The state of POP music today.......

[Rambler]

"I think Pop music took a big hit it will never recover from when it started to promote "Rap""

 

You know, Rap and hip hop came from the same place as doo-wop -- the street corner. It was a neighborhood thing that got caught up in the maw of pop, 'casue pop craves novelty. You could say its was a form of folk music. I'm not a big fan but I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss it.

 

As for taste levels, there's plenty of objectionable material to go around, and even the Holy Beatles had that butcher cover. Musically, a lot of guitar guys and folkies that dislike rap also dont care much for funk, soul, R&B. Its groove music, it has its place. And you can dance to it. Cheers.

[bkharmony]

Rage on, old folk.

[Versatile]

I'm not so sure. Janus joplin was drug induced, and really, her vocals weren't "all that". Joplin's songs were also pretty simplistic in structure. I would say Lady Gaga has a better voice, more musical talent, a better understanding of musical theory, and is a better all around entertainer.

 

Not that I am a big Gaga fan.

 

Yes good points made...

[ChrisA83]

I just listened to the Stefani Germanotta vintage video (Lady Gaga) that was posted above, and I would say that she wouldn't even be in the top 10 of American Idol???!!! I mean really.....a pale imitation of Christina Aguilera (Who is the BEST female vocalist in the world at the moment IMO) , at most. Below is a song by Janice, "Me and Bobby McGee", listen to that voice!!! She knew how to craft a song, wringing out themaximum out of every word. There is NO COMPARISON....lol.....

 

Agree with you on Christina Aguilera, she's great, but if we're talking about American Idol then Janice Joplin wouldn't get anywhere near the top 10! On X Factor in Britain, and I imagine it's the same over there, anyone with a slightly different voice either gets rejected or, if they're good looking, moulded into the same shape as everyone else. So in the end each act sounds the same, all singing the same songs and you get disheartened with the whole industry.

[Versatile]

I know this thread is not about who your favourite female singer is but mine is Annie Lennox, very closely followed by Dione Warwick.

 

Most of the warbling women singing vibrato scales, I hear on the radio these days is akin to fingernails being scraped down a blackboard (in my humble and considered opinion)

 

Yes agree totally...Annie in her own right as a hard working musician/writer/singer

Dione as an interpreter...often of great Bacharach songs

I'm adding Ella Fitzgerald for her jazz songbook recordings....

[Versatile]

But it's not necessarily about Technical ability. Especially in the sixties it was about feel. Think about it, Dylan, McCartney, Lennon, Joplin, Kristofferson all could quite possibly be beaten technically by Lady GaGa but in terms of feel and content they are leagues ahead. Having said that there is a massive underswell in the UK of independent artist with great skill and creativity but you wont hear them on the Mainstream Radio very often

 

There seem to be 2 main things going on here....the big label money watered down me too approach which all sounds very similar and video orientated (boy bands girl bands etc) and the indie low budget take a risk artistic DIY approach....

[Rambler]

"in the sixties it was about feel"

 

Two things. The recording industry was a little more DIY then. Performances, not tracks, so recorded music had some breath to it. Second, because of the folk boom and then the Fabs, non-classic voices got a chance to cut a record. But keep in mind when comparing to the 60s, Janis, Kris etc were not big stars at that time. Scratch the surface of our own period and you find interesting people working the circuit.

 

Btw you want to talk cookie cutter production, bland performance, and stale conformity, grab the latest record coming out of Nashville.

[zombywoof]

Agree with you on Christina Aguilera, she's great,

 

Gotta agree. It did not hit me though till I saw her perform with the Stones and thought to myself who the heck is that.

 

Same thing like with that country singer Gretchen Wilson. I never really listened to her but then saw her with Alice in Chains at I think it was the Rock & Roll HOF inudctions. She tore that playhouse down. So I went and gave a listen to some of her normal stuff. Basically the same bad 1970s rock with a fiddle or pedal steel thrown in that most country music has become. I find myself still hoping though that we may yet see the formation of Gretchen in Chains.

[zombywoof]

Rage on, old folk.

 

 

Oh my God, its official, I have become my father.

 

"Turn that crap down."

[albertjohn]

Oh my God, its official, I have become my father.

 

"Turn that crap down."

 

"Oh,...and get your bloody hair cut while you're at it!"

[bkharmony]

The recording industry was a little more DIY then.

 

Are you kidding me? It was just as controlled - if not more - than it is today!

 

 

But keep in mind when comparing to the 60s, Janis, Kris etc were not big stars at that time. Scratch the surface of our own period and you find interesting people working the circuit.

 

Btw you want to talk cookie cutter production, bland performance, and stale conformity, grab the latest record coming out of Nashville.

 

True on both counts.

[nodehopper]

I think Pop music took a big hit it will never recover from when it started to promote "Rap" The music industry realized there was a ton of money to be harvested from people with absolutely no taste -

 

I find this comment to be very objectionable. Fine you don't like Rap .....and I will say that as Commercial music goes....so goes every type of music that has true value. It is strip mined and killed.

 

I want to avoid getting into a political discussion on the forum. I will just say the centuries of racism, poverty and social injustice created a lot of anger in the African American community. In the early 1900's the cheapest way to make music was homemade string instruments or if lucky a cheap guitar or banjo and your voice and from this evolved The Blues. In the early 80's this same segment of the population turned to cheap record players, a microphone and old records. They would scratch out beats and The MC would bust out semi-spoken rhymes to small house parties. The ingredients that went into the creation of the blues and rap are not really that dissimilar and the lineage and roots go back to the Griots of West Africa

 

These MCs started attracting attention and by the end of the 80's this type of music began to evolve and become a bit more sophisticated. This was also a time when inner city black youths were having a particularly bad time and the anger that gushed forth brought about some of the most socially conscious and aware protest songs since the 60's protest songs that the Baby Boomers seem to consider holy. Words of rage against a system that to these black youths was set up to beat them down from the start. Listen to some of the early Public Enemy and NWA albums. While you may not agree with the lyrics but NWAs "F*&$ the Police" had a very strong grounding in the social conscious and beliefs of a large segment of people in the USA.

 

The downfall came when Big Commercial Music found there was profit in marketing this music and turned it into the same sonic and cultural dung heap that all popular music falls prey to becoming. The youth who grew up with the best of Rap music and wanted to get out of poverty felt thier only choices were to either sell drugs or turn into the stereotypical mass produced Rapper that you see these days on MTV. -- yes this lasts statement is a bit oversimplifying...but only trying to make a point.

 

I just hate to see Rap music denigrated the same way that "Race" music was thought to have been spawned by Satan in it's day or the dirty hippie protest music of the 60's. I mean I loved Rap music from about '86 when I first started hearing it on the college station out of UCLA until it turned into the mass produced crap it is now. But love it or hate it....it will stand as a valid form of music and made some historically significant cultural statements in modern society.

[onewilyfool]

Agree with you on Christina Aguilera, she's great, but if we're talking about American Idol then Janice Joplin wouldn't get anywhere near the top 10! On X Factor in Britain, and I imagine it's the same over there, anyone with a slightly different voice either gets rejected or, if they're good looking, moulded into the same shape as everyone else. So in the end each act sounds the same, all singing the same songs and you get disheartened with the whole industry.

 

I have to dissagree with you on this one. Not only would Janice be in the top 10, I think she would have made it to the final, at least this year. One of the criteria the judges are always going on about is "can they recognize your voice on the radio? " Do you have a unique sound or voice to stand out from the "wedding singers" and street corner singers? Janice has that kind of voice, and Gaga DOESN'T!! Here regular singing voice is common sounding, and I think she realized that, and decided to go the "cartoon" direction as a way to stand out. Otherwise she would have blended in to the also rans. Don't get me wrong, she sings MUCH better than me, and is a good piano player, but there is a reason I'm not leaving my day job, and there is a reason she decided to go absttract.........Janice was just a raw powerful singer, and you could DEFINITELY tell it was one of her songs on the radio. Seeing her live, was something special.

[McDuff]

This may be a bit sexist but I find I have trouble enjoying most female singers. Not all, but one that I genuinely enjoy is somewhat rare.

As far as the gaga debate goes from the perspective of an eighteen year old I think she is somewhat talented but not near talented enough to warrant the amount of attention she gets. Her startling transformation to me shows that she was willing to sell out her musical integrity, personality, and to some extent her self respect in order to sell records. She is an act formulated to sell an image to teens. People like her and beiber are safe bets for record companies to make a profit. To me they abandoned their potential to be serious musicians a ways back.

 

On the other hand how many #1 hits have I managed to write?

[Rambler]

Nodehooper-- thanks for your backgrounder on rap/hip=hop. That's why I called it (orig. form) a folk/hood thing.

 

re 60s studios: "It was just as controlled - if not more - than it is today!" Maybe from an A&R end, but in terms of actual takes, it was still live music. And on the A&R side--admit it, Dylan, the Dead, JJ, the Jeff-Air did not cater to mainstream tastes, but wierd was in and they took a flyer on it. Plus the the Beatles had scored with their own songs, so there was some slack cut on that end as well. Nashville was the straightest, the Owen Bradley m/o that Waylon & Willie rebelled against. Today? It ebbs and flows. The one constant is Nashville: still a friggin machine.

[Johnt]

 

 

If you are over, let's say, 45, then you're not meant to like it. They are the rules.

Different times, different strokes.

]

 

The answer is in the question... POP music = Popular.

 

Lady Gaga is what the kids want to hear.

Whether she has talent or not is irrelevant, as someone said it a performance.

[fortyearspickn]

Rage on, old folk.

 

 

Grrrr. I represent that :)

[Johnt]

 

Thankfully I have the Gibson Acoustic Forum to keep it real..or is it all an illusion?

 

Its an illusion mate!

 

thats why so many folk are here no more!

 

An acoustic guitar forum debating the merits of Lady Gaga??

 

Give me strength!

[fortyearspickn]

Hey Nodehopper

You stated that you found what I wrote 'very objectionable. I wrote that POP music took a big hit when it promoted RAP to people with no taste.

In your response, you wrote that POP music took RAP and threw it on the dung heap.

Sounds like we agreed on at least one thing, though I don't know why you characterized it as objectionable when I wrote it.

Of course, you turned the table when you implied that any shortcomings on the part of those unable to appreciate Rap, were due to racism.

I find it accept under my definition of 'music', any form of entertainment that has as it's central content lyrics regarding sex, violence, and other anti-social behaviours. And, unlike you, I do not find them justifiable either due to suffering that took place centuries ago or today. Personallu,if an individual finds he has suffered and wants to share this pain with others musically, I'd prefer Blues, Gospel, Jazz, or even bubble gum music.

I'll keep this short, it must be tiring constantly searching for social injustice and other percieved forms of political incorrectness on a guitar forum.

[zombywoof]

I would think the "live in the studio" recordings were more the result of the limited recording technology of the day than artistic freedom. Even though the Beatles had the run of the studio and were not charged for studio time, their first two LPs were recorded on only two tracks. Around 1963 four track equipment became the norm and then eight track around 1968. But it was not even until 1966 that you could double track vocals.

 

One of the big differences between then and now is radio. When I was a young 'un I would listen to Cousin Brucie and hear the Beatles and the Stones followed by the Four Tops, James Brown and Otis Redding and then by Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Louis Armstrong, and Bob Dylan (when "Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a single it took up both sides of the 45 rpm). We were involuntarily exposed to a whole lotta different kinds of music. With the rise of FM radio everything got categorized and shoved neatly into its appropriate box.

[Rambler]

With the rise of FM radio everything got categorized and shoved neatly into its appropriate box.

 

Truth, that.

[Rambler]

Fortyyearspicking sez "any shortcomings on the part of those unable to appreciate Rap, were due .. under my definition of 'music'[to] any form that has as it's central content lyrics regarding sex, violence, and other anti-social behaviours."

 

I'm wondering of part of the trouble with rap is be that we are too close it it. It may be what a middle class person felt at being exposed to blues, rock and roll or hard country. In their days, those forms could be pretty shocking: "on the Wall" "Canned Heat" "Stack Lee" in blues. "Lets play House" "Drinkin Wine" "Dixie Fried" in rock and roll. Heavy metal? Dont start me to talking. Opera, even. Take out sex and violence and you rule out 90% of the subject matter of any popular art form.

 

One big main difference with rap is that those gays adapt a badass persona, which is not especially welcoming. Discomfort with that is understandable, tho as Node points there was some cause for disaffection (the metal boys, btw, have far less excuse for their excesses). Just sayin'.

[6 string mystix]

Imho when Empty-V came on the scene, it changed music from being based on musical talent to being based on looks.

After Empty-V you needed- looks, marketability, dancing & choreography, filmmaking ability - followed by musical talent.

Growing up, when I heard a song on the radio, I imagined things in my head and was inspired to pick up an instrument and try

to express myself.

After video-when people hear a song on the radio, they replay the video in their heads.

 

Rap is not my cup of tea, but I have to remind myself that my parents thought rock was justa bunch of noise and/or devil's music.

I read something interesting from Paul Simon once and it stuck with me;

he said something to the effect of young people have grown up WITHOUT melody-it is all rhythm..and all words...

 

it seemed very interesting to me that you could be raised without melody-but if you listen to some of todays music--the melody is a pretty rare thing...

 

I think that is why older people generally do not identify with rap, it isn't better or worse-Imo--it is just not based on melody like us older people

grew up with.

 

I was at a TAXI rally one time a few years back (when I thought I still wanted to play the game) and someone in the audience asked the esteemed panel;

 

``as a 30-40 something songwriter just trying to get my songs out, It is frustrating to think that,even though I may have fantastic songs, the only people

getting a chance to go anywhere is hot 15 year old females. You as a record company executive, what would you do, go with my great songs or do only 15 year old hot girls have a chance?''

 

The record company guy answered;

 

``Well, I would probably get a hot 15 year old girl and have my writers write songs for her!'' (laughter on the panel and in the audience)

 

To me it would have been mildly funny if it hadn't been so tragically true.

 

I stopped trying to play the-trying to make it in music- game pretty much at that point.

 

Fast forward to the Taylor Swifts and the Gaga's,etc...

[Rambler]

''Imho when Empty-V came on the scene, it changed music from being based on musical talent to being based on looks.''

 

Like it did't matter previously? get over it-- pop music will have marketing. The apple in the garden dun got et a loooong time gone and its been a while since pandora left the lid of her box open.

[6 string mystix]

''Imho when Empty-V came on the scene, it changed music from being based on musical talent to being based on looks.''

 

Like it did't matter previously? get over it-- pop music will have marketing. The apple in the garden dun got et a loooong time gone and its been a while since pandora left the lid of her box open.

 

 

I just meant that it was PRIMARILY based on looks-but otherwise,yes i agree - music has always been marketed.