Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Clonehunter

Your True Opinion On... Music: Pop

Recommended Posts

Oh boy, here we go. In today's modern music world, "Modern Day Pop" is a term that can elicit all sorts of responses. In fact, and this may just me, "Modern Day Music" usually refers to "Modern Day Pop," as everything begins to sound rather similar. A homogenization as everything becomes more mainstreamed. Of course, what the Hell is Pop Rock, Pop Punk, Country Pop, and the like? Why do the weaboos praise K-Pop while calling all other music trash? Why do we hate KISS FM for their onslaught of "bland" Pop music, yet everyone still seems to love Michael Jackson and Prince, who were pretty much Pop Artists of a different era?

I really don't know what I'm talking about.



BUT -- Pop means Popular, right? So anything that is popular is Pop? Is that how it works? Ozzy Osbourne was a pretty popular act, so was he a Pop artist because he was popular? This isn't about my broken reasoning, but rather, it's time to talk once again about music, what is Pop, what is our opinions of pop, and whether or not it is something that has actually changed, or has remained consistent, and we just wear the Nostalgia glasses when it comes to older music in general.






Synthpop is pop. But God, I love this song. Oh, oh! Am I a pop fan now? UH-- I mean, METAL, YAAAH!

Share this post


Link to post

When I hear alternative on pop stations, its no longer alternative. I listen to a lot of pop music with my girlfriend on the radio. Its happy music, which is funny because when I listen to it working it builds me into a rage. I think its all the beat of the music.

Share this post


Link to post

I gave up the angsty hate for all things mainstream a long time ago. If I find a pop song catchy I'm not ashamed to admit I like it. Found I'm generally happier because of it; a lot less getting pissed off all the time. :P

Share this post


Link to post

Pop music has always been full of artists and bands who hardly have any talent. So I don't see why so many people rag on modern pop. Also, not all pop musicians or artists are not talents hacks. Many of them became popular through musical talent and years of hard work.

Share this post


Link to post

Here's a quick rundown on my opinion of pop music for the past 3(4) decades:
-80's -- Decent
-90's -- Decent (but many cringe-worthy songs)
-2000's -- Mostly cringe-worthy
-10's -- Mostly garbage, but there is no shortage of decent pop songs every now and then.

Most of the pop music we get now is pretty much just same shit, different dumbass. All about the same damn thing, if it's not about sex, it's about a relationship with a brain dead girl(or guy), or any other cliched topic for this decade. Not many pop songs really stand out to me. Then again I don't like or listen to pop music.

Share this post


Link to post

I like the orientation on catchy tunes, "hooks", memorable stuff that is easy to listen to, makes your body moving, etc. If it's pleasant to the ear and makes me feel good then I don't have a problem with it being basic or whatever. Years ago I used to think that the more complex a song is the better it is, but not anymore. Probably you actually need a huge talent to write something so simple yet so cool.

Share this post


Link to post
Jaxxoon R said:

I always thought pop was called that because it was poppy and energetic.


Agreed. Just like role playing game is really a roll playing game like a dice rolling. You play a role in every game. Dungeons and Dragons is a roll the dice playing game.

Share this post


Link to post

Well the real reason makes even less sense since every other genre is popular, too. By that logic wouldn't ACDC count as pop just because it was really popular?

Share this post


Link to post

I mostly listen to 70s and 80s music. I don't care if it's angsty or weird or whatever. I never hear lyrics. Bring on the synths!

Share this post


Link to post

"Pop" music is the end result of the inevitable popularity of radio. Starting somewhere near the middle of the 20th century, as it became popular for artists to record music and have it played across the nation, the idea of pop music became a thing, although it wore many hats: rock and roll, jazz, be-bop, do-wop, soul, country, blues, hard blues/rock, boogie, R&B, etc. Frank Zappa once spoke of how (this was during the 70s I believe) the music executives, old and clueless, had no idea what the people wanted, so they took chances. When the hipsters who were making that sort of music (as well as laying down the subconscious foundations of new counter-cultures) started running things, they decided, apparently, that they knew what people wanted, and didn't take chances.

This has seemingly been the attitude for some four decades at least, and even new innovations such as inexpensive synthesizers and digital production couldn't stop the homogeny train. With each new decade, it became clear to music executives what worked and didn't work, so over time popular radio music steered itself into progressively safer directions. It has even been scientifically proven that pop music, over time, contains less dynamic decibel range, less melodic variation and less variation in timbre. This has produced an effect that to many people suggests that pop music somehow gets worse over time, and it seems that is literally true.

Sometimes when I'm driving, I get a wild hair up my ass and decide to forego Pandora and instead check out "traditional" radio broadcasts. It's a depressingly underwhelming process, because whether it's rock, rap, country or generic pop (which these days is usually some form of electronica), there's this sense that

A) The artists are not invested in what they do, as if it's some boring day job,
B) No one wants to sing about anything provocative; just the same subjects that have always sufficed,
C) Artists want to fit very neatly in a very specific genre, so much so that if they decide to do a crossover style, it ends up being just as predictable as more conventional releases,
D) The art of singing seems to be lost on a lot of artists, not only because of auto-tune haphazardly correcting their awful pitch, but because traditional methods of singing have been all but abandoned in favor of an almost talky approach, and finally
E) It's fucking boring. It's like they're afraid if they start jamming someone will have a heart attack.

Share this post


Link to post

When I think of pop music, I think of timeless hooks, melodies
& infectious harmonies... lyrics you can easily relate to.
Feelgood, melancholic etc.

As for the stuff looping constantly 24\7 on radio etc,
only a few select songs become real classics.
"Modern" pop music ages terribly, always have.
When you hear a song at random and you can guess which year it was recorded
by sound production alone, something is a little off.

Share this post


Link to post

The only thing that annoys me about Pop isn't the songwriting, it's the production. Sick of hearing softsynths and canned snares

Share this post


Link to post

I haven't listened to mainstream pop music for years. I like metal like the incredibly manly man I totally am.



Ok I sort of lied.

Share this post


Link to post

I used to hate pop music in favor of punk, hardcore, metal, crust, powerviolence, etc. and I still like those things. But I found it to be a bit alienating when fewer people I know listen to it too. My wife likes R&B now and she listens to it from time to time on her Bluetooth speaker, but neither one of is can stand each others favorite music. A few months ago we decided to take the time to find a middle-of-the-road genre of music we could both listen to and enjoy.

As it happens to be, it is mostly 80's pop, pop rock, and alternative rock. Now we listen to a lot of blink 182, sum 41, beastie boys, the offspring, nirvana, beck, red hot chili peppers, flock of seagulls, grandmaster flash, prince, Micheal Jackson, cypress hill, gorillas, reel big fish, goldfinger, operation ivy, dropkick murphys, and flogging molly. 6 or 7 years ago I would have considered me a trendy bitch, but its nice to be a little less stubborn about what you like in order to like something with someone.

I do want to say that even though pop rock is kinda corny at times, I do really miss pop rock existing. And even though I thought rap sucked 15 years ago, its really angry and aggressive, compared to the whiney sleepy sounding bullshit you'll get from lil Wayne, drake, soulja boy, etc. which is fucking dreadful to listen to.

Share this post


Link to post

To me pop music means any song with so many listeners that most radio or tv stations want in on it...

I can not honestly claim pop music has changed in my lifetime i stil hear the exact same type of music ending up in the charts as when i was ten years old... The same old music comparable to the young Britney Spears, The Cartoons, those humoristic over the top Eminem songs, and those catchy electro and dance songs on which teens and tweens party hard for multiple generations now.

The only change i have noticed is the extreme decline in the amount of metal and or rock being aired... While ignoring one year my entire Teen childhood was based in the early 2000's and back then metal and rock was a lot more common on any music station, be it radio or tv. How many times i had seen slipknot, korn, limp bizkit, metalica, sepultura, marylin manson on the tv back then.

So my true oppinion on pop music is ;
Almost nothing has changed in my lifetime, it is as stupid, weird, funny, simple, multi-genre, mindless, sex filled, drugs filled, repetitive, or childish as it has always been.

Share this post


Link to post

I love 70/80's pop.. or some of it anyway. Modern pop is bland and uninspired shit, with machines that change the pitch of vocals to make them hit every pitch "perfectly" and in doing so it sounds soulless and sounds less human.. I also laugh whenever a modern vocalist holds a note "perfectly" for 6 or so seconds with the help of pitch a shifting machine... well done I guess? It's like doing a TAS demo for a DooM level and then claiming in the text file that it's a normal run.

Share this post


Link to post

Hah, that speedrun analogy is actually very sharp, I like. Like several of you, a lot of what I listen to is from the 70s and 80s; much of it is new wave, new romantic, metal, punk, gothic, alternative, Italo, pop, electronica, etc. I became so bored with contemporary pop music that I've spent the last several years jamming jazz, Latin, ambient, drone, psychobilly, gangsta rap, "true" dubstep (not the Skrillex crap), movie and video game soundtracks, brassy pop like Herb Alpert, bossanova, classic rock, etc. It's very difficult for me to find modern music that I have any interest in, because across all genres, pop is pretty boring, and even a lot of underground music is just as bad. I don't think this is an elitist position. I simply want music to excite me (or move me in some significant way, even if it's into a state of quiet relaxation) and I just don't experience that with the majority of current radio hits.

Share this post


Link to post

I simply cannot stand "modern pop" anymore. At my workplace I am always hearing random songs while working because it blares out on loudspeakers while we are catering the customers. What sucks is that many of the "modern pop" songs play way too often over there and I already think they're stale. I'm just not into this genre at all. At least my workplace plays family friendly songs, thank god.

Share this post


Link to post
FireFish said:

How many times i had seen slipknot, korn, limp bizkit, metalica, sepultura, marylin manson on the tv back then.


And the funny thing is that all of these bands are STILL making new music, just that the "mainstream" music industry chooses not to discuss any of their releases. Back in a public speaking class in college, we went around the classroom and discussed what kind of music we all liked to listen to. Pretty much the entire class agreed on the fact that they didn't care for any of "that screamy metal/rock kind of stuff".

So what's the latest thing in rock music that gets on the radio? Definitely not the angsty-screamy kind of stuff as that seems to scare Joe and Jane Q. Public away. Instead it seems that the genre has been taken over by a bunch of chin-stroking indie hipsters who like to drench everything in extreme amounts of echo. Even bands that started out as rock bands (i.e. Coldplay, Maroon 5) have abandoned the genre on their latest releases so they can still get on the radio with that mindless EDM shit that has been spreading like a cancer for the last decade.

Share this post


Link to post

I would say that now more than ever pop music is becoming this singular, easily identifiable thing. Mainstream hip hop, rnb, dance, hell even American country are all heavily converging towards the same point and sharing the same elements. I mean, "urban" music at this point have almost completely eschewed their soul and funk roots and are now using the same vapid chord progressions as European schlager pop, and that just blows my mind. Back in the 90's all of these things were at least beating their own dead horses with less overlap. I don't even know where rock fits into this whole equation if at all, cause it's something I barely even hear in those kinds of spaces anymore. Maybe it's already well on its way into becoming a healthier semi-niche like metal.

It probably has to do with the rise of the internet and how more dedicated and enthusiastic listeners can find music they like manually without needing to rely on old outlets and curators like the radio. As a result the void filled by the loss of that demographic is filled with the lowest common denominator.

Share this post


Link to post

Pop is fine, you just need to find the right stuff. It's not limited only to modern popular stuff.

Share this post


Link to post
Aliotroph? said:

I mostly listen to 70s and 80s music. I don't care if it's angsty or weird or whatever. I never hear lyrics. Bring on the synths!

Ahhh... you mean stuff that was called "pop" 30 years+ ago?

Pop? Metal? Rock? Dance? Electro? Indie? Alternative? Rap? Punk? Ska? Hip Hop? R&B? Soul? Rock 'n' Roll? Doo Wop? Country? Whatever. Good music is good and bad music is bad. If you look hard enough you can find something you will like in most genres. A lot of "pop" is just quick-buck trash made for consuming and intended to be forgotten almost immediately: utterly disposable. However, there have always been good songs that are undeniably "pop". Many have stood the test of time, are still played and are regarded as classics. There are songs being made like that right now too.

Personally, I don't really care about genres at all. I'll give anything a go at least once and I've found plenty of songs, even full albums, from artists that I really didn't expect to like. I've never understood the "I only listen to [insert genre here]" attitude. And the infinite sub-division of metal genres into the most specific of categories is particularly mystifying to me. Blackened math core melodic funk death 'n' roll metal anyone? ;)

j4rio said:

Pop is fine, you just need to find the right stuff. It's not limited only to modern popular stuff.

Indeed. And our perception of it is skewed too. The garbage gets lost in the mists of time and the gold lasts. So when we look back we see the gold and not the garbage but in today's chart, the garbage hasn't been forgotten yet so it seems disproportionately high.

In saying that, I have recently been going back and forth between charts from the 50s, 60s, 70s 80s, 90s, into the 21st century and right up to date. I have to say that there are a number of exciting periods in the past where you look at the chart, can remember nearly every song in it and most of them are exciting/good/interesting. I'd suggest that the current chart is not from one of those times.



And, yeah, logical/consistent or not, "pop" is derived from the word "popular".

Share this post


Link to post

Not that I'm collecting music opinion data on anyone, but this is a fairly interesting thread in terms of different perception from different angles. I realize there's a lot of metal heads here, so while thinking on another YTOO thread I thought Pop would be an interesting choice, given some the conceptions/misconceptions about past/modern "pop."

Another interesting trend, though, is the homogenization of certain aspects of music, or why some bands decide to change style in what may be a pandering to whatever audience consumes disposable music the fastest. Maroon V, for example, or Paramore, and more mainstream now: Fall Out Boy. Will the newer music these bands create be at all remembered down the road? "Sugar We're Going Down" still plays on a number of radio stations late at night (Why so late is beyond me), but I can't see "Centuries" lasting any longer than a few years or so, if only because of their violent campaigning (Though their latest album actually does come across as a somewhat succesful pop/rock album, as opposed to 'Save Rock and Roll,' which really had nothing to do with the genre described on the cover. AGain, not that everything was bad, but it was a jarring transition from their older releases, and one must wonder that for bands that do this, what will be remembered? Their classic original stuff? Or the stuff they tried to change with?)



Also, for whoever mentioned it, Flogging Molly is awesome.

Enjay said:

Personally, I don't really care about genres at all. I'll give anything a go at least once and I've found plenty of songs, even full albums, from artists that I really didn't expect to like. I've never understood the "I only listen to [insert genre here]" attitude. And the infinite sub-division of metal genres into the most specific of categories is particularly mystifying to me. Blackened math core melodic funk death 'n' roll metal anyone? ;)



Mmm, thank you.

Share this post


Link to post

I forgot to mention that songs that repeat choruses more than twice need to die, and I want to strangle artists who use non-words in their songs like na na yeah uh huh uh huh oooh ooh lalala etc. Come on dude, you're hilariously overpaid. Write some fucking words.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×