"Songs..." Elton John

[sufi]

Sir Elton John expressed his disappointment with the lack of actual writing in modern pop songs in a recent interview with BBC Radio 6 Music.
COS:

"[Father John Misty] reminds me a little bit of me, the way he writes songs," he praised, adding, "Conan [Gray's] from America and he's the only person in the American Spotify Top 50 to actually write the song without anybody else." John was referring to "Heather", a track currently sitting at No. 12 on the US Top 50 Spotify chart — below three Juice WRLD songs, BTS' "Dynamite", and reigning champ "WAP" from Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

John continued, "Everybody else there's four or five writers on (a track). You look at most of the records in the charts — they're not real songs. They're bits and pieces and it's nice to hear someone write a proper song." And John's right; none of those songs is credited to fewer than two songwriters, save for Gray's. (To be fair, Juice WRLD's Marshmello collab "Come & Go" is credited to only those two artists.)

He went on to suggest pop music now is churned out for unsophisticated listeners and mass consumption. "I like people who write songs. And there's plenty of people that do, but a lot of them don't get played on the radio because they're too sophisticated and we get songs made by a computer all the time and I'm not interested in that," he concluded.

P.S. Fifty years ago this week Elton played The Troubadour.

He is defining "Songs" in a particular way, but i suppose i can see what he's getting at,
athough (i don't know any of the songs they refer to ) i reckon, he's on about a more conventional shape of song, verses and chorus and so on,i heard the pixies say that they'd start with the chorus and end with the intro, but i don't think much pop diverts really far from the standard model anyway


quite apart from his point about authoring by committee, is that controversial, was things any better in his day whenever that was supposed to be?

 

[sufi]

boringest thread ever

 

[Leo]

few descriptors prompt me to keep moving than "singer/songwriter".

that said, I love a good pop song. nick Lowe elevated himself above the pub rock fray with pure pop for now people, in every sense. Robyn Hitchcock added a heavy dose of pop to his weirdness. one thing that made nirvana stand out, aside from the great riffs, was kobain's knack for burying great pop songs under all the grunge.

 

[boxedjoy]

aren't all the big Elton songs written by Bernie Taupin?

 

[sus]

the present age is the Great Unbundling

split it apart, break the composite pieces up factory-line-like

"efficiency, efficiency they say... As the crowds begin complaining..." well

 

[sus]

Why is technology so often at odds with the sacred? In other words, why does everyone get so mad about technological change? We humans are irrational and fearful creatures, but I don’t think it’s just that. Technological advances, by their nature, tear the world apart. They carve a piece away from the existing order – de-condensing, abstracting, unbundling – and all the previous dependencies collapse. The world must then heal itself around this rupture, to form a new order and wholeness. To fear disruption is completely reasonable.

 

[sus]

Unbundling – Elements formerly only available as part of a unitary object are now sold separately, like nutritional supplements instead of food. Those who only want the competence porn aspect of science fiction (without, say, the romance or character development) can get it from The Martian.

 

[luka]

What is competence porn? I had to stop making coffee for a living when all the shOps started insisting you weigh every shot, wet and dry and time it too.

 

[sus]

that's stupid, that's LARPing competence

 

[sus]

real competence would be a customer comes in, you size up their tiredness/body mass, and eyeball out exactly how much caffeine they want -- all without even thinking about it consciously

 

[sus]

competence porn is like that scene in Apollo 13 with the engineers

 

[luka]

Pseudo-science plus a stupid basic belief in the perfect way to do something/consistency

 

[Corpsey]

The Song Machine is all about this. I've banged on about it here before.