Rather Vocalized Illusion on: Pop Music

Dearly beloved... we are gathered here today to say farewell to a dear and loyal friend. For today marks the death of Good Music. Yes, no matter how hard you may try to search, you will no longer find anything worth remembering in today's music industry. We are all saddened by this loss.

Well, enough with Mr Gloomeypants. Let's get right into it.

You remember how in the 70's and 80's there were lots of famous bands that were highly respected by all? Of course you don't. Because if Internet demographics are to be believed, none of my audience was born before 1992. Well for all you young listeners, back in the 70's and 80's, there were a number of bands that everyone loved and respected. Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Micheal Jackson (cough-pedophile-cough), The Beatles, and Metallica. They were all amazing and respectable bands who played excellent music... except Micheal Jackson obviously.

Nowadays, the music features black guys dancing around ugly women, hookers parading around stage, and songs about absolutely nothing played with absolutely no music. Sometimes I like to look around and see exactly how far the world has fallen.

Now before I get really into it, I'd just like to say that I'm not going to talk about the music being inappropriate or anything, I'm talking about it being bad. Really really bad.

Some of this stuff is just really ridiculous. Look at that California Girls song. It's a song that has absolutely nothing to say, and the video features a bunch of women dancing around a remake of Candyland, which reminds me of a Black Eyed Peas song for some reason.

Another prime example is Alejandro. A song, again about nothing, that features no actual music and a video of Lady Gaga (cough-prostitute-cough) raping a bunch of guys.

Now many of you may disagree with me on this, but Music needs to feature five things. Rhythm, Tune, Instrumentals, Basial Amplification, and optionally Lyrics. Let's look at them in depth.

Rhythm is the beat that sets the tone and pace of the song. It let's the musicians time themselves accordingly and sync themselves up. Tune is the set of notes that gives the exact pitch for the song. It's the part of the song you hum when you're alone and bored. Instrumentals is the actual music that follows the rhythm and tune, and gives the song it's actual sound. It's played on instruments such as a guitar, or a violin, or a cello, or a piano. Basial Amplification is my fancy, made up term for bass. It's a low, quiet sound that makes the song sound full and lively. Played on a bass guitar, or tuba, or other such instruments. Lastly, Lyrics are a poem designed to add a meaning to the song, but this is optional.

Modern Pop Music does 1 and 5, and excessively uses 4, but still seems to struggle with 2 and 3. You see, for a song to really be memorable, it needs a powerful instrument in the background adding real emotion to a song, not just a series of sounds that sounds increasingly like someone spitting into their mic.

Pop Music also suffers from ending before it's over. In a rock song, part of the song will be dedicated to a guitar solo when the singer runs out of lyrics, before singing the chorus one last time. In a Pop Song, the last 2 minutes of every song is dedicated to repeating the title of the song over and over again. It's trying to make as much money as possible with as little effort.

Look at some of the songs coming out of European bands like DragonForce or Apocalyptica. They are really really nice songs to listen to... okay maybe not DragonForce (cough-StudioForce-cough), but Apocalyptica yes. In fact most of you probably know Apocalyptica as the band I start all my videos with. Their songs sound incredibly nice and their lyrical songs are ambiguously poetic.

Some of the best lyrical songs are the ones that still leave the music open to the imagination. You can take the lyrics any way you wish, and get any possible meaning out of them.

I'll show you an example of that. In the DragonForce song Prepare for War, the lyrics point out that the band is fighting something, but it's never made very clear. The ending chorus goes: Rage and Fear from skies above, the fire fuels my veins. Destruction of Humanity, the everlasting flame.


Now I showed that part of the song to three different people. One thought it was about the apocalypse, another thought it was about activism, and the third thought it was about religious extremism. You don't get that kind of variety in a Pop Song. The songs are almost always about hot women, and nothing else. Though the term "Hot" is kind of subjective, depending on what you consider Hot to be.

I know what you're going to say "Bhaalspawn, you classical music elitist! How can you say it's bad? It's just not in your taste. Other people might like it, so it could be good depending on your point of view." But I've never accepted that as a reason to not hate a song. It's an even bigger question of what kind of target audience these artists are looking for. Let me ask you something. Without saying something as vague as "Pop Music Fans", what is the target audience of Lady Gaga or Katy Perry? (cough-talentless cultural hack-cough). What is the target audience of this post-Montana Miley Cyrus? What is the target audience of any Pop Star? Nobody! These people don't have a target audience. The publishers know that. They put out this music knowing that the dumbest people in the world will buy what they tell them to buy and feed them billions of dollars in cash.

You've heard the term great minds think alike? Well idiots think in unison. You won't believe how many morons are at my school all dressed like black guys from BET.

It's less an issue of who writes and publishes this crap, but more of the kind of person who willingly pays money for it. I've asked people what they see in Katy Perry music, and they can't say anything beyond "It's cool", and they can never tell me why they think it's cool. These people don't even have a complete opinion on the kind of music they listen to. They're complete idiots who listen to it only because they are told to because everyone else is.

Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn't guilty of this myself. I enjoy some Evanescence every now and then, and I've found a few Billy Talent songs that I find catchy. But what sets me apart is I'm able to figure out why I like it, beyond saying "because it's cool". I'm able to recognize that every artist has at least one good song.

But that was my point form the beginning. Artists get one good, and extremely popular song at the start, and their publishers want to re-create that success again and again. TV Shows do this too, that's why TLC is having six different baking reality shows after the success of Cake Boss (cough-I just have to cough-cough). But just like with TV Shows, the copycats are never as good as the originals. The attempts to re-create success with the same formulas never get the same result. And the 2000's are more ignorant of this fact.

The 70's and 80's were full of One-Hit Wonders. Artists that had one good song or album, then quit while they were ahead. But nobody does that. Now we have bland songs that sound alike, with music videos that have nothing to do with the song anyway.