I am struggling to find anything good to say about this:
But with 20m views I guess I’m in the minority. I don’t like to criticise people in the music biz because you don’t know what they were going through at the time, the pressures they had etc. but this is just not good. In my tiny mind I think I could have done better than this inside a couple of days in my flaky, tiny studio in Hull. (City of Culture 2017 ), but then again I doubt I would have had the pressure of a multi-gazillion pound corp bearing down on my shoulders.
Have I got it wrong? Is it actually good? Am I just a curmudgeonly old git?
I don’t like it. The sonics aren’t necessarily bad, just the taste and vibe. The big record company pressure thing could be it, or the folly of youth. I never cared for the Harry Styles dude, he seemed preoccupied with his fame and with the young gals and narcissism.
Never really got his band either though.
What is popular isn’t necessarily good. I had to come to that conclusion long ago.
That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. I mean, I know we all do all kinds of crazy stuff in an effort to make the final product sound good, but this sounds so contrived, so unnatural.
Same here. Though I don’t particularly like the song itself in the first one, I don’t particularly see anything wrong with either. Especially the second one. I understand what some people wouldn’t like about the song and the mix. Would I have mixed it different? Probably. Better? Who’s really to say? Its personal preference, and in this case, preference down to mix and edit decisions. My question is if the track accomplishes accomplishes the commercial purpose for which the investor paid money to create it for, what else ~really~ matters?
Ah! And what’s good is not necessarily popular. Ironic. Eh?
What is good is absolutely relative and what is bad is absolutely relative.
I don’t care for either of the two songs that were posted but I recognize that the songs are not the entity that chooses whether I like them or not. I am the consciousness that makes that choice. I’ve been viewing life (and music) from a point of personal “relative” perception for a long time and unfortunately I can’t call anything “shitty” with absolute conviction anymore, no matter how much I hate it. Although it can be fun to rag on music like those two shitty songs, haha.
Just to clarify - the songs themselves are ok I guess - nothing special but not offensive. It’s the production, it’s just so…contrived. It’s like those celebs who go over the top with the plastic surgery and up looking like cartoon versions of their former selves.
That’s it! The production on these tracks is the aural equivalent of cartoons.
I mean, I know we all process the crap out of stuff in an effort to make it sound ‘good’ but although nobody really knows exactly where the line is drawn, we all know when something has definitely crossed over it.
Neither song is my cup of meat… but my first though was that Mr. Styles could take some cues from Mr. Steven Wilson. Make things a bit moodier and sonically rich.
The other ‘song’ is just more of the same dreck I’ve come to expect from modern pop music. As for the video… might as well watch porn… it’d be more interesting and probably have a better soundtrack…
I don’t see the point in defining the line to be ‘crossed over’ if it sells. What good does it to do presuppose the consumer ‘ought’ to be more discerning in regards to the content? Instead of saying ‘this ought to be kicked to the curb’, the public has largely accepted it. Moot point. So instead of trying to ‘call it out’ or falsely thinking you can ‘expose’ this stuff, I think you’re doing the proper thing here by trying to figure out what and why the public has accepted it.
Sure you can! If you hate it, call it shit. What’s stopping you? Though I might hesitate to tell someone else they ‘ought’ to agree with me.
All people who are very good at what they do are strongly opinionated and passionate. Its actually really healthy to have strong opinions. It takes that to make art, and it takes that to make money.
This is offensive. I’m going to call their parents.
The Harry Styles thing is bad, but I admire your ability to pick editing as what qualifies it as a turd in your punch bowl . The guy is singing about the end of the world, and his message would embarrass a four year old for the lack of depth. Then you have the kitchen sink production that makes the whole mess sound like a toy whistle. I can just see the kids this was written for watching the mushroom cloud engulf their town on their cellphone.
I know everything comes back to money for you, but for me, if it’s shite, it’s shite. Mr Blobby made it to #1 in the charts, as did the Teletubbies. I assume some money was made frm those recordings, but there is no question that they are shite - in exactly the same way that the two recordings I posted in this thread are shite.
Very true. Money aside, if neither of us (you and I personally) can’t control whats hitting the mainstream market or weather or not the public accepts or rejects it, I would think the only thing left to do is accept it and try my best to understand what it is thats drawing people to this stuff that might sound atrocious to either of us.
I guess what I’m asking is what we’re after if we (as in people on this site) just kinda blame the market for being what it is. I don’t feel that the points you’ve made in this thread are in any way invalid. And I feel the same way about a lot of whats going on in the industry right now. Is there more to the decision that deciding weather to ignore it and do our own thing? Or the decision to adapt and stay in the game? Isn’t that what this will eventually reduce to?
), but then again I doubt I would have had the pressure of a multi-gazillion pound corp bearing down on my shoulders.
The big record company pressure thing could be it, or the folly of youth. 
I never cared for the Harry Styles dude, he seemed preoccupied with his fame and with the young gals and narcissism.
