Why do we hate popular music? Why does pop music suck?
It could be because it's mostly unoriginal recycled nonsense written by the same four guys over in Memphis
It could be because half of the shit coming out these days barely has any harmonic information
You got drums vocals bass if you're lucky and that's it!
Or maybe it's just personal preference you know we all like different things and that's perfectly fine
But I've got two additional theories I'd like to share with you today
The first has to do with the loudness war and over compression
the second one is potentially a little bit wild and crazy, but that's the way I like it ;)
now don't get me wrong there are people who like popular music, I mean there has to be it's selling
people are buying it, but I'm talking about those of us who hate it!
Who have that instant revulsion to it. Someone puts on the latest Katy Perry hit
and it causes us physical pain! If you're one of these people then this video is for you
So, I had a long drive to the other side of Melbourne last week, took about 45
minutes and I was listening to the radio to pass the time - I know condolences
and in that 45 minutes I felt like I got a pretty decent representation of what the
radio has to offer these days. We had a bit of Maroon 5, which I didn't mind,
there was Bruno Mars trying to be Michael Jackson, that's alright
then you handle your diva pop shlock, which all sounds the same and then there
was a little bit of like club shit as well and the melodies in that it's just
listen that's just made for a drug trip. right? So, I was listening to this music
and I immediately realized that most of it wasn't half-bad, you know we had
some catchy melodies and I actually wanted to sing along to them, which is a
fantastic sign, but despite all this I felt myself getting irritated, genuinely
annoyed at what I was listening to. I had to stop and ask myself "why"?
if I'm in theory enjoying this music, why is it pissing me off?
So, what got me thinking, and at least in my case, I came up with two possibilities...
The first, like I said, has to do with the Loudness War. So, for those of you who don't know part of the
mastering process involves compressing the crack, and it makes perfect sense
because otherwise you'd be constantly adjusting the volume on your stereo or
your computer or your iPhone or your Walkman... whatever the kids are using
these days, but what tends to happen with mainstream music is they over compress
it so if a decent mix, a decent mastering job, in my opinion is about
here so it allows some dynamic range, which means you know you've got some
quiet bits you've got some loud bits but they're within you know a
comfortable range of each other without destroying the energy of the song what
the mainstream music industry likes to do these days is compressed the shit out
of it until it's basically all one level. Why would they do this?!
well the way it's been explained to me is apparently there's genuine value in
having the louder's track on the radio. I know it seems absurd, but this is
supposedly what these big record labels are striving for. I've actually heard
examples of professional commercially available albums that have been
compressed and boosted in volume so severely that they actually clip which
means there's digital distortion on the CD that has gone out to the world to the
public to buy like this this still blows my mind they've ruined their recording
for the sake of it being the loudest recording that you can buy guys I wish I
was joking this is absurd maybe you've noticed this yourself you're listening
to a popular song you know it's got that loud banging chorus that's just high
octane and getting you excited then the bridge comes along yeah the bridge
usually comes down a scooch right even if it's still a high-energy song the
bridge might bring it down a little bit comes down in energy I actually heard
examples on the radio the other day of the singer whispering the song and I
immediately noticed I'm like okay it's come down it's the bridge but it's not
any quieter than the previous chorus was so my first theory is this practice of
over compression and there being no dynamic range left in mainstream popular
music it's giving you ear fatigue imagine listening to something at the
same volume constantly pumping never stopping three minutes then another
three minutes then another three minutes over and over and over again there's no
point in this music where it lets you rest imagine for a moment your next-door
neighbor is doing renovations on their home I know of which I speak because
currently both my neighbors are doing this so they've got power tools going
all day long drills saws whatever the hell else you plug in to build things
why not throw that in there as well it's a constant cacophony of noise repetitive
at one unceasing volume it would drive you insane it is driving me insane yes
never place those power tools with popular music our repetitive noise and a
single unceasing volume sure you might like the song you might have chosen to
listen to that song but listen to it again and again and again put on the
whole album play a different album move to another artists it's all at the same
volume your ears have no time to rest and they become fatigued theory number
two is a little bit wild but I find the concept of it fascinating so there's
this phenomenon called the uncanny valley you may be familiar with it
essentially it describes humanity's inherent mistrust of things that look
human but they're just a little bit off so at one side of the scale you've got
things that are clearly not hearing and we can sympathize with them dogs cats
pets of all varying shapes and sizes we love them they're clearly not human
they're not trying to steal our identity the one keep an eye on the cats and on
the other end we've got your bog-standard human we are
human we trust other humans for the most part but in the middle is the uncanny
valley occupied by those creepy cutting-edge AI robots and monkeys the
theory as I understand it is we subconsciously perceive these things as
trying to steal our identity so we have an inherent mistrust of them I think a
similar thing is potentially happening with the vocals in popular music so
nowadays with mainstream music as a matter of course everything is pitch
corrected now this doesn't mean that mainstream singers pop stars divas
what-have-you are bad singers some of them might be it's just a general
practice that's automatic now I've talked to a couple of reporting engineer
friends of mine and they say yeah regardless of how good the
singer is just as a matter of course they pitch correct why because they've
got deadlines and they haven't got time to scrub through every single note the
singer is singing to make sure that it's the correct note so just to save time
they do a blanket let's pitch correct it so we know it's all correct before we
send it off yeah that's kind of shitty but that's how it works there's also
kind of a trend around over-processed vocals now I mean you've got vocoders
and reflux true like you know Cher's signature thing and that's obviously not
meant to fool you it's obvious that that's processed and that's fine now
here's where the uncanny valley analogy fits into it and this might just be me
but on the one end we've got the thing that is obviously not human we've got
vocoders actually very much like the use of vocoder Daft Punk for example I think
users are brilliantly and I can't get enough of it and you've got reflux
churning the stuff that is obviously not a true natural human voice and then
you've got a proper natural human voice like someone's singing to you
acoustically but in the middle you've got all these over processed vocals that
yeah they sound human but they're not quite human and I think maybe that is
contributing a little bit to our general revulsion towards popular music and as
the construction sounds begin next door I'm gonna have to wrap this video up so
those are my two theories as to why we hate popular music so barring personal
tastes you hate popular music really dig deep
and have a think about what it is that really gets you guarded about pop I'd
love to hear about it in the comments down below thank you for watching I'll
see you next week
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