12 Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music

electrofaro · Post by **electrofaro** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:40 am

Just for fun:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/12-extre ... opular-mus

admin · Post by **admin** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:54 am

Disappointment is the stuff upon which new beginnings are made. It's all good.

nukebass · Post by **nukebass** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:12 pm

Didn't they change the way they keep track of single/album sales some years ago?

s4001 · Post by **s4001** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:27 pm

Sturgeon's Law applies to music. Or, better said, carp floats.

DriftSpace · Post by **DriftSpace** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:03 pm

Wildberry wrote:Just for fun:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/12-extre ... opular-mus

That was fun?

What do you like to do on holiday?

nukebass wrote:Didn't they change the way they keep track of single/album sales some years ago?

Yes, in-addition to the proliferation of media in many new forms, increased ease of media consumption, and the fact that the population has exploded over the last 30 years; the world population has almost doubled since 1970. Also, music education is in the toilet, which means that music appreciation is also in the toilet, and none of that is helped by ever-decreasing musical fidelity, nor by corporations shoving creatively-bereft music down the throats of millions for the sake of profit.

Oh well. Those of us with brains know that quality and quantity rarely occupy the same space. One problem is that in the future people might look at these statistics and find reason to compare artists like Creed with the likes of Hendrix, or Katy Perry with The Beatles; historical perspective is usually one of the first things to vanish as time passes.

s4001 wrote:Sturgeon's Law applies to music. Or, better said, carp floats.

And how!

electrofaro · Post by **electrofaro** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:28 pm

DriftSpace wrote:
Wildberry wrote:Just for fun:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/12-extre ... opular-mus
That was fun? What do you like to do on holiday?

I'm best at doing nothing on holidays! Just strolling lazily around the Tuscan countryside, being lazy in general...

8mileshigher · Post by **8mileshigher** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:03 pm

Its hard to comprehend some of these Pop stars today having such bigger statistical accomplishments than the Beatles or Hendrix, etc, But its not an even comparison, looking at the small world of record sales in say 1964 or 1967, with 45 RPM vinyl singles, and the size of the record-buying public then

------ compared to today's population size and access with internet, and cloud, etc.

It's an interesting article.

electrofaro · Post by **electrofaro** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:08 pm

I call most of what is populating today's hitlists disposable music - you buy it for 99 C and after 30 days once you got bored of it, you delete it or never listen to it again!

Not everything made these days is disposable stuff, though... this really is not:

jimk · Post by **jimk** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:43 pm

...all of which makes my job (teaching) all the more subversive. Why? Because teachers hopefully inspire their students to make their own music rather than just mindlessly consuming the mass marketed stuff like so many disposable diapers. So the rationale is that by spending X number of dollars on lessons, that much money is taken away from the mega corporations. It's a small, underground, student by student revolution.
JimK

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:45 pm

There was "disposable" music in every generation.

DriftSpace · Post by **DriftSpace** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:21 pm

sloop_john_b wrote:There was "disposable" music in every generation.

Yes, indeed, but how has the ratio of "disposable music" to "quality music" changed?

electrofaro · Post by **electrofaro** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:12 am

sloop_john_b wrote:There was "disposable" music in every generation.

There was, but somehow it spread like an out of control oil spil, muting the waves of creative music!

It all started with investment companies taking over labels big time in the 90s. When they started ruining the economy they started with music first

shamustwin · Post by **shamustwin** » Mon May 07, 2012 3:11 pm

Marketing has won.

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Mon May 07, 2012 3:34 pm

DriftSpace wrote:
sloop_john_b wrote:There was "disposable" music in every generation.
Yes, indeed, but how has the ratio of "disposable music" to "quality music" changed?

If you're saying there was more "quality music" in the 60's than there is now I would have to disagree with you.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:33 pm

Now it's turning generational.

Look:

1. More kids buying music with
2. More disposable income
3. More presence of music in culture
4. Since the '60s, two generations of time in which to allow media to:

a) grow "hotter" (quicker in its call/response stimulus cycle)
b) proliferate
c) metamorphose

Much of the time addressed by these statistics has been internet-dominated. Music is now growing in its dispersion rate ("going viral") at a geometric progression.

Personally, I feel that the less time something is in the public consciousness, the less time there is to appreciate nuances and subleties. Time has managed to put a gloss on lots of former pop-culture flops or "mehs" and turn them into cultural icons and "best-ofs". Ref: "The Big Lebowski", "Space Odyssey: 2001", and surf music and doo-wop, which have achieved a sort of timelessness. Previously iconic acts in their genres have also been (fortunately) revealed in all their cynical manipulation...Can you believe that "Sha Na Na" were at Woodstock, and had their own TV variety show? Yet "American Graffiti"--the original spark for interest in the 1950s and pre-Beatle early '60--stands the test of time.

I can't believe how quickly Juliana goes through fads, though she fixates on quality and that slows her down...

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