SAiNT, you're a saint!

 

The simpler and plainer that you make your music, the more successful it will be. That is why the big labels employ a team of about 20 people that write almost all of the hits of the last 5 years. There are countless articles online about how music is getting dumber. There's always good stuff for those of us who look for it though. On the flip side of the coin, there's some super complicated, hard to play music out there. Does it sound good? Not always. There's always a million ways of looking at any song too. The simpler it is, the more people will relate to it. Is that good? Probably not, cause as a big collective, humans are dumb. I think of Frank Zappa saying that there's more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe.

 

People are stupid for the most part. Average IQ is only 30 points above retarded.
People always swallow whatever is shoved down their throat and told it is good. American music is generally shit in every genre tied to a record company.
Whether it is music or politics (remember the Nazi's?).
Another reason is laziness. Nobody in general wants to be challenged, but all want to be comforted with the memories of youthful good times (classic rock anyone?). I know many people actually do like the obscure and non-mainstream but in many cases are just following someone else's tastes anyway to fit in to a sub culture. Manbuned Hipsters with their stupid beards and horned rim black glasses is a good example of that. The last reason is corporations know what is going to be palatable to the sheeple of the world but then destroy it with ripoffs, copycats, and overexposure until it is no longer profitable.
The cycle goes: underground, regional, national, worldwide, wither, close to death. Unfortunately some never dies. HEY MACARENA!!

 

Wie blöd währe ich, etwas dummes zu Pushen? tick tack tick tack, ohne etwas sinnvolles bei zu steuern;)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt_(Film)

 

I think when you expose people to something that is homogenized in order to make it palatable, you reduce their ability to question whether it is something that they themselves would consider on their own accord. People tend to accept things when they don't have a point of reference to choose from. Some even express apprehension for anything outside of what is considered popular or normal.

Testing the lines of comfort when it comes to music can be very unpredictable. Its not as simple as merely saying "good music" and "bad music". Music is and always will be subjective, which is why I believe that if you truly love music, you owe it to yourself to explore outside your comfort zone. You may not always enjoy certain types of music but there's the possibility that you will appreciate something about it.

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2016

Does talking about the stupidity of people teach us music or change our taste?

No! of course not.

More than 90% of this forum is full of discussions that do not raise our musical knowledge and this is one of them.

Just taking, condemning each other, expressing anger, ...

Show what's going on in your head by your musics not even naming the other ones, just yours.

 

Most interesting, that this nearly 3-year-old topic was brought back to life.

 

This is such a great forum, people! This topic, of course, is as old as art itself.

When I was young I listened to and tried emulate ELP, Gentle Giant, King Crimson Yes and Pink Floyd. I looked down on the idiots who enjoyed Radiohead and Blur, because they didn't understand real music. When I was older, however, I tried to make some money with some seriously commercial pop music. Turned out I was terrible at it. It was a humbling experience. I gained a lot of respect for the likes of dr Luke and Max Martin. They are geniuses in their own right. Personally, it would rather eat plastic than listen to Adele Adkins for fun, but that doesn't mean Gregory Kurstin didn't do a sweet job at her last album. I would love to be as good as he is at making vocals stick out in the mix and I really enjoy his work on Lilly Alan (fi The Fear) as well. Sometimes it's hard to discover the art in things like Adele Adkins or Taylor Swift, but it is there, I promise.

 

Because it isn't as good as you may think.

 

Since a lot of knowledge and information's inside! what was said-

lalalllaaa ;)

everything has it's time​

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2016

There's 7.4 billion people on the planet. 7.4 billion sets of ears. 7.4 billion ways to listen to music.

 

and just 12 pitches

 

If I could add to all that has already been said (sorry mates, have not too much time to read it all), I believe that popular music is a proven formula (same chord progression, same sounds, same vibe, same use of lyric, same everything) and that, for the creative minds, is a kick in the nuts... we as creators don't want, at any cost, to make someone else's music, so we reinvent ourselves with more complicated original stuff that has all the things we learn and feel and consider beautiful; but as we further up our exploration to that, we limit our target even more to convert it into someone who is just in your right mindset or knowledge of what you are expressing, could appreciate. I like to take Jazz as an example... being among the most complicated styles you could do because of the chaos-in-balance you generate when doing, and the amount of rules to take in consideration, and the bigger amount of rules you purposely break... is as itself one of the most hard-to-enjoy styles...

But that doesn't have to disappoint anyone... as SAiNT beautifully said; those pop ones will not be remembered, but the legends we carry each day, those creative minds that transported us to their worlds... they will indeed be eternal

 

Music nowadays is not made for the sake of music, or beauty and harmony.
It is made to sell lifestyle and products.

A lot of modern music is jam-packed from a-z, it is so busy it doesnt give you
to reflect. No dynamics, full audiospectrum all the way. Everybody just screaming
for attention, like commercials.

There is similar situation in visual art. Who cares about classical art anymore?
There is now only 1 academy left in the world for the tradional art, Repin Academy
in St.Petersburg. It is a tragedy. Art replaced by "intellectual design".

 

What is popular? I have a wide taste from classical (Mahler/Shostakovich for eaxample) to all sorts of jazz (including contemporary) Rock/Pop and EDM (especially Techno which most/some of you think of as crap given other threads on our forum). I listen a lot as do other friends I have.

I attend gatherings with others were we listen to music we consider to be good. YouTube, the Beatport charts, Spotify and the iTunes stores are not the only benchmarks. Do their users LISTEN to music or only HEAR it?

Check serious music magazines, do they review Justin Bieber?

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2016

Maybe music isn't that important to most people. Therefore they just go along with what their friends say is good or the media tells them to follow. I think the Industry realized this decades ago and this is the result.

 

Still not into electronic music and "synthetic genres"?

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2016

Good music is out there, just don't expect to find it on a corporate owned media outlet.

 

old man rant starts here listen how songs are mixed/mastered nowadays. there is no "band" feeling. the singer's voice is compressed with 20db GR so it's fully in your face all the time, they don't let it breathe or blend in with the music as if a whole band would have been playin.women singers suck today. the two biggest is adele and florence and the machine. and they both suck imho, the band has no edge, so fucking shit.