He know better than me. He is a musician and i am not. I dont listen contemporary lyrics anyway, they are not all bad for sure, but what is good enough is few waves in an ocean of bad to worst...
I will never dare to claim it because i am old, not a musician anyway, i listen classical old music and world music and Jazz...
And old very old lyrics from Franco-Flemish school to Léo Ferré and to the genius Bob Dylan Dylan...
Just write what you think about Beato informed opinion...
I like him because he spoke bluntly and is enthusiast musician ...
I listen mostly to darkwave and associated genres. While I can parse the words and the sequence appears to be grammatical (more or less), I can hardly ever figure out what he/she/they mean. Dada? Onomatopoetics? I don't know. I still like the music and mostly treat the vocals as another instrument.
I also like music that have vocals in languages I don't understand (Turkish, Greek, Russian, Polish, ...). Frequently the songs sung in the artists native tongues sound more authentic than when they try English (e.g. Ductape). I am not bothered with not being able to understand the words, occasionally wonder whether I enjoy some rather controversial content; think Rammstein, which I understand as a German native speaker.
I may be a bit lyrically tone-deaf as a hard-core scientist. OTOH I like writing, have 5 books with my name on the spine, and countless scientific papers. So I also have to read a lot, However, "literature" leaves me cold, poetry makes me mad. It is language that I find interesting, and language is there to convey meaning. Otherwise, why bother?
I have asked some musicians to explain their lyrics, but that was not well received. How dare I pose such a question? With Punk at least you know exactly what you get.
@ezwind: You’re looking in the wrong places. Right here on Audiogon posters such as @slaw are making recommendations of great youg(er) artists. Steve has excellent musical taste, and really keeps up with new ones.
I myself can heartily recommend Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings (both heard on Ringo Starr’s album out later this month), two young bluegrass artists. Then there are Jenny Lewis, Tift Merritt, Brennen Leigh, Courtney Barnett, and plenty of other new females. I seem to gravitate to the dames, but here’s a video of Chris Stapleton---a newish Country artist---performing a killer live version of the Rodney Crowell song "Ain’t Living Long Like This". Watch for the guitar solo by Buddy Miller, a solo that epitomizes cool! For contrast I’ll also post a video of Rodney performing the song live with Emmylou Harris (and a stupendous band), another great version.
And while Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch are no spring chickens, they have a couple/few more good decades ahead of them. For more, head over to the No Depression website, the home of Americana music.
I just again listened to Rodney’s version, and was as always left in utter awe at the quality of the music being made. It just don’t get no better!
As for what the future holds, I figure I have about a decade left here on Earth, so it ain’t my problem.
But where are the young Rodney Crowells and Iris DeMents and Buddy Millers? They're all still marvelous songwriters but they're from another era. Who's going to carry on when they're gone? Taylor Swift? Olivia Rodriguez? Ed Sheeran? No thanks.
Rodney Crowell's The Houston Kid is my favorite album so far this century. Buddy Miller is my favorite living musician/producer, Iris DeMent my favorite living songwriter. But there are plenty of others plowing the same field---great songs, great singing, great musicianship. This is in fact a golden age of great music, better imo than the 1960's. Sacrilege!
Maybe people who listen to the radio wouldn’t listen to oldies stations if there was anything better on the new music stations.
Maybe. However, although I don’t listen to the radio much at all these days, going back a few (or even several) years when I did, but still in the 2000s, I remember that I thought that Brandi Carlile and Ryan Bingham and Josh Ritter and Justin Townes Earle were writing some good stuff. I realize that they are probably all in their 40s now (and I think Justin Earle would be in his 40s if he were still alive) but it is 2025 after all, meaning that they were probably in their 20s at the turn of the century.
But still, it’s hard to compete with the likes of ". . . hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on . . .".
An era cannot be defined by his geniuses nor his geniuses can be explained by the era where they are born...
I believe in a synchronisation between the genius and his era...
Bob Dylan was made by his era and he contribute to his era make-off , they were synchronised...
It is well explained by Richard Tarnas in "Cosmos and Psyche" ...
Our era is an era of corporates control to a level never seen in human history, than education, medias, arts, are conditioned at birth and all along to satisfy "the owners" and we are not these owners...
It is no surprize that for the last decades the spirit of the era was the mechanization of the minds...
How can a poet sing against A.I. as Dylan did against vietnam and the Beatles ?
Is there no motives to sing a rebel song now ?
The social fabric has been pulverized to pieces. Protestations are now expressions of divisions and not a union against our masters ...
Music, lyrics, cannot go where our mind did not go... They comply ...
And a cry which cannot be heard is never launched...
A cry can made a beautiful poetical moving lyric if it is not just a refusal cry but a cry of hope too...
I dont see much hope ...
We dont lack geniuses , in music or poetry, we lack the grip on our own destiny and in our social fabric...
There is nowhere in history great works of art without a firm grip by man in his social fabric...
Technocracy is not expression of a firm grip on the social fabric by the people but by very few and not to serve people but their own survival...
Maybe people who listen to the radio wouldn't listen to oldies stations if there was anything better on the new music stations.
In your previous comment you mentioned Lucinda, Timmins, and Earle, but as great as the are they're all in their 60s. I don't think they're the ones we're talking about when we discuss modern songwriters.
"As for the 21st century, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who deserves to be mentioned or compared to any of the above songwriters."
Totally agree. Most of the best songwriters of the 21st century got started in the 20th century. Try to name a dozen great songwriters of today who are under 30,or even 40. I think most would be hard pressed to do so. I can go back to the 1960's > 1980's and just off the top of my head name dozens of songs that have become classics that people still listen to today.
But I can't think of a truly memorable song that will become a classic that was written in the last 20 years by someone who wasn't around before that. As far as the next Dylan, Cohen, Simon, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson....I could go on and on.....there's no modern songwriter under 40 that's even close to that stature. Do a Google search for best songwriters of the 21st century. You'll get some lists and some forum discussions and 90% of the artists named will be in their 40s or older, many much older.
Does this mean there are no decent modern songwriters? Of course not; but they're few and far between and even fewer of them would arguably deserve being called great.
As for the 21st century, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who deserves to be mentioned or compared to any of the above songwriters.
To name some, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams and Michael Timmins have continued to write lyrics in to the 21st Century. I don't listen to the radio much anymore, but I am sure that there are plenty of others.
But maybe you are right. After all, what can compare to such great lyrics like those of The Bird Is The Word?
The 60's & 70's gave us: Walter Becker & Donald Fagen - Leonard Cohen - Ray Davies - Bob Dylan - Joni Mitchell & Al Stewart.
The 80's & 90's gave us: Lloyd Cole - Rodney Crowell - Matt Johnson (The The) - Paddy MacAloon (Prefab Sprout) - Morrissey (Smiths) & Paul Westerberg (Replacements).
As for the 21st century, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who deserves to be mentioned or compared to any of the above songwriters.
Do you know how many concepts are necessary to define rythm in music ?
My point was not against the popular concept of beat or the musical one but against the mechanization of rythm and his simplification by an industry mechanizing our mind...
@mahgister, you’re my guy and you have taught me so much, but I disagree with you on the ’Beat’ thing. The one instrument that someone tried to teach me in a very formal ways were the Drums.
In the same way do you know how many concepts are necessary to define musical time ?
The degradation of musical time in simplistic "beat" is a fact...
Now i attack no genre being "rap" or "heavy metal" or "pop" because there is great music in all these genre...
My point is about an impoverishment across most genres...
By the way rythm is the essence of music and the ground zero of music for reason linked to the gestural body, members and mouth....
my favorite music is African Yoruba speaking drum.....
( my favorite book about theoretical acoustics is written by a master of this instrument )
If we want to understand someone we must understand what he spoke about...
I never intended to speak against rap or beat... ( there is plenty of great poetical texts in rap by the way )
But against their degradation by a process of manufacturation of the product and of the public which exist in almost all genres......
I dont attack musical taste, i claim that music has nothing to do with taste but with education of our taste...
I am not born with taste for some opo artist or for bach or for yoruba drum...
I learned about myself discovering some ...
«My crocodile too had "good" taste»-- Groucho Marx
Where does it say that Rap music doesn’t have Melody or Melodies? The Rap that I’ve had the limited amount of time to listen to not only has melodies but very good musicians backing the artist, whether live or recorded. Key word - artist. Even in rap itself the phrase ’the beat(s)’ is actually a misnomer. In rap a beat is a construct of many different musical components designed to hold a groove. Whether it be a melodic ’love’ rap or a rap dance song, not just a (computer?) driven drum beat.
Although rap is not a favorite of mine I have been fortunate enough to has enjoyed some of the ’club bangers’ as the kids have called them over the years of rappers music with musicsamples of some of the best music ever. I just had to respond to some of the absolutism or is it elitism here.
The disintegration of speech and language depth in lyrics is not a fact about "taste" but about mind conditioning in an uneducated controlled social fabric..
And about vibration(s)? I’ve already made lengthy responses to that subject, here on Audiogon. And Rick Beato, I wholeheartedly agree with you on him, I've responded to him once that I was not in agreement with some of his comments
As a listener, rhythm is extremely important to me. On a wider scale, the contribution that African culture has contributed in this regard to the world (and to my enjoyment of Jazz, Rock and Blues) is unquestionable and profound.
However, for me, rhythm alone is not enough to hold my interest. Melody is even more important. And the colors and shifting tensions and resolutions provided by harmony please my ear enormously. The sophistication of melodic and harmonic elements, coupled with infectious rhythms, is what drew me from Rock into Jazz in the first place.
The fact that Rap is the dominant genre, worldwide; that Rap is relevant; that Rap practitioners have garnered prestigious awards, have no impact on my response to Rap as a listener. There are other genres I find equally unengaging that can boast of their own particular attributes.
As vibration, music acts upon us on a variety of levels/aspects, simultaneously. The left brain is only one of them. If this were not true, then the facts you list regarding Rap would ensure that I enjoyed the genre. Obviously, this is not the case; we also experience music physiologically and emotionally and our tastes are conditioned by still other factors, as well-- some that can be difficult to pin down.
I’ve expressed my fondness for melody, so why don’t I enjoy every genre that has strong melodic content? We may try to justify our subjective preferences with objective rationales and they may hold up to a certain degree, but they do not tell the whole story.
The disintegration of speech and language depth in lyrics is not a fact about "taste" but about mind conditioning in an uneducated controlled social fabric..
I will never agree with such an over simplified statement, as I am an American Father who has raised a very well educated Son, and he is the one who educated me on this so called ’Rap Music’ whom some say it is not music at all and is of no relevancy whatsoever. You need to open your eyes (and ears). Within the last 3 to 6 months this ’kid’ has released about 2 to 3 albums worth of material that has rocked the music industry world, especially with his iconic ’They not like us’. This ’kid’ won a 2018’ Pulitzer Prize for MUSIC, for the song entitled DAMN -
’For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year,’
(The)Recording released on April 14, 2017, a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.
The above statements are good enough for me. Kendrick Lamar has also won grammys and the artist is scheduled to perform at the upcoming Super Bowl on February 3rd 2025, imagine that.
The decline of the poetic content and value of music goes with a simplification of chords, harmony, and the reduction of musical time complexities to a mere beat...
"Beat is not music, it is mind under control using bodies said my training G.I. sergeant; who himself never dance"-- Groucho Marx cool
@mahgister, you’re my guy and you have taught me so much, but I disagree with you on the ’Beat’ thing. The one instrument that someone tried to teach me in a very formal ways were the Drums. The drum(s) has held an still holds too this day a very powerful position in music by holding down the beat. In the continent of Africa, no matter where you lived, or what tribe you came from, the drum (beat) was the most powerful piece of (mass) communication. It was said that when someone played the drum(s) they were ’Evoking The Gods’.
And this MUSICAL tradition has lasted for thousands’ of years. To which has been passed down to many on the North and South American continents and continues, to this day.
Even in ancient (Europe) Rome and Greece, and other European countries/cultures the examples drums were used tomonitor the speed of the oars men and the drum was also used in the Military Application of displacements of fighting mens regiments. Not to mention for the Social and Cultural Impact in Religious and Sacred Ceremonies. Indeed, I have to say the Drum or Beat, is part of the fabric of humanity itself.
In Herman Hesse novel "the Glass bead game" there is a quote about a Chinese emperor ordering the music master to his throne to be punished because of the troubles in the Empire.
In Imperial China in the golden era the link between the harmony in the social fabric and the high state of the music were fundamental...
This is not just an anecdote but pure science or pure experience...
Now put a bad music which appeal to the animal and violent part of men with disintegrating lyrics near water crystallisation process...
Then try it with a christian monk and Buddhist monk prayers...
Analyse the resulting water crystallisations...
Music and audio are not about taste but about our own acoustic and musical education...
Poetry in music is not about mere taste it is also about good harmony and complex musical time...
Then music is not about leisure time merely but about a "felt change in consciousness"...
The disintegration of speech and language depth in lyrics is not a fact about "taste" but about mind conditioning in an uneducated controlled social fabric..
The mastery of language by song writer artist is a strong indicator of their mastery of music too. At least a genius musician can collaborate with a poet...
The decline of the poetic content and value of music goes with a simplification of chords, harmony, and the reduction of musical time complexities to a mere beat...
Music for robot is not a question of taste but a question about the social fabric inducing consumers habits.
Why do you think Joni Mitchell hated Madonna ?
As a work of art hate manufactured product.
" Beat is not music, it is mind under control using bodies said my training G.I. sergeant; who himself never dance"-- Groucho Marx
My son says (and it is the position of his peers) that lyrics don’t matter as much as the beat or the overall feel of the song. Worse, some of the lyrics of the music are disgusting. Music, like everything, goes through cycles. Perhaps one day, pop/popular songs will be lyrics-centric again.
Some qualifiers are needed. While there are great lyrics in some modern songs, the change I notice is in lyrics of the popular / radio play / awarded music when comparing songs from the 60's and 70's to today's music. Lyrics are not given importance today, and honestly, the youth don't seem to care. My son says (and it is the position of his peers) that lyrics don't matter as much as the beat or the overall feel of the song. Worse, some of the lyrics of the music are disgusting. Music, like everything, goes through cycles. Perhaps one day, pop/popular songs will be lyrics-centric again.
This album i posted above of Cosmo Sheldrake is as good poetry than these 2 giants first album...
Wait 30 years and we will see what Cosmo Sheldrake could do...
There is many others i dont know...
My point is popular music nowadays is atrocious not by lack of geniuses in music butby the way the industry manufacture the public itself...and format any talent under his thumb...I will not give name because i dont want to hurt or provoke useless debate...
It is called mind programmation and control...
It is a science...
If someone is not conscious of that he cannot understand anything around him...
@devinplombier, that's a big +1 (or more) for Texas Love Song! (In my opinion, for what little it's worth, that actually was an okay album. And Taupin's lyrics were the reason I followed Elton John back then.)
That was the era convergent complicities, everyone was ready to discover not so much consumate a product... The young generations was educated and very distinct from his fathers... We were lucky...
Yes! ... and every generation has its own vibration -- its own strengths, weaknesses and challenges. And presumably, its own set of preferred resources.
That was the era convergent complicities, everyone was ready to discover not so much consumate a product... The young generations was educated and very distinct from his fathers... We were lucky...
Yes. But they must also be exposed to it! It so happened that in the 60's, 70's record companies saw fit to take on a wide variety of talented and idiosyncratic artists and a good amount of excellent music ended up on the radio. It was there, at the twist of a dial. of course, there was still plenty of music that was not so easily accessible. Luckily I had friends with large record collections who knew much more about music than I did. I was "initiated" into the good stuff. But that was back when many more people had systems and owned records. With no internet, music was a primary form of entertainment.
The truth is the public also must be talented and educated...No musician nevermind his genius can win over smartphone swift consumers pop with non sensical words...
Yes. But they must also be exposed to it! It so happened that in the 60's, 70's record companies saw fit to take on a wide variety of talented and idiosyncratic artists and a good amount of excellent music ended up on the radio. It was there, at the twist of a dial. of course, there was still plenty of music that was not so easily accessible. Luckily I had friends with large record collections who knew much more about music than I did. I was "initiated" into the good stuff. But that was back when many more people had systems and owned records. With no internet, music was a primary form of entertainment.
The musicians of today so talented they are answer to their potential customer...
The level of "poetry" in a lyric cannot be fake and cannot be judged by his popularity... At all ...And it is not related to musical ability...
Add to this lyric any music good or bad it will not change the content and form value...
I cannot listen more than one time a lyric with no deep or beautiful and moving content...
I listen casually pop music in my car and i am retired then i am cut from the pop chart but most of what i listened too in the last 20 years did not move me a lot...
The last time a pop artist move me it was Bob Dylan at 80 years old...
And it is not by nostalgia but by his genius...
The truth is the public also must be talented and educated...No musician nevermind his genius can win over smartphone swift consumers pop with non sensical words...
There is a science behind creating a product for immediate consumation...
There is no science to create a spiritual moving event....
There is many geniuses artist today as much as there was 60 years ago but i am pretty sure they dont play often on the top of the chart... They surf for survival...
Great artists emerge in specific era not only because of their talent but supported by a waiting and prepared public...
I am not sure that Miles Davis would easily became a myth today as it was 80 years ago in a prepared environment ready for the trumpet Messiah he was...
Perhaps i am wrong i will wait for frogman informed opinion,....
Totally agree @stuartk. As far as I know, Beato is completely oblivious to the likes of Rodney Crowell, Buddy and Julie Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Mary Gauthier, and hundreds of other superior current artists. It wasn’t that long ago that Lucinda Williams won the Grammy for her Car Wheels On A Gravel Road album. And it sold very well.
[...] 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
He is not saying that there are no good lyrics being written today. He acknowledges that there are. He is saying that today there are few songs with good lyrics relative to their popularity (number of listens).
OK. My bad, then. I guess, if I think about it, what I’m actually frustrated with is his stubbornly unvarying focus upon popular music -- not Popular, as opposed to Classical or Jazz - but what happens to be most liked by a majority of listeners. Is he unaware that some very fine artists do not have mass appeal? Is it that a majority of his followers are only aware of what’s in the top ten in any given year and don’t care about anything else? I’m struggling here.
If he’s going to feature Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald why not also talk about Richard Thompson and John Martyn? I don’t get it. I’m not saying Richard Thompson and John Martyn are better than Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald. I’m just saying I wish Beato would opt to also discuss artists who are less well known.
As a kid, when we were driving around my father would make the same argument about how stupid is the music playing on the radio. When he started up on that, I would start to sing "Three little fishies in an itty bitty pool. Three little fishies and a momma fishy too.. ." There are silly/dumb songs from any given time and cherry picking good and bad songs for comparison proves nothing.
As a young adult, I was wandering around aimlessly. Then, the message from The Beatles -- Come Together added clearity and purpose to my life. I've enjoyed a long and prosperous carerer in underground ballon navigation, and never looked back.
That may be, and I don’t disagree, But the issue here is not Steely Dan’s lyrics per se. Nonetheless, an argument could be made that their lyrics are a perfect fit for their at often vapid, urban-hip overall musical aesthetic delivered with ultra-precise technical execution. Still, with a couple of notable exceptions from their past catalogue, hardly top-forty.material.
As concerns the claimed “nuances” in today’s popular music and its lyrics which are on a similar level of artistry and that might appeal to an equivalent percentage of the music listening public as did the songs of Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Elton John/BT, Marvin Gaye, Simon and Garfunkel, Jimmy Webb, yes The Beatles (just a few that come to mind), please educate me and post some examples. Honest request.
Frogman as professional informed musician said it better and it is what i understood too from Beato video and the reason why i posted it as a step for a reflexion.
it is not about "taste" or nostalgia it is about the musical sophistication levels and the popularity chart levels...
There is as much good musicians than in the past today by the way...
I think some of you miss the point of what Beato is saying; which I mostly agree with. He is not saying that there are no good lyrics being written today. He acknowledges that there are. He is saying that today there are few songs with good lyrics relative to their popularity (number of listens). Top ten songs today have, by and large, pretty awful lyrics compared to top ten songs of, for instance, the Beatles era.
I don’t share the cynical view that he is expressing these opinions for effect and his own popularity.
An "entertainer" recently suggested that the goal of entertainment is to "create a common culture." Whille this may not be true in an ideological sense, it is certainly true from a return on investment sense. 500,000,000 plays? It doesn’t require anything above 4th grade math to determine that there’s a fairly substantial paycheck there for somebody(s).
Today’s new well-written music/lyrics hasn’t experienced the profound transition from, say, Bing Crosby -- > Led Zeppelin. It has nuance which has not (yet) wrapped it’s arms around massive quantities of music lovers. You have to find it vs it finding you.
**** expecting to find "good" lyrics (or music for that matter) in the stuff most popular these days is akin to him expecting to find good food at a fast food restaurant ****
That was Beato’s point. ….as concerns the stuff most popular these days. Re a different comment: lyrics don’t have to be “incredibly deep lyrics” to be good lyrics.
Beato expecting to find "good" lyrics (or music for that matter) in the stuff most popular these days is akin to him expecting to find good food at a fast food restaurant. Kids listen to whatever music they are fed, and eat fast food regularly. Doesn’t mean we have to, and to worry about it like he does seems like a waste of my precious remaining time on Earth. If he thinks the video will make him some money, good for him.
Beato has a deep technical understanding of music, but I find that musical education has greatly affected his tastes in same. He knows a lot more music theory than do many songwriters I could name, but he hasn’t written any songs as good as those writers have. I’m sure he likes Steely Dan far more than Hank Williams and Merle Haggard, and has never heard anything by Iris DeMent. Merle liked Iris’ song "No Time To Cry" so much he recorded it himself. I’ll bet Dylan finds more wisdom in Hank’s "I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" than he does in any Steely Dan song, but I’m not going to fault Beato for not doing the same.
As others have already here said, there are plenty of songwriters, singers, and musicians currently making music as good as is true of every past decade. Lucky me (and others here), my taste runs to music now known as Americana, and there is so much coming out in that genre (Americana is more accurately viewed as an umbrella term for music made by those in the Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Country, Alt-Country, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, etc. genres) that I have trouble keeping up with it all.
Omg, @mapman...I for one was thrilled when 'popular music' began to grow up 'n away from 'bubblegum songs' of the early '60's.....spent too much menial mental energy perversing the lyrics into X or demonic versions....I've fortunately forgotten more than recalled, to y'alls' benefit and relief.....
@mahgister *wry Laugh* "...I coulda' been ah contender..." Even D. Byrne in his book notes he'd do the music and fill in the lyrics to suit the stanzas....which does 'splain the topics and phraseologies'....
When asked about his collaboration with Twyla Tharp, he had no comment....one was left with either he was chided into it or was somewhat embarrassed over it.
I don't know or know of any 'perfect personage'...now or ever....really.
Given the antics of those of Now and Before, fame and fate seems to follow PR and word of mouth of the beguiled of their respective eras....and I'll stop this line of reasoning before I begin to tick some off in a major way.
Happy PreNew Year....more than happy to close it out, but not looking forward towards the next 4.
The Beatles era was 60 years ago. And it’s not like the Beatles were riding incredibly Deep lyrics and their first few albums, either. I challenge anyone to look at the top 40 charts from this week in 1964, 74, 84, 94, 2004, Etc, and see how many of those popular songs have really deep lyrics.
Edit: with the exception of 1984 which had some killer lyrics this week, but jyst about everything else in those decades was pretty Bubblegum and forgettable
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