Poll: Is pop music the best it’s ever been?

Is pop music the best it’s ever been?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 2.9%
  • No

    Votes: 56 80.0%
  • Chicken bovril is particularly hard to find these days.

    Votes: 21 30.0%

  • Total voters
    70
Soldato
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It's all subjective of course. I'm not going to convince anyone that any artist is great and another is terrible.

But I'm not having it. An evening with Silk Sonic was a fantastic album. :D
 
Soldato
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8,470
It's all subjective of course. I'm not going to convince anyone that any artist is great and another is terrible.

But I'm not having it. An evening with Silk Sonic was a fantastic album. :D

That's fair enough, some people really like that sound I don't.

The amazing production actually kills it, it makes it sterile and somehow not real as well. If you go back and listen to Stevie the lack of production in comparison to his imitator brings it to life, you know there's real people playing real instruments recorded the way they were played.

That's the difference between the real thing and an admittedly talented imitator.
 
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Soldato
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7,840
I think the "quality" of Production of music is worse and too much of a conveyor belt of resampled, reused stuff with a lack of identity and new ideas. I think Music Video detracted from making good music once we latched on to being comfortable with the vast majority of female artists getting half naked in them.
 
Soldato
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Bristol
not quite pop but this video came out 2 days ago and I thought it was really good. I feel like cause people don't sit around watching The Box anymore, no one makes actual good videos

 
Associate
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30 Mar 2010
Posts
520
I just heard that new Kylier song. The vocal is so highly modified and auto-tuned, that could actually be anyone singing it, including me. And given all she brings to the song is her voice, it seems a weird decision to manipulate it so much.
 
Don
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Spalding, Lincolnshire
I'd argue no - a lot of originality seems to have disappeared:-

The amount of songs recently that sample songs from the 90's and early 00's is getting annoying, when they honestly don't improve on them in any way (Although I'm equally aware that a lot of the 90's versions sampled previous songs...)

Just off the top of my head recently
Rita Ora - 'Praising You' (Fatboy Slim)
David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray - 'Baby Don't Hurt Me' (Haddaway)
Switch Disco and Ella Henderson '- 'React' (Robert Miles)
David Guetta and Bebe Rexha- 'I'm Good (Blue)' (Eiffel 65)
Nathan Dawe and Talia Mar - 'Sweet Lies' (Shanks and Bigfoot)
 
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Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
Posts
7,840
It annoys me a lot the resampling thing. They should try to show some originality. It's a money making thing rather than wanting to make decent music.
 
Man of Honour
OP
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24 Sep 2005
Posts
35,571
I'd argue no - a lot of originality seems to have disappeared:-

The amount of songs recently that sample songs from the 90's and early 00's is getting annoying, when they honestly don't improve on them in any way (Although I'm equally aware that a lot of the 90's versions sampled previous songs...)

Just off the top of my head recently
Rita Ora - 'Praising You' (Fatboy Slim)
David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray - 'Baby Don't Hurt Me' (Haddaway)
Switch Disco and Ella Henderson '- 'React' (Robert Miles)
David Guetta and Bebe Rexha- 'I'm Good (Blue)' (Eiffel 65)
Nathan Dawe and Talia Mar - 'Sweet Lies' (Shanks and Bigfoot)

I find this pretty annoying too, although it seems to be the case for ‘Radio 1 friendly club hits’ more than anything wider.

My definition of “today’s pop” becomes narrower still :D
 
Man of Honour
OP
Joined
24 Sep 2005
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35,571
Listening to what’s on the Apple Music ‘Today’s Hits’ this is currently at ‘number one’:


I’d say this sort of rapping style is my least favourite… where lines repeat the same melodies repeatedly and things don’t sound like they quite ‘fit’. Sounds quite awkward to my ears.

The rest of ‘Today’s Hits’ mostly sounds like a gym playlist.

“… not my tempo!”
 
Soldato
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Listening to what’s on the Apple Music ‘Today’s Hits’ this is currently at ‘number one’:


I’d say this sort of rapping style is my least favourite… where lines repeat the same melodies repeatedly and things don’t sound like they quite ‘fit’. Sounds quite awkward to my ears.

The rest of ‘Today’s Hits’ mostly sounds like a gym playlist.

“… not my tempo!”

Drake should've never been on that. But that's for the hip hop thread!
 
Associate
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London
not quite pop but this video came out 2 days ago and I thought it was really good. I feel like cause people don't sit around watching The Box anymore, no one makes actual good videos


She's great but like you say not really pop although i guess she's popular enough in the UK to be classed as 'popular'.

Love this track, video is cool as well.


This track from before she became big is also great.

 
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Caporegime
Joined
9 May 2004
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28,610
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Leafy outskirts of London
So after getting to the party late on Caroline Polachek and Magdalena Bay, I now stumble onto another artist that has actually been around for many years, has a bunch of great tracks, but not even 100k subs on Youtube.

And I only found out about her because Katy Perry essentially covered one of her songs, and I learned about that on another youtube video.

 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
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8,006
Location
Stoke/Norfolk
I think the "modern" addition of software to correct pitch & tone (autotune for lack of a more accurate term) & timing (via quantization) has removed the "humanity" from music. Those little human imperfections which get removed by producers in the desire for a song to be mathematically "perfect" can add so much to a song in ways that may not be consciously noticeable.

Rick Beato did a few episodes on "old song remade" (or words to that effect) where he took songs from The Who and Led Zeppelin etc and ran them through the above processes and the negative difference was noticeable.
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Oct 2011
Posts
8,470
They might as well skip straight to AI, because that's what it all sounds like now, they'd save some money (the labels) just cut out the pretence of an "artist" - they could just as easily do a hologram tour with a made up avatar, similair to the Abba show.

I sat in Mcd's the other day and had a coffee, I managed 20 minutes before I was driven out by modern pop they had on, absolutely dreadful, tuneless, joyless, shill, whiny, reverb-filled garbage. I think back to the pop from 30 or 40 years, even stuff I didn't think much of at the time (Duran Duran for example), and it was all far far superior to everything I suffered through in Mcd's.

Absolute tripe.
 
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