It’s not enough for modern pop music to be autotuned, brain-dead in lyrics, and necessarily accompanied by flashy videos. No, now it’s got to be full of sex as well, for sex is the best way to attract attention, especially if you’re an attractive woman like Ariana Grande. Every celebrity, it seems, is doffing their clothes, but that will attract attention for only so long.
But Grande’s voice, which is pretty spectacular, apparently isn’t enough to carry this song. Here, in her latest “hit”, “34 + 35“, she has to flaunt her body and, most annoyingly, beg for copulation, oral sex, and other goodies. The autotuning, f-bombs, fancy video (the first one has a bit about its making at the end), and concentration on sexual acts has moved this one all the way to the top of the pop charts. Will this song last? Will it ever be an “oldie”, played on radio stations in 2070? Don’t bet on it! The listeners of this song, the young folks, must subsist on a diet of cotton candy rather than meat.
Some Wikipedia notes:
On October 30, 2020, the song was released by Republic Records as the second single from the album. The song’s title and chorus reference the 69 sex position, while the rest of its lyrics feature several sexual puns, double entendres, and sex jokes. A remix of the song featuring American rappers Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion was released on January 15, 2021. The remix is included on the deluxe edition of Positions which is scheduled for release on February 19, 2021.
“34+35” debuted at number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Grande’s 18th top ten single. It later rose to number two following the release of the remix. It also debuted at number five on the Billboard Global 200, becoming Grande’s second top ten single on the chart, before reaching a peak of number two. Additionally, “34+35” peaked within the top ten in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, giving Grande her 19th top ten single in the UK.
Here’s the remix:
Now I have to admit that the videos are well produced, but the idea that this could be a hit makes me feel sorry for today’s kids. Do they ever encounter music that’s dense enough to make them ponder?
Below is Billboard’s Top 10 from exactly 50 years ago. And I ain’t gonna lie, there’s a few real clunkers on there, including #1 and #2; and #3 might strike some people as bubblegum country music (I happen to like it). But there are some classics here, too, including My Sweet Lord, Your Song, and If I Were Your Woman. I suppose Grande’s music all falls in the Osmonds/Dawn category: insubstantial fluff that won’t stand the test of time.
Yes, I know I’m being a curmudgeon. And some readers will undoubtedly tell me I’m listening to the wrong groups—that Group X is as good as the Beatles! (Protip: it never is.) But I repeat my claim that rock and pop music are on the downhill slide. This categories of music exists not because it yields popular works of art like “A Day in the Life” or “God Only Knows,” but because the kids need something to listen to to mark the seasons of their young lives.
The Billboard Top 10 from the Hot 100: Week of Feb 13, 1971.
- One Bad Apple by the Osmonds
- Knock Three Times by Dawn
- Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson
- I Hear You Knocking by Dave Edmunds
- Lonely Days by the Bee Gees
- My Sweet Lord/Isn’t It a Pity by George Harrison
- Groove Me by King Floyd
- Your Song by Elton John
- If I Were Your Woman by Gladys Night and the Pips
- Mama’s Pearl by the Jackson Five
Now get off my lawn!
I heard this tune on a Rick Beato pop review once – to catch any stuff that is any good – he just said more or less “meh”. I was astonished by the gratuitousness of the – unprecedented? – innuendo – perhaps this is the modern equivalent of that roller skate song.
What are the chances – Beato’s latest pop review : https://youtu.be/18A8JpiDSIM
Nope – rock, not pop. … lemee find the pop one….
Here : https://youtu.be/OX8JWjf5998
The song in question is at 4:43
Yep, saw this one. A few of the other songs did sound a bit interesting, at least.
He actually says he likes Grandé’s singing voice but the song was “not that interesting to me”.
My kid’s 10. Starting when he was about 4 I became much more conscious of how many rock songs have obvious sex references. If I had to guess, I’d guess about half. Whether you like Grande’s music or not (I agree with you in not liking it), rock songs talking obviously about sex have pretty much been the norm since the 70s at least.
Yeah, but go look up the lyrics to Cardi B’s WAP (which stands for “wet-ass pussy”). My niece, who isn’t even in high school yet, knows every word to that song. I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to post most of the lyrics on this site, so here’s a link. I’m not even old, but the idea of a girl who’s only twelve singing that song while walking around the house (as she was when I last saw my brother) is pretty damn gross. And, apparently, all of her friends know it. It’s a huge hit at her school, or at least it was a few months ago, when I was at my brother’s house.
Pretty shocking, BJ! What does your brother make of it all?
He and my sister-in-law have basically thrown up their hands and said there’s nothing they can do about it. Hell, I don’t know if there is. It must be really difficult to shield your kids from things with the internet around, even if you block websites on their devices. They’ll just end up hearing and seeing things at school and friends’ houses. And probably find a way around any blocking software! Still, I would think they could at least say, “don’t walk around the house singing it,” especially when they have two younger children as well.
Man, when I was a kid, getting your hands on “dirty” material was finding your dad’s Playboy magazine in the garbage or waiting ten minutes for a picture of a naked lady to load from some website using America Online 🙂 And, of course, the old late-night TV static-watching during sleepovers, hoping to see just a hint of boob unscramble for a millisecond on the Spice Channel.
We have come some way from when I bought a single Streets if London cover by the Anti-Nowhere League banned as the B side mentioned beastiality!
It used to be alternative music that pushed the boundaries of acceptability, now it is pap – sorry – pop- & the sexualization of youth, which is bizarre as tat is ‘allowed’ by society, & this runs parallel with the exposure of & shaming of public figures who have been involved in abuse of young women both historically & at present, with movements like ‘me too’ showing how female actors were groomed. Why the counter-flow of permissibility?
I had to look up WAP when Dave Barry made a comparative reference to it in his annual year in review column. Totally disgusting lyrics. I’m not sure I even read them all.
It’s not just the sex, but also the message that you should use sex to control men and get money and goods from them, and that any man who doesn’t “pay” for sex with you isn’t worth your time. Not exactly the foundation of happy and functional relationships, or of good self-esteem.
+mucho
oh, god. And yet the ‘artist’ will be celebrated during the Grammies.
Sad.
OY VEY! I didn’t know of that song. . . .
I’m genuinely sorry for taking your innocence 🙂
Yeah, I basically just stopped turning on the radio and made “mixed CD’s” for the kids instead.
That amount of foul language is something you don’t see in a lot of earlier songs, but before you think Cardi is really that special, I suggest you look up the Clovers’ “Rotten C**ksu**ers Ball” if you can find it (you have to listen to it – as far as I can tell, nobody has posted the lyrics on the internet). That was released in the 1950s. And it’s Barbershop/A capella, which just adds to the hilarity. Her sex talk is absolutely not new and not particularly more racy than past songs, either. In one two year period in the past, you had Harry Roy release “My Girl’s Pussy”, Bessie Smith release “Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl”, Clara Smith release “It’s Tight Like That” (a cover of an older song), and Bo Carter release “Banana in your Fruitbasket.” The years? 1929-1931. In 1935 you have Lucille Bogan release “Shave’em Dry,” a dirty blues song that goes back to the ’20s and maybe WW1. Sex references in popular music literally predates Rock, being already present in the blues songs that gave Rock n’ Roll it’s sound.
.
As a parent, this is all really annoying. But I can’t really agree with PCC that the foul language and sex references is a “degeneration” of rock n’ roll, because it was pretty much always there
Now I have to go to the country and eat a lot of peaches. Or is that squeeze my lemons? Or maybe practice playing my Big Long Slidin’ Thing.
I recently heard of an elementary teacher conducting an online class (4th/5th graders) unexpectedly having to deal with “Wap.” A student from another school in the same school system briefly joined the “meet,” then left when the teacher inquired why she was there. (Apparently students, in their good judgment, share login info with their friends who attend other schools.) A few minutes later, the student returned to the meet, and started playing “Wap” for the edification of the students. The teacher reacted and cut off the student as quickly as anyone could, noting her name. Plus, what the student didn’t realize was that the school system keeps track of who logs into a class, so no doubt she soon got a surprise invitation to visit with her principal.
We lived in Martinique when I was 7 (50s) and my parents had a calypso record from Trinidad (Duke of Iron) with all kinds of double entendres. I used to bop around the house singing “I kiss her hand, I kiss her lips, and I left her BE-hind for you.” My mother would kind of subtly shoosh me when we had company and it wasn’t until college that it occurred to me OMG what I had been singing.
Might I direct you to Ruth Wallis in this regard?
I ran karaoke nights for the US Marines during an assignment to the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic. The first hour was always “kid friendly.” One night these prepubescent girls selected “Candyman” by Christina Aguilera, I was rather creeped when these little girls were singing lines like “Give me candy and make my panties drop,” or however it went. I asked, “Parents, are you aware of what your kids are listening to?”
I can’t defend the music because it is pretty dreadful. But I will say that pop music has. Mostly always been about sex.
Yup, it’s pretty “baked in” as they say these days: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll#Terminology
Yeah…these conversations always bring to my mind Nat King Cole’s “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home.” It’s better because the sex is latent not explicit.
Yes, as I pointed out here a couple of weeks ago Bull Moose Jackson’s original version of “Big Ten Inch Record” was released in 1952: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rws_7mLTqj8
I have a CD called “Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts & Lollypops” which is a compilation of this kind of song. It includes a booklet-sized set of liner notes, which go into some interesting detail about the whole “race radio” scene of the era.
Well over 50 years old:
It was a scandal in its day, also, it is all double entendre, nothing explicit. Only the grown-ups understand, the kids don’t. Somehow I find it far less vulgar. Gainsbourg of course is a notorious case of sex/scandal sells, but then again, many of his songs are exquisite in lyrics or music or both, his themes far surpass sex and even personal relations or emotions, e.g. “SS in Uruguay”, “Torrey canyon”) and most of the sex songs have some deeper level to them, even the notorious “Je t’aime/moi non plus” that I really don’t like is really (or pretends to be) about the the meaninglessness of physical love.
“ . . . race radio . . . .”
I’m wondering if there is a linguistic connection between “racy” language and “race.”
I doubt it.
No, it’s mostly been about love, with sex appearing rarely, even in the Sixties. Songs like “Will you still love me tomorrow?” skirted the issue.
Why don’t we do it in the road? (Beatles)
You can leave your hat on (Randy Newman/Joe Cocker)
Dinah-Moe Humm (Frank Zappa)
Five Short Minutes (Jim Croce)
Back Door Man (The Doors)
Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed)
My Ding a Ling (Chuck Berry)
This new music is crap. And the lyrics have no subtlety. But sex ain’t new in pop music, IMO.
My Ding-a-Ling was soooo subtle😂
It’s about love not sex
🤓
Well… love of his ding-a-ling!
I seem to remember when the Stones first appeared in America ( Ed Sullivan? ) Jagger was required to change ‘ the night ‘ to ‘ some time ‘ in the song ‘ Let’s spend the night together ‘. If you watch the film of it ( lip synch ) Jagger sometimes mouths the original words however!
You are correct.
Ted Gioia, no slouch when it comes to music history, might disagree. He argues that the subject-matter of much — most — music since forever has been sex, violence and/or altered consciousness. Music: A Subversive History (2019).
That song is one of my all-time favourites, both the Shirelles version and Carole King’s. I was impressed to discover that the lyrics were by Carole’s husband, Gerry Goffin. A great piece of writing from a woman’s perspective, by a man.
WAP, by Cardi B, would make Ted Nugent blush.
These ‘71 ones weren’t too great, either. Did like If I Were Your Woman, My Sweet Lord, and Your Song (not a big Elton John fan, but I’ve always liked this one.) My Sweet Lord had a good sound,despite the subject matter, and Gladys and her Pips were always good. Agree that the sex in current songs (Cardi B) is a bit over-the-top, not to mention the falling out of their tops. It’s been my experience that women don’t have to be that unsubtle to attract men. (But then, as an old bf of mine once said, men will f**k mud.)
It could be a generational thing, but I think the 1981 top ten from the same week is better.
Billboard Top 10: Week of February 14, 1981
1. Celebration by Kool & The Gang (Good)
2. 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton (Good)
3. I Love A Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt (Good)
4. The Tide Is High by Blondie (Good)
5. Passion by Rod Stewart (Uhhh. Rod’s done better)
6. Woman by John Lennon (Okay)
7. (Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon (Okay)
8. Keep On Loving You by REO Speedwagon (Good)
9. Given It Up For Your Love by Delbert McClinton (no comment)
10. Hey Nineteen by Steely Dan (Good)
My concern is that the youngers don’t know how to make love. The flaunting of sex is dulling it. Most sex education is through porn and these “music” videos, so they see nothing of lovemaking.
Crude begging and unsubtle taunting, with violent cruel power-plays added, destroys eros.
It’s a frantic drive to avoid intimacy. You don’t have to learn to risk and trust another’s authentic self, because you can just spit in your ‘partner’s’ face, tell them to f-off, and spin around to screw the next one.
You posted enthusiasm for the song “Weekend in New England” recently, in which the man is not shaking with sweaty anticipation for immediate meaningless rutting. He is thrilled to be ‘starting a story whose end is not known.’ His heart is quaking.
Try floating a song about that on Spotify today.
I don’t know if the youngsters know how to make love these days or not, though I’d guess that plenty of them do, but this song, awful as it is, does seem to be about making love rather than just simply gratuitous sex. The lyrics speak of a yearning desire for a specific, long term, partner. I remember being young in love with my wife quite well and it was pretty much like this song. We wanted to be together all the time, there was no one else and there wasn’t anything casual about it.
I am unable to understand the lyrics. I could only handle about 30% of the video. So, without having the lyric, the hideous “music”, trash clothing and makeup, bouncing around a high-tech environment … there is nothing about tenderness, intimacy, and love evident.
Your take on the song as similar to your love with your wife … I am not challenging that. Just saying that if this video is about loving/mated-sex, then I am worse that a curmudgeon.
I don’t disagree much about the video in general. But in the lyrics she refers to herself as “wifey,” and says things like, “But who’s counting the time when we got it for life.” Being married or attached enough to refer to herself as wife sure makes it sound like mated sex to me, and liking someone enough to desire to be with them for life sure seems to qualify as love. And I don’t think those things are unusual or indecent in a marriage / partnership, mine or anyone else’s.
The UK singles chart for (roughly) the same period is here: http://www.everyhit.com/retrocharts/1971-FebruaryB.html
Clive Dunn with “Grandad” at #8 – aargh! And a different song from Dawn in the UK chart ( “Candida”, which sounds like it was about a genital infection – very er… catchy!)
I still have my copy of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” – it had a different B-side here in the UK ( “What is Life?” )
Yeah, Candida🙀
I’m relieved someone else detests modern pop as much as me. I like virtually nothing after 1990.
With you 100%. That’s when melody died. And, you know, playing your own instruments, and decent production values. Not that I have a strong opinion.
“…playing your own instruments…” – Well, mostly…
“The Wrecking Crew”
“Hired Gun”
Yes, that’s an ideal cut off point.
I’d like to suggest everyone look into Morgan James. She has a powerful soulful beautiful voice and grew up with her parents 60s and 70s music. She does Covers from Joni Mitchell, Beatles, Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Springsteen, Hall and Oates, as well as her own music. Based on interviews I’ve seen she seems to be a nice person, too.
As a counter-argument … there is Billie Eilish.
Yeah, she is at least interesting.
Interesting, but I’m finding her a bit dull. Still, compared to a lot now out there her music is at least interesting.
I found Billie Eilish pretty dull at first but I think it’s because it’s not written for me. I appreciate her music now but I’d still rather listen to something written with me (generic) in mind, as I think we all would.
Yeah. It’s all a bit similar in character, unfortunately, but at least it’s not just like everything else out there.
Thankfully I couldn’t distinguish most of the lyrics. Did they add the strings in an attempt to sound classy? The trend of the past 20 years in pop music (especially rap) is to portray women as prostitutes and men as pimps, particularly if the artist is ‘black’ (what does that mean anyway?).
Demeaning. This is the fate of the commercial music industry after it was bought out by merchant banks.
rz
2 Live Crew was doing all the sex stuff in the 80’s. All this isn’t new. I got to be honest though, I’d much rather listen to a sex kitten doing her *ahem* thing than hearing any of the crap on that 1971 Top 10, the Bee Gees song excluded.
Hell, the blue musicians have been doing it for at least 100 years, with not very obscure euphemisms.
But some were fun and creative, Bessie Smith – ‘ Kitchen Man ‘.
Oh yeah! Some of the wittiest lyrics! But it was all about sex.
Yep. I just posted some of the more famous dirty/double entendre blues titles in my post above. it’s practically an entire genre of it’s own.
I’m not a fan of most current pop music. And as a parent, it certainly makes me flinch if an explicit song comes on the radio with my kid in the car. But turning on the ‘classic rock’ station certainly doesn’t solve the problem, because it’s always been part of rock.
That’s true – and they were graphic and used the dirty words like this stuff.
However
It wasn’t easy to get 2 Live Crew. It wasn’t just sitting there like all this sh17 is, for anyone of any age.
The astonishing thing is that kids who are way too young are getting reproductive education by accident from material for an ostensibly adult audience – that is, their money target is adults.
… and after further thought, kids will find and look for and find sexuality anywhere. And, I think adults will continue to be astonished that it happens younger than when they were the same age – with some going further to incite a moral panic (I retreat from that if I was suggesting it!). I suppose that’s the way it has always been and always will be.
There are no men in the video – that is interesting…
Once in a while, in my car, I switch to a radio station that plays hits from the 1950s through the 1970s.
I am usually amazed at how much I like the music. Stuff I haven’t heard in ages.
One example, the other day I heard Olivia Newton John’s first hit: “Let Me Be There”. Now, this is not a serious song (who the hell wants to listen to a serious song?); but the tune is great, the lyrics are fun and very easy to relate to. The production values and harmony vocals are good too.
We’ve talked here about the death of melody in the past. In current pop music, the melody has (in general) been erased, there’s no interesting harmony, the lyrics are boring (or offensive/annoying), and the production values are all: Compress to the max., put in the phony automated drum track. If I have to listen to another 2-note (or 1.5-note) singer-songwriter song performed in the breathy (I have no voice) style, in an unrelenting minor chord (singular) I’ll open a vein.
I am really glad that we have exposed our son to a really wide variety of music. He knows 60s and 70s music better than he knows current pop. And he likes it a whole lot better, despite the social pressure for the current stuff. (We’ve exposed him to a lot of classical music, flamenco, folk, blues, solo guitar and piano, jazz, in addition to the popular music.)
I really can’t stand 99% of current pop music. (And I like things as widely disparate as William Ackerman and Christopher Parkening and Boccherini’s small ensemble music to The Dropkick Murphys. Led Zepellin, Pearl Jam, and lots of other hard rock.)
I’m getting old … get off my lawn! 😉
Sounds like Planet Rock – where rock lives! https://planetradio.co.uk/planet-rock/
😬🤭
On a related note, you can listen to old bands that were “forgettable then” — meaning they were seen in their time as inferior to the major artists, and yet they received constant play on the radio. But their complexity, talent, and quality easily beats a lot of what is constantly played now. They could actually play instruments! Imagine that.
I had a friend in Seattle in the 1990s who specifically went to small venues to see (more obscure) bands from the 60s and 70s. (E.g. Molly Hatchett). He was only about 27-29 yo at the time. He reported that these bands (that had been touring and honing their craft for decades) we almost always extremely good — and playing to house of 20-100. He loved it.
Damn James, that’s like a hat-trick of bullseyes there. When I hear “singer-songwriter” these days I know I’m in for some dreadfully dull music.
As a balm can I recommend David Hepworth’s paean to the music of 1971 , Never A Dull Moment. It’s a great read.
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Dull-Moment-1971-Exploded/dp/1250130913
Like most I started listening to music at a relatively young age and started buying albums in my teens. Ten years of post-secondary education left me somewhat out of touch with pop music – thankfully, I missed most of Disco. As my children grew and developed an interest in music I tried to at least appreciate what they listened to. Along came the Internet, iTunes and Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time have become my way of discovering what I missed, but also what some rank as the best songs ever recorded.
Rolling Stone’s list is updated from time to time, and there are certainly some things missing, but it has proven to be a good place to start. Here are the top 10 songs in the current list. Notice anything?
Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, 1965
The Rolling Stone, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, 1965
John Lennon, Imagine, 1971
Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On, 1971
Aretha Franklin. Respect, 1967
The Beach Boys, Good Vibrations, 1966
Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode, 1958
The Beatles, Hey Jude, 1968
Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit, 1991
Ray Charles, What’d I Say, 1959
The celebrity status of pop musicians is a problem. Their image and lifestyle is apparently much more important than their performance.
In classical music, this attitude is frowned upon. At worst, you get Chinese Lang Lang fans disliking the admirers of Yundi Li. But for the most part, the audience is not obsessed with individual artists.
I get where you’re coming from, and I agree that most modern pop is bubble gum crap mixed in with graphically sexual visuals. However, I think what you’re seeing is not a genuine reflection of what people actually listen to or like, but the pop industry’s reaction to the niche-ification of music and the democratization of the music industry. By that I mean that there is more music, both awful and wonderful, than ever because it is now such a low bar to entry. So those who used to have to pander to get heard at all are now succeeding independently through YouTube and SoundCloud. So, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and the rest are the pop music industry’s last ditch effort to find the lowest common denominator, which is… SEX! Or parties, or drugs, etc. They have teams of song writers and marketers trying to figure out what will get the most clicks in the shortest amount of time. They’re not real artists. The real artists are those who are willing to settle for a smaller paycheck in exchange for creating the music they love. Examples that you would probably like given your taste are the Black Keys or The Arctic Monkeys.
The Black Keys! Brothers–recently remastered!
And . . . Let’s Rock!
“Group X is as good as the Beatles! (Protip: it never is.) ”
I have to agree. I’m a pretty big fan of Radiohead, but even they are not as good as the Beatles…though I consider them in tier 2 along with Pink Floyd.
There’s only one other group that is in the same class as the Beatles.
You can’t do that to me! What group?
I honestly thought it would be so obvious that I wouldn’t have to mention their name.
The Rolling Stones
Thank you. Now I can relax.
The Rolling Stones are definitely contenders.
Stones✔️✔️❗️
Nope
The Rutles.
Listen to Mick Jagger himself : https://youtu.be/MDY8VErLhcY
Not sure if that clip made it : https://youtu.be/MDY8VErLhcY
… but um .. Mick definitely said… something. About The Rutles.
The Rutles
I have always thought, in the back of my mind, “Cheese and Onions”.
I’m reminded of my dear aunt’s favorite sandwich, Mustard & Onion. (Her favorite apple was the sour Granny Smith.)
Sounds interesting.
I would modify your aunt’s sandwich by adding some Limburger cheese. And making sure it was rye bread. 😉
One thing I like about these sort of posts is that many people link to music that they think is good .I try to have a listen, and usually I reject them (what we like is a matter of taste), but sometimes I find a good ‘un and they reside in my iTunes library.
Same here. And then I end up going down the youtube rabbit hole for an hour. Or two.
I wonder how useful a chart like the Billboard Top 10 actually is for assessing the state of music.
A few issues seem to present themselves.
First, prior to about 1991, my understanding is that pop charts were constructed with considerable label input. That makes those early charts a dubious reflection of actual pre-1991 tastes.
Second, if modern charts do present an accurate accounting of streams and sales, this is still as much a matter of skilled branding and marketing as what people actually like.
Third, inasmuch as these charts do reflect the relative commercial success of singles, they only present a vanishingly small sampling of a much larger field—one substantially driven by the most superficial listeners.
And, finally, I’ll go ahead and risk sounding like an insufferable hipster: throughout history, the best music available at any given point in time has only occasionally snuck onto a pop music chart. The best tunes have often taken some effort to find.
But we’re talking pop music here – if it doesn’t sell it falls at the first hurdle.
“the best music available at any given point in time has only occasionally snuck onto a pop music chart.”
Except there was this (seemingly unique) nexus in the 1960s (especially) and the 1970s when popular and good had a significant overlap. Review the groups and the songs on the charts. It’s pretty extraordinary. Of course there was dreck on the charts at those times too; but the percentage of good stuff was pretty amazing.
(All: A chacun son gout, gf course. I was much too young to appreciate the 60s (at the time) and didn’t listen to radio until I built a crystal set at age 12 in 1973. But I had a huge wonderful back catalogue to discover.)
True. There was some incredible music on the radio during those decades. But even then, there was some stellar stuff that fell through the cracks. For instance, I don’t think the Velvet Underground ever got much radio play when they were active, though I think they deserved it.
I am not sure if the crap music today will fade away and not be held up as ‘golden oldies’ in a few decades. Those deciding that status decades from now are the young people who are listening to it now. We won’t have a say in the matter.
They will come around.
There’s a guy on Youtube, a session player named Rick Beato, who does a whole series about “What Makes This Song Great,” which leads naturally to a whole series on how and why modern pop sucks.
He’s got a GREAT one that I can’t find right now about why Steely Dan’s “Josie” would never get recorded today. But start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGt-ZG39cU&list=RDnuGt-ZG39cU&start_radio=1
I think Beato is pretty good. I’d be interested to hear what Jerry thinks of Beato’s “What Makes This Song Great” featuring Pearl Jam’s Black. Something outside of his wheel house as it were, and seeing as Jerry likes melody and Beato thinks that the Grunge bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana were very good at devising interesting melodies, maybe he’ll like it? In any case, the vocals are pretty amazing.
I can also recommend Fil from Wings of Pegasus, who does the same kind of thing quite well.
I don’t think Ariana Grande has any staying power. Most of her songs are not the kind of thing you sing along with. She’ll be another Debby Gibson or Tiffany, with her songs getting a bit of attention while she is touring, but quickly forgotten, and then be relegated to rare plays on on oldies stations years from now.
Yes – it is garbage, professor – and smut (and *this* from a sex positive leftie! I don’t even OWN a lawn and know no kids to shoo off it!) – b/c the video – which you made me watch and the 3 min I’ll never get back – ahem- (Minage or Minge or WhoTF she is) is cheap and useless. And damn hasn’t autotune just destroyed music? Does EVERYTHING have to sound like it has been sung through a harmonica?
So I agree in large part.
HOWEVER…there is also a survivorship bias – we don’t remember the shit and dreck of 1960 1970 1980 etc b/c… well …it wasn’t memorable, so it is unfair perhaps to look at today’s music next to stuff from the past which HAS survived: A Day In the Life, My Sweet Lord, etc. I’m sure in 2070 Ms. Minge’s work will be long forgotten.
PLUS…. I think there’s a neurological thing about how we perceive music after our youth… in the same way we can’t learn languages properly after our mid 20s. (I’ve GOT to talk to Pinker about that one, it is just my humble opinion).
D.A., NYC
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
I discovered some of my favorite music in my 40s and 50s. But, point taken: Tastes do shift with age.
I’m just happy I’m not stuck listening to the same music listened to in HS and college. When CDs came along (I’m old) I didn’t replace my HS/college vinyl. Sold all the vinyl in the late 80s when it was still worth something. But, in my 40s and 50s, I’ve dipped my toe back into that old music and mostly bought “Essential” collections, which have been very satisfactory.
Was there ever a girl as sexy as Ronnie Spector – ( that smile, these twinkling eyes ) (Estelle and Nedra weren’t bad either ) And none of them needed to remove any clothing!
Very good, and your flashback made me flashback to Grace Slick, Michelle Phillips, and Marilyn McCoo.❤️
I agree with 99% of what is posted here. But just let me say that when I got to the end of watching “One Night In Miami” yesterday, Odom Jr.’s song “Speak Now” brought me to tears. That hasn’t happened to me in response to a contemporary song in a very long time.
A number of readers are showing how sexuality and music have been good bedfellows (sorry) for time immemorial. We (they?) generally agree pop music – that is, the sounds – not necessarily lyrics – is weak.
What made the sexuality so tantalizing in the past, so intriguing, was how hidden it had to be. Hiding scandalous themes in plain language.
But now, lyrics are using straight for direct language, the famed Carlin’s words, and more.
I am wondering how that factors for the music. Is part of the problem with the pop music signature today is that it has free access to lyrically say anything? That there is no what one might call romance – as it pertains to disguising the sexuality in clever lyrics, or playing that game of trying to get around rules and saying “ha ha, I managed to say it anyway with those damned rules!”?
The “straight for direct” was there too. The 50’s gave us “Baby I want to Bang your Box” and “Big Ten Inch Record”, as just two examples.
I think Andrew #15 and David Anderson #22 pretty much nailed it. The lower barrier to entry and need to ‘stand out’ to be a success means more artists are going to extremes just to get noticed (and thus paid), rather than for artistic expression (that always happened, but ‘it’s happening now more because folks can release their music on the internet’ seems a reasonable argument to me). And we have to be wary of survivor bias – just because you don’t remember the dreck from your favorite musical era, doesn’t mean it had less than today’s music scene. Comparing oldies on the radio to contemporary music on the radio is to compare the best songs from those years to the entire range of songs from this year.
Dropping trou is the time-honored refuge of performers who have nothing else substantial to offer.
Haven’t heard that expression in years😂
I mean that top ten from ’71 argues against your case more eloquently than I could.
And regarding the explicit sex I present the original lyrics to Tutti Fruiti
A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop a-good-Goddam!
Tutti Frutti, good booty
Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy[
Entering curmudgeon zone here… You want pop music? And something substantive and thought provoking? All in one package? We are taught that those are exclusive options.
But then there’s David Byrne.
I rest my case.
There’s a huge chunk of The Kinks’ repertoire, for that matter. Robert Christgau thought that “Waterloo Sunset” was the most beautiful song in the English language, and I won’t argue with that. How likely is it that the reflections of a total introvert content to live life completely at second hand would provide the storyline for such a lyrical piece of music? In my mind, the Kinks were at the very top of the 60s ‘British invasion’ for musicianship…
Yeah, Waterloo Sunset, took the words out of my keyboard.
Please listen to the cover version by Show of Hands (fantastic folk duo/trio from the UK (West Country) that I was turned onto on this site).
Will do, jblilie. And here’s a video of the lads, at the height of their powers and glory, performing it live:
🙂
Perhaps you should tune in to another station.
Please please me … like I please you
She was just seventeen, you know what I mean?
when I get home to you I’ll find the things that you do will make me feel alright.
I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me?
All lyrics by a certain fairly successful song writing duo in the sixties. In fact, I once read that the first song they wrote that was not about love and/or sex – certainly the first hit single – was Paperback Writer about four years in.
Also, don’t analyse the lyrics of “Run for your Life” with modern sensibilities.
Anyway, people are still writing good music. It’s just that charts like the US Billboard top 100 and the UK pop charts are not the place to find it. Well, probably not – I don’t listen to them.
Indeed. Much of rock music has been about sex. Not all. You will have to look long and hard to find a song by Rush or Iron Maiden about sex or love or women or whatever. Also Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, many progressive-rock groups. But by and large, much of rock and pop music is about sex, always has been. What has changed is the quality of the music. Old joke: What’s the difference between a Spice Girls video and a porn film? The porn film has better music.
Maybe it was sometimes more subtle in the past. How about this, from Heart:
I was a willow last night in my dream
I bent down over a clear running stream
I sang you the song that I heard up above
And you kept me alive with your sweet, flowing love
A poetic description of fellatio from the woman’s point of view.
As regards Run for Your Life, it is really the only cringeworthy song in the Beatles catalogue. There are some I don’t care much for, but that one really stands out in a bad way. At least Lennon later said that he was sorry that he had written it.
I’m not so sure about that interpretation of that verse from Crazy On You. It sure does not read that way to me and I’ve never heard of that interpretation before. Is that your take or did you pick it up some where else?
Read it somewhere and it seemed to make sense.
What else could it mean? 🙂
In context with the rest of the lyrics it seems to me to be one of several “images” or “metaphors” in the song of two people in love comforting and sustaining each other in the face of a world that has some serious problems.
But, that’s just me! 🙂
+1
To be honest, I find swearing and sexual references utterly inoffensive, personally. But, the lack of depth and texture in most modern music does offend. on two occasions I’ve thought to look up what songs Taylor Swift is known for, seeing as I couldn’t think of one. A few weeks later, I still couldn’t. utterly bland and forgettable. There are some modern bands that are incredible, but they don’t get played on the radio much. For me, it’s bands like Jinjer, The Hu, Aurora, Hozier, Karnivool, Tool, Unleash the Archers etc. Going back a few years, I love the likes of Creedence, Black Sabbath, Rush, Jethro Tull, Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane, Simon & Garfunkel.
Basically, there’s gold in them thar hills, no matter the era. But, why the vast majority of people appear satisfied with bland rubbish does baffle me.
Even now I’m still blown away by Jethro Tull’s ‘Bungle in the Jungle’—
The rivers are full of crocodile nasties,
And He who made kittens put snakes in the grass—He’s
A lover of life but a player of pawns,
The Lord of the Sunrise sits waiting for dawn
To light up the jungle, so play can resume…
Those are mighty lines by anyone’s standard!
Ian Anderson is truly one of the great rock lyricists. Especially the stuff in the 1970s was very good. He also single-handedly (sometimes literally!) made the flute a solo instrument in rock, had a very good and unique voice, and is an excellent acoustic-guitar player. And wrote essentially all of the music.
Bungle in the Jungle he didn’t particularly like, it being a had-to-write a single song.
From one of the less popular albums, a description of a seaside town in the off-season: Empty-drugstore postcards freeze sunburst images of summers gone.
Some classic Tull, from one of the few phases where Anderson didn’t have much of a beard:
Every generation thinks that the music of the generations after them is terrible. This goes back centuries.
That said, I was ten years old fifty years ago. I remember really liking some of those songs on that list. I followed the Top Ten religiously at that age!
Indeed. Wilkie Collins’ 1862 novel No Name opens in 1846 the morning after a father has taken his daughters to a concert which they loved but he thought was a noisy racket:
I never stopped acquiring new music, so to speak, and I’m 60. I like plenty of music “that came after me”. But that pretty much stopped in around 2000 when melody died, harmony closely followed it, and production values coalesced onto one over-compressed, computerized drums, phony (to me) sound.
And when “singer-songwriter” music became tuneless, no vocal power, one-chord wonders.
If one compares what’s popular now for: Dynamic range in the instruments, vocal power and range, production values, variety, almost any criterion, to that older music, it’s not much of a contest. Even lyrics (if all you have left is shock value, you ain’t got much). My 16 year recognizes this instantly (it may help that he’s a semi-serious musician).
Sure, there’s still great music out there; but you have to search it out. It used to come in my ears unbidden from the radio.
The last word in innuendo
https://youtu.be/QCY50FKFyiQ
“Will this song last? Will it ever be an “oldie”, played on radio stations in 2070? Don’t bet on it!”
My dictum is: Never bet on what will end up with lasting power! It’s so often going to be embarrassing in the long run. (Think of all the great classical music that was disparaged as worthless at the time by “those in the know.”)
I mean, who would have thought that passing 80’s disco hit “You Spin Me Right Round” by Dead Or Alive would still be playing today, in malls etc, so much that my kids even know the song. Or Flock Of Seagulls which for a long time were viewed as examples of 80’s casualties, but are now beloved?
I find the list endless of songs I hear on the retro radio, or in malls, or coming through my kid’s laptop, that I never in a million years thought could have survived time much less flourished. I’ve given up that bet.
As has been said many times: the music you grew up with gets locked in with development. Looking at youtube music comments is enlightening: as long as it’s 10 years or older, it won’t matter if it’s a song from the 60s, 70s,80s, 90s or naughts, the comment section is flooded with “this was back when music was ACTUALLY GOOD!”
I literally can not fathom much of the rap stuff my son listens to. It barely processes a “music” to me. But I’m in no position to judge what’s good or not in rap, or what is likely to be seen as classics down the road.
As for current pop music, I had some level of pride of “keeping up” with music for a long time, but I finally threw in the towel several years ago and can’t listen to most of the top 10. It all sounds like it’s hooks written by studio rats. There isn’t any music I can imagine the artist actually sitting down and writing herself on say, a guitar, or piano or even keyboards. It’s studio hooks.
That said, I do acknowledge the occasional gem in current pop music. Australian pop/disco diva Kylie Minogue’s new record – Disco – is absolutely killer! It’s a pinnacle of updated pop/disco production with hook after hook. I even bought it on vinyl I liked it so much!
As noted above, “popular” music has always been mostly about love and sex, simply because it’s the number one thing that most people are interested in.
Don’t forget that what gets into the singles chart tends to be the music that is liked by people who aren’t really into music that much, but what gets remembered is the stuff that is liked by people who are really into music. Stuff that is briefly popular with a lot of people gets in the charts, stuff that is deeply loved by a smaller number of people gets remembered.
That said, you can certainly argue that mainstream chart music is now worse than it has been at any time since 1955. We often use “one note” as a metaphorical criticism, but its amazing how many songs its literally true for.
Or two notes. It’s true. Easy for people with no voice to sing!
The “Notify me of new comments via email” button didn’t work the first time around…
If you’re looking for some seriously electric (in the “I do believe that gentleman may have ingested a psychedelic or two at some point in his life” sense of the word) guitar work in the background of a very non-autotuned voice, search “Tormenta (Bank Terrace) Chico Antonio”. It’s on YouTube and at Bandcamp.
“Warnama” by Siselabonga is also a refreshing cut.
There is no way to compare the creative forward thinking artists of the seventies to the bland lowest common denominator make-for-marketing tripe from today when it comes to pop music. This isn’t because there are no talented musicians or creative types, of course, but rather because the public now demands mediocrity and culture has become so watered down. There is money to be made in being lifeless and mundane, but the truly expressive souls wallow in obscurity. But, at least it keeps their art pure and it is coming from a true place rather than just milked as a mindless cacophonic commodity.