Yeah, yeah, yeah...nice Jewish girls and who gives a shit.
Seriously -- the album that's from (I Quit, or as I like to refer to it, If Only) is making a lot of critics Best-Of lists for 2025, and given that I've never mentioned these kids here before, I just gotta say, and for the record, that I totally don't get it. Bloodless, soulless, too cute for words MOR without a single element of interest, either vocally or instrumentally.
Of course, I feel pretty much the same about most of the rest of current/contemporary commercially successful pop, but even so...😎
Hey -- wait a minute. That's obviously a subject for this weekend's business. To wit:
Most current/contemporary commercially successful pop music -- yay or nay? Your thoughts.
Discuss.
Now granted, the above may seem like critical laziness on my part, but swear to god I've been meaning to ask y'all about that for what seems like ages. And in case you haven't guessed, my feeling is that most of today's music is by and large the crappiest it's ever been in my lifetime. Or at least since the pre-rock early Fifties. I mean, like "How much is that doggie in the window" crappy.
In any case, I should add that I'm enforcing no arbitrary rules here, although I must emphasize the whole "commercially successful" parameter. Which is to say we're talking Taylor Swift-adjacent or nearby, sales-wise; some obscure indie not-even-a-cult act that nobody but you has ever heard of should not enter into the discussion. 😎😎
Alrighty then -- what would YOUR opinion be on this weighty topic?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
21 comments:
I dislike most current pop music. Dislike is maybe too strong. I mostly don't care. The biggest problem for me is the manufacturing of music using drum programming instead of a drummer, synth programming instead of a keyboard player, synth bass, it all sounds so artificial. What does real sound like? The Faces, but that was 50 years ago. Too many of the better (real) bands today are doing some form of aggressive, punk-like music, which I'm also not that crazy about. Then there are the power pop bands that make good, relatively retro sounds that I like, but, most of those are not big sellers. Haim and Wet Leg are both pop/rock and successful, and to me sound like the older style music that I like updated a bit to the present day. And both bands sound like people making music, not computers. And the lyrics don't sound like they were written by a 15 year-old girl. That's why Haim and Wet Leg both made my top ten. Catchy melodies, harmonies, guitar based, a touch of humor. You love the D'Addarrios but this pop is crap? I'm not sure that makes sense to me.
https://kleaveburg.blogspot.com/2025/12/best-of-2025.html
Wet Leg? Oy gevalt. 😎
So little new pop enters my life I am not qualified to discuss it. I'm just an old guy now with hundreds of albums and CDs. My Mac Music app is on shuffle, so it's like having my own free form radio station.
That said, as has been discussed her before, does every new band that gets on SNL really suck as bad as it seems, or do I just notice the awful ones?
The only time I hear commercial pop is in the gym or the barbershop. It's all so bland and faceless that it goes in one ear and out the other. This applies to the last 50 years. Is Haim really any different than Bread or The Village People, for example?
- Paul in DK
I try not to flame, and I love your blog, but...Oh get over yourself.
When I talk to people my age and older about the current state of pop music, they always seem to apologize for liking something. "Sorry, but Haim is pretty good." "You know, I kinda like Sabrina Carpenter, sorry."
The difference between what the D'Addarios do and what Haim does is like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing one.
The Lemon Twigs have taken this music that we still rave about--Brian Wilson, John & Paul, Burt Bacharach, Raspberries, Big Star, etc., and created something fresh. I hear all that I love in the Twigs music and never feel like it's a pastiche. Haim's melodies go nowhere. That melody of the song you posted is two or three notes, like most current pop music. You can't say that about the D'Addarios.
Pop music is so god-awful these days, Haim sounds like The Beatles by comparison.
Ouch. Ganged up on by my two favorite bloggers. I must be wrong.😀
And this is different from Billy Squier's career-killing video in what way?
Just having this conversation with my octogenarian father last night. Modern pop music doesn't suck, nor really offend. It's yet one more contemporary commodity simply jammed down our throats like every other dispensable product. Simply, cans of beans on the shelves at Costco.
As we are moving through this neo-classical era in many realms of music (pop, rock, especially), I'm still waiting for a new artist that really hits me. That said, as Sal does, I love the Lemon Twigs. I think Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes is the greatest lyric writer of his generation. I've been digging Neal Francis and Weyes Blood and many others. That said, we are truly in a nadir in pop music just like we are in commercial television and most motion pictures.
For me what it comes down to is by my definition and perception today’s music has no soul, no feeling.
I like Haim but their music is soulless. I feel the same about The Lemon Twigs. Their hearts are in the right place but their souls are lacking in passion.
Captain Al
Dude -- I don't take any of this stuff personally. We're supposed to be having a good time here. And I like to think I have a sense of humor. 😎
And the New Yorker cartoons. None of them are remotely funny anymore except the ones by Roz Chast. I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm not. 😎
Think again, Steve. ;)
Chast, as always, is top-shelf. But so are Jason Adam Katzenstein and Edward Steed (the new Sam Gross).
I still haven't cared for any D'Addario stuff enough to actually own it, but even I recognize that there's much more going on there than there is in what passes for pop these days, or t least what I've heard in the times I'm exposed to it. I'm with Simels on Wet Leg -- if I heard it without knowing I was 'supposed' to like it because they're considered a notch up from their contemporaries, I'd thing it on the same level as those contemporaries, albeit a little edgier. But I think Cleveland Jeff is also onto something, altho I'm not exactly aligned; synths and such were used decades ago to make compelling music, so it's maybe not so much the instrumentation, as the sterile, make-it-sound-exactly-like-the-last-million-seller production/arrangement/'music' that makes today's pop so woeful. Also, to respond to getawaygoober and Paul in DK, at least Billy Squier -- sight (video) unseen -- was plying a catchy song with actual dynamics for that video, and the thing that seems to escape folks comparing previous radio fodder to today's is that the form was still growing back then, so even pop-oriented dreck had a better shot at being interesting than it does after the 70(!) years of development that rock/pop's now had. I'm no particular fan of the Village People, for instance, but 'YMCA' is as catchy a sing-along as I can imagine -- with real instruments and such to boot! -- and I'm not getting that dynamic from what I've heard in the same arena for the last few decades. There've been exceptions, but I've maintained for years that the 80s were the last decade of great pop singles, and, in fact, is when I started buying singles, after having been a long-time (and still am!) album-buyer/consumer.
C in California
Roz Chast...🎄💌. 😉
I really didn’t mean to be rude, and I appreciate your humor. In the end these are opinions and taste. Cleveland Jeff
Listening to their latest. Saw this assumed u would be praising:) I think quite fun.
Current commercially-successful pop? NAY.
Haim don't cut it for me either. The backing on this track is quite hooky, but the leads are slick and shallow. So much for what sells.
I'm surprised that Steve cares little for Wet Leg. They have a distinct style and energy, the band is as tight as can be, the tunes are memorable.
Like Wet Leg, my favorite acts these days are overseas bands led by two women. Dea Matrona (N. Ireland), Hinds (Spain), NOBRO (Canada), Pacifica (Argentina). They are the keepers of the flame, but unlikely to break America.
I can understand that the Twigs are little too wimpy for some people's tastes, although I think they're getting less so as they get older. And I shouldn't have to add that hey -- despite the name of this blog, it's not the only kind of pop music that I like. 😎
No, they're all horrible. 😎
Post a Comment