Oh, a topic after my heart.Rick Beato did a video about this topic a while back and if memory serves he mentioned the 3 notes that this guy does as being present in an unbelievably high percentage of current popular music and by contrast the Beatles had exactly one song using these three notes and that is one reason why their songs remain so fresh and catch people’s attention after 50 years.Another major issue that this guy alludes to is the advent of ProTools recording equipment about 20 years ago. Now everything is run through ProTools and ‘fixed’. What this does is take out that little human touch where maybe the drummer is a little out of time or the bassist missed a note or whatever that makes the song sound ‘real’ even if we don’t realize it when we listen.And lyrically is probably the most obvious. In the past the most popular acts also were great lyricists and could write songs that were deep or moving. Take a couple of examples; the guy in the video mention ‘Sgt Pepper’ and listen to a song on that album ‘She’s Leaving Home’ written by McCartney and told from the vantage point of the young woman and from her parents in an extremely moving and mature way and then throw in the melody and Lennon’s response of ‘bye, bye’ it’s a brilliant song and McCartney was 25 when he wrote it. Another is ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ by the Rolling Stones which it’s impossible to imagine any top flight act today having the knowledge base to write.Music I think is the one popular art form that has definitely declined over time in my opinion.
I believe I actually posted that same video some time ago, so I am really directing you to the Neo comments.
The thing is that I occasionally run into interesting pop music (a few years ago an Australian song-writer and banjo player, and Kanye West, for a couple of examples) but they are usually artists out of step with the mainstream (I think Kanye is the exception that proves the rule). I honestly have not fixed a priori biases. If something is interesting, I don't care about the genre. But this is not how most people listen. They tend to respond to something that is at least vaguely familiar. And soothing, which the familiar provides.
2 comments:
"Listen to a song on that album ‘She’s Leaving Home’ written by McCartney and told from the vantage point of the young woman and from her parents in an extremely moving and mature way and then throw in the melody and Lennon’s response of ‘bye, bye’ it’s a brilliant song and McCartney was 25 when he wrote it."
I don’t care for this song, and there was criticism of it even within the band: this is the side of Paul’s songwriting that Lennon called "Paul’s grandma shit".
Yes, John was certainly Paul's most severe critic. John, of course, had his own political shit such as the song "Imagine." What "She's Leaving Home" did have was a unique setting by George Martin for strings and harp. There were a lot of brilliant music settings that the Beatles came up with, often with help from Martin, that made a Beatles album a real cornucopia of musical variety. Another great example is "Goodnight" from the White Album in the style of an old Hollywood musical. When it came to style the Beatles were the post-modernists of pop.
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