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.
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.
Run DMC never got paid for my adidas.
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.
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.
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.
It reminds me of the opening scene in Office Space where a white man listens to rap during traffic on his way to a typical 9-to-5.
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.
It's genuinely depressing...
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.
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.
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?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_number-one...
I’d say the quality of “most listened to” music peaked in the 80’s, with each decade that followed being the worst ever.
Most of my favorite artists are from the 90’s-2010’s, with a few exceptions scattered in the 40’s, 70’s and 80’s.
It could be that music got more diverse in the 90’s, and the billboard chart stopped being broadly relevant.
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!
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.
16 out of the top 20 songs were from Ed when he released his 2017 album ÷.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/27/official-chart...
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.
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.
Kids that are into hip-hop still listen to 90s hip-hop, now called golden era.
On the other side 90s electronic music has great stuff, but the field has much advanced in quality and depth.
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.
And for what's its worth, background listening music doesn't have to be particularly great.
Or in other words, I'm not going to bother curating a collection of Wagner pieces for listening while cooking dinner.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Extremely serious and wholesome hit from 1960
*Technically the data is copyrighted, so sadly I can't share.
"Every charting hit" is also a comprehensive list involving no creativity. Order them chronologically and call it a day.
I haven't heard of it for phone books, but it could be true.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wonder why that is. Maybe 2020 Indonesian music is similar to the music I heard as a teen?
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.
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.
+1. Pop music is just a genre. There is plenty of other new stuff out there. Just gotta put in the effort to find it and enjoy it.