wouldn't call it just yet.
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Member Since: 12/1/2011
Posts: 24,324
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only people who say it sucks are the ones whos favs are irrelevant atm 
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Member Since: 10/30/2010
Posts: 8,520
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It's not empty if you don't want it to be.
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Member Since: 8/23/2011
Posts: 11,596
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheRealKii
How is it empty when its the most competitive we've seen it in recent years??
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This is speaking to the quality of the music not the commercialization of the industry/artist.
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Member Since: 8/16/2010
Posts: 15,137
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Quote:
The one person I think of as a real artist — and at first I liked her the least — is Lady Gaga. She’s the only one who got BETTER the more I listened to her, whose songs have the power to surprise, whose lyrics are good but also whose music goes into different directions, who sounds sometimes like Madonna, sometimes like Gwen Stefani, sometimes like Beyonce, sometimes only like herself, who seems to be a skilled and intelligent amalgam of a bunch of different pop music trends. The saving grace of Lady Gaga is that she is very, very smart.
But does she stand out because she’s great, or because she’s good and everybody else isn’t? This I don’t know.
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That sir, indeed, is the question.
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Member Since: 4/25/2011
Posts: 41,661
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Pop music in general is boring right now.
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