Radio hits - to be or not to be (an elitist prick)

[Xanthul]

As I am sitting in my computer my wife is listening to the radio and I just had the misfortune of listening to Will.I.Am (cunning name) singing "This is Love". This exceptional piece of art contains such profound lyrics as

If you feel it, say hell yeah (hell yeah)
Say hell yeah (hell yeah)
Say hell yeah (hell yeah)
This is love, this is love, this is love

and

Eh, baby, yeah, alright
Can you feel it?
Good god, yeah, alright

(HINT: notice the subtle rhyming of "yeah, alright" with "yeah, alright")

After listening to this poetry and pondering about the meaning of life, I think it's going to be really hard not to be an elitist prick when talking music with people that are all about the radio hits.

[black_biff_stadler]

And to think, Perez Hilton calling him a f****t really wasn't much of a "pot calling the kettle black" thing in the grand scheme of things when you consider that he really used it more as a synonym for "lame" than a slur. I think that was the one time I ever found PH to be worthy of oxygen.

[BlobVanDam]

Disclaimer - I have nothing at all against pop music / radio hits *in principle*

Those particular lyrics however are not just overly simplistic to the point of barely stringing basic phrases together, they're just downright terrible and don't seem to fit the song topic at all.

And probably 50% of the music I listen to has the word "love" in the song title, so I should know.

[Xanthul]

I don't have anything against radio hits either, there definitely are some songs that I enjoy but sadly it seems that the majority of today's hits are as poor as the above example, which makes it very hard not to sound condescending when discussing music with people that enjoy these things.

During the last few months since my daughter was born I've had to feed her during the night when she woke up hungry at 2, 3 or 4 AM. During those times, the only thing on TV was either non-stop commercials or MTV music videos so most of the times I rolled with MTV. The music was so bad that I've been forced to switch to commercials many times (true story) - Justin Bieber imitators, Justin Bieber himself, boy bands that for some reason seem to be coming back, talentless soloists singing generic tunes made by other people... It really is depressing.

[Elite]

Oh boy, my name in a thread title. I should reply to this, whether I like it or not. Turns out I do like it, since talking about / commenting on music is one of the things I study to do. Here's a couple of my takes on it and some you may agree with, some you may not;

[Elitism]

- Radio hits are all more or less exactly the same, but with different sounds, in a different key or with different words to make it harder for people not educated in music to distinguish them from eachother. Note that this goes mainly for crap like you stated in your first post, not everything on the radio is bad. The thing is that it's so difficult to draw a line between 'bad' radio music (which isn't even a denominator anymore, I know lots of people hate radio music nowadays) and 'okay' radio music.

- 'Popular' music is a farce, there is no such thing as music that's popular to a majority of people. In the current day and age, music has developed into such complex forms and so many different (sub-)genres that there are way to many music scenes to feed and there is no universal guideline for popular music or stuff anyone would like. Like I said, music on the radio even has a divergence in audience, some people like some stuff but detest the rest and vice versa.

- Sometimes music completely loses any meaning and becomes nothing but noise, produced noise without any feeling whatsoever. This particular statement is in my opinion the most valid when someone utters the same meaningless words over and over again, to a point where the words themselves lose their meanings and become nothing but sound. The same may go for a repetitive musical phrase, that's being played over and over again, without any change in direction, no diversity and no dynamics change.

- Radio music is devoid of any dynamic changes and is full of the usual clichees. I suppose this doesn't even need any explanation.

[/Elitism]

Of course not eveything is as bad as I make stuff out to be. I'm just merely blowing up some things that bother me whenever I am forced to listen to (radio) music I don't like for its genericity. Keep in mind I also have a broad interest in music (though this may not always seem the case), but there's stuff I simply will not listen to.

[Zantera]

I don't really have anything against radio-music (since I don't listen to the radio), and to be honest I would never participate in a music-discussion with someone who listens to that kind of music. It's not like I think less of them because they like it, but I don't think anything good can come from that discussion, and I just don't have an interest in it.

[TAC]

X, when my son was born, my mIddle of the night feeding soundtrack was the LSFNY DVD!
And when my second son was born he used to go to sleep to Live At Budokan.

Wait till they are older and they want to hear pop shit in the car.

[King Postwhore]

X, when my son was born, my mIddle of the night feeding soundtrack was the LSFNY DVD!
And when my second son was born he used to go to sleep to Live At Budokan.

Wait till they are older and they want to hear pop shit in the car.

You're not doing your job right .

Pop music if fine.  Like any genres there are good and bad.

[Scorpion]

Pop music if fine. Like any genres there are good and bad.

But it never uses any 20-minute instrumental breaks or strange time signatures! Doesn't that mean that it's worse than prog by definition?

[rogerdil]

I studiously avoid radio hits, and don't usually care about lyrics that much, but was in a store recently and heard Moment 4 Life and was thinking "WTF is this shite", particularly this verse:

Don't worry about me and who I fire
I get what I desire, it's my empire
And yes I call the shots, I am the umpire
I sprinkle holy water upon the vampire

[Jaq]

I'll be over here in the corner chuckling at the notion that people who come to a message board dedicated to the band that produced the lyrical gem that is TCOT deriding pop music for its lyrical content if you need me.

[Elite]

I'll be over here in the corner chuckling at the notion that people who come to a message board dedicated to the band that produced the lyrical gem that is TCOT deriding pop music for its lyrical content if you need me.

Now this is something completely unrelated as I never stated to *like* the lyrics in TCOT. In fact I dislike them a lot. Disregarding the whole band for that one thing only (and don't come back at me with more 'lyrical gems', because there are more than just TCOT) and dismissing any discussion on a message board regarding lyrics in popular music is something I can't understand. This is a side-board of a forum I don't frequent because of Dream Theater (which is what brought me here once though), but I come to this forum because of its community and the discussion on the board, not for DT's 'lyrical gems'.

[The Letter M]

I don't mind about a third-to-half of the music on the radio - hits or otherwise - especially if it's a good rock tune or a ballad or something with good piano in it. There are some modern popular artists that I quite enjoy, mostly because I've been bombarded by it when driving around with my girlfriend in the car, she prefers the radio over my CDs (about 80% of the time).

There are some less-than-intellectual lyrical pieces on the radio, though, but I think their purpose isn't to be an all-enlightening stream of lyrical genius - those songs, typically, are dance/party songs, usually played by DJs in clubs or bars or parties. This is music to dance to, to drink to, to have fun to. Not to sit in a room with a nice surround-sound system and absorb. If it was, do you think it would be popular? It's not like people go out to buy the new Ke$ha album in 5.1 because the instruments are stunning in surround and the lyrics are just amazing!

Popular music like this exists to serve a purpose, and it does so with marginal success. Meanwhile, for those who DON'T want to listen to it, there's always a choice... I mean, headphones exist to serve a purpose - isolate your ears from the world so you can enjoy the music YOU want.

-Marc.

[Cedar redaC]

I don't have anything against radio hits either, there definitely are some songs that I enjoy but sadly it seems that the majority of today's hits are as poor as the above example, which makes it very hard not to sound condescending when discussing music with people that enjoy these things.

During the last few months since my daughter was born I've had to feed her during the night when she woke up hungry at 2, 3 or 4 AM. During those times, the only thing on TV was either non-stop commercials or MTV music videos so most of the times I rolled with MTV. The music was so bad that I've been forced to switch to commercials many times (true story) - Justin Bieber imitators, Justin Bieber himself, boy bands that for some reason seem to be coming back, talentless soloists singing generic tunes made by other people... It really is depressing.

They still make those?

[skydivingninja]

Pop music if fine.  Like any genres there are good and bad.

This exactly.

[Nekov]

Every music genre has shitty bands and if those are the only ones you listen to then you will think that the whole genre sucks but as many people have stated there is good pop music, you just need to find it

[MoraWintersoul]

...those songs, typically, are dance/party songs...

I could make you a playlist of 100 simple songs good for dancing that aren't crappy. I like dancing but I never get to do that because that type of music doesn't move me to dance. And if everyone's standards were a bit higher, people in the so-called music industry would have to try and write better in order to make them dance at a club, or groove to a song on the radio. This way, everyone just settles for whatever they get and I hope they don't settle for everything else in life as well

[skydivingninja]

"Lights" comes to mind as a good dancey song.

[KevShmev]

Pop music if fine.  Like any genres there are good and bad.

This exactly.

Yep. 

And there are plenty of terrible lyrics in prog and metal as well.  In fact, most metal lyrics are laughably bad, so I always get a chuckle when a metal fan (generally speaking, and not meant to refer to anyone here specifically) makes fun of lyrics in other genres. 

[Xanthul]

I see there's been a lot of replies while I was away and since I don't have much time now I will say just a couple of things without addressing specific posts:

- I never disregarded pop music as a whole (I don't think even mentioned the word "pop"), I was talking specifically about radio hits, which pretty much a genre of its own nowadays. I like plenty of pop (Eisley, Michael Jackson, Coldplay to name three very different pop artists).

- That ironic post about DT couldn't be more wrong since I dislike TCOT's lyrics as well as plenty of other DT songs - in fact, I don't even like DT these days, the only reason I'm in this forum is because I love the community and it's a great way to find new music. I haven't been to the DT forum in almost a year now.

- TAC - I thought about putting DVDs sometimes but since she usually finishes her milk in less than 30 minutes I never felt it's worth it. It might be worth it for my sanity alone though, thanks for the heads up

[Ben_Jamin]

You want dance "ow wah, get your booty on the floor tonight."

Or the best song ever

"I need some love like I never needed love before"

[ZeppelinDT]

Whoa whoa whoa.... wait a minute.

fm radio is still a thing?

[Xanthul]

Whoa whoa whoa.... wait a minute.

fm radio is still a thing?

Most of my friends / coworkers listen to music almost exclusively through radio (or current hits downloaded to their phones and deleted after a while). I think there's only a couple of guys that know some of the bands I regularly listen to and a girl that's into indie and knows the bands related to that scene, that's it.

[Orthogonal]

Not sure why the lyrics is the point of discussion. For me, lyrics are pretty far down the list of things to even appreciate about music, I don't even know or care to learn the lyrics of most of the stuff I listen too. As long as it isn't so bad to detract from the music, I don't care. It's all about the music for me.

When it comes to the pop music scene,I can tolerate it to some degree, but it just bothers me more than anything that the entire industry has rooted itself in the standard verse-chorus song structure. It's exceedingly rare to hear anything that isn't based on verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus format. It shows a terrible lack of creativity to fit everything they do in one structure. It's just music by the numbers. That isn't to say that songs can't be good in the format, because there are certainly many that are, but this is just one of the many reasons why I like prog because they aren't afraid to try something unconventional.

[Cedar redaC]

Like it's been said before, there is great "pop" music and there is not so great "pop" music. Sure, radio stations that play "Today's hottest hits" doesn't often differentiate between the two, but hey, they never said "The best music this day and age have to offer", at least I hope they don't because people will always have differing opinions of what quality music is. Some may think that if the singer is attractive and the beat is catchy and dance-able, it's good music. Some, on the other hand, prefer songs that are more diverse, more unusual. Some like both, and some like neither, but our different tastes and musical backgrounds is what keeps music from growing stale.

[Sketchy]

I have to admit, occasionally a song will come on the radio that I actually rather like, but yeah, a lot of it I very much find pretty samey.

Actually, when I worked in a kitchen, the reason the radio was on the station that played hits was because everyone who really cared what was on the radio hated it the same amount, so it was balanced.

[ZeppelinDT]

Most of my friends / coworkers listen to music almost exclusively through radio (or current hits downloaded to their phones and deleted after a while). I think there's only a couple of guys that know some of the bands I regularly listen to and a girl that's into indie and knows the bands related to that scene, that's it.

How old are they?

Most of the people I know under the age of 30 seem to get most of their music from internet radio, Facebook or YouTube.  Even the people I know who are my age (30) or older seem to rely more on things like Pandora or satellite radio as opposed to traditional fm radio.

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

Honestly, the only song that's really made it on the radio the past while that I've liked is Somebody That I Used To Know. Most other songs either sound the same to me or the lyrics are so banal (like that fun. song) that I can't get into it.

[Ruba]

I like music with good melodies and a good vocalist. The majority of the radio songs are lacking a) the other or b) the both.

But the lyrics aren't that big deal. If the message of the chorus is "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY SEXY LADY", it doesn't make the song bad for me. Though it is pretty boring when nearly every song is about doing the dew or drinking. Or both.

[Ben_Jamin]

I like music with good melodies and a good vocalist. The majority of the radio songs are lacking a) the other or b) the both.

But the lyrics aren't that big deal. If the message of the chorus is "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY SEXY LADY", it doesn't make the song bad for me. Though it is pretty boring when nearly every song is about doing the dew or drinking. Or both.

Thats why I,don't enjoy most pop female singers.