retired_the gizmo

"cultural relevance". by your definition, is **** and I dispute any corollary between it and anything relating to musicianship.

since your initial post was couched in vagaries such as "good, enduring hit", "x factor", and "well-composed", there was nothing substantive for me to rebut.

pop music is shallow and intended for the lcd. it's in the name ffs. anything created to appeal to as wide an audience as possible will always come out hollow. arguing about the legitimacy of pop music is literally the same as arguing the deliciousness of mcdonalds.

and if you examine virtually any of those people who have managed to endure, elvis costello, bob dylan, bruce springsteen, paul simon, neil young, all of them have made numerous forays into folk, jazz, country, classical, world and other genres that require talent in order to succeed because there was nothing worth sustaining in the pop world.

retired_steevo93

Were their forays into other genres in any way essential to their enduring success in "pop" (confused term so we'll use it in the strict sense: popular music)? No. They are known for their pop output. The rest is a sideshow.

The corollary between "cultural relevance" and musicianship is exactly where good pop songwriting happens. Everything has to be easily digestible, has to flow naturally, and yet within those constraints, the very best, most enduring artists tend to cram a lot of rather considered composition in. Remember, we're not talking about the dross here, but the ones who keep it going and forge a lasting reputation.

Tell me you don't think there's an enormous talent in being able consistently to deliver effortlessly appealing pop songs? Of course there is, it's like football - many, many people strive to do it, and only a few can genuinely produce. Anyone can stumble across a hit, but if it were as "LCD" and brainless an exercise to do it all the time, any brainy guy like you would be doing it. If you make it your career, it becomes a very, very delicate exercise. Again, you know this. The fact that pop music is targeted at the LCD doesn't make it any less competitive as an industry. It doesn't make the LCD any less mindlessly picky as to what they buy in their droves. It certainly doesn't make the art of the good pop song any less difficult to master.

And since when were the phrases "good, enduring hit" and "well composed" vague? "X factor" I will give you, though it was clearly meant as a throwaway figure of speech, expecting you to know what I was referring to.

For the record:

"Good, enduring hit": A pop song which meets with great and lasting commercial success, proves consistently popular.

"Well composed": Displaying considerable technical songwriting ability.

retired_steevo93

Further to the point about musicians exploring other genres: It's very arguable that they only had the facility to explore other genres thanks to being such capable, rounded pop musicians. I defy you to argue that their lasting appeal was in any way caused by their forays into other areas.

retired_the gizmo

"good, enduring hit" - monster mash

retired_traci29

erm those artists mentioned by daaaaave are only allowed to write off their forays into other genres as sideshows because they were so successful as popular songwriters which is all most people care about.

anyway, how do you account for artists in genres such as techno and house getting better with age? (jeff mills, dave clarke, ricardo villalobos) you can't really say it's about technical ability after all, they make most of their productions on a computer.

retired_amaynirvana

Christ, I actually just properly read the quote I 'completely agreed with,' and it didn't say what I thought it did at all. Sums up completely car crash posting by myself in this thread.

I didn't think that Daaaaave was actually decrying pop/rock as musical genres, but was instead saying that the different skills required for playing jazz/classical music means that the performers often have greater longevity. As I said, skills such as improvisational ability and interpretation of music, which have nothing to do with songwriting which is centric to popular music. Therefore technical ability - proficiency in a musical instrument, is much more important in jazz and classical music than it in to pop and rock. Obviously the better musician you are technically, the less you limit yourself when songwriting.

Songwriting in popular music therefore requires great musical ability; the ability to know what sounds right, what will appeal to listeners. Top performers of jazz are about great interpretation of others' music, and great popular music artists are about being able to create something that captures the cultural movements of the time (which ceefax the cat explains better), or an approach which is unique - exploring aspects of sound which haven't been tested before. You can't define popular music in terms of comercial success (which sounds idiotic thanks to its misleading umbrella term). A great song will be the sum of all songwriting components tha produces something unique. And you can't say whether one genre requires greater ability to perform than the other. Longevity in popular music and I would say classical music requires the ability to constantly produce new ideas. Jazz and Blues music is much more geared towards technical ability and interpretation (i'm boring myself repeating it now) - practice will help you become technically great, whereas the 'feel' for the music has to come naturally in my opinion, so will be much less common, marking the good musicians from the great ones. Once you have both, however, there is not the same demand for fresh ideas, to constantly come up with something new. Your career therefore has a great chance of being longer.

retired_steevo93

Did the people who wrote "Monster Mash" also write a string of others?

retired_the gizmo

unless you're talking about cole porter and burt bacharach, trying to tie songwriting into pop music is really a non-starter.

explain the great musical ability of my humps. or the cultural movement behind blue. define a great pop song within the context of say...the last 25 years. cite examples. also include these great pop songwriting artists within the same era.

retired_the gizmo

Did the people who wrote "Monster Mash" also write a string of others? </BLOCKQUOTE>

did you know that the "high school musical" soundtrack holds the record for most top100 singles from a single album? those ****ers must be GENIUSES.

as for enduring, just check out this who's who of enduring singles:

Songs with the most total weeks on the Hot 100
69 weeks - LeAnn Rimes — "How Do I Live" (1997)
65 weeks - Jewel — "Foolish Games" / "You Were Meant for Me" (1997)
64 weeks - Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats" (2006)
62 weeks - Lifehouse — "You and Me" (2005)
60 weeks - Los del RÃ*o — "Macarena" (Bayside Boys Mix) (1996)
58 weeks - Santana featuring Rob Thomas — "Smooth" (1999)
58 weeks - The Fray — "How to Save a Life" (2006)
57 weeks - Creed — "Higher" (2000)
56 weeks - Paula Cole — "I Don't Want to Wait" (1998)
56 weeks - Faith Hill — "The Way You Love Me" (2001)
55 weeks - Everything But the Girl — "Missing" (1996)
55 weeks - Duncan Sheik — "Barely Breathing" (1997)
55 weeks - Lonestar — "Amazed" (2000)


paula abdul had 4 #1 hits on forever your girl. truly a songwriting wunderkind.

retired_amaynirvana

Would you not consider Waterloo Sunset as great songwriting? The song that set the template for the 'structure of popular music,' for years to come? I could go on with actual explanations of why something is well written, but I don't understand how popular music songwriting is any different to that of classical music? It's an art-form, creating something original, of beauty so to speak.