Where is the artistry when a producer digitally stitches together a vocal track, syllable by syllable, from dozens of takes? Or modifies a bar and calls it a new song?
Great question. Let's ask Teo Macero.
― I might like you better if we Yelped together (Phil D.), Tuesday, 15 September 2015 18:41 (nine years ago) link
it's more than a bit of a stretch to say that's what teo macero did
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 03:21 (nine years ago) link
where is the artistry when a poster digitally stretches together a comparison
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 03:29 (nine years ago) link
maybe you should stop doing criticism, think abt it
― mattresslessness, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 03:35 (nine years ago) link
ignore me if you havent already, i promised myself I wouldn't say anything about this dumb article again and that was super lame.
― mattresslessness, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 03:40 (nine years ago) link
well now that's confusing
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 04:39 (nine years ago) link
katherine,
dont stop doing music crit
thnx
― mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 05:09 (nine years ago) link
lol most of the ppl who buy enough into popstar fandom to call themselves 'swifties' or 'katycats' understand the machinations of the industry far more deeply than this dork and are well aware of these writers and producers and their writing camps that he seems to think are obscure secrets that the industry guards with care.
the book he is kinda-sorta reviewing must be hella basic if some of the tantalizing factoids he mentions from it are things as well-known as the existence of lou pearlman/denniz pop and tlc having turned down "baby one more time" etc.
also wtf, the "already gone"/"halo" soundalike controversy was not shrugged off or unnoticed by pop fans at all; it arguably was the foundation of most of the former song's publicity, especially b/c (the surely input-free, manufactured) kelly clarkson spoke out about it herself
― dyl, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 06:16 (nine years ago) link
you're a bag of shit
― hunangarage, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 06:27 (nine years ago) link
thx
― dyl, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 06:43 (nine years ago) link
that's a really good article, I learned a lot from it
― schlep and back trio (anagram), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 08:17 (nine years ago) link
two posts on the bounce that confirm dyl's point
― bellendery hooks (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 10:12 (nine years ago) link
I don't necessarily agree with the entire tone of the piece, and I think it's a little lightweight, but I found it interesting it taught me some new things and clarified some old things. This is all from the POV of a Britisher who's slightly divorced from mega-pop, by and large.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:14 (nine years ago) link
very grateful to that article for clarifying for me (via thesaurus-speak) that lou pearlman is a sweaty fat dude. i needed to know that.
― rushomancy, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:28 (nine years ago) link
As a bald of Norwegian decent I find that subhead to be offensive
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:49 (nine years ago) link
seriously, though, i'm kind of conflicted re: the pop oligarchy. like, for some reason that's the only area of music where the economics apparently work out, though i confess that i'm mystified as to how. and as much as i'd like to say that the institutional oligarchy of pop music has degraded its aesthetic qualities, i don't believe that to be true. max martin works hard, does excellent work, and deserves to be rich. i'm not at all against oligarchs, i just wish there weren't so few of them!
― rushomancy, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:52 (nine years ago) link
Male-pattern hair loss in Norwegian men: a community-based study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10828630
― soref, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:53 (nine years ago) link
^require reading for anyone wanting to understand US pop music of the 2010s
― soref, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 11:57 (nine years ago) link
any critic speculating on the nature of "Max Martin" as signifier of assembly line pop productions doesn't give a damn about the degree to which Martin's productions have changed. His Britney stuff in 1999 sounds nothing like his work with Taylor Swift.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 13:10 (nine years ago) link
also wtf, the "already gone"/"halo" soundalike controversy was not shrugged off or unnoticed by pop fans at all
the Maps/Since You've Been Gone connection hardly went unnoticed either, for that matter
― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 13:19 (nine years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=DBr5FPIL8UU
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 13:21 (nine years ago) link
yeah, not to be captain save-a-max but the book review made the book in question seem shallow and unresearched, which is pretty much the opposite of a book review's job. (a point made elsewhere: how do you write a piece about the exploitative pop machine and mention dr. luke and lou pearlman by name and with mention of lawsuits, and not mention that they both have sexual assault allegations against them?)
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 14:17 (nine years ago) link
i thought that was a good article
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 14:53 (nine years ago) link
this isn't really a bad piece of music writing per se, but what is with people incorrectly claiming that modern pop sounds like "the 1980s" http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2015/09/the_weeknd_carly_rae_jepsen_taylor_swift_why_the_sound_of_the_1980s_became.html
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 14:56 (nine years ago) link
when i first heard can't feel my face in the car it was just an immediate: *oh man smash hit that i will hear EVERYWHERE for months on end*. and i had no idea who wrote it or performed it. it's just BAM. 50 zillion people making music would KILL to come up with something like that. dude is unstoppable.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:02 (nine years ago) link
Max Martin is def unstoppable
― abcfsk, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:05 (nine years ago) link
how is that ugly-ass image in the op not deadlinked yet
― marcos, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:11 (nine years ago) link
that is what i think of every time i open this thread
Obviously it's silly to say that digitally stitching things together doesn't involve "artistry." I do sometimes feel a little creeped out by just how down to a science catchy pop song writing/production has become though, the way it almost doesn't matter if I "like" or "hate" some songs, they just WILL get stuck in my head after hearing them maybe 2-3 times, the way I can hear the formula so clearly but am unable to resist it.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:11 (nine years ago) link
it's very scientific.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:17 (nine years ago) link
http://randomnerds.com/fck-dr-dre-and-fck-straight-outta-compton-tooin which the author assigns blame for institutionalized racism, misogyny in hip hop, puberty and Borgore to NWA Exquisitely atrocious sentence structure
There was “Automobile” as well, the sing-a-long date rape song that made “My Dingaling” — a song covered by Chuck Berry in 1972 that was my introduction to tongue-in-cheek songs about the joys of having women interacting with penises — sound like learning addition when calculus was on the chalkboard.
In a manifestation of deep seeded white-hot white-girl lust that was lost in a pavilion at summer camp as a blue-eyed Becky in black jeans and white Keds busted a cap in my dreams of bad intentions for her body, one of my favorite songs in recent memory was “Decisions.”
As well, I definitely needed a great number of white women, who in my clearly quite afflicted mind were sexually uninhibited and had likely never seen a black person before. Deep down, I felt like college — more than any other place — would allow me the opportunity to make good on my N.W.A.-aided summer camp goals.
― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:17 (nine years ago) link
akin to the professional mouth feel technicians who come up with the perfect potato chip.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:18 (nine years ago) link
yeah exactly, the metaphor that came to my mind was "taste enhancers" in food
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:19 (nine years ago) link
In fact it's a very similar sensation to when I eat a Dorito -- "Is this good? Do I like this? I want more of this. It's not delicious, but I want more."
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:20 (nine years ago) link
also akin to the video game makers who know how to make games that have the most addictive play/feel/etc. definitely a science. the people who are good at it are SO good at it. too bad these people don't work for NASA. we'd be on Mars by now.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:21 (nine years ago) link
Obviously it's silly to say that digitally stitching things together doesn't involve "artistry."
that's not what the article says tbf
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:22 (nine years ago) link
"In a manifestation of deep seeded..."
you get a prize when you do this.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:24 (nine years ago) link
uh, no, this is what the article says:
"Where is the artistry when a producer digitally stitches together a vocal track, syllable by syllable, from dozens of takes?"
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:25 (nine years ago) link
kinda think there should be a ban on sites like whatever the hell randomnerd is though. on this thread. i doubt they have editors. or standards. or whatever.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:27 (nine years ago) link
i agree and i hesitated tbh. It showed up in factcheckingcuz's music eblog though so i read it more or less accidentally and felt the need to inflict further.
― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:30 (nine years ago) link
the writer is talking about the performer's artistry:
In the music industry, the performers are called artists, while the people who write the songs remain largely anonymous outside the pages of trade publications. But can a performer be said to have any artistry if, as in the case of Rihanna, her label convenes week-long “writer camps,” attended by dozens of producers and writers (but not necessarily Rihanna), to manufacture her next hit? Where is the artistry when a producer digitally stitches together a vocal track, syllable by syllable, from dozens of takes? Or modifies a bar and calls it a new song?
can a performer be said to have any artistry
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:30 (nine years ago) link
sorry bbcode
cool sentence diagramming, really enjoying those sixth-grade flashbacks, but given that the next sentence talks about modifying a bar, something that producers do (and something the writer calls out Luke for elsewhere), it's fair to say that refers to the producer
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:33 (nine years ago) link
god, this is overly pedantic even for me
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:34 (nine years ago) link
sorry
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:34 (nine years ago) link
was referring to myself
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:35 (nine years ago) link
also max martin's not bald tbf
― marcos, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:39 (nine years ago) link
it's ambiguous to me -- in context it seems more likely that it refers to the singer than the producer, but at the same time it's not hard to believe that the author of the piece also thinks that about the producer.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:48 (nine years ago) link
it is not a bad piece but i also don't it is very good. it has this "let me blow your mind" tone that is kind of lame esp since these conversations about corporate pop machinery have been happening for a long time. the piece also ended much much sooner than i thought it would and i left thinking "that's it?"
he also doesn't go into any detail about why some stars are more successful than others, why someone like rihanna has been able to cultivate an individual presence as an artist while other stars fail despite both relying on similar teams of songwriters/producers
it is also not hard to extrapolate from the piece the hackneyed judgement that an artist writing & performing their own songs is somehow superior or more "authentic" than an "artist" relying on max martin and other producers
― marcos, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 15:55 (nine years ago) link
It's more abo
― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 16:03 (nine years ago) link