The Popular Song

[Lee Rust]

Judging from the long-running thread here on Radio-Info, there certainly are a lot of tunes from America’s popular music past that qualify as ‘stiffs’.

Actually, most of them were pretty good songs, suffering only in comparison to the ‘hits’ of their day.

Given the dearth of hummable and memorable pop tunes being released these days, I would suggest that many of those old ‘stiffs’ could become ‘hits’ on their own if they were released today. Assuming significant radio airplay, of course.

Then again, Pandora, iTunes, Facebook or YouTube might be enough.

In any case, does anybody have any ideas about why there are so few catchy tunes with interesting lyrics being heard these days? What happened?

Between 1925 and 1995 there were tens of thousands of great popular songs written, performed, recorded and broadcast in dozens of genres. In the past 15 years, practically none, in my opinion.

Plenty of music has been written, performed, recorded and broadcast since 1995, but hardly any songs. There is a difference.

Think about it. How many tunes can you hum that are less than 15 years old? The best of them are often little more than song fragments, repeating a few riffs or phrases over and over.

Because of this peculiar phenomenon, our national popular musical culture is stuck in a vanished era that is getting further and further away every year. Radio suffers as older listeners fade away and younger listeners fail to tune in. But newer media are affected too, substituting generic ‘quantity in the absence of original ‘quality’.

Ask the iPod owner with 10,000 MP3’s how many of those ‘titles’ they really remember.

I suspect that this state of affairs is a symptom of a much broader cultural trend.

So, am I just another grumpy old guy pining for the ‘good old days’, or did the music really die?

Any thoughts?

 

[Silkie]

The cheapening of the music reflects the cheapening of society.

 

[SirRoxalot]

I think that Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Gretchen Wilson, Jayzee and a host of others would disagree with your premise. There's plenty of new music out there, just not in your genre. There's also a ton of new music bypassing the major recording companies.

What you're saying is similar to your parents bemoaning the lack of new output from Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney, and Vic Damone as pop music embraced The Beatles, Motown, and psychedelic rock.

If there's any "decrease in quality", blame it on the recording companies who are seriously limiting their promotional efforts - likely because they're being crushed by file sharing and direct artist access to the Internet. Like radio, they're putting their limited funds into "sure thing" mass-appeal programming which is "safe", not adventurous. Add radio's lack of "gut programming", and increasing blandness as syndicators ignore local listeners, and even regional preferences in an attempt to create "national" programming, and you have a double-whammy for musicians.

What are the odds that a new Hendrix, Janis Joplin, or Cream would reach a mass audience these days?

 

[Mark Giardina]

Also consider that unlike 30 or 40 years ago, many radio stations don't play the variety of songs today that they did back in the "good old days."

Instead music formats are very rigid, and most music-formatted radio stations feature the same few hundred tunes which are repeated frequently.

Also consider technology. When I was a young lad and wanted to hear a certain song or album, I couldn't take my record player along with me and plug it into my car. Eight tracks and cassettes had yet to be invented. Today this generation has Ipods and all shorts of devices to download music.

On another note: When the discussion centers on repetition, just listen to one of the most popular Beatles songs; Hey Jude. If you don't think several minutes of Na Na Na Naana Na is repetitious, then I don't know what to say.

 

[Lee Rust]

There is plenty of new popular music out there, but most of the songs seem to come and go without attaching themselves to the general consciousness. They seem generic... disposable. There are exceptions, like Taylor Swift. Country music remains more creative than most of the old-fashioned pop genres.

Certainly, the fragmentation of modern media precludes the establishment of any of the cross-genre songwriting superstars or supergroups like The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Wonder. Their broad-band commercial success made plenty of money for the record companies to plow back into the stupendous recording and distribution costs of the classic albums we all know so well. The limited audiences and tenuous paybacks of the modern music business make that level of production very rare today.

Established commercial success also encouraged conservative radio programmers to air some of the more experimental material that these writers came up with. How many tracks from the "White Album" or "Fulfillingness' First Finale" would be aired today?

Hip hop artists like Jay-Z operate in a new realm of their own creation, with their own standards and methods. I would propose that hip hop is only tangentially related to traditional songwriting. Maybe that's the whole point. Songwriting is so 19th and 20th century. The culture has moved on. We're in a post-melodic world now.

How would Harold Arlen, Cole Porter or Alec Wilder make a living nowadays? They'd probably end up on antidepressants, staring at the TV. Even Paul McCartney might be laughed at today if he came out with a wimpy, girly-man tune like "Yesterday". What's with those dopey violins? And lose that ending on Hey Jude, too! What were you thinking?

 

[JimMcGrath]

I believe it has something to do with the musical landscape of today. Yes, you can say that I have turned into my father and am just an old grump who hates change and wishes for the good old days but I think there is something deeper. A lack of need for talent in singing to start. You don't have to sing as long as there is Auto-tune. I was watching the Lions-Packers game the other day and at half time they presented "The New Motown Singing The Old Motown". A couple of the artists were OK but I didn't hear anyone come up to the quality of the originals. If that was a microcosm of today's music then Motown and everything else is in trouble. On SNL a couple of weeks ago I saw someone named Shakura (sorry i don't follow this stuff so the name could be wrong) doing an act that resembled a stripper at 1:45 AM (tired and ready to go home). She's a star?
Yes there will always be talented people who are never in the spotlight but the amount of work to find such artists is getting larger. Most folks won't or can't take the time. That need for new artists in previous times was serviced by radio (easily accessible) is now a million points on the internet (not so easy).
If s##t is sold long enough people begin to think it is Shinola.

 

[Lee Rust]

Jim, you're referring to Shakira .. the 'she-wolf in the closet'.. 'coming out coming out coming out'

 

[SirRoxalot]

I can't help but hear my mom saying "Why do you LISTEN to that music. 'Cry-yi-yi' is singing? Is that a boy or a girl?" She was referring to "Big Girls Don't Cry" by The Four Seasons. I'm sure that the same sentiments were repeated for Punk, Grunge, and every other genre of rock that defined a generation.

Pop music remakes itself every generation. In the '90s, it was grunge. Now, we have singer-songwriters like John Mayer or Dave Matthews who stand up pretty well against examples from the past. Even Buffalo's own Goo-Goo Dolls have written some pretty memorable pop music.

What's being discussed here is musical preference, not a lack of quality or talent. Whether it's Shakira gyrating, Madonna being the bad girl, Janis Joplin braless and shakin' what she had, or Elvis swivelling those famous hips, it's no secret that sex not only sells, it's integral to the pop music scene.

 

[Oldbones]

What are the odds that a new Hendrix, Janis Joplin, or Cream would reach a mass audience these days?

Indeed, how many "hummable" songs did any of these artists perform? Add to the list Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. Classic tunes by pretty much any definition, but they also fit the OP's definition of today's music.

I can't help but hear my mom saying "Why do you LISTEN to that music. 'Cry-yi-yi' is singing? Is that a boy or a girl?" She was referring to "Big Girls Don't Cry" by The Four Seasons. I'm sure that the same sentiments were repeated for Punk, Grunge, and every other genre of rock that defined a generation.

It's been said that pop culture (not just music) goes downhill fast about the time you turn 40.

 

[Radknowski]

What are the odds that a new Hendrix, Janis Joplin, or Cream would reach a mass audience these days?

Indeed, how many "hummable" songs did any of these artists perform? Add to the list Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. Classic tunes by pretty much any definition, but they also fit the OP's definition of today's music.

Thanks for the suggestion. Just walked to the CD rack and pulled out "Piece of My Heart" and played it at "11." Then there's those great Zep lyrics, like, "You need cool aid, baby I'm not foolin'...." or "Robin' the cash box" from the Clash and "There's a bathroom on the right..." from CCR. As Alan Sherman once intoned, "Uhhhh boyyyyy!" See what you started here? Now I'm going to post a stiff on the "coackroach thread" that refuses to die.

 

[Mike_Saffran]

I tend to agree with Rox. And, ironically, earlier this weekend I considered posting a Twitter update asking, in essence, “Has pop music improved?” This after spending 10-plus hours over the Thanksgiving weekend listening to — and really enjoying — 98 PXY and Kiss 106.7 (much to my surprise).

Initially, I was waiting for Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.” I just felt like hearing it through ‘real speakers’ (rather than my laptop), and I knew it would come around eventually. While waiting, I found myself really digging lots of other songs (some quite hummable), such as Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say” and Iyaz’s “Replay” (both very catchy), The Script’s “Breakeven” (great song), a couple by Taylor Swift, and even Owl City’s “Fireflies” and Miley’s “Party in the U.S.A.” (both very fun and catchy).

That short list is very subjective, of course, but it seems every few years I “rediscover” CHR (due partially, no doubt, to the cyclical nature of the CHR format and which genre is hot at a given moment). Personally, listening to the hits kinda sends me back 20-some years to when I was playing the “power hits” on PXY (plus, as one of the PXY testimonial sweepers suggests, listening does help one feel young So, in response to Lee’s initial post, I think much of today’s pop music is actually pretty good (it’s the ‘staleness’ of Buzz-Fox-CMF that I find somewhat tiring).

 

[JimMcGrath]

I can't help but hear my mom saying "Why do you LISTEN to that music. 'Cry-yi-yi' is singing? Is that a boy or a girl?" She was referring to "Big Girls Don't Cry" by The Four Seasons. I'm sure that the same sentiments were repeated for Punk, Grunge, and every other genre of rock that defined a generation.

Pop music remakes itself every generation. In the '90s, it was grunge. Now, we have singer-songwriters like John Mayer or Dave Matthews who stand up pretty well against examples from the past. Even Buffalo's own Goo-Goo Dolls have written some pretty memorable pop music.

What's being discussed here is musical preference, not a lack of quality or talent. Whether it's Shakira gyrating, Madonna being the bad girl, Janis Joplin braless and shakin' what she had, or Elvis swivelling those famous hips, it's no secret that sex not only sells, it's integral to the pop music scene.

I will grant you that music in general may rebuild itself every generation or at least every musical seismic shift. Think 50's Patti Page to Iron Butterfly; Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker; etc.. And I don't think I am talking about musical genre preference since this seems to be a common thread thru the musics I like. And there are talented folks in music I don't especially care for. What I am trying to convey is that "soul", "heart", "whatever you want to call it" seems to be missing in quite a few of the top acts in music. As I tried to relay in the New/Old Motown reference if the new singers had been the original singers Motown certainly wouldn't have caught my ear the way it did in the 60's.
FYI I had this conversation this weekend with a musician I highly respect and he came to the same conclusion without any goading from me.

 

[alw]

"How would Harold Arlen, Cole Porter or Alec Wilder make a living nowadays? They'd probably end up on antidepressants......"


I'm sure antidepressants would be the least of what they were on.

Google the lyrics to Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets" and then tell me what he was on when he penned that one.

 

[JimMcGrath]

"How would Harold Arlen, Cole Porter or Alec Wilder make a living nowadays? They'd probably end up on antidepressants......"


I'm sure antidepressants would be the least of what they were on.

Google the lyrics to Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets" and then tell me what he was on when he penned that one.

Weren't they on anti-depressants anyway?

 

[umtrr-author]

I can ruin what little credibility I might have on this topic by noting that the first 45 I remember owning was "Sugar, Sugar" and that I personally owned the first three Partridge Family albums as well.

Despite those inauspicious beginnings... I think I've matured a little bit, anyway.

I tend to think of "The Popular Song" in terms of the songwriters as opposed to the artists. Gretchen Peters is top of mind for me with songs like "Indepdendence Day" and "On A Bus to St. Cloud". No, you haven't heard either on Top 40 outlets. I can usually guess some songwriters straightaway after a few listens-- I correctly figured out, for example, that Glen Burtnick had a hand on John Waite's "NYC Girl".

In terms of singer/songwriters, I agree on Taylor Swift, have always liked Melissa Etheridge (although she has been tending to repeat her themes lately) and wish that we here in the USA would pay more attention to Natalie Imbruglia. (It will be a pain locating her newly released CD as a legitimate hard copy-- call me "luddite" but I like to have the "real thing" as opposed to a download.) I'm sure there are other good choices to add to this list but those were the first three that came up.

I believe it will be another generation or so before we can fairly designate anything written in the past twenty years as a "standard" (to borrow the term). Perhaps a measure of popularity and timelessness is the number of covers that have been made of a song: if that's reasonable, then I'd submit a nomination for "What You Won't Do For Love" written and originally performed by Bobby Caldwell (#9, February 1979) and remade by, among others, Go West.

In terms of local talent, Lee, I know you've heard of The Jazzabels because they were in "heavy rotation" for a while on North Coast. I'd put their songwriting up against anyone. I wish they'd made it big; now my wife and I just wonder what happened to them. There is probably an act like The Jazzabels in every market, at least one, in fact.

Finally, it's times like these that I remember my favorite author Jean Shepherd. Paraphrasing somewhat: "Everyone things that the past was great and the future is going to be wonderful and it's only the present that stinks."

And the cycle continues: I can tell you that I don't get the popularity of the Disneyites (Montana/Cyrus, Hudgens, etc.)-- pretty much interchangable, including the excessive voice processing. But I'm sure that those before me didn't get the popularity of "voices augmented by other performers," circa 1971, either!

 

[SirRoxalot]

What I am trying to convey is that "soul", "heart", "whatever you want to call it" seems to be missing in quite a few of the top acts in music. As I tried to relay in the New/Old Motown reference if the new singers had been the original singers Motown certainly wouldn't have caught my ear the way it did in the 60's.
FYI I had this conversation this weekend with a musician I highly respect and he came to the same conclusion without any goading from me.

First of all, musicians are hardly exempt from generational bias. Secondly, there are PLENTY of talented singers out there with "soul", "heart", or any other quality that you can come up with. Beyonce, Pink, Fergie, Amy Winehouse (when in control), Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Leona Lewis, Jennifer Hudson, and even Lady Gaga all deliver. And those are just the names that an old guy like me is familiar with. If you haven't heard 'em, you're missing something. These ladies would stand out in any era.

I will say that there are not as many male singers. Why? Likely because so many have gravitated to rap. Some of the rappers are moving toward more traditional singing, with varying amounts of success. First thing that they need to do is turn off the auto-tune, and learn to SING.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

There is plenty of new popular music out there, but most of the songs seem to come and go without attaching themselves to the general consciousness. They seem generic... disposable. There are exceptions, like Taylor Swift. Country music remains more creative than most of the old-fashioned pop genres.

Funny I was saying the same thing just yesterday. Sitting at our local diner the music was playing some current stuff and it wasn't bad, the singing was good but the songs were just not memorable.

I have been recently uncovering the songs written by Goffin & King. They turned out a ton of really good, really memorable songs. Listen to Freddie Scott do "Hey Girl" then listen to Billy Joel's version which is also very good. Both are on You Tube. I don't know why A/C radio wasn't all over it.

Maybe radio can't pick the hits anymore?

 

[umtrr-author]

I should have added Norah Jones to my short list.

I have three versions (at least) of "Hey Girl" on my iTunes at the moment: the above mentioned Billy Joel version, one by Michael McDonald, and one by Ray Charles.

I think the reason Billy Joel's "Hey Girl" didn't do anything (assuming it didn't) is that it was on "Greatest Hits 3" and Joel had already declared himself done with pop music (per his closing track on the CD River of Dreams called "Famous Last Words"). So Columbia threw in a couple of covers to get the big Billy Joel fans to pony up for a compilation of mostly songs that they already owned.

Country does seem to be the new pop. I mean, if Bon Jovi shamelessly crossed over...

 

[JimMcGrath]

I will say that there are not as many male singers. Why? Likely because so many have gravitated to rap. Some of the rappers are moving toward more traditional singing, with varying amounts of success. First thing that they need to do is turn off the auto-tune, and learn to SING.

Isn't this what I have been saying ???

 

[Mike Sheridan]

You know there is probably more good product out there than we hear on the radio. We know that the record companies still determine what the "single" is. Music directors could dig a little deeper and I'll bet they would fine more hits among the other tracks. A long time ago jocks routinely made hits by playing the "B" side. Research is good but it's not everything.