Author Topic: Valueless musicians  (Read 15302 times)

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Offline Lt. Fred

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Valueless musicians
« on: April 15, 2013, 03:27:47 am »
We all know that the music industry is perfectly happy to hire incompetent singers who look good as singers, particularly if they're women*. This is offensive enough- you're called the music industry, you morons, not the fashion industry. It leads to monstrosities like autotune, normalization and other overproduction techniques being foisted on and ruining legitimate artists, because ignorant executives and lazy techies who make all decisions do not understand the basics of music. The worst example, I think, is Glee where (whatever you think of the show) excellent singers are totally ruined by meddling executive incompetence. This is a trend perhaps two decades old or even older.

But at least attractiveness is a relatively unchangeable fact, it may be in the eye of the beholder but at least you can see some thought go into deciding which singer is attractive or not. I think the industry has relatively recently adopted an even worse practice; hiring people who are neither attractive nor competent singers.

On what grounds is Niki Minaj a musician? What metric did they use to pick her, out of a line of a million potential candidates- people who are both more attractive than her and can actually achieve the task they are hired for? Why is Justin Bieber a singer?

I think it's a coup. The industry loves a sure bet, and any factor not under their direct control adds risk. So destroy all those factors. Replace them with objective factors, stuff you directly control, like the techies or the PR campaign. You're the Masters of the Universe, of course, and I'm sure you understand their job better than they do. That's part of the reason the industry annexed Hip Hop, with no melody, replacing the lyrics with basically lorem ipsum. Again, if the lyrics are always the same, they cease to be a factor.


Is this completely crazy, or am I on the right track (or somewhere in the middle)?






* Imagine hiring a doctor because she is attractive. This just doesn't get done in other industries requiring substantial skill.
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Offline Itachirumon

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2013, 05:48:19 am »
I've heard only one song by Miss Minaj. Starships. I wanted to confirm it was her before I said anything - knowing that it is, I can say with absolute confidence that she is not a person. That's the good news.

....The bad news is she's the result of loving someone who wasn't clean and requires a 6 week cream treatment to cure. "Minaj" seriously sounds like the name for a terrible STD "I'm sorry Mr. Peterson, but I'm afraid you have the Minaj... it'll require this special cream and no sex for over a month" "Good God NOOO!!!!"
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Offline Flying Mint Bunny!

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2013, 06:13:15 am »
I don't think you can compare doctors and musicians. Doctors have important jobs looking after peoples health. If someone hired a stupid doctor just because they were attractive, people could die.

Musicians aren't as important. The music industry is not life and death.

Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2013, 06:22:01 am »
My point is that in normal industries people who are good at the job they are supposed to do are the ones hired.
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Offline Flying Mint Bunny!

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2013, 07:03:34 am »
I guess they are good at their jobs, it's just that their jobs aren't being musicians.

Justin Biebers job isn't making serious music. Justin Biebers job is to make preteen girls love him so they want to buy all the crap with his name on the record company is currently flogging.

You can't say he hasn't achieved that. Although I do wonder how long that's gonna last with the way he's been acting lately.

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2013, 07:09:38 am »
I think you're blaming the wrong group here. Executives aren't the root cause of shitty pop music, it's the consumers. Bieber and Minaj get record deals because people will listen to it and buy albums, merchandise and concert tickets. As far as executives are concerned, that's all that matters.

Offline Her3tiK

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2013, 11:39:00 am »
It boils down to a few things. For one, and as a musician who attended a music college I hate saying this, there are people who legitimately think the Minajs and Keshas of the world are talented musicians. I've noticed that they tend to be my generation (early 20s) who also lack any real goals in life beyond partying every weekend. Admittedly, if that's all you want music for, modern pop and hiphop are great, because they're all the same and very easy to dance to; take it from a prog metal fan, it's hard to move to music that changes meter and/or tempo every verse.
Two, as has been said, label execs hate taking risks; this is true for all genres. Once they've found a formula that works, its sucked dry of every dollar it can produce. I've actually got friends who have been turned down from contracts (nothing but a good thing, IMHO) because they don't have a singer, even though they've got one of the best indie releases of the year (again, IMHO, but holy fuck did that album blow me away). Variations happen over time, but radical changes and variety, things that might otherwise keep music interesting, aren't considered radio friendly, and thus don't get used.
Third, and this may be more of a personal peeve, is that it's much easier to mass produce this "music" on a computer nowadays. Everything is synthetic and completely digital. Keys, bass, drums, orchestra, all of it can be made through programs like Cubase and Superior Drummer, and maybe a MIDI keyboard if you feel like getting fancy. It's much easier to create a database of simple beats that get some minor variations for each release than it is to hire a full band to write and record the album.

Finally, the mind numbing (Again, biased) simplicity and repetitiveness of the music industry has been around forever. And here's proof. 40 hits, 4 chords. When such a simple method makes something popular, why would anyone interested in money ever change it?
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Offline Flying Mint Bunny!

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2013, 12:11:33 pm »
I like Kesha and a few Nicki Minaj songs...

I think you're right to say that some people just use music to dance to, but I think it's a bit patronising to say that only people who lack life goals like Kesha and Nicki Minaj. Just because you don't take music seriously, it doesn't mean you take nothing seriously.

I think that pop music is like the junk food of music. Junk food has no real nutritional value, but it tastes good and that's why you buy it. It's the same thing with pop music for me. It doesn't matter how it's made, if I like how it sounds I will listen to it.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2013, 03:22:28 pm »
Hell, I like Mozart and other classical music, folk music from various countries (particularly fond of Turkish stuff), Metallica, Dragon Force, N*Sync, Linkin Park, some dubstep, Evanscence (though while I like her voice, I'm not a fan of Amy Lee) and if you forced me to listen to Bieber's albums, I'd probably find at least one song I like there, too.

Some people have different tastes in music.  Some aren't always high class.  Some, like me, have exceedingly wide palates where we can listen to pretty much any genre and enjoy it as long as there's something to enjoy.  It's like enjoying potato chips and filet mignon.  It happens.

That doesn't mean I have to like the singers, though.  Nicki Minaj wears so much make up that it's hard to believe she's not a computer generated character.  Bieber is a molting peacock.  And as I mentioned before, I don't like Amy Lee, just her voice.  The fact that there haven't been any new Evanescence albums (that I know of anyways) since she announced that she is Evanescence and (I think) caused her best friend to basically leave the band out of disgust tells me that she basically screwed herself over in that regard.

So, I don't think Bieber and Nicki Minaj are "valueless", but they do have value for the wrong reasons.

Also I like the use of autotune as an "instrumental" effect, not as an "audio correction" effect.  That is, using autotune for autotune's sake instead of using autotune to fix someone's singing.
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Offline Her3tiK

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2013, 04:45:08 pm »
I think you're right to say that some people just use music to dance to, but I think it's a bit patronising to say that only people who lack life goals like Kesha and Nicki Minaj. Just because you don't take music seriously, it doesn't mean you take nothing seriously.
I'm basing that statement on personal experience. The people who came to mind, who listened almost exclusively to this "music", were concerned with little more than weekend plans and celebrity relationships. There are probably people not like this, but I've yet to meet any.
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Offline That Guy

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2013, 05:44:09 pm »
Some people just want fun, easy to listen to music that they can dance to.  Most people, actually.
Some people want highly techincal and complex music that they can pick apart and analyze.

I like both of these things depending on my mood.  I have albums by both Morbid Angel and blink-182 and thoroughly enjoy both bands for different reasons - Morbid Angel for the riffs and atmosphere, blink-182 because they're just silly and fun (well, the old stuff is anyway).

When I was in high school, I was a bit pretentious and pretended only to like underground punk/hardcore/metal bands when there were a few "mainstream" things I enjoyed listening to from time to time in secret (GASP!  SCANDALOUS!).  When I got out of high school I realized music taste wasn't important in the least.  I'm still very passionate about "real" DIY music but I also realize that not everyone is and that's okay.  One of my friends in high school listened mostly to pop and commercial "emo" and she was very intelligent and had plenty of goals.  That being said, yes, Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha tend to attract the party crowd mostly, but that's because that's what their music is mostly about. :P Besides, if you don't like music like that, you don't have to listen to it.  Just ignore it as much you're able to - it's what I do.  Sometimes that can be difficult (remember when "American Idiot" by Green Day was inescapable? that song's actually not nearly as horrible as some people make it out to be but I got very sick of it) but yeah.

Offline Auggziliary

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2013, 06:04:48 pm »
I don't think Nicki Minaj is that terrible... I mean I can tolerate her, and I like her clothes. I generally like rap music though, so someone who doesn't like rap as much might hate her.
However, WHY THE FUCK IS LIL WAYNE A THING? HE CANNOT RAP FOR SHIT.
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #12 on: April 15, 2013, 07:58:57 pm »
Some people just want fun, easy to listen to music that they can dance to.  Most people, actually.

There is music of this type that is not shit. That music is no longer made, because talent is impossible to control.



Another two 'artists' that I just thought of who have less than no value: Macklemore and LMFAO. If they ceased to exist, the median song would be substantially improved.
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Offline Auggziliary

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2013, 08:12:14 pm »
Er... what exactly makes this music "bad"? Whether music is "good" or "bad" depends on tastes. You might say it's "talentless", but talent doesn't exactly mean that the music is good. The same goes for art and many other things.
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Valueless musicians
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2013, 08:14:56 pm »
Yeah, there's a saying.  90% of everything is crap.

However, the corollary is that this 90% is different for each person.  Music is undeniably subjective.

90% of music in the 80s was crap.  90% of the music in the 90s was crap.  2000's, 2010's, 90% of everything is crap.
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