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Youngsters

I'd like to know the average chord count of the top 40 from say 1977 vs 2017.....it must have gone down from maybe an average of 10 to 4.

Music is definitely more than just chords but too many pop artists are getting away with singing a hook over the same chords as what they were using for the verse. Coldplay, Adele...this is the biggest offense. I get why hip hop may not need many.
 
richgilb said:
I'd like to know the average chord count of the top 40 from say 1977 vs 2017.....it must have gone down from maybe an average of 10 to 4.

Music is definitely more than just chords but too many pop artists are getting away with singing a hook over the same chords as what they were using for the verse. Coldplay, Adele...this is the biggest offense. I get why hip hop may not need many.
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If you're complaining about the quality of pop music, you're missing the point of pop music.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
"Old" has got nothing to do with it!! More a case of I have no time for those who would say that Duke Ellington, Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Bach could be put with Jay Z, rockstar (feat. 21 Savage), Selena Gomez Feat. Marshmello, Havana (feat. Young Thug) and that all are equally valid musical compositions and performances!

Those liking the first list have good taste whilst those liking the second list have undeveloped, child like taste.
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Just on this point, your earlier rant (points of which I can empathise with) specifically criticised the limitations of songs reliant on chords of C, G and A. I don't know if you meant F rather than A, but no matter. The Beatles (mentioned in your 'good' list) were also heavily reliant on those 3 chords (tonic, subdominant and dominant, in whatever key), as is all 12 bar blues. As, for that matter, is a very significant chunk of Mozart, Haydn and much of the rest of the classical era's output. It's not what you've got, but what you do with it that counts.

That said, I think a lot of modern pop sounds like it was written by a team working to a formula, rather than the work of a talented songwriter, so on that, we do agree.
 
I really don’t like a lot of modern chart music but then my parents didn’t/don’t like Prodigy, Rage Against The Machine or Nirvana, I loved them and still do.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
"Old" has got nothing to do with it!! More a case of I have no time for those who would say that Duke Ellington, Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Bach could be put with Jay Z, rockstar (feat. 21 Savage), Selena Gomez Feat. Marshmello, Havana (feat. Young Thug) and that all are equally valid musical compositions and performances!

Those liking the first list have good taste whilst those liking the second list have undeveloped, child like taste.
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Your reply, in itself has an old perspective.
Your comparisons are not logical.

Bloss
 
blossomchris said:
Your reply, in itself has an old perspective.
Your comparisons are not logical.

Bloss
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Musical tastes are formed in the mid-late teens. Some people just get stuck there and expect prog rock to make a come back. Just like their parents couldn't get the Beatles or the Stones and wanted big bands to become fashionable again.
 
gassor said:
Musical tastes are formed in the mid-late teens. Some people just get stuck there and expect prog rock to make a come back. Just like their parents couldn't get the Beatles or the Stones and wanted big bands to become fashionable again.
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Yes, that’s what I was alluding to above. I like a lot of music from long before I was born but than that was there already when I was in my teens. I’ve got progressively less interested in chart music since my teens.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
I'd hate to see the moronic masses OD on their opiates... and far less to hear it!

Peace and Love.
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You are not obilged to look or to listen and nothing you think has any impact on anyone else. As to your valediction, why not practise that, life would be easier and less stressful.
 
Nothing to do with age. If something good comes into the charts I like it, Royals by Lorde and Tilted by Christine and the queens are about the two most recent things I thought were really good. The vast majority is manufactured pop pap to whatever formula is selling that week and has no musical or artistic merit whatsoever.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Nothing to do with age. If something good comes into the charts I like it ....
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Talking about the charts as if they were something tangible belongs to pop history. There are so many charts nowadays that I don't think anyone can say what is in the charts anymore.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
"Old" has got nothing to do with it!! More a case of I have no time for those who would say that Duke Ellington, Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Bach could be put with Jay Z, rockstar (feat. 21 Savage), Selena Gomez Feat. Marshmello, Havana (feat. Young Thug) and that all are equally valid musical compositions and performances!

Those liking the first list have good taste whilst those liking the second list have undeveloped, child like taste.
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Glad to see Frank Sinatra there, the (co-) writer of the lyrics of a whole seven songs! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Frank_Sinatra
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Nothing to do with age. If something good comes into the charts I like it, Royals by Lorde and Tilted by Christine and the queens are about the two most recent things I thought were really good. The vast majority is manufactured pop pap to whatever formula is selling that week and has no musical or artistic merit whatsoever.
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True but that's always been the case.

If you watch the repeats of Top of the Pops from the "golden era" of Punk, for example, you'll see there was an awful lot of shite in the charts - not exactly "manufactured pop" as we know it today but a mixture of terrible pub singers and club acts who got lucky, tacky novelty songs, and sentimental tripe.

There was no golden age of pop music.
 
Seeker_UK said:
If you're complaining about the quality of pop music, you're missing the point of pop music.
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No, it's lazy songwriting. How often do you hear VI, IV,I,V - everywhere, not just the charts - film music too. Other sequences of four chords are available...Sequences of more than four chords are too.
And why not complain about it? Ok as drood says there was a lot of manufactured acts in the old days - Chinn and Chapman, anyone? But re-examined, even they often had an adventurousness of structure lacking in some of todays churn.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Just on this point, your earlier rant (points of which I can empathise with) specifically criticised the limitations of songs reliant on chords of C, G and A. I don't know if you meant F rather than A, but no matter. The Beatles (mentioned in your 'good' list) were also heavily reliant on those 3 chords (tonic, subdominant and dominant, in whatever key), as is all 12 bar blues. As, for that matter, is a very significant chunk of Mozart, Haydn and much of the rest of the classical era's output. It's not what you've got, but what you do with it that counts.

That said, I think a lot of modern pop sounds like it was written by a team working to a formula, rather than the work of a talented songwriter, so on that, we do agree.
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Actually the Beatles were extraordinarily harmonically adventurous. Watch the Howard Goodall program, or if you play, try playing through some of their stuff. Particularly the later songs. But even the early ones have unexpected progressions.
 
ff1d1l said:
No, it's lazy songwriting. How often do you hear VI, IV,I,V - everywhere, not just the charts - film music too. Other sequences of four chords are available...Sequences of more than four chords are too.
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And you're missing the point too. It's meant to be disposable, consumer pap. It doesn't matter if it's one chord with 'moon, June, spoon' lyrics, if lots of people like it and buy it, it's doing its job properly.

ff1d1l said:
And why not complain about it?
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I don't have an issue with complaining or criticism - it's all part of a valid discussion (which is why we're here as well as the chance of a text-based dust-up). What I have a problem with is people who struggle with the concept of opinion vs fact or are using it hide that they are trolling for sh*ts and grins.

ff1d1l said:
Ok as drood says there was a lot of manufactured acts in the old days - Chinn and Chapman, anyone? But re-examined, even they often had an adventurousness of structure lacking in some of todays churn.
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If you, like me, enjoyed the charts from 1969-1985, then we were spoiled with 'serious' artists making the charts along with manufactured pop artists but that was an aberration and eventually went back to the whole 'Tin Pan Alley' structure.

Anyway, ignore all of that because the charts are an irrelevance. You can find much more interesting and satisfying music out there than anything you'll hear on BBC or commercial radio.
 
Seeker_UK said:
. It's meant to be disposable, consumer pap.
.
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Says who?

Actually, surely records which lots of people enjoy enough to buy. No judgement as to quality of material or customer is implied. Some great stuff charted, also some not so great. But it all sold enough records....
 
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