Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music

Wertz

kjl wrote: »

And they say piracy is ruining the music industry.

It is... the people who buy all this crap are too stupid to pirate it.

The King of Moo

While the quality of modern pop music is depressing, the silver lining is that despite the sales, history won't remember the majority of today's pop acts.

Not only do more people buy music now than they did in the past (when there was also a fair share of crap pop music!), but many people buy music without any consideration of its quality.

See, for example, how the winner of X-Factor can be favourite to be Christmas No.1 before the winner has been chosen, let alone the song they'll sing.

In 100 years, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin et al will be recognised and lauded for what they were, while no-one will even know what a Ke$ha [sic] or a Flo Rida [sic] even are.

Dudess

Ke$ha - fook. Couldn't get any worse I'd say.

partyatmygaff

More people = More record sales

If any of those great artists (Hendrix for example) you mentioned were in their prime today they'd be selling far more music.

You can't forget that the world's population has pretty much exploded over the past 50 years. That and the fact that record sales mightn't have been recorded accurately in the earlier decades of modern music.

1950: 2,556,000,053
1960: 3,039,451,023
1970: 3,706,618,163
1980: 4,453,831,714
1990: 5,278,639,789
2000: 6,082,966,429
2010: 6,848,932,929

Today: Somewhere around 7 billion.

MungBean

Twee. wrote: »

Plagiarised? "You Shook Me" is listed on the sleeve as written by Willie Dixon and JB Lenoir, "I Can't Quit You Baby" is Dixon again. All given their credit. On their second album, credit is given to Howlin' Wolf for "The Lemon Song", which samples his song "Killing Floor". It's not like they hid it! Other songs have a distinctly blues sound and riffs, they're hardly stolen, just typical of the genre.

If I remember correctly they didnt give the credit on the original albums. Also Page downright stole some stuff from his time with the Yardbirds. And Babe I'm gonna leave you was origionally credited to Page despite being written by someone else which they only credited after legal action.

There's other stuff I cant remember too, was all in that biography, hammer of the gods. Good book but been a while since I read it. Worth a read if your into that kinda thing.

Dudess

Dirtbirds for sure - but young Jimmy Paige... Dang!!!

guitarzero

I think Morrissey put it well "These are not very intellectual times we are living in" - late 90's.

Its mostly kids and idiots that buy this crap. So what if Dam bars and Wham bars where to outsell rice, potatoes and other important foods, we know theres a significant margin of substance between both and which ones will/are be seen as rubbish.

Jamie Starr

The King of Moo wrote: »

In 100 years, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin et al will be recognised and lauded for what they were, while no-one will even know what a Ke$ha [sic] or a Flo Rida [sic] even are.

This isn't really true. When The Beatles started up, there was a section of society who didn't rate them, and instead found things like classic music interesting. There were a younger generation who found them extremely relevant. So what happened was our parents/grandparents became the people who said Elvis/Beatles etc. were culturally important, and so historically they become a fixture, just as the composers before them did.

There are some amazing blues musicians from the 40s and 50s, who aren't recognised at all in cultural history, despite their music being of great importance, because not enough people really liked them or had access to them. We all know Eric Clapton, but the Delta Blues musicians who influenced him remain anonymous to most people.

If Ke$ha sells as many albums as it's said she has, along with Rihanna, Beyonce and so on, it follows that the people listening to them now will try to pass on their importance, so that in 50 years time, a James Blunt album is going to be some kind of collector's item. Bands like The Beatles have already been cemented as musical greats, but there isn't a point where that process of nominating historically important artists just stops. Now, we may not be talking about Rihanna thirty years down the road, but great musical figures really are only chosen by popularity. If these terrible, Simon Cowell conveyor belt types do get popular enough, they will be remembered. Thankfully that looks unlikely. I can see a greying generation of Tinie Tempah fans being just as huge curmudgeons as we are now. "Oh, I remember pop music before it was all cyborgs and flavoured laser beams."

The King of Moo

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

This isn't really true. When The Beatles started up, there was a section of society who didn't rate them, and instead found things like classic music interesting. There were a younger generation who found them extremely relevant. So what happened was our parents/grandparents became the people who said Elvis/Beatles etc. were culturally important, and so historically they become a fixture, just as the composers before them did.

There are some amazing blues musicians from the 40s and 50s, who aren't recognised at all in cultural history, despite their music being of great importance, because not enough people really liked them or had access to them. We all know Eric Clapton, but the Delta Blues musicians who influenced him remain anonymous to most people.

If Ke$ha sells as many albums as it's said she has, along with Rihanna, Beyonce and so on, it follows that the people listening to them now will pass on try to pass on their importance, so that in 50 years time, a James Blunt album is going to be some kind of collector's item. Bands like The Beatles have already been cemented as musical greats, but there isn't a point where that process of nominating historically important artists just stops. Now, we may not be talking about Rihanna thirty years down the road, but great musical figures really are only chosen by popularity. If these terrible, Simon Cowell conveyor belt types do get popular enough, they will be remembered. Thankfully that looks unlikely. I can see a greying generation of Tinie Tempah fans being just as huge curmudgeons as we are now. "Oh, I remember pop music before it was all cyborgs and flavoured laser beams."

I see where you're coming from, and agree that a lot of classics from our perspective won't be remembered, but I think the Beatles at least are different, as they've moved beyond simply being considered one of the greatest bands of all time, and their iconic status is beyond just the music (though that iconicity is largely due to their second-hand reputation as well as musical quality, I will admit).

I don't see any musical act at the moment reaching that point. Even though some acts can achieve the rare balance of commercial and critical success, I can't see any band or singer from now transcending being seen as simply a band or singer, even a great one, and becoming a greater phenomenon.

Maybe that's due to the fact that not many popular acts are also doing groundbreaking things like the Beatles did with their last few albums, or we don't have the same ability to have a shared cultural experience like we did in the past, due to the greater number of niche cultural markets. Biebermania, I'm sure, could never reach the fever pitch Beatlemania did, because he doesn't attract as wide an audience (though young girls are/were at the core of both Manias) and he's, arguably, better-looking than all the Beatles put together! Arguably. :pac:

Irish Guitarist

I couldn't care less about chart positions. I really don't understand why people get upset that not everyone likes their favourite band or artist. One of my favourite albums of all time is The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd. It doesn't bother me in the least that most people think Dark Side Of The Moon is their best album.

Why do you need other people to validate your opinions on the music you listen to?

df1985

down to kids being able to buy music easily. how many 10 yr olds could go into a shop back in the 60's and buy music....pretty sure there was no pocket money for that type of thing then! not to mention the easy access of itunes.

Where To

What in the name of all that is sacred is wrong with Shania Twain?



Absolute musical genius.

Dotrel

where do i go from here wrote: »

What in the name of all that is sacred is wrong with Shania Twain?



Absolute musical genius.

No, Mark Twain was a genius. Even his name is clever.

Capt'n Midnight

tl;dr version
in the early days singles were sold
then it moved to selling singles first and if the artist sold well then you sold albums of which the consumer might want only a few tracks
now we are back to people buying singles


of course this applies to the ~2% that is paid for not the rest that isn't

http://musicbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/the-recession-in-the-music-industry-a-cause-analysis/

The overall market for recorded music had become a market for long-play formats. This reflects a business strategy that was pursued mainly by the major record companies since the late 1960s. The single was turned into a test market for yet unknown, non-established artists. Only when the first and perhaps also the second single sold quite well, an album was brought forward for the music consumers because of its good price-performance ratio compared to the single. Especially with the established acts, single-sales played virtually no role anymore. The album had become – economically and artistically – state-of-the-art. However, the long play format – in spite of many concept albums – has the disadvantage that it contained only 1 to 3 tracks that were ultimately of interest for the buyer. The rest was considered dispensable filler. In addition, the industry stimulated the hit compilations market, which increased the flood of album productions further.
...
But the ability to offer music tracks online over the Internet rendered this business model obsolete. The figures show that in recent years the album market turned back into a single market. While in 2008 global CD sales had already declined below the level of 1993, single-sales, due to exploding digital downloads, prospered while sales of digital albums grew slowly. Since 2004, when digital sales were reported for the first time, single sales more than quadrupled (!) to 1.5 billion units, whereas the amount of digital albums sold in the same year only comes to 113 million units.
...

To sum up, the expanding market from the 1960s to the late 1970s was based on a market segmentation strategy by establishing new music genres and long-play products as a key source of sales. But this led to smaller and less profitable market segments and subsequently to declining sales and revenues in the late 1970s. With the launch of the CD in 1982/83, the major companies focused on superstar acts, and revenues soared again in unprecedented heights in the 1980s and 1990s. One must not oversee that the CD-boom was mainly fueled by the re-release of repertoire still existing on vinyl. The superstar-orientation as well as the CD format ensured that the album became the main source of sales in the industry. The single lost its importance and finally assumed only the roll of a test market.

When these structures were confronted with the track-culture of the Internet, the album market turned once again into a less economically viable single market and caused the slump in sales of the last decade. The figures also show that the single-format, thanks to strong sales of digital downloads, is on the rise and already have matched long play-sales on a pure per unit basis. The labels’ task is now to find again a model in which music in bundled form increases not only the revenues and profits but also the music consumers’ benefits. However, this is more difficult to achieve under the prevailing conditions than the increase of mobile and online music sales based on single-tracks. If, in addition, the insight prevails that file-sharing is in fact not the cause but merely a side-effect of the current transitional phase and that it actualy represents a promotional opportunity for thus far unknown acts, then sales might increase again that thus help overcome the recession in the phonographic industry.

bnt

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

barbara streisand is good

Agreed - #9 was out of place on that list, considering that Barbra Streisand is an extremely talented singer, and still working hard at 70-ish. Have a listen to Guilty, at how perfectly she's hitting those high notes, long before anyone had nightmares about Auto-Tune.

It seems strange to us today that singers like Barbra did almost no songwriting, but that's how it was done in the USA in the 60s. The likes of Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson were very much the exception. Instead, professional Brill Building songwriters wrote most of the songs to be sung by professional singers. It was only in the 70s that some of those song writers - such as Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka and (especially) Carole King - made it big performing their own songs.

NB: "Barbra" is not a typo on my part, that's really how she spells her name.

PS: BNT's Disappointing Facts about Modern Music:

1: Auto-Tune
That's it. If Auto-Tune went away, all those "vocalists" who rely on it would have to go away too. The people at Antares thought it would be a handy creative tool for the studio, and still hope it is ... but instead we got Britney, Rihanna and T-Pain.

jester77

I've never heard of Keesha, Flo Ridda or Rihanna, only know of Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Glee by name as they seem to be media whores. I wouldn't even pirate most of the other crap in that list, can't believe people actually pay for it :eek:

Wibbs

Meh, the top ten of best selling musical acts of all time is thankfully free enough of the Cowell style popettes(though Celine Dion's sales balance up the worry). The Beatles have sold over half a billion records and continue to sell in huge numbers to this day. Hell at one point at the height of beatlemania they held something daft like 7 outa 10 of the top ten singles in the US. IIRC their singles album a few years back was the biggest selling album of that entire year and it was released for the Xmas market. Elvis isn't far behind them, though has tapered off more. The Stones again IIRC have sold over 300 million records. Sinatra has record sales that Rhianna could only dream of and Bing Crosby still holds the record for biggest selling single of all time. By a huge margin. A pop act, an actually talented one like ABBA had and have huge sales.

Throughout the lifetime of those acts there were novelty records, one hit wonders and pop dross of all kinds. Simon "definitely not gay. No really" Cowell didn't invent populist talentless dross. Not by a long shot. Remember Stock Aitken and Waterman? The shíte that clogged up the charts in the 70's was pretty dire too and the 60's was just as bad. Check out the top tens in any decade and you'll find plenty of "birdie song" type shíte with some gems mixed in.

Turpentine

Twee. wrote: »

Plagiarised? "You Shook Me" is listed on the sleeve as written by Willie Dixon and JB Lenoir, "I Can't Quit You Baby" is Dixon again. All given their credit. On their second album, credit is given to Howlin' Wolf for "The Lemon Song", which samples his song "Killing Floor". It's not like they hid it! Other songs have a distinctly blues sound and riffs, they're hardly stolen, just typical of the genre.

Dazed and Confused was a complete uncredited rip of a Jake Holmes song. Stairway was a complete rip of a Taurus song. I love the Zeppelin and they produced enough quality original work to quantify their status, but to say they weren't thieving bastards from time to time is quite untrue.

Gee Bag wrote: »

If memory serves, it involved a bout of S&M with a young wan getting whipped with an octopus!

"The top spot in Spin magazine's "100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock History" list still belongs to an incident from a 1969 Zep tour of the United States, when, during a stopover in Seattle, a naked groupie was whipped with a live octopus, although years later, bass-player John Paul Jones, a former chorister known as "the quiet one", cast some doubt on the story, saying: "I'm not sure it's true. As far as I can remember it was a dead shark."

I think in Hammer of the Gods it said that incident involved the road crew, a shark called a red snapper and a ginger groupie. Spot the pun.

Napper Hawkins

Turpentine wrote: »

Dazed and Confused was a complete uncredited rip of a Jake Holmes song. Stairway was a complete rip of a Taurus song. I love the Zeppelin and they produced enough quality original work to quantify their status, but to say they weren't thieving bastards from time to time is quite untrue.

And your point is what exactly? How many bands are not thieving bastards?

Does it matter? They were hugely talented musicians. If they ripped something off then who the **** cares? They played those songs better than anyone else could and made them their own.

Tool rip off Zep and King Crimson. Mastodon rip off Black Sabbath and The Melvins. They're still great bands.

The only great band I can think of who have a sound all of their own is Meshuggah though they're far from popular and long may it stay that way.

Standard Toaster

Broke the scroll wheel on my mouse OP :mad:

mike65

George Harrison ripped off The Shiffons and he was the good Beatle!

Stairway To Heaven or Spirit song Taurus?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sdbg2is2zQ

ejmaztec

abouttobebanned wrote: »

It's all relative.

There's music and then there's business.

In addition, there's music and then there's pop.

Turpentine

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

And your point is what exactly? How many bands are not thieving bastards?

Does it matter? They were hugely talented musicians. If they ripped something off then who the **** cares? They played those songs better than anyone else could and made them their own.

Tool rip off Zep and King Crimson. Mastodon rip off Black Sabbath and The Melvins. They're still great bands.

The only great band I can think of who have a sound all of their own is Meshuggah though they're far from popular and long may it stay that way.

Are you hard of reading?

My response was to someone who said Zeppelin didn't steal material and claim it as their own.

But anyway, there's a big difference between taking something from someone else and reworking it and using someone elses material wholesale and claiming it as your own. For me it diminishes my respect for an artist if they just pilfer, unless they have enough of their own original creativity and talent to bring to the mix. Luckily Zeppelin had plenty of great stuff of their own so, I personally, can forgive them.

I don't subscribe to the old motto "Great art borrows, genius steals", but that's just me.

blow69

The King of Moo wrote: »

While the quality of modern pop music is depressing, the silver lining is that despite the sales, history won't remember the majority of today's pop acts.

Not only do more people buy music now than they did in the past (when there was also a fair share of crap pop music!), but many people buy music without any consideration of its quality.

See, for example, how the winner of X-Factor can be favourite to be Christmas No.1 before the winner has been chosen, let alone the song they'll sing.

In 100 years, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin et al will be recognised and lauded for what they were, while no-one will even know what a Ke$ha [sic] or a Flo Rida [sic] even are.

The opposite is true. Album sales have been declining steadily since the mid 00's after reaching their peak in the 90's/turn of the millenium.

Digital single sales are increasing every year however with the advent of iTunes, Amazon et al.

AeoNGriM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

This is the saddest thing you'll read all day.


1. Creed has sold more records in the US than Jimi Hendrix

2. Led Zeppelin, REM, and Depeche Mode have never had a number one single, Rihanna has 10

3. Ke$ha's “Tik-Tok” sold more copies than ANY Beatles single

4. Flo Rida's “Low” has sold 8 million copies – the same as The Beatles' “Hey Jude”

5. The Black Eyed Peas' “I Gotta Feeling” is more popular than any Elvis or Simon & Garfunkel song

6. Celine Dion's “Falling Into You” sold more copies than any Queen, Nirvana, or Bruce Springsteen record

7. Same with Shania Twain's “Come On Over”

8. Katy Perry holds the same record as Michael Jackson for most number one singles from an album

9. Barbra Streisand has sold more records (140 million) than Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash, and Tom Petty combined

10. People actually bought Billy Ray Cyrus' album “Some Gave All…” 20 million people. More than any Bob Marley album

11. The cast of “Glee” has had more songs chart than the Beatles

12. Justin Bieber exists.


That is all.

Not really, it's just another one of those things that make people go 'Oh really?' over for about 30 seconds, then instantly put it out of their minds.

Gmol

Every band robs from other bands, they just call it their 'influences' it's how well they disguise it that makes a 'new sound'

The King of Moo

blow69 wrote: »

The opposite is true. Album sales have been declining steadily since the mid 00's after reaching their peak in the 90's/turn of the millenium.

Digital single sales are increasing every year however with the advent of iTunes, Amazon et al.

That's what I meant, combined with the greater population and spending power.

There also seem to be more casual music buyers who'll buy a single because it's from the X-Factor or by someone they recognise, rather than because they like the music.

Fromthetrees

Wibbs wrote: »

Meh, the top ten of best selling musical acts of all time is thankfully free enough of the Cowell style popettes(though Celine Dion's sales balance up the worry). The Beatles have sold over half a billion records and continue to sell in huge numbers to this day. Hell at one point at the height of beatlemania they held something daft like 7 outa 10 of the top ten singles in the US. IIRC their singles album a few years back was the biggest selling album of that entire year and it was released for the Xmas market. Elvis isn't far behind them, though has tapered off more. The Stones again IIRC have sold over 300 million records. Sinatra has record sales that Rhianna could only dream of and Bing Crosby still holds the record for biggest selling single of all time. By a huge margin. A pop act, an actually talented one like ABBA had and have huge sales.

Throughout the lifetime of those acts there were novelty records, one hit wonders and pop dross of all kinds. Simon "definitely not gay. No really" Cowell didn't invent populist talentless dross. Not by a long shot. Remember Stock Aitken and Waterman? The shíte that clogged up the charts in the 70's was pretty dire too and the 60's was just as bad. Check out the top tens in any decade and you'll find plenty of "birdie song" type shíte with some gems mixed in.

I wanted to say something similar to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists

tony 2 tone

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

3. Ke$ha's “Tik-Tok” sold more copies than ANY Beatles single
I wanna hold your hand sold 12 million, tik tok 12.8. I wanna hold you hand was pop ****e too.
10. People actually bought Billy Ray Cyrus' album “Some Gave All…” 20 million people. More than any Bob Marley album
Actually Legend, the Bob Marley best of sold 20 million also.
That is all.

Just saying.

Mr Benevolent

robbie_998 wrote: »

I don't like R.E.M



am i alone on this ?

No.