It's music that's accepted by a majority of people.
Black Sabbaths new album 13 reached no.1. in the UK charts this weekend.
That means it's popular, it's music, it's pop music.
It's just not shite.
And there in lies the problem. The crap that get's passed off as popular music these days is barely even music.
Music:
"The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre."
OR
"An aesthetically pleasing or harmonious sound or combination of sounds"
At this point I was going to provide a link to some popular chart music of today that contradicts the 2 quoted phrases. But do you know something I can't actually bring myself to link to it.
I've heard it.
I despise it for what it is.
Mass produced, soulless, product designed to be sold to kids and people who don't really know what music should be.
You're luck if there's a snippet of actual instruments in most of this crap.
2 bar loop, midi arranged autotune, layered auto tuned vocals, over processed "hot" mastering,
Shit.
Take some poor little muppet that's marketable, use them to make someone a lot of money, have them exist in a bubble of self promotion, discard them when you can.
Pop music isn't always bereft of merit.
Muse, Foo Fighters, Chili Peppers, Cold Play, Oasis et al.
I'm not a huge fan of either of the first 2 but the point is it's actual musicians doing the work, not a studio engineer working with sounds clips of someone elses creations and a tuner.
There's a guy actually playing drums, there's a someone actually thinking about what chords to play and then putting the physical effort into to playing them as well as they can.
This for example:
Foo Fighter: Walking after you
Is a prime piece of nice pop ballad. Well written and there's a bit of soul in there too. Nice relaxed drums, airy vocals, pretty nonthreatening "rock ballad".
Muse: Knights of Cydonia
This got played to death on the radio, did good business for Muse and sold their album. It's got a good up beat tempo you can dance too, it's a bit electronic so it's not too scary for normal people. As manufactured as it may be, The guys in Muse are really talented musicians.
Matt Bellemy is a phenomenal musician.
Pretty much Muse trying to do a Bohemian Rhapsody. Not a patch on the arse of Queens epic but you can see what they are aiming for.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Under The Bridge
This is a great bit of pop, beautiful song, written about drug addiction form the Chillis break through and best album Blood Sugar Sex Magic (which is still one of my favourites).
They lost it and because this soulless, average corporate crap for 35 year old BMW drivers.
Again, Flea, Chad Smith and John Fruscantie are amazing musicians (Kiedis can write but his voice is muck).
They could fart in a jar, but some drums and bass on it and people would still buy it.
It was also murdered by a group of talentless tarts.
Oasis: Whatever
Good track from a well made rock album, defined an era in the UK charts and probably encouraged more people to pick up the guitar in the 10 years preceding it.
Polarising but good. The whole Oasis/ Blur thing reawakened the rock scene for a lot of people.
But also inspired a lot of NME reading fuckwits who though that wearing a Parka made them "Rock N Roll".
Wanks.
Cold Play
Yup, that's enough written about them. Dreary, dreary men.
My point is pop music isn't just BEEBAH, NIKI MINJA, Britney or any of that vomitous musical sputum.
Pop music is mostly what people know.
I can ask someone at work if they like Dimmu Borgir and I'll get blank looks but if I mention Motorhead then "Oh I love Motorhead "ACE OF SPADES, ACE OF SPADES!!"".
So can Ace of Spades be classed as a pop song.
Yes, yes it can.
That whole business getting Rage Against the Machine to UK Xmas number one killed that song for me.
Over played now.
But it did get some people who didn't know them into RATM (another bunch of ridiculously talented people).
It's a fucking good pop song.
It's not as good as Killed By Death though.
Linkin Park's pop music. It's quite catchy. But in the end it doesn't really matter.
ANYWAY!
Pop musics good because it popularises and opens up people to different kinds of music (I'm talking about Foo Fighters, Oasis and the like here).
It's a jumping point to get to new music if you've not listened to anything else before.
Go listen to some blues or classical.
Buy a CD by an artist or genre you wouldn't normally go for based on a recommendation on Amazon or iTunes.
I got to this:
Riverside
From The Beatles on Amazon, just going through the "people who bought this also.." section in 4 steps.
It sounds like Deep Purple crossed with Living colour.
Not too bad though. Bit of "cleaning" going on on the vocals but there's a groove there.
Just don't exist solely on Now ## Albums because then you're a lost cause.
BE TOLD!!!!
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