People who make music where every song sounds the same are not striving for anything more than mediocrity… that or they just have no musical talent. Agree/disagree? Any other reasons you can think of? Any other artists in particular?
People who make music where every song sounds the same are not striving for anything more than mediocrity… that or they just have no musical talent. Agree/disagree? Any other reasons you can think of? Any other artists in particular?
Agree.
Some of ’em got lucky with one song or their looks.
Totally agree.
rgr that
Britney Spears can chameleon… Possibly because she really doesn’t have a sound of her own and different people write her music (as opposed to Steve Earle, who can chameleon because he’s a hella good musician and he writes his own sutff)… But ‘Breathe on me’ is Britney doing an excellent Kylie Minogue impersonation and ‘Do Something’ is Britney asking for a punch in the mouth from Pink and other ‘in your face’ girl artists and ‘Don’t Let me the last to know’ is very Shania Twaineqsue… possibly because it was written by her. While not every Britney Spears song sounds the same, a good chunk of the singles do… Hit me Baby one more Time, Drive me Crazy, Stronger, Oops I did Again and possibly Me against the Music.
But I think you’re wrong about them striving for mediocrity, they make a fuckton of money. They’re striving for the acceptance of the mediocre… people who like alot of same, that way they don’t have to change or think too much so they can continue to expand and replicate without musch hassle like the plankton they are. Your Britneys and your Nickelbacks are playing to a crowd and for the most part getting payed well to do so… maybe your issues are with the crowd and perhaps the people that market them to this crowd.
And I usually find- when I listen to people… that it’s more like 2 or 3 different song types. Like latter day Aerosmith- You got your Powerballad- Angel, Don’t want to Miss a thing, Fly Away from here’ and your Wistful yet Upbeat rock out- Girls of Summer, Jaded etc.
or Eminem, The Video flagship single chatty current event song- Will the Real SLim Shady Please STand up, My name is, This looks like a Job for me ; The Can I be Angry and Serious for minute? Song- Mosh, Lose Yourself, I am Whatever you say I am; Finally, The can I be emotional and serious for minute? song- Stan, Toy Soldiers and Cleaning out my closet.
Other artists that have 1-3 different types of songs that I can think of: John Mayer, Blink 182, Destiny’s Child, N’sync and Backstreet Boys (any boy band really- The Party Songs, the Slow Songs, the Wanna get your love gurl songs that don’t fit into party or slow songs) AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Adams, John Mellencamp, Maybe Bruce Spingsteen, Rammstein and Matthew Good.
Oh and Nobuo Uematsu. =P
Talent and artistic drive are almost irrelevant. You make a song, and everybody loves it and buys your CD. Why bother making something entirely new? Not only do you risk not making any money (and possibly even losing money), you suddenly become known as a wash-out and a one-hit wonder. Big-name musicians refuse to take that risk.
good call
disagree…
Jackson Brown for example uses the same three chords in almost every single song he has written. At least he uses different keys. However, his artistic ability is in the lyrics. I can change between songs when I’m playing them on the piano without altering hardly even the melody sometimes, but the words are what are different. I don’t think that it makes him striving for mediocrity. I think it makes him a bad musician, but a good lyricist. I still like his music. Just gets old if you pay too much attention to the music. ^_^
I don’t think every Britney Spears song sounds like the same. They are just horrible. Every Red Hot Chili Peppers song does.
Disagree.
The pop music world does change. There are things that stick around, but over time the shift is measurable. Making the ringtones keeps me in touch with pop culture in a way that I can see serious recent developments, like the integration of chiptune sounds in popular rap music, producers like the Neptunes making huge hits that use jazz chords, and now there’s this whole group of pop tunes that freaking don’t have a bassline. People do gravitate toward novelty, as long as it’s sufficiently fashionable.
Being able to hit that fashion/novelty/hookiness sweet spot on any kind of regular basis is definitely skillful, and definitely pretty difficult. Whether this talent is necessarily musical, or whether the artists/producers are something more like fashion designers is up for debate.
The flipside of this is that there are some artists obviously in it for the music alone.
I saw Weezer at summerfest the other day, and they aren’t a big touring band and don’t play a lot of arenas, and their newest album is their first in like 5 years. Anyway, they were playing so many new songs off their new album, and a few old songs like…pinkerton album.
The albums that really caught on, the blue album and especially the green album, were hardly played. I’ll admit, I was pissed for a little bit. I came to the concert wanting to sing and jam out to a lot of sings I know, but I realized I shouldn’t be pissed. I was witnessing a band that cared more about it’s music than keeping the relatively come-and-go group of our generation, the people that listen to whats pop and change their tastes to the times. They would rather piss off a few 14 year old girls and make their true fans more diehard while advancing the music THEY want to play.