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The term "Generic".......aaggggh!!!!

Started by georg_e, January 06, 2012, 05:28:18 AM

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georg_e


                Does anyone else get driven crazy by seeing this term "generic" applied to the songs that are the absolute catchiest songs...like "Domino"......."Party in the USA"......"Last Friday Night" etc etc.......it's driving me crazy when I keep seeing this word!
When did just really good pop become so looked down on..... songs like that are the hardest to write!!  Any thoughts on this welcome :-)   (Some of the Gaga fanatics  call Dr. Luke "Dr. Generic", for example. I lovve Gaga, but I don't get this attitude.......

Axel

To be honest I haven't spent so much thought on that. But now that you say it, yeah. :-) I mean of course there are fan-rivalries and I can very well imagine that the Gaga fancamp has issues with  Katy Perry fans so trash-talk like this is pretty logical. It has always been like that, whether Commodore is better than Atari (back in the 90s), Apple vs Microsoft, Adidas vs Nike, FC Barcelone vs Real Madrid etc...

I remember that I always said "oh pop songs, that's easy".. and now that I really work on some, I have to say that it's easy to write "a pop song".. but it is incredibly hard to write a GOOD pop song. It's so easy to get distracted while writing a song, always being tempted of adding too much to a song and thereby cramming too much into it. Reducing a song to its essence is something Max always says and that is absolutely important, and I find exactly that part extremely hard. To strip elements away that are not necessary. I think that if an instrumental version of a pop song does NOT sound boring, something must be wrong. :-) Because of most good pop songs, I thought the instrumental versions are actually quite boring to listen to. Why? Because the voice is key and should get the most attention. Errr.. sorry I got carried away a little here.  ;D

Raul_esp

Max said that write a simple melody is much more difficult that a complex song , and it's true , it has more merit write a simple pop song generic but different .

turnaround

In classical music no-one would say Bach or Mozart had a generic "song" just because they used the same orchestration and instruments again and again.
A good song has to have something magic and for myself - I can't get enough of great melodies, I don't care if they are generic or not.  ;D
And I liked it..

Unexpected

Lol, It's funny you mention that, always me and my friend Feelgoodlies have long discussions about this and always say proudly if you call great pop songs generic then my type in music is generic, and that's that, generic music are the best, specially if it's done by max or the  guys.

georg_e

Quote from: Unexpected on January 06, 2012, 09:25:50 PM
Lol, It's funny you mention that, always me and my friend Feelgoodlies have long discussions about this and always say proudly if you call great pop songs generic then my type in music is generic, and that's that, generic music are the best, specially if it's done by max or the  guys.
Ahhaha.....that's a good one -- I was thinking the same thing today!! :-)    What made me think of this subject is other music boards like Pulse, PopJustice, etc, where you can almost predict if it's a Max or Luke song somebody'll call it 'generic", lol.....

Rebecca

oh yeah, absolutely hate it when 'generic' is used for my favourite pop songs. Cannot stand it, especially from critics. But it's always been this way, pop is looked down upon. I don't know why, it seems crazy to me when these songs are so brilliant. I try not get upset about it and just assume that these people have different taste to me.

I also hate it when critics call the successful songwriters like Max or Dr Luke and others "corporate songwriters". I mean really! like anyone can write a great pop song!

Pop music never seems to be properly appreciated.

anyway, like Unexpected says, if great pop songs are called generic, then generic must be the best!

Joshua

I totally get what you're all saying, I'm always and forever trying to stick up for pop music. The general population are under the impression that it's easily made, churned out quickly and is soulless. I think there's good and bad pop, just like there's good and bad in any music genre. It annoys me so much when people think they have superior music taste just because they're into everything that's non-commercial. Or people who judge songs based only on the artist. Like they're too afraid to listen to a song by Justin Bieber when it's by the same team who made they're favourite song by *insert artist here*. That's when it becomes about everything BUT the music.

Raul_esp

I can't agree with you more , I think the same , it's a pity the pop music is so underrated.

Feelgoodlies

Yeah, that bothers me a lot actually but yeah, I love generic and I am a huge cheese fan!