Most current pop hits written by same handful of unknowns, other shocking revelations

[hFx]

One of my criteria for good music performance is the lack of background dancers. If it needs background dancers, I don't need it.

Close call, this one....

[No Pride]

Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s I read an interview with Tom Petty. He said he hadn't seen so much industry-controlled pap masquerading as music since the days before the Beatles, when you had acts like Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (sp?). Tom said it was a record label's dream, pop stars that did what they were told, songs that could be manufactured to appeal to tweens, teens, and soccer moms. The label, the producer, and the act's management get to control anything. No integrity, no independence, no soul and it was only going to get worse. He couldn't have been more prophetic.

On a related note; an excerpt from Dave Stewart's liner notes for "National Health - Complete;" this was written in '89:

After countless refusals and rejections from other companies, things reached a head when Virgin records, a company who had to some extent built their reputation on progressive music and with whom we had close ties, turned us down. I had a furious argument with some wretched A&R individual over the reasons... apparently our music was old-fashioned and "unoriginal."

"What do you mean, "unoriginal?," I screamed. Tell me who else is playing this kind of thing?"
"Er, plenty of people. It just sounds like what a lot of other bands have done."
"Name one."
"Er... it just sounds like, er... lots of other people."

Oh yeah. What Virgin had rightly divined, of course, was that this band had MUSICIANS in it and by some unspoken inter-record company edict that persists to the present day, had decreed that musicians were bad news and bands which sported them were NOT TO BE SIGNED. Far better to sign up some good looking front person who's not particularly interested in music (like the record company) and replace the band, if there is one, with session players or MACHINES. Then you can get down to the real business of making a HIT RECORD without all that music stuff getting in the way.

[JJ88]

And this article about BBC Radio 1 playlists is enough to make music lovers sad. It's apparently about following rather than leading, I would imagine there are other stations doing the same sort of thing:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ttle-of-brands

I stay aware of what is happening in the mainstream via osmosis, but my own listening these days is almost entirely from the 50s/60s/70s, I have to say...well before I was even born.

[bob_32_116]

And this article about BBC Radio 1 playlists is enough to make music lovers sad. It's apparently about following rather than leading, I would imagine there are other stations doing the same sort of thing:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ttle-of-brands.

... and this is why I started the thread about free-to-air radio stations. There ARE worthwhile radio programs out there, but you have to seek them out, and I thought it would be a good idea to pool our knowledge.

[Progbear]

I think the saying is used outside the restaurant business as well.

Inevitable link to Oldmeme. Commence the exhuming of Smarf!

^I imagine if you lived in the UK you may not have such a positive view of it- well, I don't. That song is everywhere, used on TV adverts etc., and I don't need to hear it ever again. See also- 'Blurred Lines', 'Get Lucky', 'Happy' etc., which were also everywhere when they were new.

The difference is that each of those songs has something to recommend it. Yes, even “Blurred Lines,” as cringeworthy as it was for various reasons, was better than the average pop radio hits of the day. If you want an example of something becoming memetic despite having absolutely nothing going for it, it’s not hard to find: see “Call Me Maybe,” “Gangnam Style,” “Tik Tok,” “Bad Romance,” etc etc ad nauseam.

That was a golden age for pop music and I think Bacharach in particular was able to get away with stuff (like odd meters and big intervallic leaps) that would never even be considered by the industry suits today.

It was hard to get away with then! Bacharach recalls early days in his career butting heads with suits who wanted him to change 5s and 7s to 4 and the like. I’m glad he stuck to his guns (though apparently he did cave in early on). Part of this probably had to do with connecting with Dionne Warwick, who became sort of the “voice” for their songs. She did a fine job of finding a sort of conversational rhythm in Burt’s unconventional metric shifts and Hal’s “too many syllables for one verse” lyrics, made it sound effortless (which it absolutely was not, just ask the hapless karaoke singer attempting “Anyone Who Had a Heart” or “Promises, Promises”) and gave it pop radio appeal. I imagine they had to fight like hell to get their songs performed the way they wanted, but the results speak for themselves.