«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

How about a protest song for the 2020s, folks

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sER0FzJO-c0&pp=ygUNQ2hhdCBQaWxlIHdoeQ%3D%3D

If Bob Dylan were 25 he might sound like this

I don't know Rick Beato and I'm too lazy to look it up.​​​​​

I just never could get enough of Alice Cooper's lyrics.

Let it be known that Alice Cooper is a misunderstood musical genius. 

JK!! Sort of

Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est

[...] on a similar level of artistry [...] as did the songs of Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Elton John/BT

Ah yes, Elton John knew lyrical brilliance

You out of town guys sure think you're real keen
Think all of us boys are homespun and green
But that's wrong my friend so get this through your head
We're tough and we're Texan with necks good and red

So it's Ki yi yippie yi yi
You long hairs are sure gonna die
Our American home was clean till you came
And kids still respected the president's name

And the eagle still flew in the sky
Hearts filled with national pride
Then you came along with your drug-crazy songs
Goddamit you're all gonna die

@mahgister your mention of Léo Ferré suggests an appreciation for French

DJ Solaar and Serge Gainsbourg both penned some serious wordsmithing in that language and, of course, legend Jacques Brel

So the gist of this thread appears to be that a Steely Dan-loving YouTuber decreed that "Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad".

This is such a laughably stupid statement that it was soon amended to "maybe there are good lyricists working today, but they're obscure, they don't sell, and they're all 40 or 60 anyway, while the young ones who sell out arenas all suck".

Billie Eilish is not my cuppa, don't worry. But to be fair, her lyrics are more than passable, her music perfectly serviceable, and at 23 she's more successful than all the nostalgia acts mentioned in this thread put together.

I [...] mostly treat the vocals as another instrument.

I also like music that have vocals in languages I don’t understand

@oberoniaomnia is making an excellent point about the relative importance of lyrics.

I grew up listening to music in a language I did not understand, so I too treated the voice as an instrument. Those voices conveyed feeling and emotion, but about what? I did not know, and that was okay.

Later, I discovered that songs I really liked actually had embarrassing lyrics and I had to stop liking them, and the other way around.

To this day, I enjoy listening to music in languages in which I am not fluent or that I don’t understand at all.

I like darkwave too, and I don’t know why darkwave artists insist on singing. A good example is Hante., her lyrics are terrible (she writes in English, a language she obviously does not know well) and her voice is awful, but she’s a fabulous DJ. If only she kept her music instrumental.

@oberoniaomnia 

I actually saw Nena on stage at the Roxy or the Whisky a Go Go, can't remember which. She was great. Thanks for dredging up that memory :)

Being into darkwave and from Germany, I am sure you already know and maybe enjoy Bohren und der Club of Gore. A forum member here turned me on to them recently, and I've been listening (almost) nonstop. No lyrics and none necessary, the music is enough.

@oberoniaomnia 

"Bohren und der Club of Gore" is the name of one band, sorry

I'm familiar with Rue Oberkampf, I'll check out the others. Thanks!

Try this..... "She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger" Purple Mountains

I like it... Kind of reminds me of Michael Chapman

The Beato cry was about the decreasing lyrical poetics content quality in popular chart...

Not about genres, not about tastes, not about nostalgia...

But it ask too much for people to think about why this phenomenon even exist

Fair enough, allow me to take a stab or two

1. As has been pointed out previously, the zeitgest has moved on (can we say reversed itself). The 60s / 70s were a time of youth, newness, daring and creativity. You were not to trust anyone over 30. Heck, you were not to be over 30.

In the present era risk management reigns supreme, and what's safer than proven sellers?.Hence New Beetle, New Mustang, 80-year-old rockers selling out arenas all decked out in ADA ramps, the Marvel Universe, Mission Impossible 12, McIntosh amps, whatever.

This arc moves in unison with the XXL-sized boomer demographic passing through the boa constrictor of time.

2. What was once culture is now known as entertainment, and Internet has made possible its present, extreme granularity. This is rather a good thing in some ways: without Internet, many of us would have never known many of our favorite musical artists, and with the Internet there is no way that talentless British bands could ever turn the wholesale appropriation of Black folks' music into billion-dollar careers. If the Rolling Stones came up today, they would hustle to book gigs in half-empty taverns.

The downside is that a shared culture and a common language have been lost. Whether you loved the Stones or laughed at them, you knew them. Were you a rocker or a mod? Stones or Beatles? It's probably safe to say there is no equivalent today. Not that we ran out of reasons to fight each other, but that's a different conversation.

@mahgister

That beato character appears to be a bit controversial. Perhaps some folks reacted to him rather than to the questions you posed, which are very good questions indeed.

Can anyone reasonably argue that today's young songwriters are putting out music with lyrics comparable to those songs?

Any 20 year old will be happy to make the case that today's young songwriters are putting out music with lyrics not only comparable to but better, more resonant, and far more relevant than those songs.

Are folks here too dumb to use ChatGPT ourselves if we wanted to?

?

Whats your point ?

@mahgister 

Apologies for the confusion, my comment was not directed at your post.

For sure there are excellent musicians and brilliant lyrics being made today- but they are not easily accessible.

@yesiam_a_pirate

Did you mean to say they’re not widely known or publicized? Because as far as access, you can get any music online in 5 seconds.

Which brings us to this question: Are an unknown artist’s chances to be discovered on Tik Tok better or worse than they were on radio and TV stations back in "the day"?

And: Do conglomerates churn out torrents of garbage purely out of the evilness of their cold hearts, or are they merely rational economic actors who produce what the buying public demands?

I sincerely wish that I'm wrong and you (@tyray) are right about this, but I have to confess that I'm skeptical.

Not to take sides here, but @tyray is right, definitely so in my experience.

You say you don't see many young people at concerts. Is it possible young people don't frequent the same venues you frequent?

so I say, let's agree to take Greenland by force!

@goodlistening64 

for a sec I thought the AI actually wrote this! hahaha

Jazz is no more only black as in 1930, no more American as in 1960 it is universal music phenomenon

Besides the fact that holding forth on which culture belongs to whom is kind of a hazardous pastime nowadays, it is also misleading.

Take the blues. It was Black folks who graced the world with it; that’s not really open for debate. Neither is the fact that, way back in the hallowed (in this thread at least) 60s and 70s, numerous bands made up of white, skinny, vocational-school dropout British kids with bad teeth appropriated it and "adapted" it into something deemed acceptable by white suburban teenagers and their parents, and became filthy rich doing it.

Is it to say that, just because it was dragged away from its roots, the blues is no longer black music like it was back in the 50s? Has its being appropriated, plundered and exploited by white folks and white record companies somehow whitewashed it into a global musical genre? Sorry I don’t follow