What exactly the hell happened to pop music? I don’t just mean the commercialization and general lack of talent – That’s been there. Even pop of the past has been capable of being entertaining, catchy, and consistent. I’m not even complaining about “kids these days”, in terms of just not getting it.
Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’m 30, and I understand that I’m just never going to “get” newer music. I know that I liked stupid crap growing up, including both MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, simply because they got tied into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles through the most awesome movies ever made. I also know that new forms of music are scary and unfamiliar to me, but come the hell on.
First, I need to point out that I find Lady Gaga, Psy, and The Lonely Island to not only be quite well-done pop music, but catchy as well, if not enjoyable, in the case of Lonely Island. What can I say? I like satirical rap, despite hating almost all other rap and hip-hop. Now that that’s out of the way, what the actual fuck, guys?
Now, I get that some of the stuff we listened to in the 90s, and what my brothers listened to in the 80s, and my parents in the 70s and 60s, was fairly grating on older audiences. Shrill guitars, overly-happy melodies, insipid and pointless lyrics, weird instrumentation, and the occasional douchebaggery that was associated with pop in the 90s, all of it pretty painful to listen to, simply due to the shame of enjoying it unironically. That doesn’t really excuse modern pop, though.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems like every single female pop artist today is doing her best to do an extremely bad impersonation of the very worst parts of an Alanis Morissette song, amplified by 11. I can’t help but notice that in every song I hear blasted over the supermarket PA system has a woman basically yodeling, poorly, while autotuned, over hideously derivative beats. Now, the derivative and autotuned stuff I can deal with. That’s certainly not new, and while it’s a little grinding, it’s just part of the factory-made pop we have today. It’s the high-pitched, grating yodeling I can’t stand. I won’t subject anyone reading this to the horrors of cracking pop-singer voices, but I will link the hilarious, and far superior goat edition of the worst offender. Here is Katy Perry’s Fireworks, with goats instead of pubescent voice-cracking. There are many other examples, but that, to me, is the worst offender of the lot, and it’s still played in supermarkets. Except Grocery Outlet. They play music from before I was even a sperm. I’m okay with that.
That’s not enough though. Of course not. Beyond the horrific warbling of giant-chested pop-stars, we have to deal with obvious ripoffs. Now, don’t get me wrong; this isn’t new. Vanilla Ice ripped off David Bowie and Freddie Mercury for “Ice Ice Baby”, and the ever-annoying Papa Roach absolutely ripped off Iron Maiden’s “Genghis Khan” for their godawful song “Last Resort”. This is just insane, though. There’s absolutely no doubt that Train has completely ripped off a goddamn musical for their “50 Ways to Say Goodbye”. And yes, this is another song I’m subjected to in the grocery store, every time I stop in.
Yes, I noticed this. No, I don’t generally like musicals. Why? Musicals tend to grate on my nerves pretty heavily. Why did I immediately recognize this ripoff? Because for some strange reason, metal bands love it. Iron Maiden loves it. Nightwish loves it. Iced Earth loves it. I don’t get the obsession. Even the damn Chipmunks got into it! No, I can’t find the video for that on Youtube. Thank me for that.
Regardless, this is a song that is in the public consciousness. I can’t imagine that even 12-year-olds are unaware of the melody of at least the title song of that musical. How did these guys think they could get away with ripping off the melody of such a well-known song without being called on it? I don’t know how to segue this one, so I’ll just say that such a ripoff makes your ass look horrible.
Oh, you know what else looks horrible, considering that godawful, completely uninspired segue? That’s right, I’m actually joining the mob and commenting on Miley Cyrus’ ass during the VMAs. Did I watch the VMAs? Jesus no. Did Reddit show me the worst part of it? You damn well know it. Here I am bracing myself for some general pop-star sluttiness and overall enjoyable-with-the-sound-off gyration, but am instead subjected to a pair of singers who seem to have abandoned all hope of being capable of live performance. Cyrus wiggles in with these horrifying teddy bears and kinda sexy backup dancers, getting me all hot and bothered, then she jumps out in what I can only describe as “Jesus, did you blow your wardrobe money on meth and male hookers?” It was bad enough while she had a shred of her dignity intact, but then she started stripping off the horrible clothing.
Somehow, it managed to get worse. Let me point out that, despite absolutely despising tattoos, Lady Gaga was far sexier by comparison at the VMAs. Nice backside, toned body, and clothes that worked for her. Miley Cyrus looked like a pound of chicken squeezed into a Ziplock snack bag. She stuck her tongue out like she thought it was a mating call, and wagged her ass like a cat in heat. Now, don’t get me wrong. If I saw someone like Scarlett Johannsen making these moves in her Avengers leather outfit, I would have been cheering. This, however, was beyond unsexy. The bottom of her ass cheeks hung out the bottom of the latex underwear like a poorly-packed sausage, and there was nothing sexy about this show. That said, it wasn’t really that disappointing. Female pop stars have made plenty of mistakes, including the once-admirable Janet Jackson revealing her horrifying, pierced breast on national television, but this was just painful to watch. Honestly though, the most grating part came after Miley’s strange wiggle-routine got through the first act.
I wasn’t offended by this horrific mess. It was like watching an episode of Cops, which is always fun, because I enjoy schadenfreude. What came next was actually somewhat offensive, though. No, not the gyrating and thrusting. On a better person, that would have just been kinda hot and fun to watch. No, the part that *really* made me groan was the performance provided by Miley and her “dance partner”, Robin Thicke. Thicke isn’t a 19-year-old kid starting his career. Indeed, Thicke is 6 years older than me,and fairly experienced in the industry at this point, I’d assume. While I can’t stand his musical style, he has vocal talent. That, however, did not show in the clip I watched. I saw a hideously malformed caricature of a female form grinding against Beetlejuice, while they both warbled completely off-key in front of a panicked audience.
I’ve seen people try to justify this terrible phoned-in travesty, saying “well, it’s the VMAs. It’s not about the music – It’s about the image”. I call bullshit on that. Those are not mutually-exclusive goals. I don’t care for Lady Gaga, but just to compare, I checked out her performance at the same show. She sang a goofy song dismissing her critics, stripping from a very bulky outfit down to a bikini, while apparently singing quite well the whole time. She had that tiny bit of bluesy voice added to her standard pop-singing sound. Again, not my thing, but damn, I cannot deny her talent in this case. She even got pre-recorded “boos” to accompany her. In any case, she put on a fairly spectacular show that I can admit, while i’m not all that attracted, was pretty sexy for the modern generation. All the while, she hit every note perfectly.
Now, maybe Gaga used pre-recorded material or some kind of auto-tune, but that’s not exactly an excuse for Cyrus and Thicke. They’re pop stars. Nobody expects them to be singing perfectly. For a normal live show, I can see them putting forth a sub-standard vocal performance, due to being tired or sick, but this is the fucking VMAs. If there’s a point where people should expect a “best performance” out of a modern over-produced pop-star, it would be at the VMAs.
Again, Gaga, despite her annoying, catchy tunes, put on a spectacular show for her audience. Her stage show was well-done, her singing was either pre-recorded or done extremely-well live, and she presented something worthwhile for the kajillions in ad-revenue that event gathered. I admit, I didn’t expect that much from Thicke, since he’s another in the long line of white-friendly latin music, but Cyrus? Sure, she’s not amazing, but she can certainly sing. Yes, that’s likely incredibly over-processed, but really, is there an excuse with all the live-performance help available for this multi-million-dollar event? After all, this is a studio-style video, but what about her doing the same damn song, live, with the original performer? You know what? I can’t trash on her singing with Dolly on the very live version. She kept up with the female country singer on her own territory. Sure, she pulled the bullshit random note warbling, but it was well-done.
So, honestly… What. The. Fuck. Happened? We get it, Miley. You’re not Radio Disney anymore. You’re not a little girl, and you want to show off your flapjack ass. Why does that mean you can’t sing well anymore?!
Anyway, this is a lot of crazy ranting. I don’t care for the popification of country to begin with, but Miley had a voice. Train could have come up with something slightly less obvious of a rip-off. Katy Perry could hold back on the horrifying screeching. I wouldn’t complain about this, but I can’t escape it anymore. I don’t listen to music radio stations anymore. I don’t even tune in to the rock stations if I can help it, because I get tired of hearing Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”, but there’s no escaping this garbage anymore. With XM/Sirius, there are thousands of wonderful choices. There’s even an Elvis station if necessary, yet almost every store pipes in canned music of modern shrill pop music non-stop. I can’t escape high-pitched music, and I’ll be honest: This isn’t helping the store.
A bit of a tangent at this point, but I need to make it clear that putting music over the PA speakers in a store has a purpose: Getting shoppers to relax and spend more time walking through the aisles. Obviously, the store has little control over the woman with the constantly screaming baby, but they do have control over what they play for music. A nice, slow, smooth song will lull shoppers into walking slowly and exploring the aisles. Most people in grocery stores are probably in their 20s at the youngest, but more likely their 30s. We’re not too keen on modern pop, and it’s really distracting and annoying. Throw some “All Star” by Smash Mouth or “I Will Buy you a New Life” by Everclear on there. They’re slow, boring, mindless, and, for most shoppers, very nostalgic. That’s the kind of thing that will get shoppers to sing along, or at least revel in the memories of school, making them walk slower, filled with endorphins.
Thus, I think I’ve come full-circle, bringing things back to the topic-at-hand. Both Smash Mouth and Everclear were annoyingly catchy, nothing I’d listen to relax to, but they were soothing. It’s not just a nostalgia thing, either. Most popular music in the 70s was aggressive and horrible to relax to, unless you’re under the influence of something fairly strong. the 80s was full of cheesy electronic music, much of which was dark and depressing, while the 60s had some extremely positive-sounding music. Again, I’m 30, but I think that the 60s and the 90s had the best “get you happy” music. I don’t hate depressing music. I actually like it if it’s deep and thoughtful. I just don’t understand the prevalence of discordant, unmusical songs with shrill women screaming at you for four minutes when you’re trying to buy soy sauce and Maypo.
I know, it’s a pretty petty complaint, and one that will never be addressed, but I needed to rant. Pop has become something ridiculous, and there’s just so little redeeming about most of it these days. As I said before, Lady Gaga, while not my thing, is well-done pop music. Some of the dubstep is nicely-done for repetitive electronic music, and there’s a ton of funny comedy music available now. I just don’t get why something like Miley Cyrus’ phoned-in, poorly-done performance is acceptable, when we have so much technology to fix flaws.
I don’t expect pop artists to play their own instruments. I don’t even really think they need to be completely original, but for God’s sake, mix up your musical theft a bit. And when it comes to being a pop-star who only sings, at least get that part right.
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