proximoception (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
proximoception) wrote2011-04-11 11:56 pm
proximoception) wrote2011-04-11 11:56 pm
(no subject)
Youtube has rundowns up for the Billboard hits of every year back to God knows when. I listened to 2010 back to 1970 and that's a strange experience. I was astonished at how many '70s songs I recognized, however sketchily, but of course not from childhood - they just filtered down, most of them from movies, covers, and five second clips from those cable ads for $19.95 Disco or Funk compilations they used to play constantly. My earliest song memories seem to be from 1981 ones - "Physical" and "Mickey," and I don't remember having full, contemporary awareness of almost all of a year's included songs till about 1986. Maybe that was the first time we had MTV in the house. The reason I notice this is because the songs feel very different depending on if they're from childhood or some percolation source.
The mellow white person '70s music is among the worst ever. Exception: I like Karen Carpenter and I don't know why.
The mellow under-breath R&B type stuff of the late '90s and early '00s ties it. I'm sure I was trying hard, but it's astonishing how much of all that I was able to miss. 50 Cent's mutter rapping is likewise awful.
A blank check was written for ex-Beatles apparently - a large number of bad solo songs by them became hits. "Starting Over" is the exception; it came right before my partial musical awareness (I didn't know Lennon had been shot, or had ever existed, till pretty late in childhood). I love that song, though I guess it was played for tragic irony at the time?
I'll never stop being amazed how thoroughly The Beatles were occluded during the '80s, early '90s. Its like with Tennyson, how you could barely mention him c. 1900-1950.
Autotune is the best thing to ever happen to pop music. Shh. There, there. You know I'm right. Let it happen.
"Kung Fu Fighting" and "Careless Whisper" are curious mixtures of musically perfect and lyrically ridiculous. I think the former at least knows it.
Elton John had a lot of godawful hits.
Rod Stewart is the worst musician on record. But that I already knew.
What is with all those maudlin '80s duets.
Mariah Carey's hits after '90 or so are amazingly terrible and frequent.
People's best songs make the hit lists maybe one time in three. The top 10 lists, anyway, or whatever these videos are presenting.
Nelly's "Hot in Here" tickles me way more than it should.
Michael Jackson's c. 1980 stuff is very Justin Timberlake-y, and I think catchier than his later songs. I used to think Timberlake had eaten the heart of Jamiroquai to steal his act, but the debt's earlier. The Maroon 5 guy, he ate the hearts of both Jamiroquai and Dave Matthews. Also Shakira stole the voice of the Cranberries singer.
Cyndi Lauper's songs are actually rather nicely written. She doesn't quite do them justice.
America has changed, man.
People in the video clips first start to seem startling if you saw them in the grocery store today around 1994. I wonder if these things travel by fits and starts, or if there's a c. 17 year contemporaneity threshold, just like those pop culture-awareness thresholds of 5 and 10 years I noticed seem like maybe they'd apply to others.
I probably inevitably like best the early/mid '90s music coinciding with my late teens, but there's a surprising number of really well crafted pop songs in the very early '80s. Can't tell if I've fallen for recent just because it's recent, or if those karaoke games got us into it, or if some curtain of haughty scorn fell away with my 30s, or if it's actually good.
The mellow white person '70s music is among the worst ever. Exception: I like Karen Carpenter and I don't know why.
The mellow under-breath R&B type stuff of the late '90s and early '00s ties it. I'm sure I was trying hard, but it's astonishing how much of all that I was able to miss. 50 Cent's mutter rapping is likewise awful.
A blank check was written for ex-Beatles apparently - a large number of bad solo songs by them became hits. "Starting Over" is the exception; it came right before my partial musical awareness (I didn't know Lennon had been shot, or had ever existed, till pretty late in childhood). I love that song, though I guess it was played for tragic irony at the time?
I'll never stop being amazed how thoroughly The Beatles were occluded during the '80s, early '90s. Its like with Tennyson, how you could barely mention him c. 1900-1950.
Autotune is the best thing to ever happen to pop music. Shh. There, there. You know I'm right. Let it happen.
"Kung Fu Fighting" and "Careless Whisper" are curious mixtures of musically perfect and lyrically ridiculous. I think the former at least knows it.
Elton John had a lot of godawful hits.
Rod Stewart is the worst musician on record. But that I already knew.
What is with all those maudlin '80s duets.
Mariah Carey's hits after '90 or so are amazingly terrible and frequent.
People's best songs make the hit lists maybe one time in three. The top 10 lists, anyway, or whatever these videos are presenting.
Nelly's "Hot in Here" tickles me way more than it should.
Michael Jackson's c. 1980 stuff is very Justin Timberlake-y, and I think catchier than his later songs. I used to think Timberlake had eaten the heart of Jamiroquai to steal his act, but the debt's earlier. The Maroon 5 guy, he ate the hearts of both Jamiroquai and Dave Matthews. Also Shakira stole the voice of the Cranberries singer.
Cyndi Lauper's songs are actually rather nicely written. She doesn't quite do them justice.
America has changed, man.
People in the video clips first start to seem startling if you saw them in the grocery store today around 1994. I wonder if these things travel by fits and starts, or if there's a c. 17 year contemporaneity threshold, just like those pop culture-awareness thresholds of 5 and 10 years I noticed seem like maybe they'd apply to others.
I probably inevitably like best the early/mid '90s music coinciding with my late teens, but there's a surprising number of really well crafted pop songs in the very early '80s. Can't tell if I've fallen for recent just because it's recent, or if those karaoke games got us into it, or if some curtain of haughty scorn fell away with my 30s, or if it's actually good.