I hate pop music

we are the Auto-Tune generation...

Originally Posted by Stevemc90

we are the Auto-Tune generation...

but I LOVE listening to music in the car....

Originally Posted by ThePianoMan121

That's not what I was referring to. Artists might not be able to nail each song in one take, and might combine a few takes to get the part "perfect," but if they're at all decent, they can actually play the parts they write well. Otherwise seeing them live would be a miserable experience.

Can you really consider a live concert and a studio recording on a pop band/artist? Apart from the very few who can do it (Radiohead, dEUS, Moby, from what I've seen), the quality varies greatly! It's like they're making "cover" songs of their own songs, to play live!

Either way, what we call production, post production and mastering is not something that really happens (mostly that is) in live concerts.

Of course classic artists also have different takes, etc, but the phenomenon is hugely lessen that on the pop music! Not that I consider it a problem, but just that classical music is aimed at a live setting (otherwise called "concert hall music" for that very reason) and pop music is aimed at a studio, where everything is possible.

Either way, a classical record, will aim to simulate the experience of listening to the artist on a live environement: the concert hall, or a studio with various reverbs attached (very carefully though). The pop record is aimed for listening at your mp3 player, or speakers, or studio monitors, etc. Not to simulate anything. Going to a pop concert you get so many different elements, not to be found in the record, that it is completely different. While in classical music, everyone STFU so that they can listen to an almost CD quality performance and go home happy!

I am VERY much intrigued by the above differences, because I'm working on something, thus the comments.

Originally Posted by nikolas

Can you really consider a live concert and a studio recording on a pop band/artist? Apart from the very few who can do it (Radiohead, dEUS, Moby, from what I've seen), the quality varies greatly! It's like they're making "cover" songs of their own songs, to play live!

Of the popular music bands I've seen live (several dozen would probably be an accurate estimate, not as much as I'd like to, but a decent start), all of the bands that I've really respected have been able to get it fairly close. Of course the little quirks, the third and fourth layers of guitars, that kind of stuff, has to be lost, but the musicianship and skill I hear on the recording is still there. I'd be very disappointed if I saw a "pop" artist at a performance and their playing was much worse than it was on the album.

Either way, what we call production, post production and mastering is not something that really happens (mostly that is) in live concerts.

Oh, I realize that. I love studio editing, production - that kind of stuff fascinates me. But I still don't think a serious artist should use technology to give the illusion they're a more talented artist than they are. If you can't play a part for a song you write, you should practice harder - not get the computer to do it for you. There are a lot of fascinating, valid uses for technology and computers, but fudging sloppy performances is not, in my opinion, one of them.

I think that we are talking about different things, probably.

Production techniques and studio "magic" for me is just further composition techniques. Sound design, etc, as well. I can't seperate a song and break it down to chords, etc, and miss the layering, different guitars, etc...

But yes, I do see your point and do agree.

topicstarter:
1.) it's easy to generalize + it makes your point of view less interesting.
2.) hate is a strong word, don't throw it around like that.
3.) you're an elitist, get fucking over yourself and accept people make choices for themselves. some people can't appreciate bach's 'groundbreaking' music since they just can't be bothered. don't forget people are different and they have the right to be different.

"Being a composer of (contemporary) classical music, I am constantly reminded that this great long tradition of classical music, which has evolved for centuries from Machaut to Bach to Mozart and Beethoven to Wagner, Mahler, Schönberg up to 20th century modernism, has suddenly become a dying tradition that has no meaning anymore to most of the people in our culture – thanks to the emergence of pop music as THE dominant musical paradigm of our time – and it sometimes makes me really, really embittered."

music still has the same meaning as it has centuries ago, and that is to entertain (yes, and to 'worship', but put that aside for a second). people are just trying to make new music, problem is, everything's been done before, but not with beats and synths though.

point is, get over your elitist-self and let people decide for themselves what they listen too.

compose more and worry less about other people's interests in music.

Originally Posted by robertn

topicstarter:
1.) it's easy to generalize + it makes your point of view less interesting.
2.) hate is a strong word, don't throw it around like that.
3.) you're an elitist, get fucking over yourself and accept people make choices for themselves. some people can't appreciate bach's 'groundbreaking' music since they just can't be bothered. don't forget people are different and they have the right to be different.

1) Generalization makes a point both more parsimonious and more forceful (that’s why a lot of scientific knowledge relies on generalization). I could say 'pop music is simplistic, uninteresting, etc. ... except certain more artistic kinds of pop music such as....' or 'I hate pop music, except this and that pop music which is actually quite good', but the melancholy truth is that these exceptions are numerically negligible.
2) This point is related to 1. True, there may be a lot of pop music I merely dislike but don’t truly hate and even some pop music I actually like, but still, I do hate pop music as a genre on the whole, with all its characteristics and implications, as highlighted in my original post - its meagre musical substance, its grossly overrated cultural value, the media hysteria surrounding it, the way its ubiquitious omnipresence numbs our listening capacities, the way it has changed our conception of music, etc.
3) Oh but I accept that people have the right to be different and choose to listen to whatever music they like. The question is, how great actually is the freedom of choice (with respect to musical genres) that kids growing up in this society have, if each day they are exposed to an almost exclusive diet of pop music? (The same could be asked for religion – how great actually is the freedom of religion young children have, if the Christian Protestant religion is almost exclusively imposed on them?)

Originally Posted by robertn

music still has the same meaning as it has centuries ago, and that is to entertain (yes, and to 'worship', but put that aside for a second). people are just trying to make new music, problem is, everything's been done before, but not with beats and synths though.

It’s naive to think that 'everything’s been done before'; music always keeps evolving and there will always be people finding new musical territories, new ideas, new concepts, etc. (and I mean genuinely new, not just adding beats and synths to what is already known). Further, I strongly disagree that music is for entertainment purposes only. This may be true for pop music (which indeed is mainly made to entertain), but not for art music (and hence not for most classical music). Art is not just made to entertain audiences, but it is something that needs to be expressed because it comes very strongly from within the artist, but I won’t get into that argument again since I’ve already discussed it in other very recent threads (check out, for instance, the thread on Carter’s string quartets in the Repertoire section).

Still waiting for that music...

Originally Posted by gianluca

3) Oh but I accept that people have the right to be different and choose to listen to whatever music they like. The question is, how great actually is the freedom of choice (with respect to musical genres) that kids growing up in this society have, if each day they are exposed to an almost exclusive diet of pop music? (The same could be asked for religion – how great actually is the freedom of religion young children have, if the Christian Protestant religion is almost exclusively imposed on them?)

I'm not sure religion is a good analogy as you cannot believe in two religions at once where as I can listen to Stravinsky and REM quite happily. And if I were to discover a new band or piece I liked, I wouldn't be rejecting my old tastes in the same way a religious (or atheist) convert would have to reject what they were brought up with.

That point aside, I completely agree with you about what kids are exposed to. BUT, and here's where I think we differ, I'm not convinced the blame for their listening tastes (if indeed blame is the right word, which it isn't actually) lays squarley with pop artists and the big 4 record labels as you've been implying. It's not that classical is being squeezed out, as I'm not sure it's there in the first place for many children!

Blaming that vacuum on another genre is not right and certainly not helpful. We need instead to examine how we get kids exposed to classical music; and that means looking at our school system, embracing new technologies, reviewing arts funding, looking at outreach programmes etc. Leave your personal prejudices against pop aside as I don't think they're helpful when addressing what is, I agree with you, an important issue.

why is there such a need to get people to listen to classical music and 'reject' pop-music?
i must be missing something.