The Pop of Today Vs Pop Of Yesterday

sopsych · 06-17-2013, 10:13 PM

None of these points are new to me, and all have some validity.

Here's my position: there was always low-quality pop, but great stuff (mostly with regard to lyrics) rarely is made anymore. There has been a noted decline in the percentage of ballads among hit songs in the past decade or so (compare Katy Perry and Lady Gaga with Madonna), and ballads in my opinion comprise most of the great pop songs of all time. The loss of great pop includes reasons mentioned by others, along with the MTV-fueled increase emphasis on appearance, (research-demonstrated) greater narcissism among today's young people (I mean fans and musicians, with less of an ability to go emotionally deep), the replacement of rock with rap on major stations and channels, more emphasis on the not-very-fluent-in-English part of the international market (which almost automatically limits lyrical complexity), and the decline of quality musicians among male pop stars. I'm not going to open one can of worms from that list. Instead I will expand on the male thing with the risqué point that men generally write better love songs than women do, probably because men 'need' women more than women 'need' men and male pop artists have trouble getting fan loyalty without strong ballads - but the industry has shifted toward the other way male artists can get loyalty (albeit not as much as female pop stars can), which is through widespread sex appeal. I am oversimplifying things, because it's a complicated subject and I don't have enough free time.

06-17-2013, 10:13 PM	#11 (permalink)
sopsych Music Addict Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: indoors Posts: 722	None of these points are new to me, and all have some validity. Here's my position: there was always low-quality pop, but great stuff (mostly with regard to lyrics) rarely is made anymore. There has been a noted decline in the percentage of ballads among hit songs in the past decade or so (compare Katy Perry and Lady Gaga with Madonna), and ballads in my opinion comprise most of the great pop songs of all time. The loss of great pop includes reasons mentioned by others, along with the MTV-fueled increase emphasis on appearance, (research-demonstrated) greater narcissism among today's young people (I mean fans and musicians, with less of an ability to go emotionally deep), the replacement of rock with rap on major stations and channels, more emphasis on the not-very-fluent-in-English part of the international market (which almost automatically limits lyrical complexity), and the decline of quality musicians among male pop stars. I'm not going to open one can of worms from that list. Instead I will expand on the male thing with the risqué point that men generally write better love songs than women do, probably because men 'need' women more than women 'need' men and male pop artists have trouble getting fan loyalty without strong ballads - but the industry has shifted toward the other way male artists can get loyalty (albeit not as much as female pop stars can), which is through widespread sex appeal. I am oversimplifying things, because it's a complicated subject and I don't have enough free time. __________________ If you have ideas or feedback for the site, visit The Musicbanter Improvement Thread.