Has Pop Music Got Worse In Recent Decades?

[Minstrel SE]

Hi

I feel I need to start a thread about what I feel is the dire nature of most pop music these days.

I refer to artists like Sia, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and all related "artists" in this pop production machine. I just think its rubbish. It pretends to have depth and soul but I feel its as shallow and throwaway as yesterdays chip paper.

It just seems to be packing in all the latest autotune and digital effects but it has no real melody or lasting impression. Maybe a melody is buried in there somewhere. The lyrics are overblown and over dramatic. Has nobody told them that less is more! I may be generalising but I cant seem to like any of it. Has it just got more cynical in ticking the boxes?

The music just seems to be narcissistic in a more cynical industry concerned purely with the money. It seems to serve a look at me, self interested generation totally out of control. Its all me, me me and this seems to be reflected in shallow lyrics which pretend to be anthemic but are just naff. Is it aimed at kids only as I thought I would like some of it?

Is it me? Was pop music always this way or will the younger generation eventually return to better music from an earlier date

Heck I've tried this weekend to like something. I heard the Harry Styles one in the pub and thought that's ok on a first listen. However as soon as I realised it was him and heard it again, I didn't like it and thought it was ultra shallow/naff. Is that my prejudice showing as a fifty year old bloke?

I supose I've now become my dad. I will take a bit of Melanie or the Bulgarian womens choir anyday over this naff pop music which seems to have rapidly declined since the turn of the Millenium Lets discuss it

Best wishes
Martin

[mikeyb]

It's your age, pop/chart music has always been this way, you either like it or you don't, no matter which decade it's from 😉

[Macca]

It is age and becoming your father. Happens to us all.

However being objective about it I would still say that today's pop music is even worse than the pop music in my day ('70s/'80s). Ed Sheeran? - WTF? But the youngsters I know love his stuff.

[Minstrel SE]

Yes I was thinking that it is probably me.

Im not sure I even like the term "pop" music as I would like to think most of my tastes are more exclusive than that. I suppose its no different to when they were trying to ban Elvis Presley records.

I realise there has always been pop music around that Im not going to like. I tell you though that I would prefer the rubbish pop of yesteryear any day of the week.

Oh well I will just have to try and enjoy my period of life when Im shouting up the stairs to turn that awful racket down

You could hear what they were saying in my day (1980s) and sing along

[Stratmangler]

Im not sure I even like the term "pop" music

Dark Side Of The Moon had "file under Pop music" on the back.

[Minstrel SE]

Dark Side Of The Moon had "file under Pop music" on the back.

Well yes exactly but I dont like the catch all term pop music.

Popular!? Its like it was set apart from classical music as more lowbrow by some Smashie and Nicey character from the 50s or 60s........Not alf pop pickers!

I wouldnt use it to define everything from say Joe Dolce to The Sleaford Mods. To me out and out pop is at the disposable, novelty end of the market. I accept the issue of who then subjectively defines that.

Anyway I think there is a deeper reason I dont like this new genre of pop music and maybe its the people driving it now...it is the whole x factor thing and it all seems more cynical than it even was with the Spice Girls.

We do mature and I love all sorts including classical and opera now. There is some amazing world music out there and I can assure you its not Little Mix As Grant says who will actually remember most of it in 50 years time?

One thing I am sure about though is that the youth of today will feel like me when they get older as that seems to be human nature when dealing with younger generations and their shallow music.

[Stratmangler]

Popular!? Its like it was set apart from classical music as more lowbrow by some Smashie and Nicey character from the 50s or 60s........Not alf pop pickers!

That's exactly what happened, except that it's an attitude that goes back a lot further back than that.
My Dad was born in 1929, and grew up in a musical household. He, and his twin brother, were pianists, and both sang too.
In the time they grew up there was serious music (Classical of all varieties) and everything else was deemed to be lowbrow, and therefore popular, music.
The music charts for popular music were determined by sheet music sales.

[Sherwood]

Yes I was thinking that it is probably me.

Im not sure I even like the term "pop" music as I would like to think most of my tastes are more exclusive than that. I suppose its no different to when they were trying to ban Elvis Presley records.

I realise there has always been pop music around that Im not going to like. I tell you though that I would prefer the rubbish pop of yesteryear any day of the week.

Oh well I will just have to try and enjoy my period of life when Im shouting up the stairs to turn that awful racket down

You could hear what they were saying in my day (1980s) and sing along

HMMMM! are you sure?

CONSIDER:

"we're the young generation and we've got something to say" .......... HEY HEY WE'RE THE MONKEYS!

Very meaningful!

OR,

"Got a pound of gelatine!" I'M GONNA MAKE A BIG TRIFLE!

Popular music has always been about money. The so-called charts were always rigged and the industry ran on backhanders and payola. We remember the better tunes of our youth but conveniently forget all the banal crap that formed the majority of the industry, and the manufactured acts that were foisted on us. Have you watched any of the TOTP repeats on BBC Four?

Technology has changed and very good artists no longer need record companies to make a decent living or to be constrained by the album format. I hear great new music every week both live and on streaming services.

Geoff

[Pigmy Pony]

HMMMM! are you sure?

CONSIDER:

"we're the young generation and we've got something to say" .......... HEY HEY WE'RE THE MONKEYS!

Very meaningful!

OR,

"Got a pound of gelatine!" I'M GONNA MAKE A BIG TRIFLE!

Popular music has always been about money. The so-called charts were always rigged and the industry ran on backhanders and payola. We remember the better tunes of our youth but conveniently forget all the banal crap that formed the majority of the industry, and the manufactured acts that were foisted on us. Have you watched any of the TOTP repeats on BBC Four?

Technology has changed and very good artists no longer need record companies to make a decent living or to be constrained by the album format. I hear great new music every week both live and on streaming services.

Geoff

What's a-madda you, hey! Gadda no respect, hey! Whadda-you think you do, hey! Why you looka so sad!

Oh and no one knows how much gelatine they had - I believe the words were: 'Gunpowder, gelatine'. And it may have been for a nice juicy meat pie rather than a trifle. Lyrics of yesteryear really made you think.

[Sherwood]

What's a-madda you, hey! Gadda no respect, hey! Whadda-you think you do, hey! Why you looka so sad!

Oh and no one knows how much gelatine they had - I believe the words were: 'Gunpowder, gelatine'. And it may have been for a nice juicy meat pie rather than a trifle. Lyrics of yesteryear really made you think.

... and what was it with Sting and Sue Lawley?