Modern music - all the same
Post replyTuesday 12 Sep 2017, 7:57pm
Sat at work and I may have posted an almost identical thing about this before but we are listening...well...forced to listen to Key103 being piped in through the roof and my god what a bland irritating noise it does make.
I have struggled to put my finger on it but all these songs sound like they were made on the same music making machine with the same 3 voices using the same 4 or 5 notes at very similar tempos
the way the DJ's talk about them is the most irritating this 'er mah god you are in for such a treat, brand new from Sam smith' they put the song on and it sounds like Sam smith...pretty much the blandest most boring song I've heard in my life, then its new from Babble blibson and Sean Paul or whatever a new song 'hey ho ah na na here me goin na na and a hip woah nah' ting ting ting goes the tiny synthesized xylophone and a very crisp finger clicking 'oh that merks the airs stick up on mah arm' - 'er a no mine too'
its always going to be the same uneventful hey na na lemmie go and eat a slappy ah ner nah bip bip bah song or sam smith basically crying over a very muted backing track made out of 3 keys being pressed on a Casio keyboard
what we make on here, it's very different. Why is that. We sit down with a bass guitar or a keyboard and 'hey summer slappin on a bily bin he do a woo wah wah' song doesn't happen...you get a meaningful song going instead...that's just what seems to happen, the will of the moneyed, bottle green bottle, hell, even supermarket sweep - they are fresh, they are fun and different songs right? they are the sounds of fresh ideas being recorded and passed around a forum. Surely the people who make the ooh nana lemmie hear you sing a lala ooh naah naah music care about what they are doing. Do they all have the same throat? have a generation of people been born with the same throat? because if so I think a Channel 4 documentary is in order
'guys we aren't just going to make a song we are going to make the greatest song in the history of songwriting' - 'hey laaa say a ooh na na lemmie hear you talkin bout a hoo naa naa' these songs are forgotten about in 3 months when they are replaced with a new set of hoo nah nah songs.
Very occasionally a good one comes out and I like it
There's two, one of them is one is called 'back to you' and is a bit fresh and original sounding, the other is this one that seems to go 'and I feel like I am just too close to love you' although that might be an older one
Tuesday 12 Sep 2017, 10:21pm
If video killed the radio star was released now it would go "hey oh nah nah nah video killed the radio star" and would feature a minute long rap section by Sean Paul. I'm not opposed to new music nor am I past it. I sometimes get really into a new song. Some examples would be the good stuff the modern strangers are making, that louis tomlinson song is fantastic, I loved "don't act like you know me" that Bruno Mars song "that's what I like" sh*t that guy can sing. problem is that so many songs sound so god damn similar. It's the same range of singing and such similar melody they don't even seem to be trying to make something original. Maybe it's the fault of key103 for playing the same few songs on repeat but I hate that music so much. I hate that it all sounds so similar
Tuesday 12 Sep 2017, 11:02pm
When you love music, real music, painstakingly created by talented people who put the time in then it's easy to to hate the soulless, average sounding, copied and pasted digital recreations that people seem to think are music now. Thinking people who question the garbage we are given to listen to by the mainstream media are embarrassingly out of touch is part of the problem. People are buying pre made music samples online and melodyning their voices into a sort digitally manipulatable piano sound in order to make songs instead of learning to play an instrument, training their voices and writing songs that don't sound like almost everything else on the radio because all they hear is everybody doing it. What I want to hear on the radio is what talented people are doing with the new technology at their disposal. When I hear an original sounding song I'm blown away. I love hearing new music. I hate hearing the laziness and thoughtlessness. If you're happy with that then fair play to you. I guess every decade has its "sound" but currently we are in the most bland sounding decade there has ever been. I could be wrong. Hell, we all could
Tuesday 12 Sep 2017, 11:14pm
If my work allowed it then I would listen to whatever I wanted at all times. But for 40 hours a week I am unable to unfortunately. Hence my irritation
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 12:52am
The record labels set what songs get released, going with what's been selling. The radio stations play what gets them listened to. The bands and singers have no say. We put on here what we want.
I can't tell my songs from Thom's though, even with his growled vox and my concert grand.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 3:58am
X51 What you're doing is an example of using modern technology to make something fresh and original. Your real voice and your own vibe shines through. A lot of people are to blame for what's on the radio and I say blame like it's a crime because it's brutal what's happening. The artists know what works and write songs in that way, the record companies know what will sell so they pick up and push the artists that make those kinds of songs and the radio stations need to make money so they need to keep pushing it. But they aren't memorable, they don't have the longevity of something spiky and misshapen and original that can live on for decades. The secret science of pop was an amazing documentary about how the "average" song has always been the most chartable and successful. They set about getting that bland, generic formula and creating a song that matches the average criteria but they fail. They are unable to be unoriginal in what they are doing. These people on the radio have plugged into whatever vibe machine it is and they have shook out of themselves another bland generic song that slips into the mainstream catalogue unnoticed and have people snapping their fingers at the song they made.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 8:55am
Dave, fair point. There's a circle going on. The buyers buy what they're given; the sellers give what's selling. Paul Weller wrote "The public wants what the public gets, but I don't get what society wants'.
Here works, as there's enough of us to accept one another. Bollocks to the others.
Thombo, do you feel better now? Which one of us will put this thread to song.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 10:14am
Well talking about modern music sounding the same I don't think thats fair to blame the modern arist's and creators for that Dave , its been a thing ever since popular music started once Chuck Berry invented rock and roll people imitated that sound same with the Beatles , it's called fashion and all followers of fashion are a sheep herd looking to graze on the pastures of success and acceptance. Run down the top 40 in a average week in the good old daze of the 70s and amidst the Deep Purples , Sex Pistols , Yes and Hendrix's you'll hear a lot of corn ball like Middle of the Road and the Archies followed by a fair number of knock off's imitating the formula.
Noooo the buyers don't buy what they are given otherwise they'd be queuing up to buy your stuff ! they buy whats
packaged in a attractive and desirable way vitality and youth are the sure fire ways to sell in pop they always have been , its not called pop for nothing it has something to do with the short life span of the product in most cases.
Pop artists that last usually have to change dramatically from their first incarnation thats what Marc Bolyn was trying to do in 1977 and Alvin Stardust never did and he poped out in the 70s.
When money and investment are involved risk and creativity take a distant back seat. Sam Smith is a working singer who as far as I know seldom writes his own stuff thats not what he got into it for probably the fame was the drive he's pulled that bit off. The producers and backers of todays pop tart know what they can and might not do they go with the can quality studio time is expensive , but it was the same with so called past great like ol Blue eyes and Elvis (god rest his rocker soul 40 years this year) they sang a narrow selection of notes and within a specific type of song.
Stop deluding yourself that the past was some blooming garden of creativity and innovation , also music has lost the status it once had in society most of it is a worthless commodity these days.
Also posts of old moaners are hyprocrits how many of these real music people fill out their real music with the same pent ionic derived guitar solo and pub rock vocals cmon
If you heard X51 songs on the radio that would repetitive too.
The thing is today people get away with making music through electronic means and use generic backing tracks
but I can't blame a young kid for doing that cause to buy even a piece of s;';''t; like a squire guitar your talking near up to £200 anything decent be it guitars , woodwind , keys drums etc is out of the price range of a struggling musically inclined individual , bench rock is dominated by rich kids and upper middle class and the working class go for electronic beats and groves to construct a song.
Its Trick today
TD
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 12:00pm
[quote="automat"]
Do we really want to hear stuff, better or worse stuff, from the older, working men’s club background, or do we want to be seduced by some 18-25 cute guy, or cute girl in just the best video ??
[/quote]
Yes, I remember my parents and teachers saying it's total rubbish what I listened to.
Who these cute poeple might be? Justin Bimber?
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 6:58pm
Firstly thanks Dave for including me in your references in the OP, which was most flattering and surprising as my stuff is not remotely progressive or pushing any creative boundaries (other than my own), and is really dialling back musical progress about 70 years! lol But anyway that aside, of course everyone has individual and valid musical tastes. Although I would say, as a wild generalisation, that in our teens we were probably mostly quite easily influenced and led, by marketing and also by our peers, in things like the clothes we wore, how we wore our hair, what football club we supported, and our musical tastes, etc. Not that age ever takes away that vulnerability to marketing and wanting to fit in completely, but I'd like to think most of us get a little more individual and discerning in our tastes as we get older. Saying that young people represent the greatest volume of music purchasers is certainly true, but young people are also probably the biggest customers at MacDonalds. It doesn't mean the food is the best in the world! Cheap, tasty, accessible, and en vogue maybe (depending on your taste). And like fast food, music has been "manufactured" for many years, but on a growing scale, and never more so than today. Get them young, convince them they like pap, and then churn it out to the same formula over and over again. Yes older generations have often scorned new music coming out - occasionally with good reason. But personally I do hear new stuff that I like quite often. Its just that there's an awful lot of dross about too - but to some extent that's always been the case. I'm not sure if its getting worse or if I've just got fussier since I started making music myself. I suspect its a bit of both. As for repetition, its like pretty much everything in life; i.e. everything in moderation. A little repetition helps an audience feel familiar with, and get to know, a song. Too much makes it a dumbed down monotonous bore. There are a lot of songs that fit the latter category about these days seemingly being lapped up by the market. I don't understand why, but prefer to view it as an opportunity - to hopefully one day be able to put out something a lot better and get it all over the radio Well you have to hope
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 8:07pm
Hey if I heard the will of the moneyed on the radio at work mate I'd break my fingers from snapping them so much to that groovy best. In fact i'm going to listen to it right now.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 8:34pm
Prof, you've shown me an upside to Complex PTSD. High Five.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 8:48pm
[quote="davemustardface"]Hey if I heard the will of the moneyed on the radio at work mate I'd break my fingers from snapping them so much to that groovy best. In fact i'm going to listen to it right now.[/quote]
Thanks but I really only write melody, chord progressions and lyrics and then pick a style/genre/tempo etc from the drop downs so can't take much credit for the groove! Lol
[quote="x51WSH7N"]Prof, you've shown me an upside to Complex PTSD. High Five.[/quote]
Um, thanks I think, although I've no idea how or what I did lol
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 9:45pm
I didn't think you would. cPTSD has you feeling different to everyone else. That stopped me from following the crowd.
Wednesday 13 Sep 2017, 9:48pm
"Want them nowhere near me. Gave me complex PTSD "
Thursday 14 Sep 2017, 10:03am
Rockash no doubt in the 30s older people were too busy getting on with their own thing , mainly trying to survive the economic depression of the time , to care about a off note here an off note there sub standard recording equipment etc. Robert Johnson did not gain any thing approaching national fame let alone the worldwide kind , never mind being cherished for eternity in the bosom of white male popular culture in his own desperate lifetime. That came well after he had been six feet under for sometime.
Recording equipment and software have now eclipsed song soul and hard earned effort.
All music is someone else's hated noise , it's only music critics , promoters fans and the musicians themselves that elevate it into a desired and prized commodity.
What you'll find is that some specific voices in the DF like to elevate their own status and work by deriding the current scene riding and excusing everything on the tech they seldom work on the nitty gritty basics and tie themselves up in knots and crosses over tech babble and software. At times I think this site should be renamed join my tech. Also using generic software noise they call music is cheating
Thursday 14 Sep 2017, 11:28am
Your voice will go, your playing ability will diminish as you get older and one day you will be unable to do anything but lie in a coffin. You might as well get the best god damn recording you can of the song in your heart that will live on forever. You might as well make it sound like it was recorded in the finest studio with the finest equipment because if it doesn't then people don't listen to the song, they listen to the flaws in the audio production. You have to work very hard to create a platform on which to place your songs. Without that nobody is listening to the story you're telling, they're just grinning and bearing it because its 'really nice that...yeah lovely' I've been through that so many times, f*ck that. I want it to have the same impact a John Lennon song would have. I'm never going to be the songwriter he was but I might as well have the same soapbox to stand on and sing. You hear what i'm saying?
I personally when its an important song have had my friend record proper drums in a studio, failing that there are people who do it for £15 per track, although you do have to mix the drums yourself when you get the dry tracks. You can also pay someone to re amp your guitar dry tracks and beyond that what is the difference between that and a full studio production?
Failing that get 4 or 5 people you make music with and put £200 each in an envelope and go to a local studio. You'll treasure that recording for the rest of your life.
Thursday 14 Sep 2017, 11:37am
Correct Thom , you've summed up this entire thread from its first spin to its next one.
Slaging off Sam Smith is certainly not going to elevate any of the undiscovered songwriters on here. But I suppose its different when its famous people as pose to your little clique on here )
Stop deluding yourself all musicians and creatives start off from a source of inferiority thats why we push ourselves in a field that non creatives don't under in its construction and can make us feel inferior for doing in the first place because there is no instant reward or recognition and its not like a real job etc.
We can all have different opinions about what constitutes music..
Keep philosophising
TD
Thursday 14 Sep 2017, 11:47am
Dave I respect your position too , but the short and sharp of it is today raw primitive talent and several impoverished aspiring artist's are going to be swept aside in favour of those who used the right software or had the right income or financial clout to produce really pro sounding demo's. As we speak the industry and fellow musicians are probably ignoring the raw talent over the computer savvy. Granted someone can do both but look at the most hit songs on sound cloud production overtime.
I think you'll agree modern society has lost the ability to hear a song in its simplest form and appreciate it.
If we take the example of John Lennon listen to the first recordings that were captured of him , thats right the listener had to dispher there was raw talent there no gimmicks no re -edits one take one performance and judgment.
I know some people work hard to pay for their software enhancements there are others who don't have the disposable income . I don't think it just applies to music you can say the same about photos and other creations today. Life has become a total buyers market.
TD
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