Hit Charade
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
A few years ago, when dubstep was still fairly new, a build up and shift as dramatic as the typical dubstep 'drop' would have been fairly jarring for most pop music. Fast forward to today and you hear elements of it almost everywhere, but it all happened gradually enough to make it feel familiar but different enough to be exciting.
Agreed, and that's what's bugging me: I missed a bit in the article the following: how do they get massive groups of people buying into the products they are selling, every time? If you look at the whole pipeline, from writing the 'hit' to recording / mixing / mastering to getting it on iTunes (record store?) and the shows live in the halls / stadiums, where and more importantly: how, are they getting the people that far that they part with their money to 'own' a copy of these, often dreadful (music wise), songs?
It is, IMHO, that part of the whole pipeline that they have mastered, not the song writing/recording: the product isn't the music, the product is something else, the front person ('artist') + the whole entourage around it, but it's fascinating how they manage to construct _that_ entourage that is sought after by people with money to burn. they must know an answer (which is sold in the form of the artist+entourage+shows+music) to an unknown question / benefit sought a lot of people have.
With a combination of marketing, and, how about it, people actually liking them.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/an-oral-history-of-dubstep-vi...
It was only new recently in the sense that it became a mainstream pop genre.
The article kind of misses the point - pop is a packaging and marketing industry, not a music invention industry.
The invention happens in subcultures, mostly in the UK and US. Then it's discovered, reinvented, and popularised by the industry.
At least, that's how it used to work. With mass exposure to the same online influences everyone is listening to the same stuff and moving in the same directions. There's a lot less original experimentation happening, and that's a much bigger problem for pop than the fact that the industry is making product, because it means there's not much coming down to feed the production line.
I really enjoy finding undiscovered new music on SoundCloud. Amateur production values are incredibly high now - infinitely better than a cassette demo of 20 years ago.
But if anything a lot of the writing sounds professional and safe. It's slick, polished, beautiful/grungy/glitchy/ironic/whatever and good listening. But it's not often amazingly surprising, or fresh enough to kickstart a subculture into orbit.
Really? Or is it just invention of genres that go and influence pop music? Which is better explained by the fact that most pop music is indeed produced by the UK and US.
While I can think of many musical (sub)genres that were invented in the UK or US, I know them because they got quite popular (in or around the hit charts).
But there's also others, the ones I know are from my personal tastes over the years. Isn't electro from Germany and the Netherlands (The Hague)? Or Suomisaundi, a bouncy subgenre of psy-trance from Finland. Israel being a big influence on certain styles of goa-trance. "Lounge music" (there may be a better term) got big from Yonderboi (Hungary), and then Balkan beats appeared. And "filterhouse" came from France (Cassius, Daft Punk). And I'm not too familiar with the genre but I'm sure that Scandinavia has quite a few subgenres of metal on their name?
(disclaimer: I probably got the "proper" names of the subgenres wrong to some people)
My enjoyment of the latest movie isn't lessened by the fact that the actors didn't write the script. I don't dislike my iPhone just because it's a mass-produced item which is just a small tweak from its previous iterations.
Just because music is a product doesn't mean it's not enjoyable (or worthy of enjoyment).
Steve Jobs was definitely portrayed as an iPhone figurehead. His personal image was highly tied to the Apple products. Likewise, movies put leading actors/directors forward as figureheads for the production.
However, I do agree that there is more widespread misunderstanding of how music is made. What I don't agree with is that this misunderstanding is essential to the popularity or enjoyment of music.
I'm fully aware that music is produced and I still enjoy listening to it.
Or take the example of K-pop/J-pop, which is more overtly produced than American music. In some cases, fans literally vote on who gets to be included in the band. Despite the "production" process being in full view, fans still love the music and artists.
Even if they do find that out, the music is still enjoyable. I'm literally listening to mass-produced music as I write this comment, fully aware that it's produced but still enjoying it.
It'd have been a shame if Sinatra had tried to write his own songs, or if the Beach Boys had tried to record their own instrumental parts.
The impression that I form, on rare occasions when I'm exposed to what those musicians say about their work, is that it's just as formulaic as the work itself.
This is true, but it's a straw man, at least for me. I don't care that I'm consuming a product. I do care if I'm manipulated, or if other people are being manipulated in a way that affects me. In this case, I don't like any of the music these people create, but I'm forced to listen to it quite frequently because the formula they've created manipulates so many of my peers into liking it.
For reference, here is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdTELokKfCk
And, simply because it's awesome, even though it's totally unrelated to the conversation, here's... a thing... with the KLF, Daleks, George Bush, and Green Day in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAzzhJeTp-I
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7127488 [600 days ago] One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years
Both are written by Lukasz Gottwald, one of the songwriters mentioned in the article.
Both songs by Dr. Luke and Max Martin
I'm not suggesting Katy Perry or Rihanna are better, musically, than the next skinny hot teenager that comes along. But, evidence indicates they are better at being the face of the musical machine than the dozens of others that have come along with the same producers, same studios, same music execs, etc. backing them.
So, it's simplistic to suggest anybody hot could be a star like Katy Perry, because I don't think it's actually true. Anybody could sing on key, because there's a plugin for that. But, that's not all there is. I feel like this video (which I've watched before, and had the same sort of reaction to it) wants to present a story of the masses being bamboozled by these "made" artists. I think plenty of people want a manufactured product. Just like people don't buy laptops made in a garage, and instead choose a laptop designed and manufactured by thousands of people.
I don't like it (I'm a musician myself, and a huge music snob with a huge music collection), but I can't help but acknowledge that it is so. I want to listen to art, but many people just want an escapist product; the same could be said of film, television, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku
It mentions she has over 100,000 released songs, which I presume are mostly fan created.
I guess I was thinking more like a virtual pop star in the sense of the pop stars mentioned in the article: meticulously controlled, always-on-brand industrial product. Sort of like the way a virtual Tupac appeared at Coachella, but made from scratch so that the money all flows to the puppeteers.
Well, that's kind of what a group like Gorrilaz is, I think, although maybe not quite as industrial/mass-produced a product as you're suggesting.
Amazing. Japan, what will they think of next?
In short, Yamaha sells a music synthesizer IDE called Vocaloid, and one of its features is that you can add lyrics via voice synthesizer packages, and then control the tune, vibrato and whatnot. Several 3rd parties sell voice packages for Vocaloid, and usually they were just given names to distinguish them, but a company called Crypton made a voice package called Hatsune Miku, and marketed it along with visual assets and a minimal backstory.
Importantly, they released the character (not the software) under remix-friendly licenses that encourage (noncommercial) reuse, so fans sort of took Miku and made her their own in a very Gibsonesque "Idoru" sort of way. As such, the difference between Miku and bands like Gorillaz or similar is that here there's no particular artist behind the scenes. The company who owns Miku's copyright just makes software; the music comes from fans.
If they're making something outside of work and sharing the result on niconico for free, I don't know why I wouldn't.
If you look, at least at American music culture since the beginning of the industrial age, you'll see cycles of people seeking authenticity (the beats, hippies, hip-hop, grunge, etc). Generally, that authenticity gives birth to some consumable form, such as the stuff that passes for hip-hop nowadays, as well as the "corporate grundge" of the 90s. I'm not as familiar with other eras, but I understand authenticity to be a huge point of critique w/r/t 60s pop culture.
My favorite (ironically-meant) part of this article was when they pointed out the music was engineered for shopping malls, as opposed to home stereos and that it is "more captivating than virtuoso musicians." The fact that a cybernetic artifact (pop-by-committee) can supplant the intimacy of a live performance by a master is astonishing and disturbing. I hope it's not true... but if you think about it, even the concept of a virtuoso is an economic artifact of a ruler/leader with excess capital to support the specialization of a lifelong performer. I believe the same or more authenticity can be had from amateurs or mid-level players, although that's probably my own bias.
I think this is the beginning of understanding what is so loathsome about hipsters. Hipsters are some awful Hegelian synthesis of the impulse towards authenticity and the culture of irony. Hipsters mostly express the urge for authenticity as a type of consumerism, but then immediately undermine authenticity through their commitment to irony.
It's definitely an art - and the writers of such things probably deserve a lot more money than the auto-tuned singers that get really rich from it do.
As people who write music/songs/etc refine their craft, they can choose to make something that sounds the best to them, or they can figure out the equations for other people, and sometimes that music that works for all those masses of people also works for them, and if so, that's still pretty darn authentic and just trying to be good.
Ergo, I don't think trying to make a song better is a loss in authenticity, but maybe intentionally going in and reusing the same formula, rather than experimenting, is a bit of the same thing we'd say about a band that always sounds the same.
If you just chase success, rather than soul or experimentation, you risk something - or at least you risk the opportunity for creating something new that could be even better.
Likely though, you're still making a lot of people happy.
I think all of these folks are still experimenting, trying to refine that equation, but it's just music that personally doesn't target me, and that's ok. For some reason it works for giant chunks of people, but music I like probably often doesn't work for them.
It's difficult to imagine, I know, but the reason million-selling hit singles are called that is because on the close order of a million people purchased them.
Other music is made for the sheer joy of making music, and is never released. You very likely won't hear it, though, because it was never released. Perhaps someone should disrupt that, and find a way to release that music, maybe in a fashion which generates profits for the musicians and the people who establish the businesses needed to release and distribute music. Sounds simple enough.
It's one thing to say that these songs are algorithmic and not deeply creative which is objective fact, it's another thing to say the songs are crappy, not good to listen to and indicative of poor taste. It's these latter statements - that I came across in this thread - that La Distinction touches on in a very interesting way, I can recommend everyone to read it.
Its much easier just putting together a dream team of writers and musicians that have made hits in the past.
That being said there is still an amazing amount of great music out there that doesn't hit the charts. Live music seems to be the best place to discover and contribute to those artists. Too bad its mostly focused in a few major cities.
Or follow independent labels you like, let it be their F/T job to find artists. I follow Warp, Asian Man Records, Mint Recs, few others.
There are so many musicians out there that aren't quite good enough.
As you can see, that's the Y Combinator business model. The music industry got there first. I would not at all be surprised if Y Combinator were consciously following in the music industry's footsteps.
also more bad ones.
Well, my take on B.F. Skinner was we all copy in one way or another? There are few original ideas, or thought in B.F. skinner's world? When I read an new author, listen to a new artist, look at a new website; I always see a lot of copying. Be it subconscious, or conscious the results are the same; the work looks similar?
I don't know why we act so suprised when someone points out similarities in an artist's/inventor's/scientist's work?
When I do find anything remotely original, I'm honestly impressed, until I find they stole someone's idea. I don't think seen, or heard anything truly original. I didn't know it was even debatable? I sometimes think we need to go to sheltered communities in order to get anything related to originality? Maybe the indigenous people of the rain forests? Let's not though? The last thing they need is our diseases, and white men stealing their original ideas?
Edit: Evidence the Monkees were a seminal garage punk band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3VQIHyq9lA
EDIT: To provide an example, here's a very good 2001 article by British journalist Jon Ronson about the culture of child sex abuse that surrounded the UK's hitmakers of the '70s: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/dec/01/weekend....
Here's a short snippet from Wikipedia that illustrates it[1]:
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with
an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to
appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, that may
be produced in an assembly-line process,
driven by producers and often using unknown
singers. Bubblegum's classic period ran from
1967 to 1972. A second wave of bubblegum
started two years later and ran until 1977
In the documentary they explain how these session musicians where so good, the Monkees' trained for a year before they could play the hits close enough for live concerts.
I mentioned some of my current favorite artists in another post, but try Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) or Tim Hecker, these guys are doing crazy things today. Honestly, I was a Zep fan, still am a Zep fan and think that there is no comparison to Zep. But OPN and Hecker will blow you away much like Zep can blow you away, if you give them a chance. Just my opinion of course ;)
To co-opt what someone else said, in order to find what you're looking for from the 90s, you kinda have to go look at bands from the 90s and pray they're still together.
Edit: Obviously nowhere near the stature and influence of Led Zeppelin, but the sound might satisfy you in some ways.
You could actually understand what Robert Plant was singing. The biggest problem with many of today's bands is that the words are usually unintelligible (often because music is being played loudly over them).
In contrast, I think part of the appeal of rap is that you can actually understand the words. You might not like them, but you can understand them. E.g. In Da Club by 50 Cent. Great beat, easily understood words.
Indy recordings are not all good, sometimes they play some kinda crappy, pitchy local artists but at least it's not the record industry decreed crap everybody else plays. And there are some treasures out there.
I know they plagiarized some old blues stuff, but all musicians do to some extent, and those old blues tunes were forgotten then and would still be forgotten if Zep hadn't brilliantly rearranged them.
I don't know, I don't know you at all, but explore, get out of your comfort zone and give music a chance.
So a little about myself, maybe 20 years ago I couldn't imagine loving music that didn't have lyrics. At that time I thought that having words was important, sort of like poetry. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy lyrics, but lately I've discovered more experimental music, ambient music. Artists like Oneohtrix Point Never and Tim Hecker. Of course Boards of Canada which are probably better known than either Hecker or OPN (though OPN recently toured with NiN and Sound Garden, go figure!).
Point is, if you enjoy what you enjoyed in the past, go for it. If you're lamenting that music today "ain't what it used to be", you may need to expand your horizons a bit, there is good shit out there! Give it a try!
His latest record is due out in November and from what I've heard so far it's even crazier than anything past, but still has the OPN sound even though the medium appears to be completely different.
EDIT: I actually find it hard to program to Hecker. There are certain parts of Ravedeath, Virgins, and Radio Amor, (among others!) where I am completely distracted by soundscapes!
For something more recent, this week I have been mostly coding to The Cyclist and Legowelt.
But I've also been listening to a lot of 80s Italo-disco, including the more commercial hits which were also manufactured in some of the ways mentioned in this article, so I'm having trouble saying manufactured is necessarily bad; it's just the sound of modern pop music I find mostly horrible and brash.
20 years ago macarena and coco jambo were bigger than "smells like teen spirit" or "rape me"/"self esteem"/"come out and play"
I agree there is a ton of great music out there (I too am an "oldie", having reached 48 this year). You just need to know where to look.
I recommend listening to Stuart Maconie's Freak zone programmes on BBC Radio 6. He does a two hour "Freak Zone" [0] on a Sunday evening and an extra one hour "Freakier Zone" early Monday mornings [1], they're packed with all sorts of goodies.
Thanks for the tipoff about OPN (been on my list for a while) and Hecker (brand new to me).
If you prefer the more melodic sounds of BoC then you should check out the Ghostbox label [2]. Lots of good stuff there and with a nod towards hauntology [3] from a British perspective (see also works by Robin The Fog and Howlround [4] if that's an aural itch you need to scratch). I also particularly recommend King of Woolworths[5], an incarnation of Jon Brooks who also records as The Advisory Circle [6]. Ming Star is very bloody good.
[0]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06chqml
[1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06chp7h
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Box_Music
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology
Pizza can only be invented once. The Beatles can only happen once.
Even when they're pumping out commercialized, mass-produced dreck, sometimes a little quality leaks in at random. Take a big enough sample, filter out the crap (and try to forget it existed), and you've got yourself the good ole days.
The manufactured pop has never been good, the difference is now I'm no longer a prisoner to MTV/Radio like I was in 1990, I can actually source and stream music worldwide and bypass major label pushed junk. A lot of music I used to mail order in the early 90s was all confiscated by border guards for either "obscene" album art or banned lyrics. Just happy the musical dark ages are over.
Maybe it's even more common today -- but it's not anything new.
Boy band (and girl band) often seem to conflate the word 'band' with an entity that produces / creates / makes their own music ... with a group of people that can sing or mime to a song someone else made, without needing to play any instruments.
In 2002 there was a story about Carly Hennessy[1] (who later made at least one somewhat contentious 'comeback' on a pop TV show in the US) who'd basically been financially destroyed by a wager the music industry had placed on her at our (and her) expense.
We don't seem to be making much progress on this front.
I've never been a fan of a "pop singer" particularly but isn't that type of fandom more the preserve of teenagers [girls particularly?]?
OT Aside:
>"the intensity of religious faith depends on the notion that prayers are heard by a deity" //
You're clearly off the mark here as some religions don't have a deity but nonetheless have fervent and intense followers.
From the O.E.D.: Charade (2). In extended use: something (esp. a dramatic entertainment) regarded as resembling a charade in some way, esp. in lacking sophistication. Later more usually: an (obvious) deception; an absurd, shallow pretence; a travesty.
I think one would be better off improving one's grasp of English through sources such as The Atlantic than by pretending to have a superior grasp of it.
Perfect word choice for the article, in my opinion.
Which is, as we've established not what happened.
Also if they were actively deceiving, it would most definitely be a conspiracy.
Two months it's a great time to wait and decide if it was book promotion or worth read.
There really aren't vocalists either. In pop music today, the vocals are processed through an Auto-Tune[1] device resulting in perfectly on-pitch vocals.
Also, multiple hooks per song is a better song. We like pop music for the hooks. If we don’t like the hooks, we don’t like pop music.
Correction: pop music has always had factory-produced hits. It also had other hits.
Great music is produced by every generation. All you have to do iisten for it.
It seems natural that picking the best performer and the best song writer would give a better result than having the same person do it all.
It's a bit like complaining that in a videogame, the programming, game design and graphics are often done by different people.
The quotes about needing a hook every seven seconds, and the magic that makes someone an artist and not a performer, were stolen.
Edit: guys stop upvoting me, I jumped on the plagiarism wagon way too quickly.
0: http://www.amazon.com/The-Song-Machine-Inside-Factory/dp/039...
Edit: I'm not saying the article is not interesting, but it is hardly related to tech.
An interesting dynamic here on HN. You are being downvoted. In contrast, in yesterday's slashdot, the quickest way to get modded +5 insightful was to start off by saying "I know I'll get downvoted for this ...".
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.