honeyiscool wrote:avj wrote:A fair point, but what you've described also sounds terribly contrived and completely unlistenable.
Well bands like the Dismemberment Plan were always good at creating extremely catchy songs in fucked up time sigs, but anyway, that's what they wanna do, I want good melodies in 4/4, I-IV-V chords. It worked for Mozart, it works for me, I don't know what's capitalist or bullshit about it. At this point, hasn't every sensible combination of notes been played? It's all about how you dress up the same old combination of notes to make something new. When it comes to pop music, or any music really, how you package your hooks allows it to shine, and a lot of pop productions excel at that. Given a starting note, there are only 20,736 possible ways to make a five-note hook. Only one of them makes "Toxic" work.
Yes yes, but you've completely removed the context in which I said those words and you've ignored what Lucamo described -- one of the key things being "no vo[c]als". I was simply offering my opinion on that very narrow scenario he offered. I also never said anything about capitalism, as this is my first return to this trainwreck of a thread since declaring Shakira more attractive than this Mikey Way fellow.
To speak to your point, I guess Tool would be another great example of a band doesn't fit into traditional cookie-cutter pop music -- but I don't imagine they sit around with a list of pop music conventions and consciously decide to deviate from them; that would pretty much be the definition of contrived. I think when a person first decides to become a songwriter, they should be hyperaware of what they're doing and how they're doing it. After they've found their voice, it becomes a matter of letting their mishmash of influences -- conscious or otherwise -- guide their hand. People don't evolve musically in a vacuum.
I saw Liz Phair's name, so I'll just add again that I love her. I cleaned up the entire
Girly Sound collection for my personal enjoyment.
Guyville is in my top ten. I also thought
Whip-Smart was fantastic, but musically she lost me after that. I've seen recent interviews where she speaks to her awareness of the transformation into a disposable pop princess. I may dislike the music, but she's still got my respect. She's almost twenty years past
Guyille, married, and a mother. There will never be another
Guyville from her, so I'm just grateful it exists.
