Why Does Current Pop Music Suck So Badly?

Pop music has sucked since Britney Spears became a thing.

Even though you may not like the contrived images and performances of artists like Britney, you have to admit many of her songs were super catchy pop melodies that most people can sing by heart as were the tunes of other Max Martin creations like N*Sync.

So many people involved in music now can't actually play an instrument or read music. They know how to use software. It's bound to have an effect on everything. Also, everyone is turning to the same tiny handful of producers. There's only so much creativity to be drawn from such a small well.

There's plenty of great stuff out there still being produced, but finding it is really difficult. The internet / streaming or whatever you want to blame has made music much easier to access, but there's no quality filter and the choice is almost infinite but finding good stuff is hard.

It is also because pop music isn't the cultural force it once was. When I was first into music (early 80s) young people defined themselves by their musical tastes in a way that now seems unthinkable. They were new romantics / punks / rockers / indie kids / whatever... it defined how they dressed, how they behaved and to some extent their outlook on life.

Now it's totally disposable, people don't value it like they once did. Because a huge number of people don't pay for their music there's no investment / commitment / ownership to it. It's literally background noise if you stream.

Pop music today is computer generated. It’s full of beats and anthems. Samples from other songs. Not melodies.

It sucks for the same reason you suck cock so badly, OP. You need to take out your teeth first.

Music sucks because you're not looking hard enough or in the right places.

Pop music sucks because it's pop music, vascillating between "most of it sucks" and "all of it sucks.". Again, look more, and this time look for good music. Of you're looking with an eye to finding something Bieber-ishly catchy, you've already lost.

My current theory is what entrances people as children is what they put their creative energy into as adults. The generation who grew up listening to the radio were just naturally better musicians and songwriters, compared to later generations. Meanwhile the generation who grew up glued to the TV set went on to produce "The Sopranos" "Breaking Bad" etc. The current crop of creatives who spent their childhood playing Minecraft will probably take gaming to a new level.

As a side note I think the transistor radio/cassette gave us an extra decade of great musicians because every child could have one in their bedroom.

I posted this as an example of old, vapid pop ... but as I listen, I'm realizing this is actually pretty good!

Try Futurepop. Empathy Test, Assemblage 23, Eisfabrik, Unity One, etc.

I've found loads of great stuff on Bandcamp.

Usually, what’s most generic and bland appeals to the most people. Sometimes a band, book or show comes along which actually is great and transcends this (the Beatles, The Catcher in the Rye, Game of Thrones) but it’s very rare. Most really popular stuff sucks.

R9 - now HERE'S an example of bad 60s pop . . .

Arnold Schönberg (a 20th century modernist composer) predicted that one day even the mailman would whistle his (atonal) compositions. Maybe he was right. Music seems to become more and more removed from traditional harmony, rhythm and form and the public doesn’t seem to mind.

It all sounds like it's meant to be background music playing while you do other things. I can't believe that people are expected to actually sit and listen to most of it.

R8 In the 50s, 60s and 70s there were also a lot of classically/jazz trained musicians and composers who dabbled in pop (as arrangers and writers for TV-themes and commercials). The Beatles learned a lot from George Martin and he added depth to their music. The music for “Hair” was written by a classical composer. I don’t know how many professionally trained musicians there are in pop nowadays, but if there are any, they seem to deliberately dumb themselves down.

The lack of talent and good music is due to the corporatization of the music industry. They see it strictly from a profit line, not from a quality prospective. The A&R (artists and repertoire) division of the music businesses is a joke. Most of the acts that make the best music from the 1950 until about the 1980s would not have released any records if they were to be auditioned today.

Today's best music is being made independently with little input from music executives. There is a lot of great music being made, but you have to go out of your way to find it

R3, John Lennon couldn't read music. There have always been people in pop music who can't read music. This is just another excuse for people to vent about how everything was so much better in their day, because they don't have the self-awareness to realize people have always complained about "today's music"

R19, that's why he was stuck writing the lyrics. He let Paul do the composing. By today's example, it was much better in the past.

Look at top 40 charts from any year before 2000. Popular music was always crap. You just got old and lazy and stopped searching for interesting, less popular music.

R20- I don't think that's true re Paul writing music & John writing lyrics.

My understanding was that in most cases, Paul wrote the Paul songs and John wrote the John songs.

So in other words, John wrote all of Norwegian Wood and Julia and Paul wrote all of Yesterday and Michelle.

R21 Agreed, you have to look for good music today, it doesn't fall into your lap like it used to do my just turning on your radio station. To be fair, if you read through the Top 40 charts from the 1950s through at least early 1980s at least half of the songs would be categorized as good. That ratio began to diminish considerably in the 1990s forward. Most of today's charts are overwhelmed with mostly disposable hip-hop, rap, club music, auto-tuned nonsense. When a good song actually breaks out it's the exception.

[quote]The lack of talent and good music is due to the corporatization of the music industry. They see it strictly from a profit line, not from a quality prospective.

Yes yes yes yes yes. (This also applies to the movie industry and explains why we get so many franchises, sequels, TV retreads, etc. If something works once from a marketing perspective, they want to do it over and over again - deviating from the formula is bad.)

But go outside the major industry labels and you can still find good music.

There's a guy named Simon who goes by Blanks who has a lot of fun, uptempo pop songs on his YouTube page/Spotify. Here he is working on his newest song that sounds like it has a funny catchy chorus.

like with most things, it's a catch twenty two.

you have to move underground, away from the industry and reconnect with whatever people are your common people... whether that's retooling your sound, getting intouch with your musical roots or just jamming ont he corner with a crackhead.

to be heard, you have to make the rounds - though to be honest, most kiddies aren't up for two years of selling your arse busking to get to every rinky dink festival and obscure station. europe. you could manage in the states, there's some marks in the country scene in canada (primarily alberta & nova scotia) and ireland fades in and out but greater northern europe the last fifteen years has been the place to go. finland is crazy for old style country, rockabilly and classic soul. . . netherlands, too, to an extent. but most of the venues are just more broad acoustic sessions, plagued with fat girls and ukeles, when one ends, two more appear... a lot easier to get on the euro charts than the u.s charts. in the states, there's a few collectives but they're separed by different shit, some by race, ethnic background, religion, you've got several hard rock and metal heads that switched to country, you've got the industrial crowd, some leftover alt-country, indie country, etc the variations on bluegrass (jewgrass, nefesh mountain is one of the most recently mentioned) and traditional, the folk historians (a lot more african americans in this crowd, blend of academics and music. carolina chocolate drops, rhiannon giddens fits in this category.) - same with every other genre of music, too. Also, fk'd up by kiddies and store clerks that don't know who goes into what genre. ievery generation does that though until none of it has much meaning.

there's some cool pop music but in categories that will possibly make you cringe - like christian. that's another genre that has been obliterated. It seems to be getting filled with lasses they don't know where to put anywhere else.. like in the 90s, they would have been on a lilith faire or mountain stage cd but now everything has gone back to the days of scripted dramas. you know more about how a pop star's taint smells than the latest tracks written by focus group..

Music isn't a big part of youth culture anymore just like movies aren't anymore. Teens today are more into social media, Netflix and gaming.

MTV and VH1 and other music video channels made physical attractiveness, dancing and fashion to appear more important than singing ability and musicianship.

The major consolidation of the media in the mid-90s via the Telecommunications Act definitely played a big role in homogenizing the sound of top 40 radio. DJs who used to be passionate about music and went out of their way to get a diverse selection of musicians got fired and replaced for hype men and sycophants.

Manufactured pop and low-talent pop tarts have always existed since the late 40s and so did lip-syncing, miming and blending vocals and other tricks to make a pop star seem more talented than they were. But often the manufactured star would not last very long and be quickly forgotten. Someone like The Spice Girls, Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Britney Spears would not have been as big in the mid-20th Century and without the help MTV and ClearChannel and Infinity owning all the radio stations which forced them down people's throats.

"lip-syncing, miming and blending vocals and other tricks to make a pop star seem more talented than they were. But often the manufactured star would not last very long and be quickly forgotten. "

That sounds like the story I heard about long gone teen pop idol Fabian. Apparently he was so bad, they had to record the song 40 times and splice it together note by note to get something acceptable.

Listen to Sparks. Still brilliant.

Because people now make music with apps instead of instruments.

There were always connections to each successive generations' music to the previous one but after 2009-10, all bets were off.

Why do YOU suck COCK so badly?

Frank Zappa said that up until the late 60s most record execs were clueless old guys who smoked cigars. They knew nothing about music, but they were willing to take risks and sign complete unknowns. In the early 70s a new type emerged. These new execs looked like they could be rock stars themselves, but their mentality was that of a Harvard Business School graduate and they were mainly focused on those who fitted into their very narrow boutique definition of hip.

Interesting theory r32, why do you think that happened right at the point of 2009-10? Was it the demise of radio, advent of the iPod, Napster, something else, or multiple factors?

I just can’t stand the mumbly, Bjork sounding singing that almost all female singers have nowadays. Even if it’s a good song I automatically turn it off.

All of that and more R35. The number of actual musician bands seemed to plummet in pop, R&B. Male singers with really strong voices also were on the wane.

It's mostly the overuse of technology to be honest. Sure synths etc. were cool. But auto-tune etc. is ruining music. In essence auto-tune lets talentless nobodies become somebody.

R13: That's just "Caro Nome" set to a rock beat.

Renée Fleming used it to teach counting on [italic]Sesame Street[/italic]:

Of course as we get older we tend to think music from past decades was better, but the truth is that pop music has always been very hit or miss. I recently looked at the Billboard Hot 100 songs of each year from the 1990s and was surprised at how most of the songs were just utter shit. It didn't sync with my memories of music from that decade being so much better than current music. Looking at the top 100 songs of each year, 90% of them were just garbage.

I think the 50s, 70s, late 90s and 2010s had the worst pop.

Because there are like two producers in charge for all the pop music now and it all sounds the same. I personally think pop started to get bad around the late 90s with all those boy bands and Britney Spears exploding into the spotlight. That's when Max Martin really started to become huge and I hate the vast majority of music he touches. It all sounds the same to me. And what's worse is that now pop sounds like hip-hop-lite with those same cheap sounding beats.

Because Beyonce Knowles is still alive.

I wouldn't blame Beyoncé because she isn't even the top selling artist and hasnt been for a long time. Justin Bieber, Drake, Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Katy outsold her

Because that's exactly what the boring youth of today deserve.

Another reason is the video clip of whatever song became more important than the actual song itself.

Also instead of starting with a melody, artists these days start with computer effects and hope to find a melody along the way to fit the sound board they come up with.

They usually don't and just rely on a video clip to sell its merits or lack thereof.

Many said MTV started dying when TRL came onto the scene and pushed teen pop, nu metal, gangsta rap, Disney stars and pop punk onto the masses. And all of the other music video programs disappeared like Alternative Nation, Headbanger's Ball, MTV James and Dial MTV.

But arguably true "pop" music wasnt initially the main draw of MTV when it started it was mainly rock and almost all white artists

OP, you old. That is why current pop music sucks. Embrace it.

On a broader note, I'm surprised that we haven't had an anthem for the Covid era, a song that really took off because it captured what everyone was feeling. Probably because the country is too divided, but still....

That's a very interesting point but I think it illustrates the premise of this thread as much as anything...there's no real pop music with a universal melody and reach that can capture the feeling or zeitgeist of the times

Pop music is extremely derivative nowadays. The reason older generations dismiss contemporary pop music is that we've heard it before, usually composed and performed better. Everything is about the hook and much of the time composers are just stealing the hook from an old song.

There was a lot of natural talent in the music industry in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. Barbra, Whitney, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Prince, early Madonna, Steve Perry, Freddie Mercury and a few others were amazing by today’s standards. Many wrote their own songs, produced their music and played instruments. The use of autotune, pitch correction, vocoders and other various techniques have inspired entirely new music genres and new ways of recording and processing vocals. Plus life was very simple back then. There wasn’t social media, cell phones and all the modern technology that is around today.

You definitely have to go outside of the Top 40 to find good pop, and have needed to do so for at least 20 years.

Here is a recommendation - Hazel English put out her debut album last spring. It is very poppy, and quite enjoyable.

Saint Etienne still makes good pop as well.

Harry Styles had one of the best selling albums of 2020 and his stuff is very 60s/70s, with a real band playing different types of guitars.

R53 Yep.

The corporate music industry pretty much manufactures clones of all the greats and tricks naive young people into thinking they are getting something original. But actual music lovers who are young are also not impressed by newer acts because they go outside of Top 40 and aren't afraid to look up older artists.

Some examples of recent clones:

Ariana Grande (clone or Mariah) Justin Bieber (clone of Usher) Katy Perry (clone of Paula Abdul) Harry Styles (clone of Prince, Elton John and Bowie) Lady Gaga (see above) Miley Cyrus (the biggest trend hopper ever but unlike Madonna isn't good at making it her own)

Music critics are also to blame. They are all “poptimists” who insist that boybands deserve the same accolades as someone like Joni Mitchell.

I feel ya OP.

THIS gives me hope, though in a Safety-Dance-12"Version-way.

This is a fun song that came out today. Very poppy chorus.

[quote]I believe one of the main factors is the absence of great melodies

Absolutely. It's funny, I grew up in the age of grunge and alternative 90s music, and listening back to those songs now it's amazing how catchy and melodic they are, even though we didn't necessarily think of them like that at the time. And I think this:

[quote]So many people involved in music now can't actually play an instrument or read music. They know how to use software.

Is definitely playing a big role in things.

I know what OP means, when you criticise younger people's music it feels like you're just doing what your parents, grandparents etc. did. But I just can't help feeling that there really is something objectively worse about today's pop music.

And just to add, you definitely do need to be proactive in looking for it. I've said this here before but there is some really fun, melodic pop coming out of places like France at the moment. So just search and keep your ears open.

When I listen back to music from the 90s, I do notice there was a lot of dreck as pop too... all that German eurodisco stuff for example. But I think the difference was that the radio played it all... I mean, the top 40 in one year would have Twenty 4 Seven, Ace of Base and Corona playing alongside the Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Natalie Merchant, Björk, Tori Amos and so on.

Everything is so disposable nowadays too, people don't really hold on to a song for more than a couple of months, and when was the last time an entire album became one that everyone in that generation knew back to front? It's a lot down to how we consume music now, I guess. I like that when I was a kid, technology was cassettes and CDs because we were constantly recording things and sharing them with each other. I like that community aspect of things. A bit like how older generations have told me that during the time music was all on vinyl, you may just buy something because you liked the cover art, because so much attention was put into it.

I wonder if pop music is just more forgettable these days?

I know Rihanna has a million hits, but other than the Umbrella and Stay? I can't think of any. And I like her.

Oh and when she started I was in my 20s, so it's not an age thing.

[quote]Saint Etienne still makes good pop as well.

Why don't I like them? I have tried because everyone raves about them. But whenever I listen to their music I get sort of annoyed and want to tell them to take their songs back and work on them for another month, and then they'll be excellent. I have no idea why this is. I do like "Goodnight Jack" though, and I enjoy their cover of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".

The Wake Up song you posted though, I thought was much better, the sort of thing I feel Saint Etienne would be if they worked on their songs a bit more. I realise I probably sound like a right troglodyte saying this.

[quote]I know Rihanna has a million hits, but other than the Umbrella and Stay? I can't think of any.

She had that weird song where she sang about shooting some guy. It was so bad. I saw it on TV when I was in Turkey and couldn't stop laughing at how awful it was.

We're the same age it sounds like, so agreed, it's not an age thing.

I like Rihanna. I can remember partying in south beach 10ish years ago, and hearing ‘We found love’ at every club. She is pretty, and I like her personality. She makes fun music.

I just can't get past that she's off key all the time.

"Even though current pop music relies greatly on "beats", there's no reason why it cant also have catchy melodies as has always been."

NPR Tiny Desk

Yup. Everything today sounds the same, and by "same" I also mean like nursery rhymes, to appeal to generational adult-baby, daytime pajamas-wearing listeners with the attention span of Minute Rice and an Instagram account selfie post.

I like listening on Apple to the "WABC Aircheck" radio station playing basically 24/7 1960s-1990s radio programming. Songs I used to start to cringe at for being played in heavy rotation during those years, now sound almost like music classics to me compared to how today's dreck assaults my ears and musical tastes. What strikes me is how prolific, individual, imaginative and trend-setting the variety of pop music was in previous decades, especially during the 1970s, in hindsight.

[quote]I recently looked at the Billboard Hot 100 songs of each year from the 1990s and was surprised at how most of the songs were just utter shit. It didn't sync with my memories of music from that decade being so much better than current music. Looking at the top 100 songs of each year, 90% of them were just garbage.

Go back a little further to the 1960s and 70s. So much great music on the top 100.

KEXP plays a lot of really excellent current stuff from around the world. And because it's musicians performing live in the studio, you get a great idea of their abilities. By and large I've been really impressed with what I've seen.

People are getting more and more used to music without melody. I don’t think melody will ever return to pop, as it’s considered corny.

I think Gaga marked the downturn of pop music. 2008 was a huge turn for pop music. Before 2008, songs still aimed for catchy and meaningful lyrics, such as Beyonce "if you like it then put a ring on it". Then comes Gaga, who proved that you don't need complicated melody or even lyrics to make a hit. The song "Poker face" was the beginning of shitty music with repetitive melody that follows.

Po-po-po-poker face, po-po-poker face (Mum mum mum mah) Po-po-po-poker face, po-po-poker face (Mum mum mum mah)

That part has no meaning and is basically repeating two notes. Gaga is the first person to popularize shitty stuff like this. She also proved that stupid music video can turn a garbage song a hit. Then, many singers follow suit. Pop music now, particularly the female music, is many shitty songs sang by crazy strippers. But I still like Gaga. Love her.

Pop music was shit for years before Gaga.