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Anthony Fantano takes on PJW's "The Truth on Popular Culture"
Mega-Bear:
--- Quote from: Tactical Nuke on February 08, 2017, 07:38:25 PM ---in music, the lyrical and chordal diversity of songs has gone down significantly and the fullness of tracks has plummeted with the arrival of electronic noises; dominant strategy dictates that the easiest technique guaranteed to work will be used every single time, and that is clearly evident with the rise of autotune and the fact that at least half of the popular artists who use it do so not to be evocative or innovative but to instead hide the fact that they can't harmonize or even sing in key (*cough*kAnYe*cough*); yes there have been plenty of songs in the past that talk about butts and shaking them, but while they did so to be controversial/make a good song to dance to, artists like Fergie, Nicki Minaj, and Miley Cyrus do it purely out of unchecked vanity
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Why did you say "in music" then discuss only pop? It's no secret mainstream pop is growing formulaic and unambitious. But there are many very exciting artists releasing interesting music these days, so I'm very confused why you would talk as if all music is declining. Also for the record the advent of synthetic timbres was a godsend.
--- Quote from: hodot on February 08, 2017, 08:16:37 PM ---ok i'm not making a point to prove either side here, but i'm vibing to this right now and i wanted to share.
anybody else listen to Childish Gambino's (an extremely popular artist, mind you) new album "Awaken, My Love!"? This dude makes rap albums his entire career, is on a DOPE ass show called Community, writes some of the best rhymes i've heard in my entire life, and then releases a totally unexpected, awesome album of music that fuses the sounds of today's electronic music with the classic rock sounds (60s and 70s) of yesteryear. I think this is one of a few examples one can find of artists dissenting from the status quo (who were previously part of it) and remaining on the top of the pile.
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Good album but there's not an ounce of classic rock throwback on AML. It draws more from funk & soul, specifically George Clinton and Sly Stone.
hodot:
--- Quote from: Mega-Bear on February 08, 2017, 08:37:42 PM ---Good album but there's not an ounce of classic rock throwback on AML. It draws more from funk & soul, specifically George Clinton and Sly Stone.
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(and here we see the result of my lack of knowledge on music history) when I wrote that post I was most enthralled with the guitar stylings of Me and Your Mama after the intro, and to me it sounded like something off of a forgetin Creedence Clearwater vinyl or somethin lol. pardon me.
it's just rare for me to like an entire album (excepting the song California which is kinda trash) that isn't hip-hop.
Nonnel:
periods of formulaic, bland music are always followed by musical revivals (early 60s, 90s, etc.)
Mega-Bear:
--- Quote from: Nonnel on February 08, 2017, 08:57:48 PM ---periods of formulaic, bland music are always followed by musical revivals (early 60s, 90s, etc.)
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Neither the 50s or 80s are characterized by formulaic music though, imo. The 50s has countless great blues and hard bop records. The 80s was an incredibly important time for electronic music. If you're referring exclusively to pop music, then a case could be made--but even then there were great pop records in the 50s and 80s. I think this discourse is really problematic because "music" is not a homogenous creature. There are many different styles coming from many different regions. I think most people itt are talking about western pop but have done little to clarify in that regard. Which has just left me a confused dummy!!
Nonnel:
oh no no i'm not referring to the entire 50s or 80s. the late 50s, for example, after "the day the music died" and a ton of other things that led to the cooling of rock & roll, there were mostly sappy love songs. motown came in after that, and it was nothing but motown. happy beach boys songs came in and they were really shallow. the british invasion solved these problems. i wrote a paper about this.