I remember when pop music was really good and the people producing it were incredibly talented, from the singers (who could also dance), to the front musicians, to the string and horn arrangements, to the costume makers. Here’s a reminder:
I just watched Heatwave do this on PBS. It was, if anything, a little bit better than the near flawless version 35 year-old version in this YouTube. Also, too:
Something horrible happened to the music scene in this country during the 1980’s. I don’t know if it was Reagan or MTV or just a hangover from the 70’s. We still have lots of great musicians making lots of great music. But our popular music is just awful.
It’s funny you mentioned this, because I’ve been watching a lot of pop tv/movie clips from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, and when rock and roll came into popularity that’s the exact same thing people were saying then: music was going to hell, the new artists had no talent, the lyrics sucked, the outfits were classless and vulgar.
I think as you age you have to careful of creeping old fogeyism.
yeah, I am aware of that. But, in fairness, I’ve been bitching about pop music since about 1982, when I was 13.
Lately, I have been listening to about 90% jazz and pre-1970’s blues. Actually, most of the jazz I like is pre-1960’s or very early 1960’s, before it took on some of the experimental aspects that defined the 60’s.
Early Coltrane, Ellington, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James, Sam Cooke, Lonnie Johnson, Leadbelly, Magic Sam, Stan Getz, Billie Holiday.
But I’ve also been listening to a lot of funk and soul from the 1970’s, especially Philly-style.
And I’ve always listened to Dean Martin and Sinatra, who were actually pop in their day.
The thing about Motown and 70’s soul/pop that is so different from today is the talent of the performers. The songs might be virtually empty of real content. The simplest love tunes, for example. But look at the level of excellence that went into it.
The two videos I posted are basically throw-away songs. Or, they would be if they hadn’t been performed with such effort and perfection.
Go find one of the songs on the top of the pop charts right now and compare it for singing ability, musicianship, and orchestration.
Even a totally fabricated band like The Monkees had more talent and professionalism than you see today in most pop hits.
I guess what I am saying is that even the corporate pap that was put out in the 1970’s still displayed enormous talents.
No one demands that anymore.
If some fogie in 1967 couldn’t recognize the talent of a Hendrix or a Page or a Clapton or a Joplin or a Lennon, then they were just blind to talent. Show me who on the charts is gifted like that today?
We’re not far apart on this, and like a lot of the same people. I agree that a lot of Motown had disposable lyrics, but the musicianship was unbelievably high caliber because they used very good session musicians. I agree the same amount of craftsmanship doesn’t enter into most pop music today.
But I have to watch my thinking. If I was coming from watching Bessie Smith, I don’t think Janis would impress me. I would say, why does this stuff need to be so damn loud? Why do they have to scream? Why do they need lights and smoke and explosions and feedback and wierd clothes? These people have no chops. Put a jazz chart in front of them and they’d be lost….what kind of musicians can they be?
But, of course, you’d have had a much better point back then. Joplin wasn’t that technically strong. But I’m not complaining about the sets or volume.
Here is the current number one song on the Billboard Hit 100 charts. It is unlikely the singer knows that she is quoting Friedrich Nietzsche.
It has a catchy hook. It has a nice, appealing beat that you can dance to. But listen carefully to two things. First, listen to the vocal range of the singer. She has a nice voice. But she doesn’t have any range. Secondly, listen to the accompanying music, as least where it is created by a human rather than a computer. Do you here anything resembling talent? I don’t.
Now, listen to this song that topped out at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 list in 1974 and check the range and musicianship.
See the difference?
It’s late and I’m too tired to do homework, but I don’t think it would be difficult to find a really trite, bland, horrible #1 song from ‘our’ favored eras to make the point that it wasn’t all as great as we remember it.
Likewise, I could pull a clip from Ed Sullivan showing a very out of tune, sloppily performed ‘hit’ by the Beatles, and post another perfect vocal and musical performance by a real pro like Sinatra.
See?
There’s good pop these days, too. Some of the best pop music ever was released in the past decade. Not all of it was made by superstars, so that sort of defeats a central meme of “pop,” but still. I’ve never understood the “music sucks these days” viewpoint. That’s not at all what BooMan said, of course…but I’ve heard enough people over the years say things like “music has sucked ever since [insert artist/group] [insert broke up/sold out/died/etc.]” that I’ve basically lost patience with anything resembling it.
I don’t mean to get too ideological about it, though. I don’t really enjoy writing seriously about music anymore–it’s not really the best way to respond to it–but if I did, I’d like to do it like Nitsuh Abebe.
From a technical standpoint, I love digital music–it’s easy to edit and record, and I’m all for dissemination of recording ability–but compression and the loudness wars is one reason the technical quality of recording has kind of degraded over the years. I’m not a purist–I don’t own any vinyl at all–but I understand the argument against the so-called “loudness wars” and how they destroy aural dynamics.
I supposed I should list some examples, but since I’m 35 and by the time I discover something, it’s usually “over” (true even when I was 15), I highly doubt these are universally regarded as great pop:
“1901” by Phoenix (and anything from parent album “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.”
“Time to Pretend” and “Kids” by MGMT.
“Giving up the Gun” by Vampire Weekend.
Anything by LCD Soundsystem.
“My Girls” and “Guys Eyes” by Animal Collective (singer Noah Lennox/Panda Bear is great solo too)
Self titled debut by the XX.
“House of Balloons” mix album by the Weeknd.
Now that I look at that list, though, it’s more like what a white male yuppie Pitchfork or Stereogum reader (i.e. me) would cite. Hell, I’m tired of trying to keep up with the Billboard charts too, so I just buy and follow the artists and groups that I enjoy and discover.
But I bought the last Cee-Lo album with “Fuck You” on it, too. So who knows. I’m really trying hard to spend less time sneering about music these days. As a no-hoper hobby musician, it’s a lot harder to feel justified trashing someone else’s music as awful just because I don’t like it. I mean, I’d hate to turn into a bitter music snob in my old age.
yeah, let’s stick with ‘pop’ meaning ‘popular’ or we won’t get anywhere.
Then I got nothin’.
Well, there is Adele. Her second album is probably the modern definition of “crossover” in terms of demolishing the horrible boundaries Americans have placed on popular music.
Of course, she’s not American. I wonder–on the BBC, can you still hear Sinatra back to back with Jay-Z? I hate that radio in this country boxes art into stupid little formats.
I only listen to WXPN and jazz and classical stations. As good as WXPN is, and its still the best station in the country, it isn’t what it used to be. It’s strictly safe music, for example. But at least it insists on quality.
When I listen to music on the radio, it’s usually KCRW from Santa Monica or KEXP from Seattle–two public radio stations. Regular FM commercial radio playlists are just too repetitive for me. Plus the ads are obnoxious.
What’s nice about Adele is the lack of froufrou (meatdresses and/or scads of dancers, and the like). At the grammies, she just got up and sang with only the few back up singers. And of course she is truly a pleasure to hear.
Plus she has yet to go full-bonkers-diva on us. That might still happen, but as of right now she still appears sane.
Well, for one, it seems to me there’s a good case to be made that Beyonce is as good as or better than Diana Ross….
If you like heavy breathing maskerading as singing to a backing track.
I think it has to do with public schools not having good music programs anymore (at least in most communities.)
It seems like the public school system used to identify the kids with musical abilities or other special talents and direct them into programs that would help build those skills. Now we have these one-size-fits-all educational programs with none of that. And we diagnose the non-conformers as kids with behavioral problems when they don’t fit the mold.
Music and arts programs have been slashed or totally eliminated in favor of cutting peoples taxes and sending more “bad people” to prison. As a result only well-to-do families can afford to get their kids a proper music or arts education.
I don’t disagree with you about the loss of arts education. On the other hand, as a way of illustrating the irrepressible power of the fundamental human need to make music, I remember hearing an interview with Mos Def in which he talked about the role NYC’s financial collapse in the mid-1970s played in the creation of rap.
Basically, there was no music education in the schools. So kids would go over to the apartment of whoever had the best record player, listen to their favorite cuts and grooves (e.g., from James Brown and P-Funk), and then start making their own music with the only “instruments” available—by scratching the turntables and rapping their own words over the groove.
Having just spent a month with Craig Werner’s “A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America” (shameless blog flogging, I was using it as inspiration and source material for a series of posts on my (new) blog, http://masscommons.wordpress.com/ ), I just want to say there’s pretty much no way to say what you’re saying without sounding like an old fogey.
There’s always been dreadful pop music. There’s always been great pop music. They’ve co-existed on the charts since music charts were created.
One of the things I like about Werner’s approach to pop music is the way he frames it in terms of call-and-response. There’s a constant, ongoing back and forth going on among artists and between artists and the wider society.
Succumb to the “things were better when I was young” way of thinking and you end up missing the point of pop music—and the extent to which young musicians today honor their musical heroes for earlier decades and generations.
Well, really. ‘Old fogeyism’ it probably is — as always, across the generations forever: human nature + changing culture.
What signifies ‘talent’ for us changes also. Personally I think we’re not even talking about music, or even culture, when we express these kinds of sentiments, but what’s lost in our own vitality & capacity for wonder as we move through adulthood toward the dark inevitable.
It’s always the same. Just like with that punk Amadeus ..
Me, I rejected popular music at about the time video killed the radio start.
video killed the radio star. I wanted my MTV, but it was more like fascination with a new art form for a few months. The basic limitations became apparent real quick.
Does this mean we all have to get off your lawn?
I’d prefer if you’d rake it.
I wasn’t an avid music listener/lover when I was young. It wasn’t until Country music was introduced to me that I even found a home musically, which was odd since I’ve always lived in urban/suburban areas. It came to me when I was about 15 and it’s still my preferred choice of music.
Here is the short of it. There has always been good and bad pop. Still is . But I agree that it is worse and that “black” music is far worse generally. Soul and r&b gave way to funk. That was ok, but then some of it gave way to disco. That too was in part ok. But then crack and heroin and severe poverty was taking over places like the south bronx and from the streets came an authentic angry sound of rap, which begat hip hop. I get that a lot of blacks and inner city folks thought the temptations were a little too “optimistic” to be taken seriously in Reagan’s America but it definitely hurt the music in ways you are complaining about.
Don’t find the Heatwave clip very good at all.
Check out these cats, who could really sing pop, write songs, harmonize and made sounds that will blow your mind. Didn’t need to dance or wear costumes, didn’t need ear splitting volume, synthesizers, smoke and mirrors, studio tricks. They must have thought the new groups were crap by comparison, and those cats you posted have no ear and no range.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH1e6G0K3Pk&feature=related
And check out the comments by the viewers….
Fwiw even don Cornelius publicly said on soul train that he didn’t get or like rap and hip hop
I’m certainly no music critic. I just like seeing a performance where the participants are obviously having fun together and produce a great sound to boot. (From Blues Brothers 2000 ~ embed disabled)
Hey there Indianadem,
Speaking of having fun playing.
Here`s an old friend from Malibu who moved down to the family farm in Georgia a few years ago.
He recently told me he`ll be swinging by here in May.
He`s done a song about me about some of my exploits but here is the unassuming Johhny Roquemore on guitar & harmonica.
Thanks KNUCKLEHEAD, seems like they’re having a good time. Enjoy the visit!
I’m probably around your age and kind of agree that this stuff sucks today but it’s always kind of sucked. It doesn’t irritate me; it just kind of makes me laugh. Watched the Grammys last month and it was kind of funny. Was probably the 80’s where things got kind of weird with the Las Vegas type production numbers and corporate stuff. But then again this isn’t for me. Most people would think the things I listen to is complete shite.
Well in the 1980s, British pop took over a large chunk of the period.
Interestingly, there’s been some discussion about why pop isn’t seen as respectable in the US. The answer I find most fascinating is that pop music is the only non-white music in this country. All other music has roots at least partially in the music of African Americans even if at several removes.
Anyhow, what I’ve noticed is that modern pop, as in pop from the 2010s on, is way better than pop from mid-90s to mid-200s or so. In other words, the pop now that I’m an adult is better than the pop that was around when I was a kid.
Whoops, mean to say pop is the only “non-black” music.
What happened to “pop music” in the 1980s. The shift of radio formats to talk radio. The fragmentation of the remaining radio stations into genres. The marketing response to what they thought was “the aging of boomer tastes”. The gradual consolidation of the media closing out opportunities for upstart record companies like Sun and Motown. And cautious producers.
When I listen to contemporary music these days, it’s mostly alternativish stuff (Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian, Clientele, LCD Soundsystem, Cass McCombs, Here We Go Magic) or Satie-wannabes like Dustin O’Halloran or Rafael Anton Irisarri. But I love the R&B you love, and if you like that, well, you should hear Mary J. Blige and K-Ci (of Jodeci) sing “I Don’t Want to Do Anything Else” on MTV Unplugged in 1993. No dancing, no fancy clothes, but it doesn’t matter because once they going they sing the bejesus out of the song. Check it out here.
Past 1980, in this vein, I love “You’re the One for Me” by D-Train, “All This Love” by DeBarge, “Ebony Eyes” by Rick James and Smokey Robinson, “When Can I See You Again” by Babyface. Oh, and there was this guy named Prince….
Sorry Booman. The good stuff is out there, you just have to look for it. Here’s a live performance of “Feel” by Robbie Williams from 2003
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkobBi9UvBA
And Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” live from 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsaXDmObEB0
I’d put those up against your 1972 songs without a problem.
PS I have no idea how to imbed videos here. Sorry. 🙂