Basics - Genres - Pop 3

Blogger's Notes

I cannot comment on my Pop 1 so I'll move the whole message here:

"Hooks are inevitable in music. From classical, to jazz, to pop, to hiphop and to even the most subversive music, metal, hooks are the key things to sounding good and strong. The problem is how hooks are being used and the constant repeat of it. There is a lot of music with hooks all over. Weather Report, Chick Corea, Lamb of God (screamo), Pink Floyd, Queen, etc etc. But they don't centre their whole music repeating the hook and making it so mind-numbingly catchy that nothing else in the music matters. I Feel Good uses same melody, same grooves throughout the song, but has an ever changing sound and interesting feel towards it... Why?

It's all about the changing up of phrasing. The need to groove. The need to be human. Which human truly repeats the same line over and over again in the same exact way throughout? You always will repeat yourself with your favourite quotes, but in different contexts, in different phrasings, it'll mean completely different things. The problem with pop is that it started being about the riffs and about the catchiness, rather than using the catchiness to bring across something. It's a shift in direction.

Since you did say something, so I'll explain something more than what you said. Actually the predictable nature of pop music is perfectly fine. If you think about jazz music, we always have AABA choruses, or ABCA, or a whole host of other simple chorus structures or even have uber simple chord structures (ie modal jazz) which gives a completely different flavour. I mean, seriously, 4-chord songs are common in jazz if you want to break it down to tonal centres and blues. But why would I say that the older music is more genuine?

I mentioned the shift to be on time on Pop 2. I mentioned the overuse of video to hook people. I didn't mention about the emphasis on the beats. I didn't mention the constant pushing and pulling of all the beats and grooves. Why? Because obviously I hoped that everyone would notice. Haha. There is a shift of emphasis from the off beats to the onbeats. This is partially due to influences of rock bands like Beatles, Elvis Presley and all the rest of the rock stuff, but even for all those music there's actually a lot of phrasing using offbeats as emphasis. That was one of the things that made it stand out. Instead everything went on the on beats. Like classical. What's the reason for this move?

Notice that usually in classical you don't ever have to actually consciously tap the beat or try to identify the on beats and the bars. It's something that makes classical musicians very contented playing with a metronome and sounding like a robot. Jazz and other early modern music forces that away because you need to feel the pulse of the music before you can sound any good. I realised most people, even musicians, lack the idea of the pulse because current pop music, and more popular classical music, do not really have any emphasis on offbeat phrasing, but instead give very clear outlines to where the beat is. That's why bands like Tower of Power go out of stye. Why people of nowadays find James Brown boring. No outward obvious pulse.

There's something called an implied pulse in all music. In classical music, with a great orchestra, there is push/pull, and you can get the implied pulse by watching the conductor. In jazz music and other modern music, people unconsciously tap on the place of the implied pulse without realising it. They are not away of the push/pull, because the music, as a whole, comes with a pulse. The problem is how Michael Jackson had taken a sound so organic and turned it into a static music. What's the reason though?

Popularity in nowadays world is more about instant gratification than anything else. If you can immediately find the beat, you can immediately enjoy the song. If you can immediately sing along with the singer, you feel that the song is good. If you can get whatever the musicians are doing, and can watch the dance step and get what the singer is doing: it's more enjoyable. It's all about the dancing and the grooving. It's easier to "groove" to an on beat because it's mechanical and expectable. It's something which bothers me amazingly because I realised how stiff you must be to be perfectly on time. Even in classical music rubatos and taking breaths are highly important in phrasing a piece, why is it that pop music doesn't truly believe in that? Simply because they need to catch YOUR ear before you run away. That's why everything centres around a hook. Being ABOUT the hook. Michael Jackson was the starter of it all, the true ingenious individual who found the way to be interesting and have a true blue moneymaking sound.

His lyrics still have meaning. His music behind him still have a lot of traces of the music that was before him. But they lost a lot of the essence. Don't get me wrong, I still like a few of his songs. But he started the true MTV era and killed all need to listen to music more than 10 seconds to give it a fair judgment.

If you don't believe, listen for yourself. Everything is easier to find. Easier to headbang to. This was where the world was heading towards. Why music became easily a commodity, because it lacked the human element. You think that a truly beautiful painting is easily understood by the masses and is sold easily? However there are plenty of pseudo-art-appreciaters to keep the market going. There is barely enough people who judge music as a piece of art to really care about music as an art form to really keep it alive, most importantly in Singapore. And when I mean that I truly mean treating music as a form of art, not acting like it.

Go check out all your favourite tracks from the pop era. Including BSB and all the rest. You'll realise that everything is commercialised not because of the fact that the music is repetitive or simple or has a hook. It is simply because it aims not to express but to pull someone in in the shortest time possible. It goes from the point of view of being a commercial artifact so it has to fulfill a no of criterias before it can even hit a person's ear...

Makes sense?

P.S. I just found a pretty cool pop band called Rilo Kiley. Intro-ed by Adam. Think the singer's amazing. And for pop acts I still like Nerina Pallot and some other more indie people. John Mayer trio takes John Mayer past his pop sound. Check out Stacey Kent's pop album. It's interesting how everyone knows how pop works. But doesn't really speak up much about it."

Marcus you got a similar idea to me actually. One thing I probably can't get is how you guys can stand the local indie scene. These people are completely oblivious to true music. Haha =X Harsh statement, but if you compare their music with any of the pop music themes and all these kind of stuff, you'd realise they're playing like pop but claiming to be indie. This is probably gonna piss quite a few of them off but if they don't revise their playing styles and arrangements, they're just going to sound just as generic as any pop song, and any claims on being truly "original" and "about the music" is just bull. Which is why they cannot compete with the commercial music yet cannot be fully appreciated as an art elsewhere.

So yup. Here we go with

Carpenters vs Madonna vs Christina vs Gaga

Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun

Everytime I hear this song I do get shudders. Sure, they're pop of their era. But man, the phrasing and the tone of Karen Carpenter, and the haunting piano sound. It's amazing how pop of the old era still had so much soul in the music.

However, the more important song for comparison is her faster song...

Carpenters - Top of The World

One of the most popular tunes of all time. Overplayed, overdone, oversung, but still a classic. Hahaha

And Karen Carpenter is supposedly one of the biggest influences for one of the most insistent singer of all - Madonna.

Madonna - Lucky Star
Madonna - Holiday

I actually have no idea where Madonna got most of her music from other than people like Michael Jackson and all. Apparently Karen Carpenter is one of her biggest influences but can you hear it? The arrangement I can hear it's from Hall and Oates, but for her voice and phrasing, there is some semblance of Karen Carpenter, but with an amazingly whiny voice. If you notice there's been a trend towards that throughout the 80's and 90's. If you listen to her Like A Virgin, the squeaky voice can absolutely pierce your ears if you're using speakers which actually give you the actual sound.

What do these new songs mean? Compared to the songs by the Carpenters? And if you ever heard Madonna live, how well do you think she sings?

And which video do you see Madonna not doing something funny, provocative or trying to win popularity by adding some unrelated segments in? Is this deterioration or is this a movement towards a "holistic" entertainment? Hmmmm

Let's move on to Christina. Haha from her Mickey Mouse Club time till now she has constantly changed herself in terms of both image and style. Let's compare her early days with Madonna first, because that was before she was affected by the latin music scene and Etta James and went another track, before coming back again recently with her trying-to-sound 40's music.

Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle

Notice the provocative stance of the video. The innuendos from this then-young girl who sings with a higher voice. Notice the infiltration of the R&B runs at the start of the song. This was already the start of the R&B culture, strong bass beat and a whole host of other catchy obvious-pulse driven thing. Notice all these popular in the 90's all have impeccable timing. Everything's perfectly on the beat. It gives the oomph at the first go.

Her phrasing at this phase was obviously off Madonna's style with all the on-beat emphasis and the flat phrases when dealing with extra lines. It's a more modern approach. But also notice the constant use of synthesised sounds. Yup.

Christina - Ain't No Other Man

Fastforward to this era. Christina tried to gain influence from people like Andrew Sisters. Can you tell the vocal technique, grinding and all that? These were all inspired from R&B music which infiltrated since the 90's. However, rather than like the R&B music of the past which did the runs more due to feel (no two were truly the same in R&B last time) but if you notice that it's pretty much all the same pattern if you listen across board from Kelly Clarkson to Mariah Carey to Christina Aguilera.

Notice the change in tone through the years as well. Christina's voice changed every single year when she sang. And now it has this compressed strong, saturated mids with not much highs and lows. Why? Hmmm... This also brings in the idea about Loudness Wars which I should be covering soon too. Notice how pop evolved with the same person? Still the obvious pulse. Still with the being on time.

Add another part to this song. The power of backup vocals. If you ever listened to pop for a long time, you'd probably be numb to it, but the truth is that back up vocals are KEY in pop to create music which sounds bombastic and "full". Layering vocals behind, and adding to the depth of feel had been used by singers for ages. Including in their recordings. Which is why boy bands and girl bands and all that worked. AND another key point is the digitalisation of the voices. I haven't heard a single recording in pop since the 80's which didn't have the compression/digitalisation of voices. Can you hear it?

Can you listen to Ain't No Other Man Like You more than 10 times at one shot? Do share what you think.

And all this talk about digitalisation and back up harmonies and R&B runs and all that leads to one person - Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

Digitalisation, R&B Runs, Backup vocals galore! With added house beats which gives no "implied" pulse, but gives you the pulse anyway. Notice what I say about the song being about the catchiness rather than using the catchiness for the song.

Was the song written for the lyrics or vice verse? If you heard Gaga live acoustic you'd realise that she actually has a pretty decent voice. But whenever you hear her in a video like this, her voice contorts and becomes digitalised. Take any snippet of the song and you'd realise it sounds like any other part of the song. What's the reason? What's the aim?