In what universe is "We built this City" the worst song ever? I love that song. Awesome bit of 80s power pop.
I'd rather hear We built this City 10 times in a row than any 10 songs of Taylor Swift's. How about that?
I'd rather hear We built this City 10 times in a row than any 10 songs of Taylor Swift's. How about that?
There are anti-fads, too.
There was also the bit about gauges and hipsters (which just became the most mainstream). Then there was the fedora hate which I think was the funniest because I knew about it (because I’m chronically online) and then one day I’m traveling through Japan with my friends and the girls are all like “you should try out these hats at this store” and it’s piece for piece exactly what Reddit would hate. But the girls loved it on the lads and I’m married to one now.
It’s like how here people are always like “oh I’d never give X a buck they’re stealing all your data” and then out in the real world people love Google, like adore it. What’s the deal with that?
And I always thought that was kind of a hilarious thing to go through. Most people I know who are music snobs are generally anti-pop music and it seems like they miss out on the fun stuff that everyone gets into.
I couldn't get into Nickelback personally because they came in on a wave of similar music that I was generally over by the time they got big.
I feel like that's often part of it. Something that represents peak (whatever) in terms of a sound. The sort of highly-polished result that almost sounds like it was AI-generated by a model trained on exactly what was popular over the past few years.
Of course, you don't need AI to do it - just slightly more human and manual analysis of trends, sales, marketing, and production techniques.
The thing is though, they’re amazing musicians. Kip Winger is premiering another one of his classical works with the Nashville Symphony in the next few weeks. Reb Beach is one of the most skilled and melodic guitar players to come out of the 80s. They wrote and continue to write some great songs too if you like that kind of music.
Music snobbery is just silly, and robs you of the joy of discovering some great new music while simultaneously robbing others of it too. Everybody loses.
Campfire Song with 10,000 Maniacs. And Kid Fears with the Indigo Girls still gives me chills.
I like to joke/start arguments by saying that R.E.M's greatest album was "Sentimental Hygiene".
I'll see myself out.
In this universe where 90% of music-related journalism boils down to competitive hipster snark.
I love the song, but I was ten when it came out, so of course I do.
It's basically a bouncing, bopping reminder that we aren't as smart as we think we are.
I don't think I'd even recognize a single Taylor Swift song. I plan to keep it that way, currently she's just a name and a face to me, knowing her music would probably only cause me to dislike her unfairly.
Along those lines, I'd never pay to see Britney Spears perform, but "Toxic" goes hard.
Their music shouldn't make you dislike them. It's not objectively awful, not by a long shot. If anything, just acknowledge we're not the target audience and move on.
I too try to avoid falling into the all-too-typical trope of reflexively hating on what's broadly popular just because it's popular. While I'm also not a big fan of Swift's music, I agree it's consistently very well executed. I also think she deserves genuine respect for remaining both artistically and financially successful for well over a decade without imploding like so many pop stars seem to. I suspect this requires both intelligence and strength of character.
My kids (and their friends too) don't listen to current music either, so I don't get much exposure to it.
I think her earlier music really demonstrates her talent. Well. Again, it's not my favorite, but it is genuinely really well written, creative, and well performed. Her newer stuff after she switched to more of a pop sound, I have a very hard time finding the talent. If I didn't know some of her work already from the earlier days, I would absolutely not recognize the talent even if it sits there in a latent form.
In the universe where William Shatner covers it, as he did with "Rocket Man."[0]
So yes, there are many worse songs and even worse renditions of better songs.