Rainard Jalen

I'd suggest, "contemporary chart music". There have been times when the charts have been pervaded by pretty good music music.

Oomph!

Psst. If all pop music sounded like John, he wouldn't be the great musician he was, he would be 'average'.

And the key word here is 'should'. They 'should' be like him but they aren't.

Rainard Jalen

I didn't say all pop music sounded like Lennon. Don't try to contrive an argument that wasn't even started.

What I put forth was that John Lennon was a pop musician, as was McCartney. The point being that pop needn't be "corporate garbage" but might be in some instances decent music.

Molecules

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Rainard Jalen

What a load of blatant tosh. What does "invoking a lot of meaningful emotion" have to do with music? Music isn't inherently supposed to be evocative of emotion - though some music may be geared towards that. Music can be many things. It can be humorous, fun, witty, intelligent, psychedelic, philosophical, narrative, political, satirical, or emotional - whatever the artist decides that it should be. That's the great thing about music - there is an endless scope of possibilities. That it needs to be narrowed down to a small subset of things in your view shows just how very limited your understanding and appreciation of art is.

You also made the whole "more than just psychedelic" argument. This tells me, as it does in the case of anybody else who talks of the Bealtes in such terms, that you have hardly even listened to the band or else are totally unfamiliar with their material. Psychedelia was a tiny tiny part of the Beatles discography. They were much MUCH more experimental, both musically and lyrically, that either you know or given them credit for.

But alas. You have no notion to take any notice. Go listen to Godsmack.

Oomph!

I can't believe you devalue the significance of emotion in music and then criticize (just sentances later) my appreciation of art.

There are allot of different purposes for music, something needs to be played in an elevator to relieve (at least a little bit) the generally stale atmosphere at a hotel of bussiness office. But I wouldn't value elevator music on the same level as music that inspires feeling and emotion.

Oh yes, passionate meaningful music is such a small, insignificant subset of music, totally.



Puh-lease

Except the part where I was raised listening to the Beatles by the biggest Beatles fan on Earth.

I am listening to Godsmack, they actually put passion and meaning into thier music which is why I like them so much. You can go listen to your little teeny bop "I want to hold your hand" Bullshit fine, but I have more significant movements in my bowels than listening to lame pop music.

Oomph!

What? Do you really think the 60's and 70's were more liberal than today? They were compared to prior decades but not this one. Freedom of expression has progressed alot since then, back then Black Sabbath was 'extreme', now days middle schoolers are listening to "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire, we don't need no water let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn". And Black Sabbath is baby metal now, my 9 year old brother listens to the Naked Brothers and also likes Black Sabbath (not trying to put down Black Sabbath, just saying)

In the 60's and 70's, abortion was illegal, homosexuality was almost completely inexcusable, women were still fighting for equal pay, minorities weren't as accepted as they are today.

Rainard Jalen

I didn't devalue it. Read again. I will not be lured into re-explaining myself each time somebody fails to digest a simple sentence.

How about the other things I mentioned? Humour, fun, wit, philosophy, satire, narration/storytelling, politics... all equally valid purposes for music. None of which necessarily need to inspire feeling or emotion in order to be done well.

Not insignificance (stop putting words in my mouth already, it makes you look foolish!), but a subset all the same. Like I said, music is not necessarily supposed to be "passionate and meaningful" - that's just one possibility for what music could be. It's not of any greater artistic value than music made in order to be fun and witty.

And yet you seem to know virtually nothing about their lyrical content to the point that you exposed yourself by making that incredibly ignorant statement about the extent of their use of psychedelia.

It is true that the earliest Beatles stuff from '63 were lyrically speaking quite simple love songs. What I will say is that all of those songs express a lot more in terms of REAL human sentiment and things that matter to most REAL people than anything at all in the entire Godsmack catalogue - to say nothing of what the Beatles did later on. How about that, eh?



EDIT: I could go even further and tell you that Godsmack is actually complete corporate garbage. They're a major label band aimed at a certain niche market of angst ridden adolescents who are likely to find it deep and profound. At the root however, you find that lyrically they deal with the most hackneyed and cliched themes that exist period in popular culture and have nothing unique to say at all. Mass marketed exploitative rubbish.

Molecules

meh. The legislation's changed but society is just as cancerous as it ever was, minorities are still repressed and distrusted by idiots who live for holidays and cars, the same people that dismiss modern feminists as 'a bunch of lesbians'.

Views didn't change, the elders saw the profit in the dirty Van Halen lyrics and they let it slide. Now we're oversaturated with titillation, and people that judge music on the profanity content (Black Sabbath is 'baby metal'?). Great.
Luckily that's not a widespread phenomenon, but anything goes in the US.

Dude, duuude, I lurve freedom of expression, but let's ****ing say something eh?!

But then you have the apathetic, apolitical, 18-35 age bracket ****s like me - who aren't helping any

The Dark Ages are far from over. Heyyyy that would make a great pop song

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Oomph!

You criticized my high amount of value for it, so yes in essense you did devalue it.

Rare. Even the funniest songs I've heard doesn't remotely compete with standup comedians and comedy movies/

I have fun listening to passionate music.

hmmm....

If the sound itself isn't passionate or raw, then they might as well speak thier philosophy or write in down as a book.

Sometimes but that goes along with humor.

Uninteresting, just tell me the damned story or act it out or something.

If they are using music as a platform for politics, unless they put some passion into the sound they might as well just perform a speech.

Expressing feelings, emotion and passion with sound is the primary function of music.

You said small, which is closely synonymous with insignificant , and it isn't true either way, passion and emotion is an enormous facet of music.

Like I said, we ned something to play in the background of commercials.

More matter less art please.

Oh now the Beatle's artistic merit is greater than godsmack because of it's realism? What's wrong with exaggeration and hyperbole in art? It's about expression, and the more exaggerated it is the more effective it is (generally)

We use art as a facet to escape reallity, especialy in the case of music, to get away from it all.

Godsmack wasn't/isn't extremely popular, they aren't putting in effort to make machine generated chart music. They have produced 4 full albums and an acoustic EP since they began in 96, thier last album in 06. 10 years for 4 albums, they are obviously putting effort into thier albums.The only time I've ever heard Godsmack outside thier albums was a few years ago they let the Marines use the begining of the song 'Awake' for one of thier commercials.

Thier music videos are played on MTV2 or VH1 at 2:00am, you never see them being plugged and commercialized by mainstream TV or radio, they obviously aren't some corporate band, let's get real now.

At the root however, you find that lyrically they deal with the most hackneyed and cliched themes that exist period in popular culture and have nothing unique to say at all. Mass marketed exploitative rubbish.[/QUOTE]

Yeah like Wicca, reincarnation, drug rehabilitation, religous constriction, a song about a man who's wife and child died, cookiecutter bullshit I know.