The "Incredibly Impossible to Derail This Thread" thread | Page 160 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

McLennonSon said

Ben Ramon said
On the topic of today’s music being rubbish, I (and a lot of other people apparently) feel that Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” is a step back in the right direction for modern commercial pop. Beatles-level catchiness and great use of strings in the chorus, and I think the lyrics are pretty passable too, which is more than I can say for most of the stuff I hear in clubs.

Hmmm. I’ve never actually thought of that, I think  maybe right. And on another tought, Call Me Maybe is using more chords than the standard I-IV-V-VI chords. And it actually sounds more like alt.rock to me ears than it sounds like pop. Kinda catchy. But it has still a vamp :C

EDIT: It doesn’t use the VI chord, but it uses the other ones.

Not necessarily in terms of theoretical complexity, but it’s just… well… a “good song.” The way the verse gradually builds to a climax which explodes into the chorus works extremely well, as does the way the strings and the vocal melody alternate and play off each other in the chorus. Obviously some people may find it insipid, annoying dreck but the first time I ever heard it in a gay club in the city I was blown away, it had me by the balls instantly, and I was moved and impressed by how mad everyone went when it came on. Wildly dancing, hugging euphoric people who were all having a great time, united by this song, and I was standing in the middle of it thinking “wow.”

mr. Sun king coming together said
Ben Ramon – you’re entirely right, insofar as it’s shitloads better then everything else that’s popular. But when you consider what’s actually out there from today, it’s mediocre. Maybe I’m still biased, because I saw what might be the best concert I’ve ever seen, a Canadian band called the Arkells. That is what we should comparing music to, not to Bieber and One Direction, but to the Arkells or Arcade Fire – the people who make actually good music.

(Ben – that stops being directed at you at some point. I’m not sure when, but don’t get offended – it became the typed version of the rant I’ve given millions of times)

No offense taken! To be honest, I think the people who get upset about Bieber being massively popular should stop worrying. He’s nothing but a teenage fad, based mostly on his image and good looks, which is most probably engineered by a bunch of people in a boardroom discussing how they can make him look introspective and appealing to hormonal teenage girls on the next album cover. I know people said the same thing about the Beatles when they first started, but do you think Bieber is going to turn out a Sgt Pepper in the next five years? No music critic takes him seriously because they know his following is comprised largely of people too young to know better.

As for Arcade Fire, I’ve never got it, but each to his own.

mr. Sun king coming together said
Or Feist, or City and Colour, or Florence and the Machine, or Adele, or Sam Roberts, or Sheepdogs, or Kings of Leon. Really, I just mean, why use a band/artist you hate (Bieber, 1D, Katy Perry) as the benchmark? Why not use bands (from the same time period – it’s a fools game trying to compare the 60’s to now) that you enjoy?

Very good point. I am often disturbed by the attitude I see towards Bieber by Beatles fans (including on this forum) and others who proclaim themselves fans of “true music”: leveling violent threats and all kinds of venom and vitriol towards someone who is really just an inexperienced teenager and has no real say in the writing or production of their songs. Also people who make the ridiculous claim that Paul or Ringo, if they were to meet Bieber, would punch him in the face or whatever; don’t you think they’d know better?

As you said, instead of scouting out the untalented artists in the world in order to attack and deplore them and their fans, why don’t people scout out the talented artists and ignore what they don’t like? I thought “All You Need Is Love ” was the general consensus among Beatle fans but my faith in that has been warped slightly by what I’ve seen on the internet.

For my money, the greatest band of very recent years is Animal Collective, who combine psychedelic folk and Beach Boys -esque melodic pop with noise and electronic effects. It took me a very long time to get into them, but once their artistic merit dawned on me I was hooked.