Thursday, December 4, 2008.

ok breaking apart from my past (x) posts on blogging on events, i have decided to do a little de-stresser ahead of my jlpt 2 (which i will fail anyway.).

constructive criticism always welcome, and NOTE: this is in no way insulting the genre of pop music, merely stating its flaws. hope you give some comments on this post.

a discourse on pop music.

I guess many of the readers of this blog (not much, it seems) would know that the owner of this blog has a, should I say, very intriguing selection of music he listens to. Refer to the right, and you'll see weird names like prokofiev, mahler, whom you perhaps may never have heard of (or do I underestimate my audience?)

I am here not to label everyone else as mad and crazy and that I am the only correct person and that you should all convert to classical-music-ism (do I look Stalinish? =.=). Rather, I am here to defend my reasons for not listening to pop music, and give reasons (not rubbishy ones I hope) for my very intriguing selection of music.

I am a very logical person (sometimes my brain breaks down too, so I am very crazy at times), so I decide on everything after thinking it through carefully. So, if you ever get the (mis)fortune of going out shopping (CDs duh. what else? besides the chem textbooks.) with me, be prepared to kiss goodbye to like, at least 2 hours of your time.

That's why I decided on classical music.

OK to cut the long story short, I was an avid fan of pop music in my early Secondary School days. I remember vividly listening to some Jay Chou piece in Sec 1 and spamming it repeatedly on Youtube (dunno why I never bought one of those albums), and one piece I remember now was Linkin Park's Numb (correct me if I am wrong, because my RAM has been filled with Japanese.)

So, I was as normal as most people are.

I shall continue to shame myself more by announcing to the world that I never cared much for classical music in Sec 1 and 2. It seemed very natural to me then that I would take Japanese (AND STUDY LIKE CRAZY FOR A TEST THIS SUNDAY AND WASTE S$47 SINCE I AM GOING TO FAIL ANYWAY.) over music, but now even that ant crawling over the Mahler score I borrowed weeks ago can even tell that it isn't very natural a decision to make. I didn't know the difference between a symphony and a concerto then (I KNOW I'M DISGRACEFUL. anyway I still can't tell the difference between rachmaninoff's symphony 2 and piano concerto 2, other than the fact that they all sound equally beautiful.)

So, in short, I never cared a hoot about classical music then.

ouch.

Back to topic.

Anyway, now I am, with 20:20:31:01 play time on my iTunes, ALL classical. To be honest, I have not yet given up on pop music, and occasionally I do listen to some (as I would call it, forced listening), especially the ones with a certain meaning to the lyrics (which are mainly absent from classical music). So I do remember stuff like Graduation Day (who doesn't?) and some pop here and there, like Bleeding Love (is it? paiseh.)

Just that unlike many others, I have no copy of pop music in any format at all.

Why?

Maybe before I start, I should give a proper background to pop music. Pop music is perhaps the widest-selling music ever, featuring songs (voice + accompaniment which ranges, mainly piano/drumset/guitars) that are usually less than 10 minutes long, which usually has words which concern themselves with romance and feelings. Stemming in America during the 1940s, it is a genre rooted in rock-n-roll, and features an intro-verse-chorus-verse (with different words)-chorus-verse/chorus-outro format.

Its main purpose is to sell well, meaning catchy tunes, lyrics and rythmns (sometimes) are vital to the success of it. Most importantly, it is POPular, meaning that it reaches out to the masses. It eschews musical form and structure, meaning that it is very basic in style and there is little concern to aesthetics.

That's WHAT I don't like about pop music.

Often, people listen to music repeatedly (I'm very sure everyone here has a song in their iTunes that he/she has listened to at least 10 times). I myself am guilty of this (actually it's not something to be guilty about), seeing as my previous iTunes (before the hard disk disaster) had as #1 Brahms' Symphony #4 1st movement, THE Klieber recording, listened to >90 times if I'm not wrong (90 times for a piece that is 12 minutes long just means I'm mad =D).

Everytime I listen to a piece again I usually get new insights. The recent YO concert allowed me to hear Appalachian Spring once more, and I heard something very different from the version that I heard many times (and mind you the version I have is conducted by the composer.). That's the power of classical music that is obviously lacking in pop music. As many people have said before, pieces like Bach's Chaconne (from Partita no.2 in D Minor) can be heard so many times, yet every single time you listen to it you hear something new!

That's clearly something that pop music lacks. The lack of musical form and genius in pop music really warrants for less listening, simply because it wears off you. Yet many classical music pieces can be heard for millions of times and yet you never tire of it, simply because each listening is a discovery.

Another thing I can't stand personally, is the lack of innovation in pop music. Pop music keeps on using the same freaking harmonic progression (or at least very similar), just cause it sounds good. Confess, I'm pretty sure at least 1 or 2 top hits this year alone had a chord progression that reminds you of Pachabel right?

Yeah try hearing that same I V VI III IV I IV V chord progression anywhere in Mahler. Find it, and I'll pay you millions.

(maybe not.)

But you get the idea. Where is the Stravinsky in pop music? Where is the Wagner in pop music? Where is the Schoenberg in pop music? I hear no rhythmic inventions, no 3/16 5/16 2/16 bars unlike Le Sacre, there is no chromaticism (refer to bar 2, TWO, of Wagner's Tristan Prelude), there is simply little toying around with the whole idea of music! Where is 4' 33''? Where is Einstein at The Beach? There is really, A WHOLE LOAD OF REPETITION and no invention at all in pop music!

To be honest, a bit of a bad thing isn't really that bad, I acknowledge. But for me, I have chosen to not listen to pop music, and unless one can reply this with a convincing argument that can change me, it's more and more classical here.

Anyway, just a reminder. I am not against any other form of music per se, it's just that I am against pop. That's all. I don't mind jazz, blues, country, even heavy metal, because they all have more substance than pop. WAY MORE.

(Just that they don't fit me.)

Labels: Music