[anetode]

Science is not about absolutes, it's about throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Awesome, I'm gonna find some monkeys and a wall and make science!

 

[OJNeg]

Quote:

Awesome, I'm gonna find some monkeys and a wall and make science!

 
You have to have a piece of paper that says "Ph.D" before you do that.

 

[Magick Man]

I'm not sure about it all being the same, but I can say that it's ****.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Popular music is not an isolated cultural entity re: displaying a lot of inertia. Concert hall ("classical") music rolls on in performance as if Schoernberg had never existed. Most concert venues ignore the 20th century. Literature likewise with Hubert Selby Jr. Acting is an exception. Marlon Brando changed almost everything.

An exception in pop music? Female singers, a lot of them anyway, are Before Janis Joplin or After in expression. It's like that iridium layer in geology.

I don't get the subjective impression that there is any shortage of creative people out there, but the music BUSINESS and, to be fair, its audience, generally return to the same trough again and again. The sameness comes back with every big hit. Music, TV or movies, big sellers send in the clones and immitation drives style once again. I can sympathize with people like my nephew whos favorite bands are all unrecorded. I'm not that extreme, but I get it.

I have always thought that a big factor is pop music listeners paying much more attention to lyrics than to music. Bands quickly find that lyrics and singing frontmen are a surer and easier path to commercial success that compositional and instrumental talent. While a non factor in classical and a lesser factor in Jazz, words and their delivery still rule in popular sales. The reason to challenge the listener with the structure of the music loses commercial importance. Corky Siegal was once asked what it took to write a hit song. He said, "Make it very, very, very available."

 

[kryten123]

OK....I didn't expect it to get quite so serious, it was just meant to be a light hearted post.

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

I have always thought that a big factor is pop music listeners paying much more attention to lyrics than to music.

 
Which is weird because I swear every modern pop song just tries to fit the words "tonight" and "baby" in as many different sentences as possible.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

 
Which is weird because I swear every modern pop song just tries to fit the words "tonight" and "baby" in as many different sentences as possible.

 
This.
And filling up the sings with vowels. Prolonged O, A and E sounds.
 
Worst of all, the repetitiveness. Tonight. Baby. Hot. (O. A. E. x 100). Repeat. For . 5 . Minutes. 
 
If I want to listen to repetition, I'll listen to chillout/lounge or something else thats atleast not trying to kill my ears.
 
I have this theory. All pop music is made to be played at fast food restaurants and supermarkets.
Atleast thats how it is in my place.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Which is weird because I swear every modern pop song just tries to fit the words "tonight" and "baby" in as many different sentences as possible.

A bluesman I used to know in Chicago often joked that fifty words and a few phrases would cover all blues lyrics. As examples, he would site mojo, baby, hurt so bad, woke up this morning, and so on. An old music joke: What did it say on the bluesman's headstone? Didn't wake up this morning.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Off topic, the music joke I most wish I could forget but can't. From an old contest in the pre internet Musician's Friend catalog, the winner no less: What do you get when you push a piano down a mineshaft? A flat miner.