I was thinking to myself as I ate my lunch today, mentally trying to block out the canned muzak playing in the background...
I was lamenting the current dire state of popular music. In my head I came up with 3 categories of recorded music.
1)Music where the skill and talent of the songwriter/performer stands alone. e.g. the bare bones stuff that still sends a tingle down your spine. In my mind this is characterised by singer/songwriters like early Dylan, Carol King and of course the delta bluesmen. The production (if there is any) is minimal and almost transparent.
2) Music where the performance and production are in good balance. e.g. The Beatles with George Martin, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones; the music stands alone, but in the hands of a great producer the recordings are given an extra dimension. Big artist, big production.
3)Music where the image of the performer is more important than performance; and the production is used to compensate. e.g. IMHO where the bulk of chart music is now. Nothing characterises this to me more than the deliberate cultivation of autotune as a vocal effect - to hide a weak vocalist (who might look the part) but can't sing for shit
***(At this point I'm hoping Andrew will post a link to the wonderful South Park Kanye West Autotune parody)***
I am trying hard to make this post as genre free as I can. I know we all have different tastes in music and statements like 'rap music is shit' are just another person's opinion. I like some rap music and I dislike some country. What I'm trying to convey is beyond genres really. It's the 'big ears' thing BarbecueBob was talking about recently. Listening beyond the lyrics and melody to the actual construction of the recording.
I guess in a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that I think good music can stand alone. Great music can be made greater by good producution, but no matter how hard you try, you can't polish a turd.
Nail on the polished head get the same feelin sometimes about music you just gotta let go of this resentment and say stick it up the jacksie to some of the over produced rubbish and stick to basics. When we all strip it back its all the same
Last Edited by on Nov 17, 2009 7:07 AM
I'm a traditional blues player by trade, but I listen to many different genres, and listen to many different aspects as to what makes them tick, including hiphop, which uses sampling 80% of the time, rather than bands.
About the only thing I'm not too keen on the over use of is auto correct and that makes things to phony for me.
Too often when someone gives me a copy of a recording of themselves, without asking, I can often hear, if they don't record "live" (in the recording industry, it does NOT mean a live gig, but actually all musicians totally together with the vocals all at once, rather than the usual way of first doing the rhythm tracks with a reference vocal first and then everything else), I can usually tell just how much time was spent on the rhythm and vocal tracks as well as the solos.
For example, I've heard a few where they told me it took them every day for 2 weeks to get it done, and from the sound of it, it was usually maybe 1 to 1-1/2 days on the rhythm tracks maybe with a reference vocal, maybe 1 day for the vocals, and the rest of the time was for solos. Unfortunately, for me, it was blatantly obvious and I could see why any label would reject it right away or it was lousy when it got any airplay because too much time was spent on the solos and not enough on the two most important parts of the recording: the groove and the vocals.
Having done a session for MCA for the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes," I got to see this first hand, and although we did two tunes, we did 5 takes of every tune and each track on every take was tweaked. The greatest amount of time spent (outside of waiting) was both the setup and the tweaking of the rhythm tracks because for airplay, if that's not together, it sounds like crap).
In many rock records for a major label, the recording is usually several months long and the very first two weeks, every day and all day long, was spent on the rhythm tracks with a reference vocal, and with a lot of white music bands, regardless of the genre of music, that has been generally the weakest part of the band wheras with most black music bands, it's generally the other way around. In that entire time, they have a click track running in the drummer's headphones, which is basically a metronome so that if they push the groove, they don't push so hard that everything speeds up and the groove becomes a total mess.
As far as image goes, that's always been important for decades regardless of the genre, like it or not, and it all is part of marketing. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Talking of x factor, my 10 year old grandaughter is auditioning for 'Britain's got talent' on Sunday with 3 other girls. She has choreographed a street dance routine to a number by an artist called Cheryl Cole (never heard of her) I dont know what to make of it:-)
I think it comes down to this: In lots of modern music the 'musician' is not the person doing musical things. Instead, it's the producer who is carefully auto-tuning a melody and mixing tracks together. Their instrument is the control board. I play the harmonica. They play the control board. The job of a lot of pop stars isn't singing, it's looking good. If you like the music and not the pretty person out front you are a fan of the technician/producer.
@nacoran Exactly! and a good producer can transform a mediocre 'artist', but the 'artist' gets all the credit. I'm not knocking producers at all.
If I listen to a track by the latest rnb bling merchant and I hear autotune being used I know it's being used because the artist just can't hit the notes. Hats off to the producer (maybe I was hasty to talk about turd-polishing). They are the real artist.
Then you hear someone like Beyonce, working in the same genre but not having to hide behind production tricks BECAUSE SHE CAN ACTUALLY SING!!!! Then the producer is doing something else entirely, enhancing, sparkling, putting the cherry on the top.
P.S. I don't have a clue which is the original South Park version, but I do recognise the Vocoder in them, which I think is an abomination. Did Cher use it first in the 1980s (no, Kraftwerk used it in the 70s)? That should have been the last time - every time I hear it, I get a worse feeling in the pit of my stomach! ---------- Kinda hot in these rhinos!
@nacoran yeah man I am getting on meself!! But I have just given her (the gdaughter) a cd of Frank Zappa stuff and she loves 'cheepniz' off the Roxy and Elsewhere live cd, also with 'stinkfoot' and 'the dangerous kitchen' Its great to have a captive audience in the car! Catch 'em early...
He he, I'm crap at remembering song lyrics, but I know every word of Stinkfoot by heart!
Here's the Cher song - 1998; it seems like longer ago than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_%28Cher_song%29
"the sound engineers claimed that they had used a vocoder, in what Sound on Sound perceives as an attempt to preserve a trade secret." from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune
Must be why I thought it was a vocoder. ---------- Kinda hot in these rhinos!
Last Edited by on Nov 17, 2009 3:00 PM
Someone mentioned Beyonce... years ago my pre teen daughter had me take her to see destiny's child. lots of crummy warm up bands with tons of pre-recorded music. The main act came out and they danced, they looked great, they worked their tails of for the whole set, at one point during the main set, the three of destiny's child went acapella. they said, just so you know we are not recording this.and damn if they didn't sound fantastic with just a touch of pa reverb and 3 microphones.
there still is talent out there, some make it for a while on looks, but lots of the lasting acts work hard to get there and stay there, regardless of how much we like the type of music they are playing
Walter- I'm not sure about Destiny's Child. My friend used to listen to them. I didn't hear much harmony in the vocals, maybe just the couple songs he made me listen to. It seemed like they were all just doubling the lead to strengthen the sound. They sure do bounce nice though.
There are some cool acts out there. I saw Fleet Foxes on an SNL rerun. I searched them on YouTube and found these two young Swedish girls singing a cover.
A thought about horribly over produced music: It is like McDonalds. McDonalds is horrible food. It is unhealthy, does not taste very good. The quality is very poor. However, it provides two services people want: 1) it is fast, 2) it is predictable.
In the same way, crappy overproduced music (and a good share of just plain crappy music) provide a service: 1) It is available everywhere , 2) It is predictable , 3) It asks nothing of your brain. Also, it generally uses aggression in place of musicality. People are very into their aggression.
There are also books like this- books that require very little of your brain, but are like bubble gum. No lasting impact.
The reason so much of this music is available is because its what people really want. It reflects their values and culture VERY well. Same thing as McDonalds: It is popular because it fits in well with daily American life.
Talent has not gone away. (need proof? spend some time on you tube). I'd bet there is more talent out there now than there ever was. But why should they put forth the effort? The music industry is primarily about promoting those already in their pay (regardless of quality). Also, they mess with your music (think sophie hawkins), and treat the musician as a commodity. On top of that, everyone is ripping off recordings all over the place, and you rarely run into anyone who really loves music anymore.
Oh, an you gatta love the music show like American idol: pick a good number of folks to ridicule for trying their best in front of a national audience, oh, and not to mention that you'd find more talent on any audition day at a good music school.
So why should you cast your pearls before swine? I think a great many of America's talented youth say to themselves "eh, its not worth it, I'll just play for myself and some friends."
