Was pop music always this bad?

gabers
gabers Posts: 2,787
edited October 2007 in Other Music
Or am I just getting old and crotchety and out of touch with the kids these days? I tried listening to the local "top 40" station and I think I would have rather had my fingernails removed with pliers. And just looking at the most popular songs on iTunes, on yahoo, etc. I tried listening to a few and realized just how god-awful pop music is nowadays. Was it always this terrible? I need to expose my young son early and often to good music.
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  • intodeep
    intodeep Posts: 7,249
    It is probably a little worse now then it was in the 80's but it has been quite bad for a while.

    The only reason i mention the 80's is Prince and Michael Jackson's stuff then were quite good pop melodies
    Charlotte 00 | Charlotte 03 | Asheville 04 | Atlanta 12 | Greenville 16 | Columbia 16 |Seattle 18  | Nashville 22 | Ohana Festival 24 x2 | Atlanta 25 x2
  • tybird
    tybird Posts: 17,388
    Yes and no.....it runs in cycles like everything else.
    All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
  • Julien
    Julien Posts: 2,457
    to reply to your original question: YES
    pop music sucks !
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  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    gabers wrote:
    Or am I just getting old and crotchety and out of touch with the kids these days? I tried listening to the local "top 40" station and I think I would have rather had my fingernails removed with pliers. And just looking at the most popular songs on iTunes, on yahoo, etc. I tried listening to a few and realized just how god-awful pop music is nowadays. Was it always this terrible? I need to expose my young son early and often to good music.

    a little bit of both.
  • chris01
    chris01 Posts: 559
    Its bad, dont get me wrong... but it was worse 4 or 5 years ago.
  • elmer
    elmer Posts: 1,683
    the biggest selling popular acts have gotten worse, someone mentioned prince & michael jackson, well their old music blows away the major acts of today. thriller, bad, signo the times, purple rain.......where is the equivalent in quality? pink,spears,melua,timberlake,50cent?
    hip-hop has had a pernicious effect upon youth culture in general, what in fuck kanye west is good for is beyond my sphere of thought. a veritable pool of piss the whole situation seems.......
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,964
    I think the last 7 or 8 years has been horrible for "Pop" music. At least in the 80s and 90s there was always some dance-able sing-along type songs. today it seems like the only sing-along type pop songs are country songs like carrie underwood. the J. Lo and Justin Timberlake's of the world just put out crappy songs. It's a shame too because I think Justin Timberlake is really talented but just continues to put out drivel that teens and women eat up. Maybe I'm just getting old but I just can't listen to this crappy 'pop' music today. If I'm going to listen to pop music and not hard rock at least give me a beat, a hook and somthing I can sing along too. Hell I'd even take Ace of Base back at this point.
  • elmer
    elmer Posts: 1,683
    pjhawks wrote:
    It's a shame too because I think Justin Timberlake is really talented
    you dont have to make concessions here, be vulgar&crude if need be.

    y'gotta admit he is a lil bit of a TIT.
  • reversedarwinism
    reversedarwinism Posts: 1,151
    its always been bad, we just tend to remember the good music that, for the most part, didn't make it into the top 40. The good news is we'll take the best of today and forget 90 - 95% of what is on the top forty.
    bombs, dropping down, please forgive our hometown
  • pjhawks
    pjhawks Posts: 12,964
    reversedarwinism wrote:
    its always been bad, we just tend to remember the good music that, for the most part, didn't make it into the top 40. The good news is we'll take the best of today and forget 90 - 95% of what is on the top forty.

    but honestly what right now in pop music will you remember? is there a J LO or Justin Timberlake song you will remember and want to hear in 10 years? of any other pop music from today?
  • deadnote
    deadnote Posts: 1,678
    music is amazingly crazy
    great songs scattered everywhere and somehow they find a way to sound different

    you ever heard that song by snow patrol
    set your laughter free

    dreamer in my dream

    we got the guns

    i love you,but im..............callin out.........callin out
  • PJbauer88
    PJbauer88 Posts: 87
    dont judge today's music based on the shit you hear on the radio. music's current state of evolution is actually quite amazing. check out independent artists who dont care about money or looking cool... califone, sufjan stevens, rogue wave, pinback, built to spill, the books, brightblack morning light, jose gonzales, iron and wine, grizzly bear, my morning jacket, lou barlow, yo la tengo, and many others
    drowning, drinking the light
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  • Duder5k
    Duder5k Posts: 278
    Well I'd much rather hear Huey Lewis or something than any of the crap on the radio these days, so no, it most likely hasn't been this bad before.
  • failedpersephone
    failedpersephone Posts: 3,424
    PJbauer88 wrote:
    dont judge today's music based on the shit you hear on the radio. music's current state of evolution is actually quite amazing. check out independent artists who dont care about money or looking cool... califone, sufjan stevens, rogue wave, pinback, built to spill, the books, brightblack morning light, jose gonzales, iron and wine, grizzly bear, my morning jacket, lou barlow, yo la tengo, and many others


    most of those bands are not Pop Music.

    Pop music is short for Popular...and popular music gets radioplay...the whole point of it was that it would be on the top 40 lists...

    and that means catchy with very little substance - something that people can sing along to absentmindedly...Pop is not Rock...so, to answer the question most pop music basically sucks in my opinion...and the current crop of pop music seems to be spawned from tv shows or movies...some celebrity singing into a machine that makes their voice sound like Madonna from 1982...and so, lately the music has even less validity...but, I am sure that the idea of catchy pop melodies wont be gone for good...
    IF YOU WANT A PLATE OF MY BEEF SWELLINGTON, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY THE COVERCHARGE.
  • soclose
    soclose Posts: 629
    PJbauer88 wrote:
    dont judge today's music based on the shit you hear on the radio. music's current state of evolution is actually quite amazing. check out independent artists who dont care about money or looking cool... califone, sufjan stevens, rogue wave, pinback, built to spill, the books, brightblack morning light, jose gonzales, iron and wine, grizzly bear, my morning jacket, lou barlow, yo la tengo, and many others

    I just love the fact that I've spotted you mentioning Califone in two separate threads! They deserve all the attention they can get.

    I haven't listened to the radio much in the last six years or so. There's really no reason to worry about the state of pop music when there's plenty of great music out there waiting to be discovered outside of the mainstream. Who needs radio when you have the internet to search out new bands?

    And as to the question at hand, I know that when I was still listening to radio during the late '90's I though pop music was terrible, but now I look back fondly at some of the pop rock songs I remember. As others have already said, we tend to remember the decent music and block out the bad memories.
  • Brain of J.Lo
    Brain of J.Lo Posts: 3,259
    gabers wrote:
    Or am I just getting old and crotchety and out of touch with the kids these days? I tried listening to the local "top 40" station and I think I would have rather had my fingernails removed with pliers. And just looking at the most popular songs on iTunes, on yahoo, etc. I tried listening to a few and realized just how god-awful pop music is nowadays. Was it always this terrible? I need to expose my young son early and often to good music.

    When I was in college, I read about a study that showed that most people stop being as open to new music when they are in their early to mid 20s as they were previously.

    Pop music has always been the same. For every Michael Jackson or Prince song getting heavy rotation on the radio back in the mid-80s, there were dozens of other random "one hit wonders" getting just as much play. That's how it's always been.
  • reversedarwinism
    reversedarwinism Posts: 1,151
    pjhawks wrote:
    but honestly what right now in pop music will you remember? is there a J LO or Justin Timberlake song you will remember and want to hear in 10 years? of any other pop music from today?

    Well, I like the new Justin Timberlake album. I think it will age better than its contemporaries. I listen to "BOB" radio station at work sometimes and they play pop hits from the 60s to today. I'm sure they leave out a lot of crap that got play through the years, but still play a lot of crap. I'd say no time can be worst for pop music than the 80s. What was wrong with everybody that decade???????
    bombs, dropping down, please forgive our hometown
  • webberf1
    webberf1 Posts: 160
    I think it is worse than ever because Pop music currently relies more than ever on superficial aspects such as commerical promotion, sex appeal and multi-million dollar film clips.

    at least in other eras it relied more on the music itself. there is no way you can say today's pop has equivalently talented artists the likes of Michael Jackson and Prince.
  • Jellyrolls
    Jellyrolls Posts: 523
    Timberlake is pretty good.
  • lucylespian
    lucylespian Posts: 2,403
    I think pop music is always crap, because that's what the masses love.

    There was a massive hit song her in Oz a littel while back, Crazy Frog, which was basically a phone ring tone, electronic noises made by a pseudo-frog. It was number one for a scary period of time.

    I checked out some Opeth a couple of days ago, Blackwater Park, has been on high rotation in my car since. 10 min complex orchestral songs , which will NEVER make it onto radio.
    Music is not a competetion.

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