INTRO & 2024: The Final Part - Conclusions?

BACK TO THE START (The old man):

So, let’s take a quick look at the 1^st 2 parts of this 10 part write up to see where I’ve landed. Well........ at least I'm much further away from becoming the old dismissive man I feared. In the 1^st part, I talked about research that strongly suggested becoming such a person was all part of a natural process. A ‘natural process’, maybe – but one that shocked and upset me nevertheless less. Death is ‘just a natural process’ too!

The research showed that not only do we become ‘set in our ways’ and less willing to engage with change/new things as we get older, but it begins much earlier that we might think. The process begins in our early 30s! And, in our early 40s we are done!!! This research was general not specifically about music and I wanted to seek out something that was. You can find masses of theories and flimsy research but I did find something with some weight to it. Some lengthy inter-departmental university project with a fair bit of science behind it. It was about music, hearing, and the brain. It discovered that as we get older, whether tone-deaf or anything ardent student of music, our hearing, or more specifically our perception of what we are hearing, changes. Basically, our ability to differentiate between sounds weakens. This includes tone, pitch, rhythmic patterns etc. Although in tests, trained musicians faired better, deterioration could still be detected. What does this mean?............. it means that........... music genuinely.......... starts to................ ALL SOUND THE SAME!!!!

Amazing! Mind-blowing, even! Anyone of any age can remember their elders claiming that the problem with modern (at whatever time it was) pop music was ‘it all sounds the bloody same these day’. Even though, if anything, pop music has actually become more and more diverse. Now it all makes sense. It was never anything to do with music. It’s was always, like pretty much everything, to do with the brain. Now, there will be swarms of people who will struggle to accept this premise. To be fair, the research did lack something. I was asking myself why, if the brain makes it all sounds the same, does a person still think that only applies to NEW stuff? Why doesn’t the older music they love also start to all sound the same? I believe there is an answer that does not contradict the argument. Simply, because it is not NEW information – it is already ingrained in the brain – the experience of how that music was perceived in the past remains in the memory. So, the research would probably have been more concrete if it also had included tests where people listened to music that was of their ‘era’ but that they hadn’t heard before. I even have a starting point for this. In part one, I wrote about a relative of mine who, in the 90s, was very much of the opinion that new music was all bloody rubbish, all the same, and, most importantly, not as good as a brilliant music of the 50s-70s. But, when I stuck a Doors record from 1969 on, they still complained ‘what’s this bloody rubbish then?’.

BACK TO THE START (Melody):

In part 2, I claimed that melody seemed to have taken a bit of a back seat over the years and compared a 1968 melody with one from 2011 to demonstrate this. Listening to new music in 2024 has only strengthened this opinion for me. However, its not that good ‘melody’ does not get written, but spending time constructing fuller ‘melodies’ seems rarer. You will often get a good melodic line but this will not then be developed into a full strong melody. An analogy would be coming up with an amazing ‘quote’ but not bothering writing a poem. Now, an amazing quote will often be better than a poem. But, the thing I struggle with is someone saying ‘hey, check out my poem’ but it’s just a one-line quote. It might be the best quote ever...... but you sold it to me as a poem.

Unfortunately, I’m going to go even further and say that often there aren’t even any good melodic lines. Even some of the most prolific song-writers of recent years, Taylor Swift, Ed Shearan, even Adele, do not seem to overly concern themselves with melodic construction. I’ll repost this video from part 2 where I attempt to demonstrate this: https://youtu.be/VFJGxK7egrM?si=xQ9BbrpAZgDkd-Wx

I have also made this video where I use a hypothetical idea to show what I mean by the difference between a good full melody and a good melodic line (or melodic figure): https://youtu.be/KeiYhD3ZgXY?si=yUgJwFinFAe2FkbW

Finally, I’m going to have to admit to something I’ve discovered during the year. Its this. I’m wrong! I’m not incorrect about what has happened to melody, but I am wrong in my critical approach. About halfway through the year, I came across and article written by a member of a band who are still around but were at their peak about 20 years ago (I can’t remember who it was exactly). He was appealing to bands and song-writers to stop being ‘afraid’ and/or ‘embarrassed’ to write ‘good and strong melodies’. This sent me in a panicked Internet search. Sure enough, it became clear to me that somewhere along the line melody has become to be considered a bit ‘archaic’. So, actually, song-writers have steered away from writing melodies for fear of criticism or being considered a bit ‘dinosaur’ and not necessarily from a lack of ability to do so. I cant say the discovery of this doesn’t make me sad, but it has changed the way I’m thinking about things.

Something I’ve also noticed (but I’m not sure how to succinctly demonstrate) is that while melody has been relegated somewhat, rhythm has become more important. Whether this be as simple as an expansion of the rhythm section, or exploring complex rhythmic patterns, it’s noticeably MORE interesting to me in more modern tracks than more classic ones. Of course, it can be argued that this all makes sense. Pop music was always supposed to be about rhythm, right? Who cares about melody?........ we’re not here to listen to Mozart?....... we’re here to dance and/or play air-guitar....... no?

BACK TO THE START (We’ve heard it all before):

In part 2 I commented that much of what I was hearing, while good, was very similar to something that had gone before. I did try to make it clear this was not necessarily a criticism.......... but I think I’m still going to have to take issue with my recent-past-self here. Firstly, if its not a criticism, what is it? What’s the point of the observation? Secondly, if it is a criticism after all, is it a fair one? I maintain that the examples I gave of ‘who sounds like what’ are accurate. But, what do I want? Do I want everything to have no resemblance to anything that has gone before? That’s not possible. It’s an impossibility. Furthermore, as time passes, doesn’t such a task become more and more difficult and unlikely. If I’m claiming there has been a decline in the quality of pop music, albeit overstated, is it not easily explained, even excused, by the very passage of time? The passage of time deteriorates almost everything.

Finally on this point, I seemed to suggest that this seemed to be a trait – a characteristic – of recent pop music. What the hell am I talking about??!!! Was ‘that sounds a bit like this’, ‘that sounds a bit like that’ not the case in the 90s? The 80s? 60s......... in fact always?!! What a stupid point. In fact, I will even counterpoint. I’ve written elsewhere about the more modern willingness and ability to blend genres, mix styles, jump from one thing to another etc. So, actually, everything is sounding very different a lot more often in more CURRENT pop music!  Quite frankly, recent-past-Kev, how about shutting up unless you have something of substance to say? Cretin.

DUA LIPA?

Yes. It began as a bit of a joke. After a few months of me listening to all this new pop music I got one of those Spotify messages saying I had been identified as a ‘top fan’ of Dua Lipa as I was in the top 5% (or something) of listeners and was entitled to some sort of early doors access to order a ridiculously high priced limited edition set of her forthcoming album. The truth was, at that time anyway, the listening time I was clocking up was just part of this project rather than fandom. But, I couldn’t help but feel a genuine sense of pride at belonging to this ‘probably not that exclusive but somewhat exclusive nonetheless’ club. I decided to embrace the identity somewhat ironically. But, this led to a ‘sub-project’ and I was listening to Lipa’s previous records..... and liking them..... researching her back story........ and respecting it......... watching her Glastonbury performance........ and getting emotional....... and finally........ as you can see from one of pics here – queuing online to score concert tickets........ which I secured!! Indeed, between March-September I had evolved from an ironic top fan to a genuine one. I’m very much looking forward to the gig. Simon is coming with me. I think he will probably adopt the role of an adult taking an excited child to see their favourite pop star! Cheers mate

WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

A few ‘negative’ things. Firstly, as much as I’m enjoying much of the music, on a deeper level the whole thing has made me a bit sad. Because, I COULD have been allowing myself this enjoyment for the last 25 years instead of being such a grump about the whole thing, or feeling that such enjoyment would make me less of a serious musician/musicologist (rather than a more well-rounded one. But ‘with age comes wisdom’ on that front).  

I have been wrong about a few things along the way, such as my melody fixation and need for originality. I think the biggest error of all was thinking of this as a project to ‘get (back) with it’. Because, as it turns out, I’ve discovered that actually........ the kids don’t really care!!!! Being up and knowledgeable about current pop music isn’t that important to them. They can take or leave it. I read about this and was a little surprised but when I put it together the test I found it to be largely accurate. When I took opportunities to engage with a younger person about the pop music scene I would tend to find that they were not massively interested, and often didn’t even know what I was talking about. In my job, I see all age groups and have noted that younger people react very little to new pop music when it comes on and radio and are actually much more likely to start singing along to a classics well before their time. Let’s not forget, it’s all at their finger tips these days, past or present. Also, my project used the chart as its guide. And. There’s one thing that the kids really do not care about at all, even if they do listen to new pop music and lot. And that is the chart. They don’t bother with it. You’ll struggle to find a young person these days who knows what this week’s #1 is.

WHAT NEXT?

I am going to carry on. As it turned out – I really enjoyed it..... non-ironically. However, this project was limited. It used the chart as its research tool and, given my discovery that no-one even cares about that, I need to branch out. There's another flaw in this project. I am now an expert on western pop music history from its beginnings to 1999....... and 2024. There’s still that 25 year hole. I’ve had various thoughts of how to tackle that problem and have concluded that any attempt to do it in full detail would probably take many more years that I’m likely to have left. I do however, have a plan to do a whistle-stop tour of it, working backwards, that will take just 3 years.

Conclusions:

Thanks to anyone who is reading and in particular a handful of you who have read close to, if not the entirety, of all 10 posts – its much appreciated and I’m very sad to be finishing............ but the “good” news (haha) is that I’ll probably do posts every 3-6 months summarising what I’ve been listening to and some thoughts for the next 3 years!

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned this year is how much streaming has changed the world of music, some of it for the better but some of it for the worse. In summary, while streaming  represents consumption of new music accurately, and is wondrous tool for an avid music consumer like myself - it IS a massive problem for budding new talent, and for artists generally to make a living from their craft unless they really break big. When it comes specifically to the UK Album Chart the problem is that because we continuously have our favourite classic albums on a streaming loop between us, not much else gets a look in. In a few days, the top 10 albums of 2024 will be revealed. With just a few days to go, it looks almost 100% certain that only 5 of them will be albums by new/current artists. And even then, of those 5, only 3 will be albums actually released this year!!

My final thought...... like Jerry Springer. There arguably HAS been a decline in the quality of pop music in the last few decades. However, it is MASSIVELY overstated by us old grumps. In any case, it all depends on our point of view, and how we are assessing ‘quality’ (because, when it comes to any art, it ain’t clinical). For example, take my hyper-focus on melody. It didn’t even occur to me that my view on that might be deemed a little archaic. But either way, all this ‘it’s all rubbish’ and ‘it all sounds the same’ (which older generations have always been saying to younger generations no matter what year you exit the Tardis) is more about science of the brain and human behaviour than it is about the music.