Lady Gaga: Really thin is in

Get off my lawn! [/starmangrabbingthebullhornfromfishhack]

 

Gee, what a shock. Someone on this board blasts a popular artist for no other reason than the fact that they're popular.

Sorry, Starman, please recommend us some indie rock folks who have "real cred" while moonlighting as Starbucks employees because, Lord knows, if you happen to get successful, you lose all ability as an artist.

Pretentious pricks.

(And no, Starman, that's not directed just at you but everyone on this site that is close-minded simply to be close-minded. Check the "Best albums of the decade" thread" and you'll see what I mean.)

 

If I re-entered the NIAFL, I would name my team Salvador Dali's Diarrhea Attack

 

While I'm on your side in this particular instance, scheiz, that list of best albums sucked.

 

In that clip, she reminds me of a younger Vanessa Carleton with a little more edge to her voice.

Her songs are the musical version of a latte, empty calories. I'm OK with it. It gets me through a hard-core run or a spell on the elliptical. If I want deep, I'll turn elsewhere.

 

Agreed. I'm tired of the opinion that something can't be good if its popular.

 

Which list? My list or the list that started the thread. I agree that both sucked. Hell, I'm pretty sure I prefaced my list by saying people would hate it.

I'm not the type of person who is going to say something blows before hearing it, and I'm ALWAYS open to new music, but it seems the people on this board have this irrational hatred of anything that sells more than four albums outside of a surfer dude's trunk.

Look, we get it, you all think Miley Cyrus, Gaga, Beyonce, The Jonas Brothers, e.t.c all are terrible musicians and are ruining music, yada yada yada. Give it a break. Listen to the music, tell us WHY it's horrible. Don't just blanket it all with a "Well, teenagers in Idaho like it therefore it's bad" statement. You're all supposed journalists. Do your research before you come to a finalized conclusion.

Rant over.

 

It's horrible because it sucks. [scientificconclusion]

Again, you're right about knee-jerk pretentiousness, but a lot of popular music blows. Those two things don't have to be connected.

 

Oh, I don't doubt it. Some of that shit (particularly "How Low" by Ludacris) makes me want to stab myself in the ears until I feel brain matter ooze out onto the tip of the knife.

But it's one thing to slam a song for a specific reason (For me and the above Ludacris example, I think the start of the song might be one of the worst starts to any song I've ever heard and the Autotuning makes me want to vomit) than to just say it sucks because it sucks.

 

It's not necessarily bad because it's popular, but often, it's not popular because it's good. It may be good, it may not, but its popularity is tied to whether some large media comglomerate chooses to play it on the radio, and whether a record company pushes a record with sufficient enough payola and marketing to get that done.

Most people, by now, know the story of the artist Beck, and how his "Loser" found its way onto a handful of radio stations in SoCal and burst forth from there, converting one indie rock station after another. Could never happen today, because most stations operate on a rigid playlist determined at home office. A handful of people decide what music you hear on the radio. That's it. And their choices aren't based on quality, but cross-marketing potential, concert payola scams, how the songs can get positioned on iTunes, etc.

One of the great recent stories in music is a girl named Sara Bareilles, a gifted acapela singer from UCLA. You may know the song "Love Song," written specifically as a rebuke to her record company who wanted her to write a love song. Ironically...it's the single they were looking for from her and poof! She's a hit.

Another strange pop story...Amerie. Tremendous talent. Had two strong singles, has the looks and...poof! Disappears. Third album wasn't even sold in America.

 

Well, the biz has always been that random. At least it's better than the era portrayed by That Thing You Do. And 20/20 had a great story a few years back about how badly pop artists got ripped off during the 1960s

 

*burning a CD for schiez with nothing on it but "How Low"*