Absence of Talent: The Current Music Industry

[disclaimer]: This post is brought to you by nerd-rage, trollin' and Four Loko (A.K.A. Haterade, or Gatorade for haters).

"Houston, we have a problem"
- John L. Swigert, "Apollo 13"

I am sad to say that mainstream music is not what it once was. When we once had classic hits like "Stairway to Heaven", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "You Raise Me Up", "Let It Be", "Beautiful", "Your Song", "Somebody to Love", "American Pie", "Don't Stop Believing", "Drops of Jupiter", "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing", "Blackbird" and "Shower the People", now we have "Friday"...

Rebecca Black, performer of "Friday" (literally, the worst song ever), is the problem that we (Houston) seem to have. She is a celebrity only because she shouldn't be, but deludes herself into thinking she has talent. She does not write her songs, and then alters her voice in a studio so much that it made some poor employee of ARK Music Factory work a double shift auto-tuning, adding reverb and cutting and pasting her off-tempo vocals to a synthetic beat (among other futile arrangements. The list goes on). However, "Friday" is still popular, though it is only popular because persons laughed at it hard enough that everyone else heard. If I go on about this song, I might just explode.

I may seem to be blindly (and quite harshly) bashing this artist and accusing her of the musical equivalent of cheating on the SAT. To clarify, the only expertise I have in music is ten years of playing piano, multiple music scholarships to college and being in a two-time first-place winning choir in an annual northern California choir competition. Needless to say, I grew up with classical music. Due to that, I cannot casually hear music without listening to every note and every artistic decision in that song. Long story short, I'm a musical purist.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled nerd-rage.


What makes current pop songs so bad in my mind is the repitition and lazy songwriting shortcuts that everyone seems to take. For example, pick a random Black Eyed Peas song, and count how many times they repeat themselves. Honestly, they could make a drinking game about taking a shot every time they say 'do it' in "I Gotta Feeling". That would equal about thirty drinks and a bunch of hangovers (or blackouts). This song was 5th on the Billboard Top 100, and was on that list for 14 consecutive weeks (feel free to fact-check if you don't trust wikipedia). Believe me when I say this has become the "gold standard" in pop music. In the real world, the songwriting used in this song is called repetition. In the MANifesto, It's called cheating. However, there is still hope for music.

Any song can be taken and modernized to create a new song, and it can be done very well, if not better than the first time. Take, for example, the classic "Let's Stay Together". Originally performed by Al Greene, the reverend of soul, this song made a huge transformation in the reality tv show "The Sing-Off". This song was performed by an acapella group who would win that competition the next day. I encourage you to listen to both recordings, and notice some of the differences between the two. Feel free to say which one you think is better in the comments. In my opinion, I prefer the acapella version because the all-vocal arrangement adds another human quality to the music, and Committed has nearly mastered the art of six-part harmony as well as their individual solo voices. However, you can make your own decision by watching these two videos.
 (Al Greene)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM
 (Committed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPEq_SdB56M




What I learned:

• There is hope for the future of music
• You can't go wrong with the classics
• People have the same taste in music, but every person has their own list of favorite songs

What do you think?:

• If you watched both videos, did Al Greene or Committed do a better job?
• Do you prefer the pioneers of music (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart), 20th century music (The Beatles, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston), or brand new music (Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga)
• If you had a favorite song or artist, who would it be?
• Who or what did I leave out in terms of the best or worst artists or songs?
• Am I wrong about pop music?