Some comfort for middle aged people who feel that pop music is not what it used to be, you are backed up by scientists.

How nice to know one was right!

I saw this too earlier today - I wondered if anyone had posted it... of course they had

They may well be right, possibly because the buyers of pop have become younger over the same period, and simpler music is more appealing to the very young, just as bold primary colours and simple shapes in books are more attractive to young children than the subtler art preferred by adults.

But I don't care what the overall picture is when you look at ALL the pop music of the last 50 years. I care only about the best of it.

So you can ignore most rap, house, disco, boring MOR, and the reams of uncreative "trash metal". The best of today's pop music still has plenty of variety of tone colour, great tunes (often with equally clever lyrics) and interesting, original, yet natural sounding harmonic changes.

too.

I am sure there are a few good pop songs around, although I cannot think of one at the moment. The problem, it seems to me, is that most current pop music is created by computer to sound appealing to its target audience, and hence sell records. A lot also seems to have been designed to be played on mobile phones in the school playground. Not suprisingly, it all sounds boring and much the same.

Give me Queen, ELO or The Beatles any time!

SB

I have found that when I am reading stories to or taking a music class with to the under fives they respond very well to subtle colours just as they respond to quite complicated music. My feeling is that young people "like" what is thrown at them by those who want to make money out of them quite simply because they are often not given any alternative.

Of course it depends a lot on where you draw the line between the subtle and the simple but I am inclined to feel that as children are being constantly short changed on their childhood years - as you say pop buyers are getting younger - we ought to be aware of what is happening and try to do something about it. The blander and the more garish the things we put in front of children, the more robotic will become their responses.

A lot of pop music does sound the same, and that's been the case for years (right back to the late 1950s, really) : which makes finding the gems all the more rewarding.

I had a look at 2012's number one singles so far : in my opinion, just one is a good song : Gotye/Kimbra's 'Somebody that I Used to Know'. The rest are pretty average - just as one example, listen to the dreadful 'Call me Maybe', by Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen...

I had a look at 2012's number one singles so far : in my opinion, just one is a good song : Gotye/Kimbra's 'Somebody that I Used to Know'.
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[quote name='lingle' date='Jul 31 2012, 07:22 PM' post='1162980']
I had a look at 2012's number one singles so far : in my opinion, just one is a good song : Gotye/Kimbra's 'Somebody that I Used to Know'.
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I particularly like the slightly modal/tonal answer version of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in this song...

Mind you; much the same could be said for modern hymn books, which are full of inane, politically correct drivel, set to banal melodies.

Give me the NEH or AMNS any day.

SB

And if it was the "New English Bible" that had appeared in 1611 rather than the "King James Bible" England would be a nation of 100% atheists and agnostics.

Agreed; except that we are talking about two completely different things here.

The so called 'music' in these new hymn books is emptying churches, not filling them as the happy-clappy brigade would like us to believe.

It is a complete fallacy that young people are unfailing attracted to churches where guitars are strummed and modern music is played. The comparative attendance figures at parish churches and cathedrals of all different flavours over the past thirty years confirms this without any shadow of doubt.

Graeme Kendrick might have been fresh and new in the 1970's and 1980's, but much of his music is now seriously outdated and cringeworthy to all age groups.

I have no objection to consenting adults enjoying happy-clappy music in their own company if that is their wish, but I strongly resent the forced imposition of such music on those who have better tastes.

SB

I quite like that song. It's good for exercise classes. I suppose that's one thing that has changed in the last forty years, there is a lot more dance music which is more percussive than melodic.

And if we are going back to forty years ago we are starting from progressive rock which was mighty complicated.

But there's always good music around, even if it takes a bit of finding.

Popular music isn't just chart music though!

I always take anything starting with "Scientists say......." with a pinch of salt; I am a scentist and I know that what some scientist says today will be contradicted by what another scientist says tomorrow.

Saying that 'pop music all sounds the same' is ridiculous, since pop music is any music that isn't Classical. Scott Joplin, Lady Gaga and Black Sabbath all sound completely different. The Doors do not sound like Carol King or Jimi Hendrix. (though Beethoven does sound a little like Black Sabbath!).

Can we all not see the merit in both classical and pop music? Each influences the other, and there are good and bad examples of each kind. I think its time that the snobbery of saying pop music is trash came to an end, we are supposed to like music after all!

Agree : I posted a load of examples in another thread somewhere of pop music that's lifted chunks of classical music to varying degrees of success.

Talking of chart stuff : BBC4 are still showing repeats of Top of the Pops 1977 - even back then, there are great songs and David Soul, Liverpool Express and Smokie not so good songs...

I wonder if the terminology is confused. After all the term "classical" music covers a vast variety of styles and as you point out, so does the term "popular" - and both terms are inaccurate.

However I would point out that I don't consider it snobbery to consider as trash a lot of the music and lyrics - particularly the lyrics - to which young people - and the rest of us - are exposed. I'm afraid the vast majority of what I have heard teenagers here listen to actually is trash.

A dislike or disapproval of something is not automatically based on snobbery. I am not a snob but I feel that many of the lyrics in popular music are not suitable listening material for pre-teenagers and young teenagers - any more than I feel that some of the material in television advertising is suitable to be shown at any hour of the day. My likes and dislikes have a much wider base than mere snobbery.

but I had to comment. My copy of "A Survivor's Guide to the Church" contains the following definitions:

"CHORUS - Song with good tune but no theology (cf HYMN)"
"HYMN - Song with good theology but no tune (cf CHORUS)"

There's something in that.... though in my view, a lot of the stuff in most hymnbooks is pretty dire both as to lyrics and melody, and regardless of vintage. I have a particular distaste for the AM tune for "Thy Kingdom Come" (St Cecilia - never was a tune more misnamed!!), for instance. Really good church songs - like really good pop songs - are few and far between.

A lot of trash was written in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries too. Just check out some of the little known composers on ISMLP. You may find the odd forgotten gem, but most of those people have been forgotten for a good reason.

Time has sifted out most of the dross from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, but with modern and popular music we are so close to it that we are exposed to it all.


Can anyone tell me ... did John Williams ever invent an original melody, or are all his film scores stolen from the classics?

with much of what you say.

Picking up on VH2's comment, "A lot of trash was indeed written in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries", but most of it had been filtered out by the time the New English Hymnal and Hymns Ancient and Modern (New Standard) were printed.

Then Graeme Kendrick and Mission Praise came along, followed by Songs of Fellowship, Sing Glory and other carp gems.

There are undoubtedly some good 'songs' in these books, (Shine Jesus Shine being perhaps the best known example), but there are many more that I sincerely hope doubt will make it into the next editions.

Most regular congregations enjoy singing traditional hymns, (preferably accompanied by a pipe organ), but they are increasingly being denied that pleasure in favour of badly written 'songs' set to weak melodies written for guitar, banjo, ukulele and goodness knows what else.

Observing proceedings from the safety of the quire I have seen and heard first hand which is preferred by the congregation. Unfortunately, there is a small resident music group which persists in imposing its highly amplified and badly played music on an unwilling congregation. This has resulted in several longstanding members (ourselves included) voting with their feet in favour of places where music is done properly, and where the 'atmosphere' is more to their liking.

The Music Group's answer to this is 'more of the same'.

SB

PS: I have just looked up St Cecilia in the hymnbook, and it is a nice tune with a good harmony (in our book anyway). I don't know what you don't like about it?

If we're talking about the same one [I noticed on re-checking there is more than one St Cecilia in AM], it just plods and drones. I find it uninspired and uninspiring. (Mind you, some of my reaction to it could be down to the fact that, when I was a child, our (self-taught and very unconfident) organist evidently found it easy to play, and we therefore had to endure it an awful lot, played at a v-e-e-e-ry slow pace... )

There are indeed two versions. The one I know to the metre of 6 6 6 6. (by Rev. I. G. Hayne) is a fairly jolly tune, but I can imagine it might grate a bit if played too slowly. (Don't they all?)

The other, by Rev. J. Hampton is unknown to me, and didn't go where I expected it to (if you know what I mean).

SB

I think it's probably quite true that our experiences will colour what we think of certain music! For instance, I quite liked the song 'Call me maybe' that Barry mentioned, but then I always heard it in good company when I was having fun. Dance music, however, I usually am deafened by hear at the odd disco - that I don't really enjoy - and because it's so loud there isn't much option but to listen to it and wonder when a melody/chord change might occur! So I see it as much more irritating.

What makes good music? Bland and sameish might not be bad in some situations - say in the background to something perhaps, where you don't want people to be distracted by it but you also don't want silence?

"A lot of trash was written in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries too. Just check out some of the little known composers on ISMLP. You may find the odd forgotten gem, but most of those people have been forgotten for a good reason. "

well exactly ....

Re dance music: I think it's hard to understand it without dancing (and I'm not sure whether it's possible to understand it without taking drugs). The musician is really the DJ who is creating effects by sliding from track to track in a creative way. Many of the tracks themselves don't stand alone very well but can be moulded by the DJ.

I'm sure it's perfect for dancing to. I always thought all that jigging about to pop songs in the 60s and 70s was weird.

I'm just glad I didn't get onto Top of the Pops in the 1970's, as I am sure someone in the family would have copied it onto video for me, jigging around to Pan's People and Hot Chocolate, wearing flares, a 'tank top' and kipper tie.

Did we really do that?

SB

Oh yes.

We did.

Oh no we didn't . I was extremely intolerant of "pop" music in the 70s and I hated flares etc....

Does footage exist of TOTP with Cyrilla in it, then?

Lol NO!!!!!

*remembers fluorescent pop sox, cheesecloth shirts and Tiger Feet dancing*

But the 70's still gave us Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Carole King, so it wasn't all bad!

Yeah but that's not pop and no-one in their right mind would dance to it.

The 70s did give us ABBA, who created wonderful pop songs, some of which are eminently danceable to

Isn't pop anything that isn't classical- much as I like Led Zeppelin I wouldn't consider them to be classical!

No: Baroque isn't classical and it certainly isn't pop.

SB

There are all manner of genres. At the time Zep were considered Prog. Rock - though not in the sense of Floyd, Yes, Genesis, etc. Definitely NOT pop. Oh no.

On the other hand there are just 2 types of music. Good music and bad music.

Would you say though that eventually Genesis changed into a pop group (in the Phil Collins era, and particularly into the 80s)?

I would, as I stopped liking them around then.

There's loads of really great pop music out there, both now and over the last few decades. Just as there's a lot of really great classic pop, jazz, baroque, romantic etc etc

However there's also a lot of dross - in all eras. And as someone else has wisely pointed out, as time passes we forget the forgettable and remember the memorable.

If you think it all sounds the same then whatever, but I bet pop music enthusiasts would disagree and perhaps might think all classical (inc baroque, romantic etc) sounds the same too!!

Well the various eras are: Early Music (including Elizabethan?), Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern, but in popular parlance, despite the great variety, these are all "classical" (with a small c). A better term might be "Western Art Music", but it is never going to catch in general usage.

So non-classical music comprises many, many genres, including such extremes as African drum music, music using different scales, folk, Jazz, as well as the many genres of music that made the singles and LP charts in the last century (big band, MOR, disco, rock'n'roll, progressive rock, metal, house, rap, and so on)

Certainly a lot of my Hungarian musicianship teachers will refer to 'Art Music' as a general term.

Yes. Me too. "Selling England by the Pound" was the last worthwile album.