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The emphasis on image isn't a new thing?

that was my whole post.

not talking about image.

and I note that music has always had a concern with its audience, as something that is made to be heard, but so much is entirely concerned with engineering the desired reaction in a really cheap way.

like...not making something that effectively expresses something in an authentic way.

I *know* pop in particular has always tended towards straight manipulation, but it's just glorified advertising these days.

I'm concerned that more people will just be like, 'what's new', even though there is a very definite difference as of the last few years in music.

But that's not really new is it? Look at all the Merseybeat bands who followed the Beatles in the 60s; glam-rock hangers-on like the Rollers & Alvin Stardust in the 70s; the hoards of bad post-Duran new romantic acts in the early 80s; and the post-Take That boyband boom of the 90s, to name but 4.

From Elvis onwards, much chart pop has been designed to manipulate and appeal to a certain audience. Admittedly it may be more transparent & cynical now, the latest Girls Aloud single being a prime example, but it's hardly a new thing.

I actually completely agree with you, I think the advent of things like X Factor and American Idol and its popularity have helped spur this kind of thing. The popularity of these programs prove that people don't mind advertising and music to be intertwined in such a disingenuous way.

also the bits where you've said "affliction", "authentic", "superficial" and "insubstantial".

Demand and offer. Artists make music that people want to hear.

If you're 100% authentic in your art you don't make any money unless you're an already established musician (Paul McCartney, Prince, etc).

It used to be that bands (and labels) would spend some effort in finding the audience for their music - (creating a scene/subculture/following etc) but nowadays it seems more like labels and even artists are looking to PLACE their music within an existing demographic

If I'm going to blame anyone then I think I'd blame the role of PR in exposing artists and probably the fact that advertising plays such a large part in the revenue stream of most platforms that offers music streaming these days (whether that be commercial radio/spotify/DiSfork etc.)

I say this with a vaguely half-formed and unrefined argument of course

http://designermagazine.tripod.com/AreYouInABandOrPartOfABrand.htm

Bands need to think of themselves as brands!

think the has always been the case really yeah. what's that quote from amadeus where Salieri is like 'you have to put a big bang at teh end so that people know when to clap'.
I presume the film was entirely historically accurate.

it's like any sense of making music for music's sake has been abandoned in fear of not profiting.

like I said (in either my OP or follow-up), although pop music has always been manipulative, there was always some vestige of songcraft, even in the most blatantly chart-oriented stuff.

now it seems entirely geared towards creating a specific reaction in specific demographics, to the extent that even young/up and coming tunesmiths seem to labour towards pure vaccuous manipulation in a way I suspect some aren't entirely conscious of.

marketing folks have nurtured a culture of cynical pandering. it's like they're cutting out the risk of having to sell music to an audience that might not be there.

it's as if a lot of young musicians dream of creating the reaction rather than being creative/serving their own internal muses.

Gonna put a read on that...merely scanning it was intense in itself.

most/a lot of the pop music acts of the late 70s/early 80s came from an Art School background where the key to their education was developing a sense of self and exploring how to express themselves

whereas a lot of current pop music comes from a music school/performing arts school background which seems to be more focused on industry thinking

I think many young musicians wish to emulate in some way, their favourite bands/artists. Music is influenced by music and a multitude of other art forms. To say that young musicians dreams these days are reactionary just seems way out of whack.

bands/musicians get accused of being self-indulgent all the time and that is supposed to be bad

the 80s, for example

It's probably fueled by little more than a fetishized view of some wonderful working part of the culture industry. No one makes music without understanding what music is and what role it occupies in the culture. And if some Kasper Hauser motherfucker recorded himself banging on a log it probably wouldn't sound too good anyway. The artist-audience interface facilitated by the internet is significant, but nowhere near as significant as something like recording technology becoming widespread, which commodified music in a way it couldn't have been previously. JESS RELAX BRUH :)

see what BITT said upthread; there's an industry-nurtured culture of making music in a similar mindset to non-musical industry-types, and this whole ruthlessly professional approach has dripped down through others.

like at my university, they didn't encourage creativity, originally or anything, they rewarded those who adhered to the tutors' doctrines.

there's a conveyor belt of this kind of music.

pandering is way worse.

at least if musicians are self-indulgent, there's a chance they might make something decent.

cared about the musical craft. they just didn't realise what they were making was crap.

like, in even the most populist music in even the last decade, there was some uncanny musical urge...Xenomania's best stuff for Girls Aloud had a playfulness, a sense of pop fandom underlying.

but the *vast* majority of music anywhere near the commercial sphere now just sounds like it was made to fulfill an ad brief.

*cites sixty years of prior pop history*

and at least if self-indulgence results in crap, it's purposeful crap.

Not much has really caught my ear in the past couple years. I think that it's a result of minor aesthetic adjustments though, rather than any kind of major paradigm shift. Side note: in the pop arena, the best music seems to be that which brazenly embraces its status as a commodity. This is why kpop group Girls' Generation (product that makes no attempt to disguise the fact that it is in fact a product) are way better than Adele (product that is meant to be consumed as something other than a product). I think what you refer to as an "uncanny musical urge" could just as easily be nothing more than really good craftsmanship on the part of someone who isn't thrown off course by attempting to consciously pseudo-individuate their product. If that makes sense. I feel like I'm not explaining myself very well.

*cites sixty years of pop history*

but if there's no creative spark, there's no chance of anything good.

this is a revised version.

honestly crafting a brilliant product rather than creating something designed to be emotional in a clinical way.

the latter is no different than a company trying engage customers by cynically tapping into easy emotions. a teary butter advert or something.

I do genuinely believe it's a paradigm shift, though. the potential for failure being reduced to near zero.

and even in the case of those futher from the mainstream, there's whole lot of self-conscious contrived/excessively pre-meditated stuff going on.

i can only really talk from my own experience but when i've been writing stuff as part of a band it's consideration of audience that has kept it balanced.
obviously i might have just been in shit bands but there you go

I've tried that first paragraph about 5 times and I'm not getting anywhere with it.

is Kiss FM.

rather than purely geared towards the potential listeners (or the other way).

which is fine.

or one of those other words that doesn't have any meaning?

and the seeming lack thereof

all that stuff about manufactured pop has been fully realised in wholly empty and pointless endeavour of a lot of people nowadays.

it's dispiriting.

you just have to look for it a bit harder. the failure of effort is your own if you can't see past the pure business of chartpop, which isn't even music in any strictly artistic sense, usually, so why are you even noticing it ffs

I am talking about music in the orbit of the mainstream because I'm worried about the kids who are going to grow up thinking this is the norm.

obviously I can see beyond - kind of insulted you'd suggest otherwise - but what of those who aren't so discerning?

you think everyone listened to all the good shit from the past 100 years? there are always (and will always be)morons.

I know I'd want to make the kind of music that would mean everything to one person, rather than a little bit to everyone. When you write for an audience you just get vague sentiment that doesn't really resonate with anyone. It's not just a pop thing, but I think you cross the line from artist to businessman when you do that.

for us, there was always a more substantial alternative. now it seems like it would be harder for a kid to step.sideways. the curreng versions of the old alternatives are just as vaccuous as the straight-up pop, just stylistically different.

idk. who can say how it'll pan out. it just worries me that there will just be successive generations of vaccuous kids making vaccuous music.

is there a genuinely thoughtful alternative that's easily accessible anymore?

that I don't really care about any of this stuff anymore?

and that of times gone by is its complete lack of charm, wit & style. The same applies to cinema too (look at the remakes of, say, Clash of the Titans or the A-Team for prime examples). Love them or hate them, you cannot deny that Roxy Music, Adam & the Ants, ABC, Duran, Rick Astley, Bananarama, Take That, Aqua or Craig David, to name a randomly selected few chart stars of the last 40 yrs or so, had a bit of charm or a sense of fun to them. Such qualities seem to be utterly lacking in today's chart music - it's grim, desperate & shrill, as it knows it's only going to be around for a couple of weeks so it needs to shout louder than everyone else & make as much cash as it can before it's forgotten.

would argue that modern chartpop has not replaced older chartpop in its function - kids aren't listening to top 40 countdowns or excitedly spinning vinyl - they're voraciously consuming media and consciously following memes, and in that sense, modern chartpop has replaced the news - a dumber and more effortlessly replicable incarnation of celebrity gossip. sheer information consumption with no analysis required. yes, the chartpop of yore aimed for more than this - it aimed for craft, sophistication, even timelessness. but then the corporations realised that you can sell a few thousand finely-sculpted wallclocks but you can sell almost everyone the time of day. so there it is, a ticking on our heads, unmusical and irrelevant as art - you shouldn't be so prescriptive as to its application - some people need a metronome, and there will always be artists, whose work we 'enlightened ones' consume in more oblique but equally self-serving ways

Attenborough representing a more considered, thoughtful, intelligent age, Irwin representing the new, brash, short attention span generation. If Irwin had done that famous scene with the mountain gorillas he'd have gone running in there shouting "FUCK ME! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THESE BASTARDS!"

in entirely different fields, using occasionally similar tools. the analogy falls down a little when you consider that Irwin was still trying to introduce new ideas to his audience - not telling the time of day so much as showing off his fancy new wristwatch, complete with angry python design - did you know those fuckers only need to eat like once a month? on a notional artistic par with...idk, Eminem?

did you see any of the mid-late '70s TOTPs they repeated on the Beeb recently? There have almost certainly been moments - years - of equal lack of charm in the past.

There are tons of great artist doing superb stuff.

The problem, in my opinion, is the outlets for it. British Radio is generally awful, with a few exceptions (Tom Robinson, Shaun Keaveney etc). They just seem to play chart music during the day (which seems to have completely lost any relevance).

There seem to be no tv music shows that actually show any new music (we need a programme like The Tube to come back)

NME seem to champion all the bands I can't stand. The general public are like sheep and follow the fashions. We need other Magazines to challenge its monopoly (if only Melody Maker and Sounds had never disappeared)

Too many gig promoters nowadays put on small gigs and just put on who they can get and don't think about the bill. 3/4 bands who have no or very little in common with each other.

The music played at these gigs too often has no relevence to the bands actually playing, (The amount of times I've heard Reggae being played between sets recently is bizarre, considering I've never been to a Reaggae gig in my life!).

I think if you're a music fan, and you think the current outlets are sending out the wrong message or have an unfair monopoly, you should care enough to speak out about it. Unless you think the current way of doing things is the best it's ever been and there's absoloutely no reason to complain about anything. Do you? In a world of X Factor and the MTV EMAs?