Is pop music the worst it's ever been?

Dr.EM

Dr.EM

Dr.EM

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Pop is a genre I've never been keen on anyhow, and I know I haven't been around long enough to gain the widest knowledge of music history, but I am familiar with some "pop" acts of the past. When I say pop, top 40 is mostly what I'm referring to for clarity.

It seems to me that in recent years, mostly since 2004 or so, that the quality of pop music has plummeted further. What I'm hearing around now on the radio and music channels, or in shops etc, is the worst pop music I've personally heard. The singles and downloads charts now, except from the odd good song, are full of horribly manufactured sounding music.

All I hear is music with absolutely no musical virtuosity, horribly overcompressed backings with nothing of interest to the instrumentation or production, vocal performances by singers with poor voices which have been processed beyond belief in order to sound acceptable and paint by numbers song structure and musical progressions. I can't imagine wanting to listen to this, it actually drags me down it's so uninspirational.

To some extent, pop has always been a bit like this, but in days past at least you'd have a memorable guitar solo, perhaps some interesting use of effects, skilled playing of instruments with variation to the drums. The production would have dynamic changes in the track, mabye interesting use of a synthesiser, the vocals might have a distinctive voice and use of harmonies, less sung "straight" too with more interesting vocal melodies.

I should really give some examples here, what I may do is subject myself to a music channel for a while and make myself a black list ;)

Although I'm not that familiar with a lot of older acts I can never remember pop being this bad. I watched CD:UK when it used to come on not so long ago and even the stuff on there wasn't as bad.

Please discuss! :)
 
Surely that's not it :eek:. I'm only 21! I expect that to happen at 30-40 years!

It's hard to quantify as it's subjective, but don't you feel there's a drop to the quality of many modern pop productions? Just like a lack of inspiration? Like they're purely making a product to buy?
 
Im younger then you and feel the same. Haven't had a favourite song in the Top 40 for years. 70% of music now is just people rapping over old classics and ruining them.
 
Lysander said:
You're getting old.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much how the current music industry has sold increasingly pants music to each generation.

It's a steeply declining slope, which is rapidly culminating in every single "act" looking and sounding exactly the same as the last. Pop music is now, generally speaking, a product. People get bored of one face making a sound, so they find another face to make the same sound, but people buy it because they believe it to be something new.

Voices are, as you say heavily compressed and auto-tuned, giving that "Cher" sound to everyone, this is almost certainly done as the industry now has a standard it feels every single "artist" it pumps out must adhere to. The problem of course is that they have missed the whole point of music, different people sound different. This difference is what gives us musical variety and personal taste.

On the upside, as a result of the ever increasing rubbishness of mainstream pop, the more alternative music lines are also developing.

Who'd have thought a few years ago that Seasick Steve would be able to fill the Apollo in Manchester, primarily with a younger audience too.

With other names out there like Jack White doing the more traditional "artist" thing, and bands like Metallica still making their own noise, I do hold out a bit of hope.

Personally though I have been rapidly driven away from the pop scene, in fact once I passed the age of about 15, I no longer seemed to be their target audience and I reacted thusly. I am not sure when pop music because aimed primarily at the pre-pubescent, but it definately is.

There are also a few bands out there like MGMT, who, while not to my taste, are making brilliant pop songs very much under their own steam (from what I can tell).

The industry will begin to self right itself I reckon, Cowell cant stifle creativity for ever :)
 
pop music atm is unsigned artists and indie artists. Meaning most of the time less people buying the one track so quite often a chavvy track can make its way to the top. I think calvin harris' last track at number 1 was actually quite good.

But chase & status are very popular with everyone where i live etc. Drum n Bass and origionally smaller industries are stealing a lot of attention atm

Also i rate Enter Shikari very very highly so if they made the top 40 with juggernauts which isuspect they did then they aren't bad.
 
I don't really listen to a lot of pop music myself, and i'm 16.

I listen to a lot of older stuff, I listen to quite a lot of 90s bands also.
There are very few 'pop' artists I will listen to.

I do however like quite a lot of my 'alternative' stuff, and 'indie' bits and bobs.
I mainly listen to bands that are playing stuff like the BBC Introducing stages at festivals, playing all the smaller ones. As a lot of these bands are coming out with some fantastic stuff! The up and coming I suppose i'd say.
 
Most of it these days is generic, heartless and shallow.

"I'm in the club wit ma hoes, gonna sleep wit mah hoes, got a bigger car than yow. I wantz moar stuff now." Et cetera.

As Dylan Moran aptly pointed out: many artists these days just sound like spoilt children.

That said, now and again we have some great song/artist creep through on the ladder that is 'pop', so it isn't all bad. I just think the music which panders to the people is more a sad reflection of the early 21st Century zeitgeist - the top single these days isn't necessarily the best song, more the most apt reflection of the idiocy of the masses.
 
If you talk about the Top 40 I think it's better now that they recently changed the "rules" thus stopping first weeks sales ruching Westlife to the top of the pile. They've had more no.1's that the Beatles haven't they?
 
manic_man is speaking a lot of sense to me :). I hope you're right on your last point too!

Some of the music I listen to has made it into the charts, and I don't listen to a lot of what you'd call indie, but the distinction is it hasn't been made to chart.

Jeff, I'm not quite sure of the point you're making? Are you just stating that many girls (acts) are taken on by someone like Simon Cowell and "processed" into a pop act which will be successful? If so, then yes, that's true. It's a very good example of why pop music has gone downhill for me though, not the contrary. There was no talent there in the first place and it can't really be created.

Nix: I heard a recent number one with the lyric something like "you went from my homey, to my only, number one", made me cringe a bit...
 
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I would say the 60's had the best music, then the 70's, then the 80s. then the 90's and then the 2000's. However, there was loads of rubbish music from all of these decades but over time the rubbish stuff is almost unheard of (literally) and the better stuff gets played more (in % to the not so good).

Unfortunately, music for most people in the industry now is purely with making money in mind.
 
:D, well, I had considered mentioning the 80s pop in my original post but decided against it. Yes, a lot from that era is terrible too, but I suppose I could say at least some of it had some character?
 
Pop has always been crap! if you want decent musicianship,quality and imaginative writing with dynamic and clever song structure and subject matter,then Rock and Metal is where it's at!

Pop is for the brainless and brainwashed masses who lack imagination and need a vacuous and catchy tune that is easy to identify and demands no intelligence of the listener,pop is the junk food of the music world!
 
Pop for most of this decade has been rubbish. Also, whenever I talk to people that are much younger than me they often cite bands and artists from the 90's or before.
 
For me 80s synth pop was the golden era. That was my childhood aged 4-12. Pop since has never managed to better it.

Regarding the OP I don't think it's just pop that's gone down hill I think music in general has. I barely listen to any music these days. Don't get me wrong there are a few exceptions in all genres that are doing some ground breaking stuff but they are few and far between. However I don't know if that's just my age speaking.
 
Lady Ga-Ga. Prime example. I'm not going to deny her songs are catchy, but seriously....

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
Click to expand...

Christ on a bike.
 
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