Category: Get off my lawn!

Rick Beato: Taylor Swift vs. The Beatles

April 1, 2026 • 11:45 am

You can call me a curmudgeon for saying that rock and pop music today are dreadful compared to that of their years of apogee (yes, my teenage years!), but you’d have to call Rick Beato a curmudgeon as well. And he knows a ton about music, being a musician himself, a producer, a music analyst, and a teacher. So he surely has more musical cred than I. Nevertheless, we generally share opinions about music, in particular the view modern rock and pop is tedious, repetitive, and boring. And I’ll argue strenuously that it’s not just because I like the music of my youth, and other generations like the music of their youth. Nope, metrics like musical complexity, the frequency of autotuning, and so on support the decline of rock and pop.

In the ten-minute video below, Beato compares the Beatles with Taylor Swift, and you can guess who comes off worse. (The “kids” may disagree, but they also are largely ignorant of the Beatles.) I have to say that I’ve listened to a fair amount of Taylor Swift, trying arduously to find out what it is about her music that’s made her the world’s biggest pop sensation. It can’t be her tunes, which are unmemorable, so perhaps it’s her lyrics about the bad guys she’s been involved with—something that surely resonates with her (mostly) female fans.

In this video Beato reacts to a 2024 NYT article (archived here) that discussed whether Taylor Swift is bigger now than the Beatles were in the past. That article concludes that both were huge and, if you use the right metrics, Swift can be seen as even bigger than the Beatles:

The length of Swift’s career has allowed her into the Beatles’ vaunted ballpark by giving her the chance to evolve her sound, grow her loyal audience and take full advantage of technological advances.

Yet as wild as it is for the Beatles to have accomplished so much in so little time, Swift’s longevity might be considered equally impressive in pop music, which often overvalues the new and — especially among female artists — the young.

Swift is of course still active, so we can’t measure something that I consider important: will their music be listened to twenty years hence? And how will it be regarded several decades after Swift or the Beatles stopped making music? We’ll have to wait, of course, for the answers to those questions, and I’ll be underground.

However, in this video, Beato details his experiences with Swift, having attended a number of her concerts and having a deep acquaintance with her music, as he has with the Beatles. But Beato is concentrating on quality, not sales or chart position.  He notes that many of Taylor Swift’s melodies were written by a large number of people who change over time, compared to only three for the Beatles (Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison). And it shows in the lame melodies (Beato likes Swift’s lyrics better than “her” tunes.) Further, Swift’s instrumentation itself was largely produced and performed \ by people other than Swift—something that, says Beato, is simply “how pop music is made” these days.

Although one would think that the Beatles don’t need to be extolled by Beato, since he’s done it so many times before, but he does mention great melodies of Beatles songs like “Lady Madonna,” or “I am the Walrus.”  (I could mention a gazillion more.) In contrast to Swift, he argues, the Beatles did not repeat ideas, and “they came up with all those ideas themselves.” He winds up calling Swift a “content creator”, who picks the brains of other people when she wants to change her music.

Beato asks for comments on his opinion, and I welcome yours below. But I doubt I’ll change my opinion that rock and pop music peaked several decades ago, and has gone downhill ever since. Swift’s immense popularity only proves that.

I have never heard a Taylor Swift song that comes close to the quality of this Beatles classic, and it isn’t all that complex compared to their later work. George Martin’s interpolation at 1:42, however, is a piece of genius:

The song was recorded on 18 October 1965, and it was complete except for the instrumental bridge. At that time, Lennon had not decided what instrument to use, but he subsequently asked George Martin to play a piano solo, suggesting “something Baroque-sounding”. Martin wrote a Bach-influenced piece that he found he could not play at the song’s tempo. On 22 October, the solo was recorded with the tape running at half speed, so when played back at normal pace the piano was twice as fast and an octave higher, solving the performance challenge and also giving the solo a unique timbre, reminiscent of a harpsichord.

Words and phrases I detest

February 19, 2026 • 10:50 am

I haven’t been very assiduous in collecting annoying phrases lately, so I have only two. Readers are invited to add their selections:

“Medaled”.  This is everywhere in the Olympic reporting, and of course it means “get a medal”. But which medal? If you’re reporting on how many medals a country has gotten in total, you can say “America now has 24 medals”.  You don’t say “America has medaled 24 times.” The past-tense verb is used instead to apply to individuals or teams within a sport (figure skaters or gymnasts, for example). For example, you can say that “Mikaela Shiffrin has medaled three times”, but that leaves out the fact that these are gold medals. Curiously, you don’t say that someone “gold medaled,” though that is more informative.

If you’re going to say “medaled”, then you should say that Watson and Crick “Nobeled” in 1962 and Percival Everett “Pulitzered” for fiction last year.  The verb “medaled” is not only annoying, but uniformative.

“Do better”.  This is a favorite of social-justice warriors when impugning or correcting someone who made an ideological misstep.

An AI definition:

To “do better” in social justice, focus on sustained action over performative gestures: educate yourself with credible, diverse sources, actively support minority-owned businesses, and donate time or money to grassroots organizations. Amplify marginalized voices, advocate for systemic policy changes (like voting rights), and practice empathy and deep listening in difficult conversations.

So the phrase in itself can refer to doing real good, but all too often it’s performative.  As an example, one could say, in light of the preceding article: PEN America, “Do better and focus on Israel’s genocide.”  I find the phrase patronizing and usually uttered by the entitled. It’s also rude.

Here’s one example from HuffPo, of course (the rag still exists!): “Men: We have to do better.” Sorry, but I’m doing the best I can, and resent the implication that all men are harassers or abusers of women (read the thing).

Your turn.

Rick Beato further mourns the decline of rock and pop music

February 12, 2026 • 11:45 am

Yep, here I go again pointing out the decline in the quality of rock and pop music. But this time I’m joined by the music maven Rick Beato, who has always had the same opinion.  In this video he compares music from 1984 vs. 2026, juxtaposing the Grammy nominees for Song of the Year from both years. Save for one song, he finds the 2026 nominees lame, so there’s no contest. Music, he argues implictly, has gone downhill in the past four decades.

I’ll list the nominees and make some comments below. The winner for both years is is at the top. My own comments are flush left.

1984

Song of the Year

Had I voted, there would be no hesitation in my dubbing “Billie Jean” as Song of the Year, but all of these songs, as Beato agrees, are good and memorable. They will last, and will still be popular years from now (they’re still listened to 42 years later!).

*******************

2026 (winner was announced on Feb. 1)

Song of the Year

Beato finds “Wildflower” the best for this year; it is, he says, a “great song”. (This is Eilish’s tenth Grammy.)  While I don’t think it’s great, it is very good, and miles above all the other nominees. And it won. I’ll put it below. He simply dismisses the other seven songs, though a few have some merit, like being “well produced.”

The reasons Beato finds this year’s songs worse are that they are in general lame, derivative, often include many songwriters (too many writers spoil the song), and sometimes include sampling from older songs.

In contrast, only one of the 1984 songs has more than one writer, and all include the singer as a composer.  (Note that one is by Bad Bunny, and Beato can’t understand the words!)  Beato’s takeaway is that nobody will remember songs written by so many people, and nobody will remember these latest songs more than three years from now.

Beato:

Here is “Wildflower,” live with Billie Eilish (the official release is here, and the lyrics are here). The only accompaniments are a guitar, bass, two sets of drums, and three backup singers.

Why don’t people talk on the phone anymore?

September 9, 2025 • 11:30 am
Source

I’m sure everybody over 50 has noticed the trend of younger people—and by “younger”, I mean even up to age 40—avoiding making phone calls. Instead, people email or text, and the younger they are, the more they use text. I’m sure there are kids who never talk to anybody on the phone, except perhaps their parents when they have to.

I’ve long noticed this trend, but I can’t explain it.  There are certain conveniences to emailing and texting, like getting your thoughts off into the ether immediately instead of waiting for someone to answer the phone. But texting or emailing doesn’t guarantee an immediate response, especially with emails, which at least require some thought on one’s part instead of a kneejerk response. The less thought you need in a medium, the more the younger people use it.

And that leads to one of my (probably incorrect) explanations for this trend.  The reason I prefer the phone over text is that phones allow for continuous conversations, which are more unpredictable, which can be way more fun, and allow more social connection (and bonding) with others. Talking on the phone also conveys nuance through the tone of your voice—nuance that’s not only absent in written communication, but can be misinterpreted in texts and emails and cause trouble. (This is why the younger generation uses emoticons: to avoid miscommunication that wouldn’t occur in phone calls.)

But using the phone requires you to implement a number of social skills—those involved in direct interpersonal interaction—that you don’t need in short written communications. And that’s apparently too much trouble for a lot of people.

This is my theory, which is mine, but I’m sure it’s been suggested before, and I’m ignorant of the literature on exactly why younger people love to text and intermediate-age people to email.  It’s clear, though, that teachers and others see a detrimental effect of incessant texting on social interaction among younger folks. That’s why Jon Haidt, supported by every teacher on the planet, wants to keep cellphones out of school.  That way you can still talk to your classmates, but you can’t text anybody you want and avoid social interaction.

The title above is actually my question to readers: why, do you think, people of many ages are inexorably moving towards short electronic written communication and avoiding either vocal communication or face-to-face communication?

Here’s a short video of Sherry Turkle, whom I’ve met a few times, telling us why conversation is better than texting. She’s mainly talking about face-to-face conversation rather than phone conversations, but some of the advantages apply to telephone conversation vs. texting.

This is part of what Sherry works on as an academic at MIT, and so her views deserve a hearing.

Movie dancing set to Steely Dan

September 8, 2025 • 11:30 am

Andrew Sullivan posted this video on his column this week as a “mental health break”. It comprises old movie clips of great dancing, all set to Steely Dan’s “Only a fool would say that.” Wikipedia says this about the song:

“Only a Fool Would Say That” is a song with lyrics rumoured to mock John Lennon’s 1971 song “Imagine“. In 2024, American Songwriter claimed that the lyrics were chiding Lennon for “being out of touch with reality.”

But it’s a great song, and there’s some great dancing below. How many can you recognize? Still, I prefer the originals. The first clip of Astaire and Rita Hayworth is one of my favorites (see the original, ” The Shorty George”, here). And I hope you recognize Cagney in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Finally, one of the greatest movie performances of dance was the Nicholas Brothers, shown young and old. The original is here.

They don’t dance like this no more.  And why has dancing disappeared from the movies? Would people rather see car chases and shootings?

Words and phrases I detest

September 5, 2025 • 11:30 am

It’s time again to vent our spleens by giving the words and phrases that we find detestable.  Today I have four single words. I know I’ve put at least one of these up before (“fam”), but never mind. There is a theme today: short words or contractions used to make yourself look cool. Here we go (I give examples of each).

1.) Inspo: This is short for “inspiration”, but “inspir” would be better. “Inspo” is in fact so truncated that its meaning is not clear.

Here’s an example I found on my computer’s news site under Tasting Table. It’s about what drinks you should not order at Starbucks because they are complicated for the baristas to make and thus and hold up the line:

Another challenge is that many of these viral recipes include syrups or ingredients that are either seasonal or have been discontinued. Now, add in AI. Some customers walk in with AI-generated inspo scraped from social feeds and get upset if their order isn’t an exact match. These drinks are confusing, hard to memorize, and exhausting.

That word curls the soles of my shoes.

2.) Merch: You all know this one because it’s everywhere, and stands for “merchandise”. Somehow I find it demeaning to sellers. HuffPost, which I no longer read, is a good place to find such “we’re so cool” language. Here’s one article; click to read, though you don’t have to.

 

3.) Fam:  I find this contraction the most offensive of the three. And it came, of all places, from the New York Times food column, recommending a bodega in the invaluable “where to eat” column.  This one hasn’t been posted on the paper yet.  Note that there may be a bit of racist language here, with “we all” perhaps stemming from black English.  But bodegas are a Hispanic site, not a black one.


4.) Mood.  No, this is not the past tense of a cow sound; it is used to mean something like: “Here’s something [usually a feeling] that I can relate to.” Like the ones below.  As Sophie Chew, a lady after my own heart, wrote on yahoo! life,

For example: as I write this, I’m hungry, cranky, and stressed out, but I am also Meryl Streep’s scream in Big Little Lies, a glass of wine on the beach, an obese Golden Retriever, a yawning hippo, Detective Pikachu drinking tea, Elmo shrugging, pink hair, a guy giving the finger, the weather, and a cat in a watermelon.

All of these are moods. Some are even big moods or mood AF, depending on how intensely you’re feeling it.

. . . The term is so liberally applied that while browsing Twitter in the name of research, I came across everything from porn to puppies. When I checked a minute ago, #mood had clocked over 77 million uses on Instagram—not including instances where the term is used without the hashtag.Most frequently, it’s used as an expression of like-mindedness or sympathy. Say you’re scrolling through Twitter on Monday morning and see that your friend has posted a photo of Spongebob being buried alive. You get it immediately. Mood AF, right there.

Ms. Chew gives several examples; here are three:

 

If you want to see 50 of these Gen Z words, go here.

Your turn. Give us the modern language that turns your stomach.

 

Do not do what I did

September 2, 2025 • 7:40 am

A few weeks ago I bought this “ice cream”—at least I thought it was ice cream—because it was on sale. (Now that I’ve discovered the fabulous Tilamook ice cream, I don’t think I’ll be buying any other brand, though I do recommend Trader Joe’s Super Premium Ultra Chocolate Ice Cream, which is not that expensive). I had a look at it this morning in the lab freezer (I put it there because it was too hot to carry this home), and, sure enough, it wasn’t ice cream. Look at what I’ve circled:

What is the difference? Mental Floss tells us:

Food labels aren’t filled out on a whim. They’re the product of standards and guidelines issued and overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is charged with making sure we have at least some idea of what we’re consuming. (The FDA’s roots are in the government asking volunteers to eat small amounts of poison, but that’s another story.) For ice cream, the FDA has a mathematical formula. Products bearing that label must contain at least 10 percent dairy fat and must also weigh 4.5 pounds to the gallon. The latter is important because no ice cream can have more than 100 percent overrun, or the amount of air equal to solids. In broad terms, the FDA wants to make sure anyone selling you ice cream is selling you sufficient dairy milk fat and not a carton full of air.

If a product flunks on both these counts, it can be sold—but manufacturers can’t call it “ice cream.” It’s now a frozen dairy dessert. Thanks to more air and less milk fat, it’s likely cheaper to produce.

. . . Perry’s ice cream makes a point of boasting of their true ice cream status and also points out some variations within that definition. Some ice cream might be labeled “economy,” which meets the bare minimum standards. “Regular” ice cream falls below 100 percent overrun while adding a bit more milkfat. “Premium” ice cream might have as little as 60 percent overrun. “Super-premium” is as low as 50 percent, with milk fats as high as 18 percent.

Other companies may offer both. Breyers, for example, offers ice cream and frozen dairy desserts, a distinction that may not be apparent unless consumers examine the packaging carefully.

Because I wasn’t paying attention, I bought myself a carton of what is largely air. Do not make this mistake: examine labels carefully. Breyer’s Ice Cream, once my favorite, now has a lot of flavors that are actually “frozen dairy desserts.”  Caveat emptor.

And, of course, real ice cream used to come in half-gallon cartons. They’ve reduced that by 25%, and now you’re buying 1.5 quarts, or, in the case above, 1.44 quarts. They’ve chiseled us down another 0.06 quarts.  Since nobody looks at this stuff, we become victims of greed (one might even say “duplicity”).