I hate pop music

Originally Posted by gianluca

It's not that I feel a conscious need to analyze all music I listen to, it just happens automatically. Whether I enjoy music depends on whether I hear any musical substance in it. Why do I enjoy music? Because it can give me this wonderful, profound, deeply emotional and intellectual experience I can't get out of anything else. Pop music, however, definitely isn't able to give me this deep experience because of its meager musical substance; because it's so impoverished (melodically, harmonically, rhythmically, structurally), because it's so superficial, unimaginative, undemanding, predictable, full of clichés and bombast, slickly produced, inane, repetitive, one-dimensional and emotionally flat. All those youtube examples you guys have given me are no exception.

Excluding the one's I posted right?

I like pop music.

It tends to be more sexual.

Plus if techno gays could dance to couldn't exist... our heads would explode... didn't you know that?

We dance so we don't die.

oOoOoOkay, He is entitled to his own opinion... but it sounds really unsmart (lol). Music explores millions of different ideas of the human experience. I like certain ones over others. Music is just the medium for these experiences and ideas (I hate when people think music is just about emotion... how melodramatic). Mediums aren't better than one another. Charcoal is not better than a crayon. Duh. I'll listen to Britney Spears when I want to get all sexual, or the Scissor Sisters when I want to have something I identify with on a contemporary, close level. Then, I will listen to someone like Mozart for his amazing, emotional, intellectual music (whatever you called it). I just loooove music. Every genre has its own rubric to judge what is good and bad. Deal with it, yo.

This is fairly belated entry to this discussion so I am probably just rehashing another contribution. However all music should aspire to the status of pop music. The problem in classical music is that it has ceased to be a popular music. Brahms made no money from his symphonies or piano concertos but lots of money from his Hungarian Dances and Liebeslieder waltzes. The reality of most famous classical composers( Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Dvorak, Chopin, various Strausses, etc.) is that they made a living from writing music and it was usually the popular forms (Magic Flute, Cantatas on well known tunes, Der Rosenkavalier, various songs and short pieces) that made them the money. The ideas that the two types of music , popular and classical, are at odds is a notion that has only developed as classical composers have lost touch with what audiences wish to listen to and are unable to relate to the society in which they live.

Originally Posted by ablyth

...as classical composers have lost touch with what audiences wish to listen to and are unable to relate to the society in which they live.

Hit the nail on the head. It's all good and well to write symphonic masterpieces, but essentially the public want a melody. If you can write a complicated piece, that's all well and good, but the general public will not give it the time and day unless it has a good melody. This is the main reason why Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner etc, gained popularity, they were brilliant melodists. Historically, the melody is the key to a successful piece of music, and still is. If you can combine a fantastic melody with interesting harmony, and all the other hallmarks of a competent piece of music, you are on to a winner. A non melodic piece will not be appreciated by the man on the street.

With regards to the original poster, I am shocked that he has received so many negative comments about his views. I'm afraid that pop music has become over-saturated with superficial, artificial, nonsense, and it IS everywhere. Not only is this negatively affecting the music that gets played on the radio, the steets, everywhere you bloody go, but also the music that accompanies TV drama's and films. It's sometimes hard to escape it. I'm a composer, and as such I like to be free to have my own musical thoughts without being bombarded by puerile, invasive, mediocrity.

Now there are of course some exceptional 'pop' artists, such as Matt Bellamy and many more over the years, who clearly could write interesting and emotionally charged music (although pop music can never supercede an orchestra). However, the overall pop industry is simply a commercial machine, churning out the same old clichéd chord progressions with almost the same melodies and I despise it! The fact that film music is becoming more and more like orchestrated pop music, is the most worrying thing of all. Of course there are some exceptions, but I long for the days of Auric, Steiner, Korngold etc, when film music was not watered down to the level it is today.

Overall, the superficiality, and hype of pop artists is a shocking exposé of modern society. Amy Winehouse (no idea if she's well known outside of England) is best known for her drug abuse and alcoholism, despite her talent as a singer and songwriter. I feel that pop music mirrors society, which is largely an over-superficial, shameful society that idolises just about anybody as long as they get on the telly. Just look at facebook, everytime somebody goes out and has a 'laff' they have to prove it to the entire world by posting pictures of themselves stumbling around in a drunken stupour. I'm not saying I'm against having fun, but I don't feel the need to let everybody know exactly what I'm upto. Pop music has caused this celebrity-obsessed culture that drives modern society, and has raised many people to be completely obsessed with what people are upto, rather than what they achieve! Pop music itself is largely uninspired, and to write a song that gets in the charts is more about luck and studio production than anything else. You can get a song in the charts regardless of your musical endeavours, music is no longer an achievement (on the whole), just another vein attempt to get people to look at you.

I like to read about the lives of the great composers, but I don't want to read newspaper clippings, regailing me with 'hilarious' stories of binge drinking accompanied by upskirt photos of their girlfriends.

To those who were critical of the original poster and no doubt will be of my comments, you have to remember that music is subjective. There are people who despise more music than they love (and for me that's been the way I look at music since I was about 3 years old). This opinion is as valid as somebody who loves everything they hear (although you could argue that people who love everything cannot distinguish between good and bad). The fact that popular music has become an over-hyped, superficial, shameful, over-produced, under-substantiated, unmusical, clichéd, celeb-fest is fairly obvious to me at least, because society itself has the same traits. More people voted for Big brother than the number of people who voted in the general election that saw Tony Blair's second term... think about it!

I personally don't think Beethoven was a "brilliant melodist" (he might have been if he had wanted to, of course). Just think of his probably most popular piece, the fifth symphony. Can you actually call this hammering theme a "melody"? It is a rhythmic-intervallic motivic cell out of which a whole piece is built. It's concise, but it's not really a singable melody, like in a Mozart, Schubert, or Mendelssohn piece.

Beethoven sometimes even appears extremely "anti-melodic" to me.

To further to what Gardener said about Beethoven. Think of many other pieces Beethoven wrote:

Moonlight sonata: Arpegge
Appasionata: Arpegge
9th symphony (ode to joy): scale
etc...

This is what I love about Beethoven, he could take the most "redundant" melody and turn it into a 20 minute masterpiece!

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hi alex, Nikolas from vi here!

Opinions are opinions, etc. Problem comes when you decide to pass them as facts and decide to start blaming around. Your post with the original post have huge differences, as well as your stand and giancula's stand!

I choose what to listen 80% of the time (except when in car, where I don't have a player, but only a radio)! I choose what I listen, so I'm NOT bombarded by anything. I watch the telly rarely (only family guy and heroes on BBC 3 ) and nothing more really! I'm not bombarded by anyone and anything and consider it luck! Right now I'm listening to NOTHING, while viewing the computer. You have a choice to shut your ears, so do so.

As for pop being at fault for the decline of contemporary music... hmmm... we've already been through this.

About Amy Winehouse (I don't like her, or her voice, or anything as a matter of fact, it turns my guts inside out if you want to know), the thing is this: Mahler was a bastard, Brittens was a peadphile, etc. What's wrong with a drug addict now? No, apart from kidding, thing is that her voice (and the industry) apparently is higher than her dozens of personal problems... A pity and it does say something for the society we live in, but then again we ARE the society so better start building!

Hi nik, good to see you here!

Erm yes, caught me in another rant... In fact I'm scared to read what I wrote, I think I might have internet tourettes syndrome or something similar! It happens about once a week or something! ( Actually there was a reason for my ridiculously high levels of cynicism today, it has to do with library music...!)

I wasn't speaking about the decline of contemporary music, I must have worded my post poorly. Once again, I know little about modern concert hall works, so I can't speak for them. However....... Imo the music on tv and film used to be a lot better (generally speaking - actually family guy music is pretty cool!), but yes that's just one man's opinion!

Gardener, it certainly is possible to sing along to Beethoven's fifth. I agree it could be considered motivic, rather than melodic, but it's certainly memorable whatever word suits it best.

To the original poster, the best thing to do when you feel you are being bombarded with somebody else's music (it can and will happen), is not to be critical, not even to criticise the music in your head, but to just ignore it. I find it difficult but it can be done. Problem is, composer's have to analyse everything, and I really find it hard to listen to music as a human being rather than a composer/critic.

Nik, 80% of the music you listen to is the music you like! I suppose the same would be true for me, if I didn't have a younger sister, and I should probably watch a little less television. Oh also, university campuses contain a lot of dangerously loud techno music, especially at 3 in the morning, right below me (I actually had to move rooms it was so bad..!)
Ps... I'm actually starting to like that Messaien piece, the Turangalila (The joy of blood stars). The 2nd section of this movement is just too much for me though!

Somewhere about page 11 in this thread there was an attempt to distinguish between pop and popular music, even though the original post was perceptive enough to do that. I think you also have to distinguish between the music and the hype or marketing that surrounds it. Some pop is little more than marketed girls in minimal clothing but this is nothing to do with music. A lot of 'pop' music is marketed to kids. There is no reason why it should appeal to anyone older. It isn't intended to. Its different strokes for different folks. Gays like to dance to techno (Corbin you need to take a cold shower occasionally) who knows why? Maybe it is the same as taking a cold shower.
When someone wants to talk about the superiority of classical music, they should refer to the thousands of composers such as Albrechtsberger, Czerny, Kallinikov, Salieri, Liszt, Scott...(add the name of some completely forgotten conventional composer from your country here; sorry if I have offended anyones national feelings)

my achy breaky heart.

i just don't think you'll understand.

Yes, there is a difference between 'pop' and popular music, and indeed there are many great pieces of popular music that have been written.

I still believe pop has a detrimental effect on music. Firstly, pop music has lowered the standards of popular music. Therefore there are more people writing popular music. Therefore the chances of anybody succeeding in the world of popular music are much lower. Secondly, since the standard has become so low and yet so profitable, big companies have started churning out rubbish simply to make money. The problem is, the same thing has happened in the media music industry. I was told yesterday by a company that they can get all the music they need for just £195 from a music library. These music libraries are in competition with each other, and their prices will drop. Soon, I guarantee that one music library will attempt to monopolize the industry by undercutting everybody else's prices. This could be compared to Tesco selling everything under the sun so cheaply, that businesses such as book shops go out of business.

Essentially, the pop machine is starting to take over the media industry, and it's going to be very hard to make a living from music in the media, unless you get lucky enough to write for a tv drama, or film.

Not only this, but film and tv music is becoming increasingly similar to popular music. Chord progressions with a melody, are replacing more intelligent musical ideas. I've heard many films that use the same chord progression that is found in nearly every pop song ever written. That in itself is not a crime, but to use the same chord progression over and over is just cheap. On top of this, the music in film and tv is becoming so tonally centred that nobody seems to be willing to actually modulate to another key, or even write a chord that isn't just an extension of the 'home chord'. And finally! Nobody on TV is writing thematic material anymore, and indeed many film composers seem to be unaware of the power of a theme!

The last paragraph is naturally incredibly general, and in no way is meant to imply that everything out there is rubbish, because that's not true. But there's probably more 'rubbish' about than ever before, and it's going to get worse before it gets better!