- Mar 25, 2007
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Hey, just because you don't listen to any good rap doesn't mean it does not exist or isn't popular in its own right--Public Enemy, Del tha funkee homosapien, Sage Francis. I really hate the 1980s hair band metal, myself.
I didn't like a lot of music until I worked for a radio station in college that played all genres--pop, metal, rap, classical, bluegrass, jazz, country, opera, punk, international world music, folk, everything. There's good and bad in every genre. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn to appreciate different kinds of music than the sort you're used to, but certainly worth the effort.
One interesting thing I learned is that lots of commercially-popular music, such as Guns-n-Roses, Poison, the Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears etc. do not actually write much of their own music. They might come up with lyrics and a sort of basic chord structure, but the rest is developed and filled in by studio musicians. Before the band can go on tour, they spend a lot of time in the studio just learning how to play and sing their own songs. Some are just not good enough musicians themselves, and end up having most of their "live" performances dubbed. Explains why so much music from certain record producers sounds terribly similar, doesn't it? And also why American Idol contestants compete by singing other people's songs instead of howevermany of their own songs--you'd think the real test of someone's musical skill would be writing and singing/playing one's own work, right? Not so much.
Most commercial stations, both TV and radio, are owned by single media conglomerates--Clear Channel controls an awful lot of radio stations as "turnkey" operations that simply broadcast a computer-controlled feed without any DJs. If you're a record company and by some miracle you have signed a talented musician, these sorts of media conglomerates make it nearly impossible to promote a good musician; in the olden days of the 1930s - 1980s, producers simply sent free records to the radio stations for the station staff to play as they saw fit. Good music would gain airtime by listener requests, mostly, and grew in popularity by a quasi-democratic process. When a media conglomerate owns 1000 radio stations all over the country, and only plays music from a playlist selected by a few managers who are working with only a few record producers, you're naturally only going to get the crud that those producers want you to hear--you can't even request anything in particular, there's no one to call.
Thus ends your Modern Music Appreciation class of the day.
I didn't like a lot of music until I worked for a radio station in college that played all genres--pop, metal, rap, classical, bluegrass, jazz, country, opera, punk, international world music, folk, everything. There's good and bad in every genre. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn to appreciate different kinds of music than the sort you're used to, but certainly worth the effort.
One interesting thing I learned is that lots of commercially-popular music, such as Guns-n-Roses, Poison, the Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears etc. do not actually write much of their own music. They might come up with lyrics and a sort of basic chord structure, but the rest is developed and filled in by studio musicians. Before the band can go on tour, they spend a lot of time in the studio just learning how to play and sing their own songs. Some are just not good enough musicians themselves, and end up having most of their "live" performances dubbed. Explains why so much music from certain record producers sounds terribly similar, doesn't it? And also why American Idol contestants compete by singing other people's songs instead of howevermany of their own songs--you'd think the real test of someone's musical skill would be writing and singing/playing one's own work, right? Not so much.
Most commercial stations, both TV and radio, are owned by single media conglomerates--Clear Channel controls an awful lot of radio stations as "turnkey" operations that simply broadcast a computer-controlled feed without any DJs. If you're a record company and by some miracle you have signed a talented musician, these sorts of media conglomerates make it nearly impossible to promote a good musician; in the olden days of the 1930s - 1980s, producers simply sent free records to the radio stations for the station staff to play as they saw fit. Good music would gain airtime by listener requests, mostly, and grew in popularity by a quasi-democratic process. When a media conglomerate owns 1000 radio stations all over the country, and only plays music from a playlist selected by a few managers who are working with only a few record producers, you're naturally only going to get the crud that those producers want you to hear--you can't even request anything in particular, there's no one to call.
Thus ends your Modern Music Appreciation class of the day.
