what are your opinions on pop music?

Yup, agree with all of what Disparaissant said.

I think in a lot of ways, the "Majors" would love to act like a cartel, but the fact that independents can and do exist, bubble up, thrive, throw up new forms into the market prevents that from happening.

If there *was* a Cartel, it was in the pre-internet era, and the cartel was the distribution companies that decided what got shipped out, where and how much (and if you wanted anything different you had to discover somewhere that would do mail order) - but with the advent of the internet, that model has lost its hold.

However, what's gonna be interesting is to see if the new means of distribution (Amazon, iTunes, etc.) attempt to take any kind of control of the shaping of the market.

I, personally, don't *believe* in Free Market Economics (i.e. I think that it leads to some incredibly destructive practices, both on a local and on an international level) but it's certainly a model that a lot of people have a lot of faith in - so I could understand *why* someone would believe that this kind of free market approach would work with music.

"Pop" used to be good, sucks today. I'm not being nostalgic or clinging to old times or anything, but it really used to be creative and daring and nowadays it's just shit shit shit.

  On 6/22/2010 at 7:22 PM, disparaissant said:

  On 6/22/2010 at 7:39 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 6/21/2010 at 2:36 PM, Masonic Boom said:

 

 

And it doesn't really matter if the casual music listener listens to Pop (the genre) or Hip-hop or Country and Western (or whatever the dominant musical tradition is within their culture) - it's this (not illogical, mind you, it's very democratic) notion that the wisdom of crowds is best - goes along with Free Market Economics that the market is the best decider of value and that what appeals to the most people is most likely to be good value for money.

 

 

 

Except it's not the free market that decides, because there is not true competition. You have collusion among a cartel that decides what gets sold (and at what price too!). That's slowly changing, but the labels and distributors/providers still have near monopoly power.

 

It's not like this cartel is pulling genres out of a hat, it's going with trends. Something gets popular amongst those who are on the bleeding edge of things, music industry takes notice, repackages it for the mass market, and you have a new trend. The free market DOES dictate what's popular. The shift from nu-metal to garage-style-rock didn't come out of nowhere, it came out of the fact that garage-style-rock bands were getting popular with the indie crowd. Likewise with the latest trends in pop. Notice how a lot of pop musicians are starting to sound vaguely 8-bit? It's certainly no coincidence that bands like Crytal Castles started to get popular with hipsters (and geeks for that matter) a few years ago.

 

And even price is dictated by the free market. Remember when CDs were 20 dollars or more? The price has gone down significantly thanks largely to Wal-mart and the internet.

Yes things have changed somewhat in terms of where the decision to push a new sound on the masses comes from, but it's still the content providers deciding what gets put on the radio/MTV. Payola is still alive and well. Outliers do not make a market. All that really means is a&r men are getting lazier.

Yes the price of CDs has varied, that's natural in a cartel. It's not a monopoly, it's monopolistic competition. Look at the price of new releases - see much price variation? Older releases yes, sure there's a discount. Price discrimination is a smart business tactic.

Please note that I said things are changing, but still, who determines the prices of songs/albums on iTunes/Amazon?

and finally, JIve records was not an indy when all that backstreet boys nonsense got released, they were purchased by BMG in 1991.

80's I will listen to at any time. Particularly when Im drunk.

i'm surprised by how tacky some pop is these days. just in terms of how much money they still have to put behind things, and they just don't bother.

For example, in my embarrassing country they promoted this as a big pop hit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8eDyCRa0mY

I'm not just trying to say "how bad is the music!", but when you realise that this has been used on national adverts and all over radio its a little bit strange. This is essentially re-hashing the Ministry of Sound sound from about 2006, the videoclip is made in iMovie, and the singer is under the impression that talking like a british baby and using lyrics like "I like to disco baby / you want a kiss now baby?" is sexy. Plus its got all the versus and feat.'s to imply that its clearly a fluke acheived after multiple versions.

So it became a big hit, and the smart thing to do is for the big label's to put some cash behind the artist to quickly make a follow up hit that is similar yet hopefully better. So what did we get?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t13UPEzVJE

something that clearly highlights how completely out of touch the artists are with... everything really.

anyway, I just want someone to acknowledge how bad this is.

  On 6/23/2010 at 1:07 AM, Backson said:

anyway, I just want someone to acknowledge how bad this is.

signed, lol

  On 6/23/2010 at 1:07 AM, Backson said:

i'm surprised by how tacky some pop is these days. just in terms of how much money they still have to put behind things, and they just don't bother.

 

For example, in my embarrassing country they promoted this as a big pop hit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8eDyCRa0mY

I'm not just trying to say "how bad is the music!", but when you realise that this has been used on national adverts and all over radio its a little bit strange. This is essentially re-hashing the Ministry of Sound sound from about 2006, the videoclip is made in iMovie, and the singer is under the impression that talking like a british baby and using lyrics like "I like to disco baby / you want a kiss now baby?" is sexy. Plus its got all the versus and feat.'s to imply that its clearly a fluke acheived after multiple versions.

 

So it became a big hit, and the smart thing to do is for the big label's to put some cash behind the artist to quickly make a follow up hit that is similar yet hopefully better. So what did we get?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t13UPEzVJE

something that clearly highlights how completely out of touch the artists are with... everything really.

 

anyway, I just want someone to acknowledge how bad this is.

This is a bit concerning, definitely. I thought pop in America was really shit, but this just takes it to the extreme. There's like, nothing to anything at all, no substance to be found. I mean Kesha is bad but she's okay if you're drunk & at a party or something. But I think I'd be opposed to this in any situation, lolll.