Adding insult to injury here is the fact that so many music journalists (I use the term loosely) in the 21st century have been lured or conned or otherwise fooled into treating music that's super popular as music inherently worth paying attention to and writing about as if it's worthwhile.
Yup, should've just said "music writers," and I'm talking about people writing for established places like the NY Times and the Guardian. Continue to shake my head in disbelief at the way songs with little redeeming artistic merit (but plenty of commercial impact) are treated as if worthy of serious study.
I can't say it's because of bad pop music today--but I after years of learning to cover others' songs, a friend and I started writing and recording our own music. It is a challenge to learn, and certainly not going to the top of any charts. But it's a ton of fun and super rewarding at the end of the process. Nothing like playing your own music!
I enjoyed this read and have posted two articles about the same issues but more from the business-end perspective. One I just posted today is about Drake and the things he does to remain relevant, and another called Selling Emotions is about the rampant abuse in the music industry and how it is connected to the nature of selling vapid music to manipulate people. To quote Drake, "what a time to be alive"...but I think he meant something totally different.
Adding insult to injury here is the fact that so many music journalists (I use the term loosely) in the 21st century have been lured or conned or otherwise fooled into treating music that's super popular as music inherently worth paying attention to and writing about as if it's worthwhile.
There are no real music journalists left really, save for Ted Gioia and 1 or 2 others
Yup, should've just said "music writers," and I'm talking about people writing for established places like the NY Times and the Guardian. Continue to shake my head in disbelief at the way songs with little redeeming artistic merit (but plenty of commercial impact) are treated as if worthy of serious study.
I can't say it's because of bad pop music today--but I after years of learning to cover others' songs, a friend and I started writing and recording our own music. It is a challenge to learn, and certainly not going to the top of any charts. But it's a ton of fun and super rewarding at the end of the process. Nothing like playing your own music!
I enjoyed this read and have posted two articles about the same issues but more from the business-end perspective. One I just posted today is about Drake and the things he does to remain relevant, and another called Selling Emotions is about the rampant abuse in the music industry and how it is connected to the nature of selling vapid music to manipulate people. To quote Drake, "what a time to be alive"...but I think he meant something totally different.