Why I Quit Touring with The Black Eyed Peas | Hacker News Reader

Why I Quit Touring with The Black Eyed Peas

takimag.com

12 pointssilkodyssey7 comments

Does anyone want to tell this guy to get the fuck over it? It's mindless pop music - what did he expect? Music is an escape. I enjoy brooding, melodramatic, indie music too, but listen to pop music occasionally.

He reminds me of that tool who stops listening to their favorite artist just because they got famous and "sold out"

I think the author was suggesting between the lines that we are what we consume - and if that is mindless pop music - well, I think everyone can do the math.

Its certainly generational change. I'm only 24 and I think its ridiculous when I see kids walking in groups (supposedly together) with their freaking ear buds in. I see them on Facebook on their iPhone during dinner out all the time. The fact that they can sit there posting on their BFF's wall while someone else grows, ships, prepares, plates, and brings them their food completely escapes them.

They are a generation without consequence. I see this constantly and it scares me that one day I will be their boss.

You forgot to mention sex or drugs! What kind of generational freakout essay is that?

Twentysomethings these days... they've got no proper appreciation of the classical literary styles. ;)

At least the OP's got the correct form, and he mixes in the confessional I-was-once-an-insider I-saw-the-light-on-the-road-to-Damascus trope, which is always a crowd pleaser.

He never connects the dots, though. It could just be that the stupid (according to the author) like the music, not that the music is causing them to be stupid.

This sort of thing doesn't belong on HN. It's just one long rant on a musical group. Edit: Because of the lack of content but more importantly the tone. This is just a guy practicing with his poison pen.

I actually think that the Black Eyed Peas make great music! In terms of lyrical content no but there is a lot more to music than just the lyrics and this is even more true in the case of the Black Eyed Peas. I get the impression that for the group the sound and production take center stage and the lyrics are just an after thought but I think it's a worthy trade off because the musical arrangements themselves tend to be very creative and the novelty of the sound intrigues as the brain tries to make sense of something quite unlike anything it's heard before.

the lyrics are just an after thought

Your observation reminded me of this quote, from a pretty good book about a pop-music group:

Steered by their instant harmonizing, the duo's way of composing produced unusual moves that released a flood of catchy melody to which they sang dummy words or pure nonsense. Only later, generally speaking, did they fill in their lyrics - and then mainly phrasally, only bothering about overall concepts in formula terms (e.g. using the second or third person, aiming towards a sort of punch-line, and so on). Rather than tell a story in traditional Tin Pan Alley style, [they] wrote their lyrics to create a mood or a tone, so as not to get in the way of the effect created by the music and the sound. This bred a casual attitude to normal sense which later turned explicitly free-associational. There was always just enough sense in a lyric for the listener to get the general idea. The rest came from the sum of the parts of the record as a whole. [They] rarely thought long about their lyrics.

This is, of course, about John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the 1960s. (Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties)

This is how pop music has worked for nigh-on fifty years.

"To make matters worse, I was born with a hyperactive cerebral sequencer that will sample and loop any catchy tune within a 100-degree radius."

I wonder if there is a name for this psychological phenomenon...

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