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the amount of bad was soooo glaring when i watched Ed sheeran's performance at the grammy's that i got all embarrased. embarrased for him and for the everyone who thought it was cool.

Thought KT Tunstall did the looping thing better and without constantly whinging about being cheated on and bleached anuses.

MKR wrote:the amount of bad was soooo glaring when i watched Ed sheeran's performance at the grammy's that i got all embarrased. embarrased for him and for the everyone who thought it was cool.

Were you expecting to see something 'cool' at the Grammy's? Seems to me that Ed and the Grammy's are well matched shades of beige.

D

shadowplay wrote:

MKR wrote:the amount of bad was soooo glaring when i watched Ed sheeran's performance at the grammy's that i got all embarrased. embarrased for him and for the everyone who thought it was cool.

Were you expecting to see something 'cool' at the Grammy's? Seems to me that Ed and the Grammy's are well matched shades of beige.

D

no not really
Just a combination of boredom and curiosity of what today's pop music looked and sounded like. findings were not good.

that 80s funk band the time were quite good though.

hahaha - shades of beige, that could not have been put any better. Uncrafted (or not well crafted) silly putty, basically.

I agree wholeheartedly with both Telliot's and Shadowplay's initial comments, I think that there are just a lot of bland people in the world. More so when it comes to art and music, but for some people, it's also clothes, furniture, jewelry, all kinds of things. Some people just aren't exposed to anything outside the norm, some just go with what's expected or dumped on them by the industry, but I think a lot of them just have no taste to speak of. I get not caring about some things, get what you need and move on, but not everything. That makes life bland, but I think a lot of people are bland, that's why so much crappy reality tv is making so much headway now.

And it's a shame, I'm finding what you said was done on the Grammys is being done more and more, (maybe it's having to be done more and more) - putting on an older band that has some real kind of creativity, soul, something, like The Time in this case, and then that instantly becomes THE artistic oasis in the desert that is the rest of the music on the show. The rest of the music that is getting awards. It kind of puts things in perspective when you witness that, and it kind of shows just how much of a sham a show like that is, and that it's a reflection not only on the industry itself, but the reflection of consumers of that industry as a whole.

Edit: Just thought about this part - to be clear, I have absolutely no idea who this guy is or what his music is like, and don't really care to find out, based on the descriptions & opinions here. I'm just commenting on the larger picture that this reflects.

He obviously works hard and is talented but so is everyone working at the higher levels of the industry. But he has all the markers of "authenticity" : acoustic guitar, stripped down performances, non-polished nice-lad-who-always-calls-his-mum image etc. So people fall over themselves to say "oh finally a REAL artist".

In terms of talent its not like he's miles beyond say, Lady Gaga. Its just his gimmick is "not having a gimmick".

I find it a bit dull personally, I want my artists to be crazy pretentious weirdos.

Also its a bit telling how whenever the topic of sheeran comes up everyone praises him and how nice and talented he is but doesen't really talk about their favourite song or how his albums are pushing music forward or anything.

Is Ed Sheeran really that good?

I like Steve Albini's quote on this,

"Pop music is for children and idiots."

mbene085 wrote:I like Steve Albini's quote on this,

"Pop music is for children and idiots."

Yeah, any time I have pop music radio inflicted on me I always think of it as children's music.

mbene085 wrote:I like Steve Albini's quote on this,

"Pop music is for children and idiots."

Really? I've always thought that pop music is the base for all rock, dance and indie music. Listen to everything from Beatles to Orbital, Led Zeppelin to Beastie Boys, it's all underpinned by pop music. Usually just louder, but with the same chords, rhythms and lyrical concerns.

I suppose that since I think Shellac are absolutely horrible, I'll never see eye to eye with Albini. Macho nonsense, imho.

^^^

Agree. 99% of the music discussed on here fits just fine under the ever spreading branches of the pop tree.

I thing some of the sneering at pop stems from a pathetic attempt to look like some avant garde rebel. To be honest it seems to form a nice vein diagram overlap with the sort of diddy that thinks their offset guitar is a badge of outsider cool.

D

It's an all too common thought on this forum, I suppose it's mostly semantic in nature. Ed sheeran might be awful, but it has nothing to do with his music being "pop". Honestly, the term pop is vague and outdated, I don't think it's very relevant in the internet age.

What I refer to as "pop music radio" and what I'd call pop music are worlds apart, but I guess that isn't necessarily clear to anyone reading my statement above. I guess Albini is aiming his barb at the lowest common denominator, like, say, Barbie Girl by Aqua - as undeniably shite as it's undeniably pop.

FrankRay wrote:

mbene085 wrote:I like Steve Albini's quote on this,

"Pop music is for children and idiots."

Really? I've always thought that pop music is the base for all rock, dance and indie music. Listen to everything from Beatles to Orbital, Led Zeppelin to Beastie Boys, it's all underpinned by pop music. Usually just louder, but with the same chords, rhythms and lyrical concerns.

I suppose that since I think Shellac are absolutely horrible, I'll never see eye to eye with Albini. Macho nonsense, imho.

I'd argue that pop music's common denominator is that it is created, selected, produced, packaged, and marketed to appeal to the largest number of consumers and yield maximum profit for large corporations.

Pop music didn't invent the common chord progressions. It appropriated them.

I can enjoy any genre, if it's a musician composing their own music and putting it out there the way they imagined it. But after it gets mangled by the "fixers" who come in to restructure and rewrite it, it is not and cannot be true to the artist's vision. And that process is core to the entire concept of pop music as we have known it for decades now.

mbene085 wrote: I'd argue that pop music's common denominator is that it is created, selected, produced, packaged, and marketed to appeal to the largest number of consumers and yield maximum profit for large corporations.

That's what Blixa Bargeld refers to as "industrial music" - music made by an industry for profit.

Pop music generally is much broader to me, essentially music that is enjoyable to listen to, or made with that intention. The Ramones are pop, for example, but not corporate pop as per your definition. The Cure - Love Cats is pop, Pornography not so much. Even stuff like Robert Johnson's blues was a form of pop - people were meant to have a good time listening to it.

It's not a term of derision when I use it, anyway.