Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
That friday music has been hand-crafted by the devil I say. I came to this topic and watched every spin off of the original song you guys posted, and the music stayed in my head for the whole day and then the night, tormenting me like khan's worms except less pleasant to the point I seriously thought I'd go nuts. I swear I'm never gonna click anything related to this monstrosity again (and any "so bad you must watch it!" thing for that matter).
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
Of course many top-1 songs will be forgotten soon afterwards, and it may even be that the majority (meaning over 50%) of them are such. However, that doesn't mean there aren't lots of counter-examples to this as well. For example Bob Dylan seems to have three albums published in the 70's that got to the #1 in the US charts (in 74, 75 and 76). Now, I'm not such a music enthusiast as to know if those specific albums/songs are still remembered today, but knowing the popularity of Dylan I'd say they are probably at least well-known.
And this was not just a trend in the 70's. The latest US chart #1 album by Dylan seems to be from as recent as 2009.
I guess Dylan is kind of exceptional in that way. I'm a big fan of his but I have no idea which albums were so highly ranked. He's different from many of his peers in that he survived the 60s and the 70s to begin with, but also because he successfully made a comeback with a different, more genuine style rather than just a rehash of what made him famous in the past. Few artists can do that.
I guess Dylan is kind of exceptional in that way. I'm a big fan of his but I have no idea which albums were so highly ranked. He's different from many of his peers in that he survived the 60s and the 70s to begin with, but also because he successfully made a comeback with a different, more genuine style rather than just a rehash of what made him famous in the past. Few artists can do that.
It's true that few artists/bands of the 70's have survived for this long in the literal sense (iow. compared to how many artists/bands were created overall in the 70's). However, it's not such a rare phenomenon.
Examples of bands created in the 70's or earlier, generally considered good (several top chart albums and singles), and still going strong include Eagles (1971), U2 (1976), Deep Purple (1968), The Rolling Stones (1962), UB40 (1978), Black Sabbath (1969), and several others.
I'm glad I've never even heard that Friday song thingie. I just listen to Queen, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Elton John, The Beatles, Queensryche, Chang Yu-Sheng, Boston, Guns 'N Roses and all the other greats. So much good music has been made over the past 50 years. Just do as I do and ignore the pop charts and don't watch MTV or listen to the radio and you'll do fine.
PS. Queen II is the best album ever made!
As enlightening as this is, I still think the garbage has gotten worse. At least the old garbage was real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o&feature=related
Number 1 song from 1969. it may be more "real" because it was not too heavily synthesized, but the band does seem to be extremely poorly drawn.
Also, the lyrics are worse than cancer. This is easily as shitty as anything from today.
As enlightening as this is, I still think the garbage has gotten worse. At least the old garbage was real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o&feature=related
Number 1 song from 1969. it may be more "real" because it was not too heavily synthesized, but the band does seem to be extremely poorly drawn.
Also, the lyrics are worse than cancer. This is easily as shitty as anything from today.
Maybe you can say that tastes were about the same then as they are now, but I don't think comparing this song to a pop song today is fair. This is from a fake band from a T.V. show that was inspired by a comic strip. There was no intention of creating art here, whereas pop "artists" supposedly try to. Remember, I'm not implying that good modern music isn't great, but the norm is bad, and seemingly worse than in any other time period. In the age of the internet, you can find a lot of seemingly unpopular groups from the 60s, and from my experience, they are still on average much better than the ones today that will hopefully fade away in time.
you can find a lot of seemingly unpopular groups from the 60s, and from my experience, they are still on average much better than the ones today that will hopefully fade away in time.
I think that much of this feeling ("music in the 60's/70's was in average better than today") has a lot to do with nostalgia filtering. I'm pretty sure there was as much crappy music back then as there is now, it's just that nobody remembers those, and they only remember the good ones, which gives the false impression that the average quality of music was higher back then.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
you can find a lot of seemingly unpopular groups from the 60s, and from my experience, they are still on average much better than the ones today that will hopefully fade away in time.
I think that much of this feeling ("music in the 60's/70's was in average better than today") has a lot to do with nostalgia filtering.
If I lived through the 60's and 70's, perhaps you'd have a point.
A piece of music being good (by whatever standard you want to use) is in no way a prerequisite for being able to enjoy it.
Brandon wrote:
If I lived through the 60's and 70's, perhaps you'd have a point.
You are experiencing "second-hand nostalgia filtering". You are not hearing the crappy 60's/70's songs because nobody remembers them and hence they are not popular and commonly found. People only play/distribute the good ones. This gives the false impression that the majority of the music of that time was good.
+1, love that song :P
Personally I think the problem with most pop songs is overplay, both individually and as a whole that exploit the exact same formula. Say what you will about pop music, it will always be more appealing to more people than say, Metal Machine Music, because pop music adheres to known techniques that make music catchy/"good".
If I had to listen to Sugar, Sugar and similar songs all day and all night, I would hate it, but if I can decontextualize it and stick it in between listens of relatively different music it's awesome.
You are experiencing "second-hand nostalgia filtering"..
This nostalgia feeling thing is just crap in my opinion. I disregard the age of music and concentrate on listening to it. It just happens to be that most of my favorite music was made in the 70's, there's nothing nostalgic about it.
>I don't really see how her songs are any worse than other pop songs being put out right now/recently.
I agree that all of these are pretty horrible, but one thing they have going for them is that there isn't a guitar and bass player pretending to play their instruments when there is no guitar or bass to be heard in the song.
That friday music has been hand-crafted by the devil I say. I came to this topic and watched every spin off of the original song you guys posted, and the music stayed in my head for the whole day and then the night, tormenting me like khan's worms except less pleasant to the point I seriously thought I'd go nuts. I swear I'm never gonna click anything related to this monstrosity again (and any "so bad you must watch it!" thing for that matter).
After this, I swear I tried really hard not to post this, but I can no longer help it. Dedicated to our friend FODA:
Link to video
