The Smiley Smile Message Board

So, we're a little more than 1/4 way through 2016. 

I'm not a fan by any means of modern Top 40, but I think we've hit a new low. 

Earlier this year, Miley Cyrus released a song called "Baby Talk" where she mostly talks through the "song" using mostly obscenities to some poor guy who has the misfortune to be dating her.  The chorus is mostly incomprehensible moaning. 

Here is it if anybody is curious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfwJA0f0UTg

The other is a new one by Rihanna called "Work."  It sounds like she walked into the studio either high, after she just woke up, or right after a dental appointment.  She mumbles her way through the song, which lacks any real melody or reason to exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1UzIK-flA

I know Top 40 gets a tad worse every year, but have we reached the point where pop stars aren't even trying anymore?  I couldn't stand their music, as least Fergie, Katy Perry, and Maroon 5 seemed to try. 

Have the pop stars stopped putting in the effort?  Or do music buyers just care so little about quality that they'll buy anything?

What is it that you object to? The lyrics? The vocals? The music/instrumentation?
And what about those things do you object to?
You mention mumbling - but they certainly mumble less than, say Michael Stipe has done. And you mention melody, but I don't perceive it as less melodic than plenty of music from before this year.
I'm not crazy about either song, but I'm trying to figure out what makes these songs so particularly distasteful to you.

Emily,

Are you in the law field by any chance? 

What I'm objecting to is the fact that these two examples barely qualify as songs. 

There's a general lazy, nature of these tracks.  I think my concern is that the overall quality of music has been in decline for awhile now. 

There will come a day, and it's sooner rather than later, where Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, The Stones, The Who, etc etc etc won't be around anymore.  Is this what we have to look forward to? 

There's good stuff around; of course, most of it is indie.

I'm not a fan of indie music, but at least it's real music. 

Sure, there's some decent bands out there.  I'm a fan of hard rock, and there's some decent stuff, but much of it is very derivative. 

I recently was saying in the 2016 new music thread that I feel like it's been a good year.

Of what you mentioned, I really like maybe 1/2 of the Rihanna album. But then plenty of others, including various styles. My post in that thread listed a bunch. I won't list them again but it was pretty recent, should be easy to find. I know you're a harder rock guy though, and not much of what I've been liking is rock.

It's tough being a rock guy in 2016.  The classic rock sites have been like obituaries over the last four months. 

Rock and roll has been pretty stagnant since the early 1990s.  There's some decent groups out there, but most good new releases are from artists who've been at it for at least 30 years. 

Ah, yes, the spirit of rock & roll: old guys making safe music.

I wasn't trying to argue. I think it's clear you and I perceive a lot of things differently and I was trying to get a clearer idea of what exactly it is about these songs that you object to, more than other similar songs. Or what it is about pop, these days, that you don't like. I'm not criticizing you for not liking it; just trying to understand where you're coming from a bit more.

Edited to add: as it happens, I consider Miley Cyrus to be quite problematic and I haven't enjoyed any of her music, that I've heard. Rihanna I find very mildly problematic and I like some of her music.

And putting just about every young rocker to shame.  

I didn't say you were arguing.  I just think if you're not in a field of law, you may have missed your calling in life.

Maybe I'm just an old soul, but I just don't see how anybody can see the talent pool in music getting more and more shallow and not be concerned. 

:-\ so I've been told. The method appeals to me, but the judicial system doesn't, nor does corporate law so, no.

Happens to all of us  ;D  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY

That happened to me around 13. 

I guess I just wasn't made for these times. 

Hmm.....might have something there. 

That's only going to continue, obviously. I think the reality of the previous few decades being the only ones that churned out pop star after pop star is that more and more people are going to care as they, decades later, die. The fact that rock specifically is also an art form that seems to be headed toward practical extinction (meaning big-picture, mainstream irrelevance, a la jazz) probably makes it worse, since there aren't obvious next-in-lines.

I think I'm gonna put this on my gravestone.

Sweet. On mine, I am going to put "why are you looking at a rock standing on dirt?" Or maybe "he was punctual and of better-than-average height." Or maybe "I once said something that yonderhillside put on a gravestone and I'd republish it here but it was kind of long so either I'd need a bigger stone or smaller font size, the latter of which would be problematic for the older folks."

What makes things popular is completely different now, too. Instead of appealing just to radio stations, artists can use crazy complex music videos (I know older bands did, but they didn't have Youtube), social media, and music streaming. I'm not really sure what my point is, I guess something along the lines of "hey guys pop artists are catering to a different audience."
I mean, I guess a lot of my peers (read: me and my friends are millennials) and if I think about it, most of them are only familiar with a few songs by an assortment of artists. Only a few still listen to whole albums and are able to say more than just "omg i heard this catchy 21 pilots song the other day." If that offers any perspective.
edit: don't mean to come across as dissing my friends. i'm just a little passionate about music is all :P.

but is that a surprise

My thumb is really off the pulse of modern artists. I don't know half the new artists that have any talent, because A. how the hell do you find them anyway? (and I'm pretty skilled at finding obscure, even homemade artists from any other decade) and B. 95% is absolute garbage. Call me close-minded, but I beg to differ. The only albums I'm looking forward to this year so far are Paul Simon's new one, because he cannot record bad music, and Radiohead's alleged release (hopefully). I haven't really heard of much else I'm concerned with, aside from box-sets of previously recorded music.

Id say if you're more interested in A than convinced of B, try keeping an eye on the new music thread in this forum. If not, then don't worry about it.

That's almost exactly how my friends are, but even worse.  Nobody I know listens to full albums, it's strictly top 40 singles.  Then it's on to the next hot artist. 

I don't like this attitude. That approach to music listening is no less valid than any other form of music listening, and no approach is inherently better than any other. If people are listening to and enjoying music, then what's the big deal?

Musical elitism is for the weak.

I mean, I find it "disappointing" although people could say the same thing about me with movies or books. I love watching things and readings things but I only have a few favorites off the top of my head. It's just fun when I do stumble upon people who, too, know unnecessary stuff about musicians. Nice to know other people are as weird as I am :)
----
It is an interesting idea that rock is dying out. But I guess every decade seems to bring new forms of popular music. I think the 2010s have been quite electronic-y and more so than I would like, but hey, if that's what people like, I can't argue with that. We'll see what the new era of music is.

I couldn't agree more.  The album has an artform is all but dead, thanks mainly to the rise of MP3 driven music purchases. 

And there's a word there that you used.  I hear it all the time when people describe new pop songs.  "Catchy."  In the summer of 2014, when Taylor Swift released "Shake It Off," my sister was really into it.  When I asked her, "Do you really like this song?"  She said, "It's catchy."  At no time in the conversation did she say it was good.  The Old Spice theme is catchy, but I wouldn't buy a CD with it. 

I've 100% convinced that most of today's pop sells simply because people can't get the songs out of their head. 

I never really thought about that Capt, but I think you're right that rock is going the way of jazz. 

I read a UK mag called Classic Rock, and they had an interesting piece about who the next rock headliners on the festival circuit will be once the old guard retires or, sadly in recent cases, dies. 

Sure, there's some good bands out there, but it seems unlikely that any of them could headline a big festival. 

Thanks, maybe, to the videos. I have a distinct aversion to videos.

I have never heard (and enjoyed) as much new music as I have done since joining this forum. My other forum has its surprises too, but this one has many more posters and a mind-bogglingly wide spectrum of tastes. Thank you, folks.

As for 2016, I'm sure there will be much to love musically about this year. If not now, then in a few years' time, when we only have the best of 2016 to contend with....     

I'm actually less likely to watch the music videos for popular videos. I don't think I saw the Hotline Bling video until late 2015/early 2016. But then when I ask people if they've seen Foster the People's music videos (which I think are quite weird and artsy and fun), nobody seems to know about them.

IndieShuffle (http://www.indieshuffle.com/)
SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com)
birp.fm (http://birp.fm)
bandcamp (http://bandcamp.com)
Free Samplers (https://www.polyvinylrecords.com/freesampler/) (of Montreal's in there somewhere)
reddit: Music in general (https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/), indie  (https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/)
Pitchfork (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/): I'm attracted to albums with interesting covers, ha. Pretty sure that's how I found out about artists like Blur and Battles and other weird artists.
The "What are you listening to now thread?"

Sorry to overwhelm you, but I actually struggle finding time to listen to EVERYTHING that's out there. I know some newer artists but not nearly as much as I could, even when I try really hard. I can be pretty picky with the modern artists I like, too. But give it some time. It's totally worth it. :)

Another thing I'll do, especially after getting a lot of new music, is put my whole iPod on shuffle. Then I'll walk around campus with headphones on. I've made a few good discoveries that way.

It's unfortunate this decade doesn't have the culturally-ingrained endless-feedback-loop circle jerk that convinces everyone to buy garbage like the 60's does.


 :(

Husker dude.  :-D I like it.

Haha. Battles are cool. They made this great single with Gary Numan, another of my idols:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkgQ88G8Hj8

After you guys were talking about that discover weekly thing I decided to download spotify and seem to have found a decent avenue for 'discovering' new artists. If it stops crashing, at least. Anyone else ever experience that? Or do I just need a new laptop?

I use the free Spotify on my laptop (Mac) and it sucks. It's the slowest to load, to run, etc. Doesn't usually crash, but it is trash. And yet, hey, it's free and has a lot of music. So...

To aid you in your search and save you time on trying out sh*t, I'd stick mostly to recommendations from people in the new music thread over just random site- (or magazine-, or whatever corporate entity-) recommended new releases. Not that they may not turn out well. Personally I just trust people's opinions more, especially as some familiarity of tastes builds.

In my issue of Classic Rock magazine, they include a sampler CD of new music each month.  It's a mix of newer acts and new music from the classic artists.  Granted, you have to sift through a lot, but that's how I first heard Wolfmother, Blood Ceremony, Purson, Ghost, Rival Sons, Dragonforce, and Airbourne. 

In the mid-00s I used to write for a music site and thus got dozens of promo CDs every month to check out. (Yes, in those days, we still used CDs. It was kind of a heavy and bulky endeavor.) Actually the vast majority was somewhere between mediocre and crap, but it was nice to have something entirely unexpected every now and again. That was how I came across what later became favorites like Puerto Muerto, Herman Dune, Voxtrot, and Fiery Furnaces, to name a few. But really, a LOT was just dreck. I still like good old recommendations from friends most of all.

I get recommendations from friends every now and again, especially the ones I used to work with when I was in radio.  Sometimes they hit. 

I was still in radio when The Darkness hit the states in 2003.  So, I got to find out about them and even see them live months before they first single hit the airwaves.  Still one of my favorite bands of the 2000s.

Thats the great thing about online streaming services, it has maybe helped to heal the fragmentation of music in the 21st century. The suggested artists links are great for expanding horizons.

The only negative about fragmentation in my view is if one sticks to one fragment. But in terms of diversification and availability of broader ranges of music, it's never been better. So that, I love.

It seems with each passing year though, it gets tougher for me to find time to seek out new artists. 

I'm still going backwards and finding stuff I like. 

I think that's a natural part of aging. Everyone I've known says that. Older friends, family, and acquaintances have always said as much, "I stopped paying attention to new music in my [teens, twenties, whatever]." Jobs, relationships, family, etc. It just gets harder to find the time, not to mention interest.

After Radiohead's Kid A was released in 2000 or whatever, there was a big, scathing review in ... The New Yorker? Something unusual like that. But the main point of it was really along those lines, actually: "I don't have time to figure this sh*t out." It talked about how a 15-year-old can obsess, can listen and re-listen, but once one grows up, that's just not the way life works. I disagreed vehemently with that being a negative about that album--I loved and love that album--but the underlying assumption was true. Most of us just have more time and energy in our younger days for such things.

So true.  When I was single, and I got a new album, I could take the time to listen to it many times to really get into it. 

Prime example, one of my favorite bands of all time is Iron Maiden.  They've gone is a more progressive direction in the 2000s, so their new albums demand attention and repeating listens to really get a feel for them (a music director once told me you need to listen to an album at least three times to get a true feel for it). 

In 2010, when they put out The Final Frontier, I knew that album front to back two weeks after the release date. 

In Sept 2015, they released Book of Souls, their most ambitious album to date.  Seven months later, I'm still trying to get a feel for some of the tracks. 

Plus, since I don't have as much time to listen to music these days, when I do, I gravitate to the albums I already love.  It's like, I could go on the internet and seek out something, or I can listen to Quadrophenia for the first time in two years. 

Nobody likes to think that as they age they 'get old'. But we do.  :( I try hard to keep an open mind and not react to new music with my old-person prejudices, and I've found some new things I really like, but I certainly don't have the new music compulsion that I had when I was younger.

Quite frankly, I don't think anyone should be worried about what's perceived as "old-person prejudices."  You like what you like. 

I've had "old-person prejudice" against much new music since I was in my teens.  I've still found some good new stuff along the way. 

This phenomenon--gravitating to music we already like in lieu of trying new things, as KDS said, and old-person prejudices, as Emily said--is why I try to keep myself and others on all sides of the debate (as if it were a serious issue!) dispassionate about it.

To me, the ranting and raving about how bad things are these days, that's such a blatant rehash of what every aging person in the history of the western world has said as to be laughable. Why would it suddenly be REALLY true this time? To feel that way is about the listener, not the music itself. It's the predictable (and understandable) opinion of someone who has strong emotional attachments to music already, and who has less time and energy for new things. That's fine. But it's really not about the new music, then. No reason to get all up in a huff about your own personal lifestyle, preferences, etc.

And the "old music sucks" opposite opinion--obvviously not found much on a board like this--is equally idiotic. The kid in her teens is of course enamored with the new thing, with what her friends are listening to, with the soundtrack to her first kiss or wild night out, while generally opposed to the music of the generation(s) against which she's rebelling at that particular moment.

It's just so predictable, so common, and so not about music.  

Capt,

I'm going to go ahead and play devil's advocate about this since I'm the OP, and I started this because, as I said new pop had hit a new low. 

Maybe it's my aging, I don't know.  But I also know I'm not alone at all in this. 

Usually, if a certain song/style/genre isn't my cup of tea, I can at least understand why people like it. 

Examples:

The Beach Boys - Love You is one of my least favorite BB albums, but I get why people enjoy it.

I'm not a fan of Michael Jackson's music.  But, I'll acknowledge those are well crafted pop songs.  Just not my cup of tea.

I'm not a Garth Brooks fan, but he's a first rate entertainer.  Country's just not by thing. 

Basically, I'm saying that while I don't like this stuff, I think there's a level of talent there.   If I hear Michael Jackson or Garth Brooks at a bar or grocery store, its not fingernails on a chalkboard. 

I don't hear that level of talent now.  Just about every pop song I've heard in the last four or five years is just an ear worm to me. 

Totally fair. And I don't mean to say that the pop music world (any more than any other topic) is so one-dimensional. There absolutely is such a thing as talent, right? We agree on that. So if so, and if different people have different levels of talent, it does stand to reason that over time there will most likely be different amounts of talent among the numbers of popular musicians out there. So sure, when all is said and done, it might turn out that there are particularly good and bad years. (In hindsight, many fans and critics alike point to 1965-68, for example. It's hard to deny that those years had an enormous quantity of music we now consider brilliant.)

Maybe my point would be that while we're in the moment and subject to our own biases, it might be hard for us to make big-picture judgments.

Of course we don't have to make big-picture judgments. We're perfectly entitled to our opinions and our own worlds. My main point is just to let history worry about it.

I still do disagree with you on the merit of earworms, which is a whole other discussion.

Not everyone's approach but I try to think through and remove from my thinking as best I can any prejudices.

What I see all the time on YouTube is the "I was born at the wrong time" argument of young people, who enthuse about tracks from the sixties and say the stuff today is shite, before wheeling out all the usual suspects. I don't know----it just seems a bit short-sighted to me.

I think it's an everybody prejudice to say that what they don't like sucks.

I couldn't agree with them more.   I know I was born in the wrong era. 

By doing that, wouldn't you waste a lot of precious time on music you don't like?

That definitely happens. I was one of those in my late teens to mid 20s. The joke was on me, as I missed a ton of cool music that was right there. I had to discover it later, which is fine, but definitely lacks a certain excitement when it's no longer contemporaneous. There is a definite, particular thrill in experiencing something in the time in and for which it was made.

No. By eliminating the prejudice, I find that I find more music that I do like.

I think there is a gray area in there--enough that I think you're both right (as lame and weasel-ish as that sounds!). I believe deeply in my heart that one of the biggest predictors of how much one appreciates, and even likes, music is exposure. Especially for unfamiliar genres or sounds, you need repeated exposures to like it--just like kids do with food, where they say, what, a dozen tastings are required to develop a taste? I think music is the same. I recall an old interview with guitarist Steve Vai in which he complained about Zappa's lack of popularity and blamed it largely on commercial radio for not playing him.

But that said, in the end, we do have individual tastes. We won't all like everything, and repeated listens won't always result in newfound love. Vai might have wanted to consider that some listeners just wanted to dance, and found complex time signatures complicated. Others like to sing along, and don't care for 12-minute instrumental opuses. Others didn't care for Frank's humor. And so on. Point being, if something really grates, sure it's possible you'd eventually come to like it. But would you inevitably like it? When does it stop being worth it to try to find out?

Capt,

There's some things I'll give a chance. 

And some preferences have changed as I've gotten older.  As a teenager, I didn't care for Phil Collins, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, or The Beach Boys.  That all changed when I entered my 20s. 

But, I think at 35, there's very little chance that I'll come around on something, especially outside of rock, that I don't like.

And if something grates on the nerves, I won't even waste the time to try it again.  Time is the most valuable resource we have as humans.  It should not be wasted on music you don't like.

Sure. You've got every right to listen to whatever you want, and to be honest, I don't care what it is! We can happily chat about what we've got in common and gloss over what we don't. You never know about what you'll find you like, though, or when. I was just thinking recently about starting a "changing tastes" thread when I realized how different mine are today than they were five or 10 years ago, and I'm 39. It's modern pop, some kinds of country, and certain hip-hop that I'm finding myself listening to more and more, and far less of the indie rock and classic pop/rock stuff that I'd spent the previous decade or so obsessed with.

But again, it's not that big a deal. Nobody owes their time to any music.

I know my tastes have changed slightly. 

But, if I ever start listening to hip hop, that's one of the seven signs. 

What are the other six?  ;D

Well, since you asked.


1.  Me willfully seeing the new Ghostbusters movie.

2.  Me buying a ticket to see Justin Bieber.

3.  Me wearing a Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Steelers, or New England Patriots jersey.

4.  Sofia Vergara invites me to a weekend trip to the Bahamas with Morena Baccarin, Shakira, and Diora Board.

5.  Me voting for Bernie Sanders

6.  Listing Love You, 15 Big Ones, Smiley Smile, Summer in Paradise, and KTSA as my favorite Beach Boys albums.

Spotify runs pretty well on my PC. I've never had it crash.



The only people on YouTube more annoying are the people who post "Im 14 and i like the beatles and all the music nowadays sucks what happened to music"



You should consider googling a person named Max Martin.

Against both the Red Sox AND the Yankees, huh? A third party.

Wow, Max Martin has his name on more garbage than Waste Management.

Yep, I'm a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan. 

Not a big baseball follower but grew up among a few. I remember really liking the Orioles' colors, which is the sort of thing I thought about when baseball was incessently on our TV.

Unfortunately, the Orioles have stunk for most of my adult life with 14 straight losing seasons from 1988-2011, but they've turned things around in recent years, and are currently in first place in the AL East (granted 153 games left to play).

I just wish they played better music at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in between innings.

 ;D

As someone who spent a plurality of my years in Massachusetts, I can completely understand the thrill of a losing team turning it around. That's awesome.

I assume then you're referring to those hated Red Sox. 

Correct. Though there's nothing particularly nice about their colors.

I can't think of anything nice to say about them. 

They have an iconic stadium. 

They do have a great stadium in a great location. And when they lost all the time, it was really cheap. My dad used to get $5 tickets for double headers in the bleacher seats. He would spread all his papers out and work; we'd bring board games and cards. You'd have the space of a living room to yourself. It was awesome.

Tell me more again about when the Red Sox lost all the time.  Sounds like such an amazing time. 

Just like the 60s and 70s, when all that great music was brand new. 

Heaven. 

Touché!

If you're tech savvy at all, you can find ways of reverting to the old Spotify and keeping it that way (https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web/Stopping-the-Mac-OS-X-10-5-auto-update-madness/td-p/340812). That way it won't keep auto-updating to the version that is apparently not working for your computer.
Another cheat you can use is to use Spotifree. It silences ads on the desktop version.

I guess those might seem like a hassle, but I quite enjoy my music discovery experience with Spotify.

Maybe I see things differently because I was born in the right one----I was a teenager in the sixties. Not that I'm stuck there, musically----far from it!