I think if I look at this any longer I might slip, fall down and break a hip!
Embarrassing how old I am when pretty much ALL of these songs sound like absolute trash to me. Repetitive auto-tuned, formulaic, mysoginistic, materialistic, mundane, simple-minded steam pile of fermenting dog poo.
I have a theory about this. I think the song format is conforming to the needs of advertisers.
That’s why every top song is just a person talking over a beat, usually with the same kind of vocal style, usually the same kind of beat.
It’s really hard to sing the word “Lamborghini” and have that fit into the lyrics and be heard clearly and have the brand image positioned correctly.
It’s also a waste of advertising space to have any duration of a song not include clearly spoken lyrics.
Taking this example, DaBaby’s “Rockstar” sounds basically identical to hundreds of other recent songs that follow the same format of a person talking repetitively over a simple beat (every Drake song for example). Five possible instances of integrated advertising in the lyrics: Lamborghini, Chevrolet Suburban, Maybach, Glock, and Apple FaceTime. 2 of them in the chorus.
So what kind of music will people accept, that maximizes spoken word duration, speaks those words clearly, provides brand image maneuverability within the lyrics, doesn’t distract from the lyrics, and won’t have a fatal loss of integrity as a result of obvious product placements?
That list of requirements leaves us with basically one style of one genre, and it’s this style of rap / hip hop. To any extent that a song deviates, it becomes less effective as a channel for advertising.
I think the most convincing piece of evidence in support of this is this lack of differentiation among artists, even in terms of vocal style. In ‘90s hip hop every artist had a completely unique style, all present-day hip hop fans love all of those legendary artists... and yet, every modern artist is just mimicking the exact same cadence as Drake or Kendrick Lamar.
None of this can be reconciled with the notion that songs becomes popular purely because people like them.
I think it comes down to the allure of spoken accents. Since the times of at least John Lennon's apologetically English elocution in the '60s, or perhaps Sinatra's brutish crooning decades earlier, popular music has been dominated by artists who affect a peculiar accent. This sets the artist apart as distinct while sounding new and exotic to the listener.
In hip hop, we have a genre which strips away almost everything except the vocalist's accent. What you really have is an audio sample of the interesting way a person pronounces words.
I believe the benefits of this are two-fold. First, I believe listeners from the same region subconsciously identify with certain key signifiers in the vocalist's pronouncation, providing a core fanbase. Second, I think other listeners who are high in openness are intrigued by the new way of talking.
I think this model works for both hip hop and country music. Other types of pop and indie music also seem to feature bizarre forms of singing. For instance, that dance monkey song that was #1 for a while. Contemporary indie-rock and new-folk musics seem to focus on sounding like an alien.
Advertising isn’t just about getting the audience to purchase the product. Convincing young people that a product confers high status will increase the perceived value of that product for every potential buyer whether they listen to rap or not.
And these aren’t impulse purchases. Nobody buys a Lamborghini the same week that they’re playing with Hot Wheels, but many will a few decades later.
There’s also indirect demand through rentals. Anyone with a credit card can rent a Lamborghini for a weekend. Most of the luxury cars you see on the roads in Miami are rentals, for example.
Pretty sure you'd say that about songs from whatever decade you grew up in, if those could be sorted by "most listened to" as well.
Top40 is already pablum, but it still has some tiny amount of curation (and therefore elitist dictation of taste) driving it. This chart, meanwhile, represents pure populist sentiment—it's "what the people want to hear." And populist sentiment has always been pretty much all of those things you said.
I don't think it's fair to say it's pure populist though. A _huge_ portion of Spotify users don't actively select their music, they just select an autogenerated (or even manually curated) playlist to go in the background. So the most streamed will inevitably be songs from whichever record company has bought algorithmic favour from Spotify.
You are correct, but keep in mind that the music that survives a certain era is only a subset of what was actually played during that ear. Its often the more sophisticated songs that survive.
Yeah, and people twenty years from now will listen to some subset of the popular music being produced today. They just won't listen to the mediocre parts, just like people don't listen to mediocre 90's hip hop.
Never seen the video. Was watching and waiting for a Crazy Frog (aka The Annoying Thing) to pop all of a sudden with its ringdingding. Thanks for posting.
Michael Bolton (Office Space character) listens to that music by choice--he knows all the words, it goes with his self-identity as a badass--see also the SEAL poster in his cube.
Its not just the lyrical content though (which is objectionable and sad enough), but everything else as well.
Universally auto-tuned and synthesized, short, overly repetitive, mumbling/distorted, and whatever backing track they do have could barely be called musical by any objective standard (i.e. a measure of complexity/interrelated instruments/harmonies/themes/tracks). It doesn't matter whether its an african-american mumbling about being a gansta or a breathy-autotuned tween girl, its the same issue.
Listening around the world, it seems to be universal with slight variations here and there.
Many of these comments are ridiculous, it's hilarious. Feeling "depressed" that popular music doesn't fit your taste? Asserting that these artists have no talent? Let people enjoy what they enjoy, rather than criticize the subjective!
I really like the website. It is interesting how popular music in the US appeared in other countries, for instance Bulgaria, and how other countries most popular song I'd never even heard of the artist.
Some rap songs have very interesting lyrics but the whole environment attached to this genre makes it complete trash: all that hood style, bling bling, idiotic oversized cars,money,drugs,etc. Oh,and visible underware too.
I for one agree with you. There are some hip-hop artists, some of whose tunes seem interesting and deep. But I am turned off by the braggadocio, weed shoutouts, and the tendency to simply rap about rapping found in these artists' work and across the genre in general.
In searching for hip-hop without braggadocio etc., I have repeatedly been told by hip-hop aficionados that these tropes are inherent to the genre and it would be unreasonable to seek hip-hop without them, just like oldies rock was inherently about dancing or sweethearts, and country music about personal woes and drink.
It is a shame, because the genre seems to have the potential for more lyrically. Hip hop is now a global phenomenon with innumerable performers. Is there really no hip-hop out there with a more abstract lyrical approach, like for example Climate of Hunter-era Scott Walker?
To add some more context, he's listening to Scarface, one of the members of the Geto Boys. Geto Boys also had two other tracks on the Office Space soundtrack, Still (from that scene where they beat the hell out of the printer) and Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta.
Not on that soundtrack, but Mind Playing Tricks On Me is another a really good song by them and not at all formulaic, misogynistic, etc. Not saying that anyone attacked the Geto Boys.
My point was that top40 (“most broadcast” + “most purchased”), and Spotify’s “most played” (i.e. “most listened to”) are distinct concepts. For the past, we only have access to the former, not the latter, because nobody can know exactly what songs people were listening to the most (e.g. which records/wax cylinders were purchased and then played more times in total; or, even further back, which pieces of chamber music were performed more times; or, even further back, which folk songs or hymns were sung more, rather than transcribed more.)
To focus on only the recent past: we only know about radio plays (determined by cronyist industry dealings) and about record/8track/cassette/CD/iTunes sales (where a record sale could represent a purchase due to virality—i.e. a purchase for status-signalling/watercooler-conversation/joining-a-subculture reasons, but where nobody actually listens to their purchase more than a few times; or it could represent a song everyone loves and puts on repeat all day every day. And a purchase could represent a fad that fizzles out; or a classic in the making.)
We can talk about what the top40 billboard charts were doing back then, but what people were “most listening to” is very likely a wholly different list with little intersection to the billboard chart. Just like this Spotify most-played list is actually an almost-entirely-distinct list from the current radio top40!
Good point, and yet I'm wary of anyone declaring that every time before now has always looked like now. Because first of all that's what everyone from now would naturally tend to think, since they don't truly know anything else. And secondly because it's just too Huxleyan or maybe it's Orwellian.
1) Chart toppers from previous eras are still listenable. Almost nothing on the charts today will be listenable in 2 years. Out-of-touch grandparents in the 1960s could have been convinced to listen to the Beatles. Nobody of a certain age will put up with Top 40 today.
2) It's not quite as democratic as you'd imagine. There are promotions, placements, trends, people sucking kids into clicks in big herds.
A major issue is that today music is more global, and there is a much wider, much lower common denominator.
It used to be 200M Americans, now it's 4B global listeners, Americans are a tiny fraction of that.
Plenty of Top 40 is still generic easy listening for anyone. Ed Sheeran - Perfect is the 8th most streamed song on Spotify and could have been released in basically any era. Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk is the 6th most viewed video on Youtube and sounds straight out to the 70s to me.
Absolutely - if Ed and Bruno were more prevalent, no doubt. But look at the actual Hot100. It's just not that, it's very dominated by unlistenable stuff.
> Chart toppers from previous eras are still listenable. Almost nothing on the charts today will be listenable in 2 years. Out-of-touch grandparents in the 1960s could have been convinced to listen to the Beatles. Nobody of a certain age will put up with Top 40 today.
That feels like being quite selective. The Beatles were not the only band existing in the 60s, and a lot of stuff that did top the charts in the 60s was entirely ephemeral.
And... the Beatles were relatively unique in that they had a moderately wide range of style, certainly compared to their most of their contemporaries. Yes, grandparents in the 60s probably would have put up with Yesterday, Michelle, Till There Was You, A Taste of Honey and similar 'ballad/acoustic/soft' songs. They would not have put up with or enjoyed Long Tally Sally or Twist and Shout.
Source: Mother-in-law who was a young parent outside Liverpool in the mid 60s, relaying the reactions of her parents' generation to the Beatles and "beat/rock" music of the 60s.
I wouldn't be as uncharitable about popular music as you are. Like you, I don't enjoy much of it, but you can't deny that most of it is extremely catchy and fun to listen to. Especially in group settings, like parties or clubs.
That said, the amount of actually good music being made in the world right now is unprecedented if you're willing to look a little. No matter what genre you're into, one look at the Bandcamp homepage will reveal something that catches your attention. Then you have music blogs like Pitchfork, YouTube music reviewers, niche (and not so niche) subreddits, RYM, and Spotify's own discovery algorithms.
Most weeks I have far too much good music to listen to, and it's very hard to decide what to put on. If anything, I want an algorithm that can help me pick one out of 10 good albums.
It's so cheap to learn, make, and distribute music these days that there's something for you out there no matter what your tastes. This is truly a golden age.
"No no, the previous generation before me was unreasonable and condescending for no reason, but THIS time the music really does suck! Really!!"
No, it's the same as it ever was: like each generation before you, you're frowning on the darned inexplicable habits of the rising generation.
You're just noticing the mediocre but popular songs of today, while forgetting all the mediocre but then-popular songs of your own heyday that have since faded from memory (because they were mediocre).
I see the same thing sometimes in the gaming community when people try to laud old retro games. There were plenty of awful or completely forgettable games from the NES and SNES era, people just forget about them while remembering the standouts like Mario, Contra, Megaman, etc. Same thing with music, or TV, or movies, or books.
What you describe is actually a very common thing, there's a very intelligent South Park episode on this.
When I hear new music I try to understand what's good about it, in the end if younger people enjoys it there's a reason. Doing so helps me to stay connected with where new trends are going, which is kinda useful.
I think the same thing every time I see a top 40 or whatever. Not only do I not know who any or them are, but when I try to listen to a few to see why it's so popular they all sound like the exact same (terrible) song. It's like looking at trending youtube videos, I have no idea who watches that shit.
That's what happens when you optimise music for sales and maximum listeners, rather than artistic freedom and expression.
Chart music isn't created by individuals or bands, , it's created by an army of creative workers in the background. There's an entire industry that is dedicated to creating bland, mass marketable songs. It's the musical equivalent of McDonalds, technically good (i.e. well produced to a specification), consistent, and popular within the largest demographic possible. It's the lowest common denominator, music for people who don't like music.
It's all formulaic garbage, and it doesn't pretend to be anything but. Most pop songs are written by the same handful of songwriters, Max Martin has written 23 Billboard chart topping songs for other artists. You don't even get bands any more, solo singers are easier to work with, and the backing track can be created entirely with DAW software by a team of professionals, no need to deal with fickle band members and a recording studio, the singer barely even sings, we've got autotune for that. Pop music is created by an army of faceless creatives with the pop star nothing more than a figurehead.
That said, I have nothing against pop music, it fits a purpose and most people enjoy it. Nobody forces me to listen to it, so I don't. Just like I don't criticise McDonalds burgers for being tasteless and bland compared to the non-franchise, locally owned burger bar down the road.
And they were for the most part correct. The 90's and early 2ks were filled with trash music. The only nice thing compared to the pop lists today is that those bands still actually played instruments.
I look back at what I listened to then and maybe a handful of those groups were actually anything good. The rest was appealing to an unrefined 13 year old, which really says a lot about how shitty that music is.
I listen to a lot of stuff from the late 60's and early 70's now, as well as newer stuff full of band names that would never end up in the top 500 lists.
My parents generation of music was undoubtedly more wholesome and serious than my own, and its not even a comparison to now.
If music is supposed to be a reflection of society, it's no wonder as society is such trash now.
I have some spreadsheets* that have every charting hit on the billboard charts. I haven't gone through the general charts that much, but I'd say the ones I have gone through are really surprising. We tend to think we know what the most popular music from the past is, but if you look at the singles that charted the highest throughout modern history you'll find a lot of forgettable crap.
*Technically the data is copyrighted, so sadly I can't share.
Even without a spreadsheet that's obvious if you spend 5 minutes thinking about all the popular songs you know from the past.
We only remember the interesting and original songs, we don't remember the bland and forgettable songs from previous years. People compare the songs we remember with the generic chart topper du jour and complain that all music these days is bland and forgettable.
People remember Michael Jackson's music not just because it was incredibly popular, but because it was unique. People don't remember that during the same time, songs such as Chuck Berry - My Ding-A-Ling [1] also grabbed the number 1 spot.
Facts are not copyrightable, collections of facts are, thats why you cant copy google maps but you can go outside and write down the same data from your own observations. They have to be significant enough to be covered by copyright. A top 40 is maybe copyrighted.
Collections of facts are also not copyrightable. What's copyrightable is the editorial decision to include or exclude -- or, potentially, arrange -- some facts. This is why phone books weren't copyrightable - there is no creativity involved in choosing what's included ("everything") or the order in which entries appear ("alphabetical").
"Every charting hit" is also a comprehensive list involving no creativity. Order them chronologically and call it a day.
Some phone directories were said to include made up names and numbers that could be used to copyright phone directories. i.e. Company A provides a phone directory with a smattering of nonsense data contained within, Company B copies that wholesale which gives Company A ammunition in a copyright case as they point to the nonsense data and ask Company B to explain why they are included (which they obviously can't without saying, "We copied your directory"). This may just be urban lore.
Edit: by the way, you realise that your grandparents were probably moaning about the music your parents listened to? And their parents ditto, and so on. Nothing new about it.
It might be helpful to understand your perspective on this, but a quick sampling of the top albums of 1994-1996 shows almost all modern classics. The singles and one-hit wonders, maybe that's a different story.
There's part old subjective rant part truth in this; I've listened to countless hours of any genre of music [0] and this generation fails to appeal to any part of my brain most of the time it's flabbergasting. Every time I hear something that makes me feel 'yeah.. finally' turns out it was some old tune I just didn't know about. There's no feel, no harmonic subtlety, no grit .. I think the pop ethos of music died a few years ago, it doesn't represent something sacred for society, it feels like a commodity.
This happens to most: "I'm not getting old, the music is getting worse! Really!!"
Nope, you're just getting older and more out of touch, and your own out of touched-ness stops you from recognizing it as such. It's kind of like the Dunning-Kruger effect that way.
There's a ton of variety and good music out there if you bother to look. If you can't find any, that says something.
I think part of it is that people become more calcified in interests and habits as they get older. For example, when I worked at Costco I noticed how much more stubborn older customers were -- contrary to stereotype, younger customers were generally far nicer and more flexible. In high school, people my age were open to all sorts of things; now that I'm in my 30's, people have more established interests. My own wife has pointed out that I'm fairly particular about friends now sharing similar interests.
Meh, I didn't have to look before to get interesting music. And my interests are more diverse than when I was young. I span the whole music spectrum. From old to new, pop, kitch, complex, simple, classical, thrash, whatever. Today's mainstream is really poor.
to give you a weird example, some girl on youtube decided to cover knight rider's theme with violin's only, you can see how this simple tv show got very interesting harmonics and melodic emotional structure.
I don’t see why it would ever disappear. It’s essentially a device that transforms your vocal chord into an instrument. So you can sing roughly the tone you have in mind. That’s huge. I often think of melodies that I have no ability to reproduce on any instrument — but I can roughly hit the notes with my voice.
I like to remind people the brilliant CGI work in Jurassic Park and Toy Story was contemporary to the cheeseball CGI in made for TV movies. People can guess what's made on a computer in Toy Story, but they never knew the well-done stuff trying to be realistic was done in part or in whole on computers.
The late '90s were especially big here because computers and tools were getting so cheap. The same tech that let big space battles happen in Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 also made stuff that...did not age so well.
Try Lithuania, they seem to be stuck in the 80s. For reference: Most streamed song currently is Blinding Lights by The Weeknd.
EDIT: Malaysia (Stuck with U by Ariana Grande) is an option too. Thailand (คิด(แต่ไม่)ถึง by Tilly Birds) also and Japan (夜に駆ける by YOASOBI) never lets you down, of course.
I agree completely, but to my mind this is more a validation that there is a lot more money to be made with things that scale. With respect to taste and quality, it is unfortunate that this means lowest common denominator mass market trash. The race to the top is a race to the bottom.
I thought the same. I've felt this about all pop music after the 90s, though. During the 90s I think there were some genuinely great songs. But since then it's just been recycling the same old crap over and over again.
I have some bad news about all the music you grew up with. A lot of it was bad, too. Some of it was good, and that's what you remember. The rest was unmemorable.
I feel like it takes a different kind of person to be able to go past a top chart or the FTOM artist and discover that there is more to music (or really any other thing) than whatever the rest of a globalized world finds "good".
Perhaps. But if so, I don't think the difference is in any intrinsic quality, but merely in circumstance. Having been exposed to good music or other art is a privilege. So is having the time to search for it. If the people who listen to crappy mainstream music had more spare time and less stress, they might seek out better alternatives. The fact that they don't doesn't entitle us to dehumanize them by comparing them to computer-generated non-player characters in a game. Instead, we should decry the system that feeds these people crap when they just want some kind of relief from their already crappy lives.
For anyone else who is unfamiliar with this usage of "NPC", here is the definition from Urban Dictionary:
> NPC - Modern (2018): A term now used to describe a 'Social Justice Warrior' or SJW, as their behavior mirrors that of traditional in game NPCs, in that their thoughts and actions are limited to their programming (programming being mainstream media in this case) and lacking any critical and independent thought process.
I think that's wrong. An SJW's life revolves around politics and they have extreme opinions. An NPC doesn't really care about politics. Their involvement is restricted to repeating slogans they heard someone else say. Like game NPC's they all say the same thing, and if you probe further there is no depth. Of course if you change the subject to something non-political that all changes.
Many years ago, before the word NPC had even been invented and when the political battle lines were drawn differently I passed by a small demonstration. I walked up to them and asked what they were demonstrating about and got a short reply. I asked a natural follow up question and got the response that I "should talk with that guy over there, he's the one in the know".
That was my first reaction, too. Generic, computer-generated mush. It doesn't take a skilled musician anymore to be a star.
Then I recalled my youth. I was an angry teenager in the early to mid 1990s. My parents hated the grunge and punk music I listened to. Now to be fair, that music has held up pretty good. But if you look at the top 40 music from that era... not so much. Trashy euro-pop dominated the charts.
I guess we'll have to wait for a decade or two to see what holds up and what don't.
Music on the charts is absolutely getting worse due to globalization, attention span, production, competitive marketing, margins, video/image/brand before song, definitely removal of the 'gatekeepers', lower barriers to entry, mass-market/direct audience.
Yes, yes, a lot of pop music has always been crap, but 'this time it's different'. Truly. It's more derivative, fewer chords, lyrics that don't make sense or inspire, overproduced, repetitive.
'Popular Music' is dead - it's just memes.
Think of these artists as just people 'wanting to be famous' and doing image, memes, publicity, fake celeb fights, TV show appearances - it's all the same thing. Some of it might have a song.
You know the 'processed food magicians' who manipulate ingredients to find the 'sweet spot' of sweetness/bitterness whatever ... that drives a lot of food to taste bland? Same thing. You have mega producers behind most artists' hits. The artist is a brand, the label does the marketing. That's it.
There is quite a bit of good stuff but it just doesn't get much publicity.
Also - one big difference - most 'good music' today is not very 'up' or 'hit' oriented.
Think of Van Halen 'Jump' - big, loud, stadium 'rock' sound, but also very accessible. Huge energy. Alpha chords! Most good music these days is much more subtle, it doesn't 'grab you' - which is totally fine, but it means maybe it's not as radio playable.
There's a lot of really interesting and weird artifacts of pop culture music, but most of it is totally unlistenable.
Tons of kids these days don't listen to Hot 100 either.
Maybe the comparison to food is apt: sadly there are alarming rising rates of obesity. And the culprit is most likely cheap, sugary-salty (addictive) industrial food.
Embarrassing how old I am when pretty much ALL of these songs sound like absolute trash to me. Repetitive auto-tuned, formulaic, mysoginistic, materialistic, mundane, simple-minded steam pile of fermenting dog poo.