Category: Get off my lawn!

More evidence for the decline and fall of rock and roll

March 29, 2024 • 11:45 am

I told you so! Rock reached its apogee in the Sixties and has been going downhill ever since.  Today’s popular music for young people is pathetic: autotuned, repetitive, trite, and without much creativity or inventivity. Look at the Billboard Top Ten this week, featuring Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.  Yes, readers send me groups that, they claim, are as good as the Beatles. They often are okay, but they are definitely not as good as the Beatles. Or The Band, or Hendrix, or Clapton, or Joni Mitchell, or Steely Dan, or. . . . ad infinitum.

But don’t take my word for it; I’ve already defended my views extensively. Now SCIENCE itself proves the decline of rock, summarized in the article in the Guardian below, and based in a paper in the respectable journal Nature. You can read both by clicking below:

I’ll simply provide an excerpt of the Guardian article:

You’re not just getting older. Song lyrics really are becoming simpler and more repetitive, according to a study published on Thursday.

Lyrics have also become angrier and more self-obsessed over the last 40 years, the study found, reinforcing the opinions of cranky ageing music fans everywhere.

A team of European researchers analysed the words in more than 12,000 English-language songs across the genres of rap, country, pop, R&B and rock from 1980 to 2020.

Before detailing how lyrics have become more basic, the study pointed out that US singer-songwriting legend Bob Dylan – who rose to fame in the 1960s – has won a Nobel prize in literature.

. . . . “What we have also been witnessing in the last 40 years is a drastic change in the music landscape – from how music is sold to how music is produced,” Zangerle said.

Over the 40 years studied, there was repeated upheaval in how people listened to music. The vinyl records and cassette tapes of the 1980s gave way to the CDs of the 90s, then the arrival of the internet led to the algorithm-driven streaming platforms of today.

For the study in the journal [Nature] Scientific Reports, the researchers looked at the emotions expressed in lyrics, how many different and complicated words were used, and how often they were repeated.

“Across all genres, lyrics had a tendency to become more simple and more repetitive,” Zangerle summarised.

The results also confirmed previous research which had shown a decrease in positive, joyful lyrics over time and a rise in those that express anger, disgust or sadness.

Lyrics have also become much more self-obsessed, with words such as “me” or “mine” becoming much more popular.

The number of repeated lines rose most in rap over the decades, Zangerle said – adding that it obviously had the most lines to begin with.

“Rap music has become more angry than the other genres,” she added.

The researchers also investigated which songs the fans of different genres looked up on the lyric website Genius.

Unlike other genres, rock fans most often looked up lyrics from older songs, rather than new ones.

Rock has tumbled down the charts in recent decades, and this could suggest fans are increasingly looking back to the genre’s heyday, rather than its present.

Another way that music has changed is that “the first 10-15 seconds are highly decisive for whether we skip the song or not,” Zangerle said.

Previous research has also suggested that people tend to listen to music more in the background these days, she added.

There you go. If self-obsessed, angry, repetitive, and simpler songs are better songs, then you don’t have ears to hear. Further, “rock fans most often looked up lyrics from older songs, rather than new ones.”

My prediction is that “oldies” stations will continue to play music of the sixties and early seventies, and you won’t be hearing Ariana Grande even when the kids in Generation Z or Generation Alpha grow up.  Yes, people may prefer the tunes of their youth, for that was the musical background for their growing up, but it so happens that my youth happened to coincide with the greatest flowering of rock music. (Purely a coincidence, I assure you.) Like art, classical music, and opera, genres of art tend to wear themselves out and become senescent. Nowhere is this more evident than rock music.

I found the article in Nature Scientific Reports on which the piece above was based. Click to read; I’ll not go through it as it’s long and complicated:

The abstract:

Abstract

Music is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and lyrics play an integral role when we listen to music. The complex relationships between lyrical content, its temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations, however, are yet to be fully understood. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of English lyrics of Western, popular music over five decades and five genres, using a wide set of lyrics descriptors, including lyrical complexity, structure, emotion, and popularity. We find that pop music lyrics have become simpler and easier to comprehend over time: not only does the lexical complexity of lyrics decrease (for instance, captured by vocabulary richness or readability of lyrics), but we also observe that the structural complexity (for instance, the repetitiveness of lyrics) has decreased. In addition, we confirm previous analyses showing that the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative and that lyrics have become more personal over the last five decades. Finally, a comparison of lyrics view counts and listening counts shows that when it comes to the listeners’ interest in lyrics, for instance, rock fans mostly enjoy lyrics from older songs; country fans are more interested in new songs’ lyrics.

QED.

h/t: Jez

 

Bill Maher on the materialism pervading modern rock

February 3, 2024 • 1:30 pm

Good Lord! I had no idea that there were so many songs about money these days. In this eight-minute segment from Bill Maher’s new show, he decries what the desire for goods and dosh has done to the younger generation and their music. He quotes a lot of old rock lyrics about being poor (I remember ’em all!), and compares them to modern ones extolling Gucci, Givency, Rolex, and so on..  Let’s just say that if I wrote this, I’d be called a “get off my lawn” geezer. But Maher is right, and as funny as usual.

Money quote: “Vomiting an inventory of your possessions doesn’t make you a poet.”

h/t: Enrico

People talking too much

December 17, 2023 • 11:00 am

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but now I’ve formulated a rule about it.

I think that the trend for one person to talk at great length in conversations started—or at least increased exponentially—during the pandemic. I noticed then, and am still noticing, that there’s an increase in the amount of monologuing during conversations. (My theory for this, which is mine, is that people were isolated during the pandemic, and made up for it by talking a lot during social interaction.) That is, you can be having a  a chat with someone, and during that time the person you’re talking to tends to dominate the discourse, going on and on for minutes at a time.  Often this is accompanied by a lack of interest in the more laconic person, and if that happens to be me, I feel that the yakkers are interested only in themselves, not in the person they’re talking to. In other words, I see monloguing not only as a bit rude, but also self-centered.  Since I don’t like to interrupt people (that’s a rule I had in my discussion seminars when I was teaching), I wind up feeling that I’ve been to a lecture, not a conversation.

I believe I’ve heard the rule below somewhere, but can’t remember where. But here’s the rule, which is now mine and here it is:

If you’re having a conversation with someone, you should utter only one to three sentences before you give the other person a chance to talk. 

I hasten to add that I’m not indicting everyone here, just a few people. Nor should you assume that if you talk to me regularly, you’re one of the guilty parties!

Now clearly there are exceptions: people telling stories or jokes, or when the other person encourages a monologue.  But otherwise, if you want to have a real conversation in which ideas are exchanged and personal bonds formed, I suggest adhering to the 1-3 sentence rule. I am trying to do this myself now.

***********

Here’s a cartoon taken from a very helpful article called “When you talk too much” on the site Etiquette for the Business of Life:

Stuff that’s too expensive

August 7, 2023 • 12:15 pm

If you do grocery shopping (and who doesn’t?), you may have noticed that a lot of stuff—and not just groceries—have skyrocketed in price since the pandemic.  I’m not sure whether this is gouging or a normal economic response (maybe they’re the same), but I’m pretty sure that people are charging what the traffic will bear and that somehow competition hasn’t kept prices down.

The other day, for instance, I bought a baguette on my way home, and the price at the local bakery (the Medici, if you want to know) had jumped from $2 to $3 in one go: a 50% increase. When I wrote to the bakery manager (or owner) complaining, saying that I could get just as good a baguette for $2 at Trader Joe’s, the guy wrote a stinging response saying that he’s just making sure that his workers get a living wage and I could shop at Trader Joe’s if I wanted a place where (presumably) workers don’t make good wages. In fact, Trader Joe’s gives the wages of its Chicago employees, and here they are:

Average Trader Joe’s Crew Member hourly pay in Chicago is approximately $17.79, which is 36% above the national average.

I won’t be going to that store any more, and I presume that the Medici didn’t hike all the employees’ wages 50%.

Here are other things that seem much more expensive than a few years ago, and for some of the price hikes there are good reasons (eggs, for example, skyrocketed because of a chicken shortage).

Bread It’s a crime to pay more than $1 a loaf for decent sliced white bread (that’s what Aldi’s charges), but you’re lucky if you find a loaf for under three bucks in a grocery store.

Eggs (see above)

Toothpaste  I don’t know how the manufacturers get away with charging four bucks per tube when Pepsodent (now almost impossible to find) cost $1 per tube for years. It’s as if adding a bit of potassium nitrate (to reduce sensitivity) to the common stannous fluoride suddenly boosts the price to the stratosphere. Do you know what potassium nitrate costs if you buy it in the lab? Almost nothing! In my view, products like Sensodyne, which is just regular toothpaste with those anti-sensitivity ingredients added) are huge ripoffs. But I use them anyway, as there’s no alternative.

Cereal.  I occasionally used to buy “healthy” cereals like Raisin Bran or Shredded Wheat, but now they’re uber costly. My breakfasts now consist of a latte and two slices of toast. Speaking of which:

Fancy coffee.  I know what it costs to make a latte, because I have a good one every day, made in my Breville espresso machine from good French roast beans from Trader Joe’s (I have a good grinder, too). I’ll estimate the the price of the coffee is about 20 cents and the milk about 25 cents. That makes the latte cost 45 cents.  If you get one in Starbucks, it’ll be about ten times that high. I know there’s overhead and decent wages for the employees, but that is a big profit margin. And if you favor those fancy coffees that are really liquid desserts (peppermint lattes and the like), you’re getting ripped off more, not to mention ingesting a lot of unhealthy calories.

Cars. I haven’t bought a new or used car in years; I’m happy with my 2000 Honda Civic that I keep upgraded by installing stuff as it wears out. (It has only about 78,000 miles on it.) But the reports on the news about the hikes in prices of both new and used cars are scary. Imagine paying 50,000 for a new car!

Airfares.  I won’t kvetch at length about this, but as service goes down, and lots of extra fees get tacked on (e.g., checking luggage, which I never do, mainly because of the bag-loss factor), the airfares go up.

What prices curl the soles of your shoes these days? Now’s your turn to kvetch.

It’s “FREE REIN”, not “free reign”

May 7, 2023 • 9:15 am

In the last week I’ve seen the term “free reign” used three times. It almost seems more common than the correct usage, which is “free rein.” And it’s not as if the language is changing, either, for “free reign” simply doesn’t make any sense, while “free rein” makes a lot of sense.

Here, let Merriam-Webster explain it to you, though I expect most readers here will know the correct usage:

Origins of Free Rein

The expression “free rein” originated as horseback-riding jargon referring to the act of holding the reins (the straps by which a rider controls the horse) loosely so as to allow the horse to freely move along at its own pace and in its desired direction. Figurative use of the phrase referring to freedom of action goes back to the 17th century.

The tongues of Angels are not able to expresse what benefits doe redound unto man by the right ordering of the tongue, and what harmes and inconveniences againe, when we give it free reines to lash out.
— Alexander Read, The Chirurgicall Lectures of Tumors and Ulcers, 1635

Then things begin to go downhill:

About two centuries later, the phrase perplexingly begins appearing in print in the form “free reign.”

Here we may give free reign to our imagination, with the moral certainty that science will supply nothing tending either to prove or to disprove any of its fancies.
— The Salvator and Scientist (Chicago, Illinois), September 1896

Why it begins to appear during a time when the horse was still the primary mode of transportation is puzzling. On the other hand, in modern times, misinterpretation of “free rein” as “free reign” is a bit more understandable—though still grammatically wrong—after all, how often does the average person handle the reins of a horse? To those unfamiliar with the equestrian origin of the phrase, reign with its association with monarchy (influenced by the media’s obsession with the English Royal Family) might seem the better choice than a word for straps to control a horse, and an Internet search will confirm that quite a few people agree.

If you are one of those people, we would like to offer a couple of mnemonics to help you mentally autocorrect “free reign” before it becomes an acceptable (yet still illogical) variant of “free rein.” First, remember that reigning as king and queen entails having the freedom to choose and make decisions; therefore, monarchs have “free rein” during their reign. Also, there are a handful of other common figurative phrases originating from a horse’s rein that you can associate with “free rein” if you have a brain cramp.

The supervisor has/keeps a tight rein on every stage of production.

We need to rein in our spending.

She handed over the reins of the company to her successor.

As you can see, rein is the word to use when implying holding back or granting freedom of action; reign, on the other hand, is reserved for the ruling over a people or land. “Free reign” might sound impressive to you but not to your editor or teacher.

In summary: Reign is royal authority, the influence and sway of a ruler, or one who resembles a ruler. Rein is the strap fastened to an animal (such as a horse or mule) by a bit, which allows a rider or driver to control the animal. If you rule over something you may be said to reign over it. If you are allowed a great deal of freedom you might be said to have free rein.

Don’t bother to tell me that this is just another example of language changing. It may be changing, but it’s also becoming wrong, as “free reign”, as a metaphor, conjures up nothing. As Orwell said, if you use language, it should express something you can visualize as meaningful.

 

Squabbling with Amazon

April 29, 2023 • 1:00 pm

In the past, one advantage I found in dealing with Amazon is that you can actually talk to a human rather than a bot. Well, you could get to a human quickly. Now it’s almost impossible to do that.  (This of course is a perpetual beef of most of us.)  I call companies like Amazon only when I have a problem that REQUIRES a human being to resolve, but of course you have to keep stating your problem to a bot, and the bot can never grasp an issue that’s not absolutely common. (So much for the Turing test!)

Today I called Amazon because I ordered something with free shipping but, at checkout, they told me I had received a membership in Amazon Prime—something I don’t want (it costs like $15 a month). This was AFTER I’d already rejected Amazon Prime earlier in the ordering process. This is now what you see just before you press the “order” button.

I don’t fricking WANT “prime FREE for 30 days!”So I called the company to get that “free 6 months membership” off my slate, because after that month they start dunning you.  And of course the bot couldn’t deal with that.

After shouting “REPRESENTATIVE!” a gazillion times into the phone (I bet you’ve done that!), I got Mariana from Guatemala on the line, and she also proved unable to solve my problem, either. I finally realized how to fix it myself by realizing that they’ve simply added a second offer of Amazon Prime (they always offer it while you’re ordering it) but have disguised it as if it were an automatic membership that comes with your order. If you get that at the final check-out, click the “Try Prime” box at the upper left and you can opt out of it.

Mariana told me that I could eliminate these come-ons from Amazon myself, and she’d send me an email showing how. This is what I got (note what I’ve put in bold); my solution was supposed to be in the part in bold.

Hello,Amazon places ads on third-party websites to help our customers discover products and services they will like. Although we may have shown an ad we think will be of interest to you, we have not shared information about you, such as your purchase or browsing history, with the site on which you saw this ad.You can find more information in our Interest-Based Ads notice here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GLVB9XDF9M8MU7UZIf you’d like to stop seeing interest-based ads from Amazon, you can update your Advertising Preferences in your Amazon account here: https://www.amazon.com/adprefs. Please note that if you choose not to see interest-based ads from Amazon you will still see ads, but they will not be based on your interests.For more information about how we collect and use data, please see the following pages:• Privacy Notice: https://www.amazon.com/privacy-notice• Cookie Notice: https://www.amazon.com/cookiesWe hope to see you again soon.

Best regards,
Mariana S.

Ha! Nope, no way to eliminate the annoying prime box, which they apparently now add (along with the other one) at the final step of checking out. Further, look at this (italics are mine):

Please note that if you choose not to see interest-based ads from Amazon you will still see ads, but they will not be based on your interests.

What good is that? I don’t want to see any ads! At any rate, I solved my own issue, but the Amazon human was of absolutely no help, and Mariana was unable to tell me about me the simple fix I figured out for myself.

But trying to get anyone on the phone was the most annoying part. Even when you want emergency road service from AAA, you are unlikely to get a human. I guess bots are not cheaper, but in the old days, if I had an Amazon issue, I could get a human on the line within a minute, and they’d revolve the problem equally quickly.

I am SO tired of calling a company and being given ten options, each associated with a number to press on the phone, AND NOT ONE OF THEM INVOLVES TALKING TO A HUMAN. Sometimes you can get a human by pressing “0” (they won’t tell you that); at other times you can scream “REPRESENTATIVE” to the phone (I find it helps one’s well-being to yell it as loud as possible), but sometimes you can’t get one at all.

Get off my lawn!

 

The sterile and expensive Denver International Airport

November 6, 2022 • 1:30 pm

You know what really bothers me?

I have to cool my heels at DIA for several hours before catching a flight back to Chicago, and I swear that I’ve never seen a more sterile airport in my life.  There are long, soul-less corridors of gates, with nary a nom to be found unless you take a long hike towards Baggage Claim. The place may be efficient, but it provides little comfort.

Here are two panoramas of the corridor (click to enlarge):

Can you name a more sterile airport?

Well, at least the restrooms are clean. But the restaurant is also victim of another pet peeve: overpriced food. After you hike a mile to find something to eat, what’s on offer is grossly overpriced food.

Now all airports (like ballparks and movie theaters) have overpriced food, but it’s gotten worse since the pandemic.  One could explain this with reference to the captive audience: there’s not much competition, and if you remember what happens when demand is high and supply is low, well, that’s what you see.

In the San Francisco Airport I wanted a bagel with a schmear, and it was around five bucks. Here I had a chicken salad sandwich, and had to part with $12, not including tax. Now I have to admit the sandwich was good (photo below), but really—twelve bucks?  Do airport food places make a deal with the airport to charge astronomical prices, or do they kick back a lot of their profit to the place?

Well, if you Google “why is airport food so expensive?”, you get a ton of answers. This site gives six, and I was partly right:

  1. Airport rent and regulations, which include extra fees besides rent.
  2. COMMISSIONS TO THE AIRPORT. These can be as high as 10%
  3. Delivery fees of foodstuffs to airports are higher than delivery to normal outlets. For example, delivery people have to go through security
  4. Limited storage space, so you have to rent more space.
  5. Delivery people have to pass extra background checks.
  6. Airports are out of the way and that makes it harder to retain employees, ergo they have to pay them more.

Their solution is twofold. First, avoid beverages in airports, which have an even higher profit margin. But the best solution is to bring in your own food (but not drinks, which aren’t allowed to go through TSA!). That was not an option for me.

But the chicken sandwich was good, and on my Southwest flight I got a free can of cranberry juice (actually, a mixture of cranberry, apple, and grape juice, with the first ingredient being water and the second HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. The damn can had two ounces (ca. 60 grams) of sugar in it!)