The 'Shit Trend' in pop music right now

Guetta/Swedish House Mafia/Aviici style “EDM” once was fresh too, hard to believe now.

the history of dance music going back to the dawn of recording technology (and probably well before then) is one of passing manias for different rhythms. A rhythm becomes popular (presumably because ppl enjoy dancing to it), it is quickly copied and replicated into infinity until ppl get tired of it and it gets superceded by a new rhythm. rinse and repeat.

Tell me with a straight face this isn’t the most depressive billboard list of the decade:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Mainstream_Rock_number-one_songs_of_the_2010s

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, October 15, 2018 3:23 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

“Mainstream” Rock? I’ve never heard of a single one of those songs.

a rhythm being complex doesn't really figure into it. and a rhythm is only "unconventional" until it becomes the new flavor of the year, and then it gets considered conventional v quickly.

xp

xp - Do you listen to any of these stations?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mainstream_rock_radio_stations_in_the_United_States

No.

"... it's the children who are wrong."

Lyrics about texts, airplane mode, left on read, etc...

moka otm, those rock charts suck ass

October 8 "Not Again" Staind

do feel like "trends" or "rhythms" would be more useful terms for understanding contemporary music than "genre", which seems v old school

doctor casino otm as always that "shit trends" (or "shit rhythms") kind of ruin the discussion

Fwiw, Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart is based on the airplay of a specific radio format (active rock), as that Wikipedia article states. It's not necessarily even a list of the most popular or heavily played songs that are broadly classified as 'rock'. The Hot Rock Songs chart at least includes other rock radio formats, not that it would necessarily make anyone here feel any better.

Can't vouch for the reliability of the Wikipedia link btw. Here's the chart: https://www.billboard.com/charts/rock-songs

I knew that It's Been a While since Staind were on the charts, but I'm surprised to see that they were there as recently as 2011.

"Rats" r0x0r btw.

Funny that "Not Again" actually did have two spells on the top spot. Or was that the point?

“Mainstream” Rock? I’ve never heard of a single one of those songs.

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, October 15, 2018 10:37 PM (yesterday)

This really is like the platonic ideal of a Snrub post.

I read through almost every name on that list saying "bloody hell, are they still going?" I guess there will always be bros in big shorts.

I see now that Moka already posted the Hot Rock list. Hadn't slept much.

Tbh, if I put on commercial terrestrial radio in the van, it is as likely to be mainstream rock/active rock as anything else these days since there are usually no surprises on classic rock and the 'alternative rock' station just doesn't rock most of the time. (Radio 2 usually puts me to sleep if they're not playing classical. Pop, AC, and country radio usually turn me off way faster and I can hear the first two anywhere else anyway.) I almost always put on a CD or campus radio, though.

I am a little intrigued by both the sorts of 'canons' these stations carve out of rock history and the ways they seem to like to define themselves in opposition to other formats. Afaict, our active rock station (The Rebel) plays the kind of stuff you see on that list + the heavier end of 90s alternative rock (e.g. Soundgarden and Alice Chains, sometimes NIN, but not Radiohead or Smashing Pumpkins, maybe Green Day or Nirvana, RATM right now) + some Metallica/Megadeth + 80s 'heavy metal' (Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest) + Zeppelin and Sabbath but not much other music from before the 80s. They run station ID ads with slogans like "The only 'f word' around here is 'Foreigner' (with a brief clip of 'I Want to Know What Love Is')" and "the only 's word' around here is 'Styx'" (with a clip of "Come Sail Away") that rely on both the listener's recognition of those bands and songs and their desire to define themselves in opposition to them + their identification of those songs with the classic rock station, whose playlist otherwise overlaps with portions of the Rebel's. Afaict, the 'alternative' station plays a lot of what you see on the Hot Rock Songs chart, a lot of what is probably on the triple-A chart (e.g. Arcade Fire, Florence & the Machine), the 90s alternative rock that is not covered by the Rebel (although they agree on Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and pop-punk), and 80s 'modern rock'. I've heard them play Jethro Tull because of their influence on Mumford & Sons and I've heard ELO on the Toronto 'indie' station. They used to run commercials declaring themselves a "Miley-free zone", a "Bieber-free zone", and a "Nickelback-free zone". I think Greta Van Fleet might get play on all three stations. It seems a bit like the 90s alternative/modern rock format split itself into two distinct formats. (Iirc, we had a single modern rock station in the late 90s/early 00s that played the Smiths and Cure alongside RATM and nu-metal.)

Ha, they just went to "When the Curtain Falls", of course.

(I drive a LOT these days.)

Mediabase has also recently changed its breakdown (if you’re into the nitty-gritty of radio formats): http://www.insideradio.com/free/mainstream-rock-gets-rolled-away-by-mediabase/article_b3b245a4-9358-11e5-a8f4-670625f5ac53.html

Ah, thanks.

I had wondered what the difference was.

I'm a bit confused about why this has become a 'pop vs rock' thread, or even an 'in defense of pop' thread, or even in some cases an 'all pop is good even the shit stuff wildcard' thread...

With respect dude the original post was hardly your finest hour and it was so ill-defined it could have gone pretty much anywhere. It was either going to end up here or with people calling each other racist.

In terms of the biggest gap between a sound's "credible" beginnings and the awfulness that came afterwards, I think Bossa Nova might be notable. Or dubstep, but with the qualifier that the early good stuff consists strictly of Horsepower Productions and literally everything afterwards was of the Shit Trend

It was either going to end up here or with people calling each other racist. <--- new board description

The “Shit Threads” in ILM forum right now

dude the original post was hardly your finest hour

at least it drew my attention to that vine of the guy doing the indie girl voice and now I can't stop saying 'We have bananies and avocadies' to myself

I enjoyed this in-depth linguistic analysis of "indie girl voice"

https://www.acelinguist.com/2018/10/dialect-dissection-indie-girl-voice.html

No mention of Karen Dalton is odd

I had been genuinely confused by that diphthong in "Good for You".

Sometimes I use the phrase "american idol voice" when discussing what I don't like

Surely Britney is the ground zero for this phenomenon, oh baybay baybay?

This vocal trends makes me “??” as well (if we’re talking about the same thing), but I’m hesitant to come down too hard on it for obvious reasons. Maybe if it were an “indie dude voice”...

Yeah, idk what this has to do with 'indie', really. The linguist actually has a separate article about "babay" vowels!

Here; haven't finished it yet: https://www.acelinguist.com/2017/05/oh-babih-babay-how-one-vowel-one.html

I think it's pronounced 'inday'.

Think the vine was originally posted on this thread in connection to the "passenger voice" which I consider to be a different, much worse thing.

Aka"Ellie Goulding ballad voice"

Ooh ooh can we do the Sting / Elvis Costello swallowed-voice?

Parts of Iggy's 'Passenger' fall under the "Joy Division voice" which I generally dislike (Iggy is okay I guess). I never knew an indie band called Passenger

that's a hilarious article

Is there a term for the Rag'n'Bone Man objectively the second worst noise in the world voice?

The multi-voice 'oh-oh-OHH-oh oh-oh-OHH-oh's or variations of it filling in the gaps between the lyrics in choruses. Imagine Dragons, Arcade Fire, all that shit. It will not go away.

― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre)

This is something I had mentioned to my millennial sister when I brought up that a lot of music sounds the same. When she recalled that conversation, last November, I took a different stance by admitting that there are some cases of less than modern songs with 'oh-oh-ohs' that I enjoy. I regret admitting that because it diminishes the fact that 'ohs' are an ever prevalent, annoying trend.

Anyways, I watched this video today and the narrator mentions a variation dubbed the Millennial Whoop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

Overall this video presents a pretty accurate explanation on why popular modern music is awful. For someone presenting a negative opinion (although presented as fact) it is surprising that this video has a 93% like ratio on a site used largely by younger people. He also seems to believe there is tons of musical brainwashing due to the mere-exposure effect - although he doesn't say how much.

What led me here was googling "why do I dislike modern music"; maybe you would too if you couln't name a single new artist that you like from the past decade. Anyhow, many responses were "people grew up on and formed their musical opinions based on something different" (this answer is actually pretty interesting when you get into details about why certain music styles, content, and feelings embodied certain eras) and also "you are closed-minded" or "you haven't heard any good non-mainstream stuff". When I check out some of the recommended underground or indie music it's always sounds bad or mehhhh. Maybe if I keep trying I'll eventually find something I like -- or maybe I am closed-minded 🤔. I suppose that is possible but I feel like that I can point out several good reasons why each song I try is boring or bad. I guess I won't know until I write those reasons down and analyze them while trying time and time again to like something new from the past decade.

you couln't name a single new artist that you like from the past decade

What led me here was googling "why do I dislike modern music"

new board description

though I would like to see the reasons why Kendrick Lamar songs are bad or boring written down and analyzed

you're gonna get primaried with that attitude

we already have a flappy bird this just seems excessive