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Poor songs that only get airplay because the band or singer is popular

 
 
 
repoman

repoman

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Today I was forced to listen to Adele's newest song anf i thought it was terrible. I like a lot of her stuff especially the Skyfall theme song.

Anyone here have songs they think qualify for this thread?
 
repoman said:
Today I was forced to listen to Adele's newest song...
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Did someone hold you down and make you listen, or were the buttons on the radio out of reach?


I kid...I kid.


Truth is a lot of follow-up singles are not that great. Even artists with multiple hits under their belt put out stinkers from time to time, because consistently putting out good songs is hard.


And if that radio station you were forced to listen to played the last Adele song, when she releases something new they kinda have to give it a shot. If it really is terrible, then it will go away soon.



As for specific examples...I've got too many to mention...but I'll throw Garth Brooks' "Chris Gaines" project out there. The album is actually not terrible. In fact some of the songs are quite good...but it wasn't Garth Brooks music. We played it, because we were a country station and it was Garth, but it didn't go over well at all.
 
Regression to the mean. Any extremely good song that makes an artist highly popular is likely to be followed by numerous far less good songs, and probably none ever as good as their first hit.
It's for the same reason that an athlete's most amazing historic game is likely to never be repeated by them. There are lots of random factors responsible for that outlier exceptional song or performance that are not really under the person's control.

Unfortunately, that one great songs leads many listeners become "fans" of the artist who are now biased in their feelings about the artists future mediocre work, so they buy it and the radio stations play mostly what is selling, plus the artist now has a big powerful label behind them coercing the stations to play their new stuff.

Basically, a great song puts many commercial factors in play that push their future work even when it sucks, and it almost certainly is going to suck, by comparison, because extreme quality is a fluke partly created by random variables.
 
Ford said:
Truth is a lot of follow-up singles are not that great. Even artists with multiple hits under their belt put out stinkers from time to time, because consistently putting out good songs is hard.
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That's very true. The first hit single may be great, the rest of the album, meh.

It's even harder to come up with a great second album. You hit it big with the first album. the record company sends you out to tour. The tour seems successful. The record company say you now have six months to come up with enough material for a second album. It probably took years to get enough quality songs for that first album. Now you've got six months to do it again, while out on the road touring at the same time.
 
Uptown Funk You Up --- annoying. Otis Redding could put more funk into an opening riff than this overproduced "funk" number.
Honey I'm Good -- beyond annoying, hellish -- I keep picturing a muscular Tennessee girl clog-dancing (badly) to it
Adele - mostly Hello, because I only hear her if it's playing in the Y. Hello, Adele? Yes, the reason we broke up is that you keep hollering in people's faces like a goddamn nut. We're not standing on pyramids hollering to each other over the wasteland. Presumably, you're on the phone to me, so tone it the fuck down, bitch.
 
Uptown Funk You Up

Not so bad, but yeah it is overrated, overproduced and overly market tested. I can't place the songs it is riffing off of.

It would not be out of place in an 80s comedy/action movie for about a minute tops.

oh, and 1.5 Billion views? Talk about lowest common denominator.

Happy by Pharrell only has 800 million views and is way better, or at least more original in its structure.
 
repoman said:
Uptown Funk You Up
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For me, Bruno Mars is one of the bright spots in pop music.


As far as over produced, I had an interesting conversation with a DJ I know just last week. He produces an 80s mix show, and said that 80s and older music is actually harder to mix than today's pop and electronic music, because of the prevalence of live drummers. They kept the beat, but not to the robotic precision available nowadays.

The problem with "Uptown Funk" isn't that it is over-produced, but that it lacks that slightly wandering beat that was present in actual funk.
 
I don't know why it gets play. The words are vague and the riffs are weak. The song is not about Revelations 12:9. People put to much thought into that one. I always thought impurity was on his mind when he wrote Holy Diver. There are endless ways to interpret the words, which isn't an uncool thing. RIP RJD .
 
Dude they never stop playing Holy Diver. I hear it on the radio at least once a week, and only a few hours of my week are spent using a radio. Why can't they play some stuff from the Sacred Heart album? Dream Evil album? They play Rainbow in the Dark too much, but at least that is a tolerable song.

My Dad got me the Dream Evil record the day I turned 12. Before that was the Sacred Heart album. Before that was Mob Rules. Kids aren't exposed to Dio songs in the right order. Holy Diver should never be first. Last in Line should never be first. Do you shovel steaming chunks of ravioli into your toddler's mouth? No, you blow on it first. You cut it into pieces and act like you care what you put into your toddler's body. Radio people should be the same way with Dio Songs, and they should treat public ears like the delicate mouth of a toddler. People don't know how to interpret Holy Diver if they haven't heard his basic stuff. Just Another Day is an intermediate song. Start them with that, then move on to Wild One. Once they understand Wild One, they may be able to appreciate Holy Diver.

Reading decreases intelligence, so keep it to a minimum, but you should read the RJD autobiography. Also, there are some good lyric perspectives in Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality.
 
I don't quite get Adele. She is a woman pretending to be a guy pretending to be a woman.

Wait... I think I may be getting things mixed up here.

But honestly, how many more AC-DC songs are played because of their legitimate hits?
 
I work at a retail store. My perception of hit music is totally skewed because they keep playing the same things over and over again, and it's usually music that peaked a year ago. I don't know what the modern hits are, but I'm pretty tired of last year's hits. I would say that Taylor Swift's music grows old the fastest though. If that's an indication of it being overrated, then I guess it is.
 
ZiprHead said:
Deepak said:
I'll admit this one is a guilty pleasure for me, but how much airplay is Dio getting these days?
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Still played a lot on classic rock stations.
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another1 said:
Dude they never stop playing Holy Diver. I hear it on the radio at least once a week, and only a few hours of my week are spent using a radio. Why can't they play some stuff from the Sacred Heart album? Dream Evil album? They play Rainbow in the Dark too much, but at least that is a tolerable song.

My Dad got me the Dream Evil record the day I turned 12. Before that was the Sacred Heart album. Before that was Mob Rules. Kids aren't exposed to Dio songs in the right order. Holy Diver should never be first. Last in Line should never be first. Do you shovel steaming chunks of ravioli into your toddler's mouth? No, you blow on it first. You cut it into pieces and act like you care what you put into your toddler's body. Radio people should be the same way with Dio Songs, and they should treat public ears like the delicate mouth of a toddler. People don't know how to interpret Holy Diver if they haven't heard his basic stuff. Just Another Day is an intermediate song. Start them with that, then move on to Wild One. Once they understand Wild One, they may be able to appreciate Holy Diver.

Reading decreases intelligence, so keep it to a minimum, but you should read the RJD autobiography. Also, there are some good lyric perspectives in Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality.
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So the reference pool out my way is much smaller - I don't think I've heard any Dio (or Dio-Sabbath) on the radio in about a decade in MA.
 
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