The Tyranny Of Pop Music

Youtube ^ | June 15, 2016 | Roger Scruton

[OddLane]

A brilliant exposition of what's wrong with our society by one of my favorite modern philosophers.

[PGalt]

(FYI ping)

[IronJack]

I work out at a big-box gym, and every day I hear the same "music" tracks. Probably 2/3 of them are female pop vocalists, who all have the same whiny, thin, little-girl voice. It makes me want to puke.

Of the remainder, probably half are (c)rap "artists" yammering on about how tough they are or how hot the women think they are or some such adolescent drivel.

I used to work out in a crummy, dingy, cement-wall basement gym that was almost completely silent except for the sound of plates clanking and guys grunting. I'd give almost anything to return to that beautiful silence.

[HonkyTonkMan]

Interesting - completely agree with the instructors. And it's fantastic to hear your daughters are studious musicians - I suspect you have fostered that type of environment in the home. I wish more children learned to play instruments.

I wonder about the broader implications of digitally-produced synthetic tempos (think autotune) and how they will affect our society.

[IronJack]

Listening to a symphony is much more mental work than mindlessly humming along to The Beach Boys.

As bubble-gummy as the Beach Boys were, at least they could manage some pretty tight harmonies. What's more offensive to me is the (c)rap or "hip-hop" or whatever they call that crud that is little more than rhythm with no appreciable musicality at all.

[longfellowsmuse]

I agree that rap and hip hop are the worst of worst. A mere 30 seconds makes me want to scream!

[Albion Wilde]

Lovely. Quietly passionate about true music.

[Fiji Hill]

I have been driven out of more than one store by the excruciating sounds of pop music, usually at deafening levels sufficient enough to interfere with your thought process.

These days, it's hard to find a full-service restaurant where it's quiet enough to have a conversation at the table while eating. Diners have to put up with loud music, acoustics that enhance ambient noise, or both.

[LS]

That stuff is pure garbage.

Gregorian chants!!

[Fiji Hill]

I attend a lot of college football games in the fall, and for the past several years, every stadium I have attended features loud piped-in “music,” usually disco, heavy metal or rap, which makes it hard to converse and even drowns out the marching bands.

[Fiji Hill]

Yeah, we should all go back to listening to sweet melodic tunes from the 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's 1920's.

FIFY

[fidelis]

And don’t get me started at sports venues, movie theaters, and and various outdoor events. Who even likes that awful music, and why does it have to be so frickin’ LOUD? Are people freakin’ deaf?

[exDemMom]

It’s his opinion, and he is entitled to it.

I’m imagining going into a store without music, where you hear every sniffle, cough, fart, footstep, etc., unmasked by any ambient music. Where you hear the sounds of items being picked up, examined, dropped, slid back onto shelves. Where every change in air current through the air system loudly echoes through the store, along with every pop and groan of ducts expanding and contracting in response to every little change in temperature.

There is sound present all the time. For someone like me, who has tinnitus, a “silent” setting can become a noisy cacophony, since the constant screeching seems to become louder the less masking noise there is. So, right now, I hear the tapping of my fingers against the keyboard, the sound of air rushing through the ducts, a clock, and the cat’s quiet sleepy purr, all blips against the constant loud multitonal screech of tinnitus.

I nearly always listen to music. It distracts from the tinnitus. I don’t like country, and I do not consider hip-hop or rap as music, but almost anything else is fine.

[VanDeKoik]

While I have taken to listening to music from the 1910s-1929 (a summer in Michigan thing), it is always amusing to listen to people my age (late 30s) and older rail on about pop music today, knowing that there was nothing made between 1947-1990 that wasn’t seen equally as “junk”.

Doesn’t matter if it was the Bobby Soxers, Bee Bop, novelty records, Motown, Stadium, Psychedelic, and Glam Rock or Rap, outlaw country, Disco, Electonica, New Wave, Synth pop, Hair bands, Grunge or Adult Contemporary...

Someone hated them then, and years later someone pines for them again.

[Stepan12]

Whether we like it or not, when Johannes Brahms recorded his piano playing, people felt as if they don't need to play piano anymore and maybe they're right: Johannes Brahms playing part of his Hungarian Dance # 1

[DiogenesLamp]

Things have gone to hell since Edison invented the gramophone...

Many a true word is said in jest, and in this case you aren't all that far off.

Edison invented both sound recording and video recording. Before he did this, Actors were considered low class, low morals people who were only fit to consort with gamblers, whores and bums.

Their audiences numbered in the thousands at most, and they seldom had any larger impact on the rest of society.

By making it possible to record their performances, their audiences could reach millions, and commensurate money could be paid to them as a result of their expanded reach. They became influential through their performances, their celebrity, and their money.

What Edison did was empower generally Liberal, low moral gutter trash people into power brokers capable of steering the Nation. For example, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler making a "Happy Days" commercial urging people to vote for Obama.

So yeah, by giving these generally immoral, Liberal people a means to acquire power and influence, it is indeed Edison's fault.

[real saxophonist]

Most pop music is not music. It is a manufactured product. Its sole purpose is to have monetary value, not artistic value.

I don't care for the 'music industry'.

[squarebarb]

I hate the incessant blast of pop music as well, cheap made-by-computer crap, but why don’t people object? That’s what’s scary. Nobody likes it, everybody hates shouting over it at restaurants, etc. but why don’t people rise up and say shut that crap off? That’s what’s scary. That is what is significant.

[central_va]

Video killed the radio star.

[HLPhat]

>>Yeah, we should all go back to listening
>>to sweet melodic tunes from the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s 1920’s.

How many of the consumers of pop “music” can sing and/or play an instrument - and understand the process of what it takes to actually produce music?

{ poking big stick into, and stirring, the pot }

[Herbie Hancock: The Ethics of Jazz | Mahindra Humanities Center]
Harvard University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPFXC3q1tTg

[ifinnegan]

Thanks.

I’d never heard of Roger Scruton before.