[Sing4me88]

Am I the only one that thinks Take me to church sounds like two songs bolted together? The verse on its own is good, I like it. The chorus on its own is exceptional. Great melody, great lyric, very atmospheric. But the two together, just doesn't hold. The transition to the chorus feels so clumsy to me...

I've never really thought about that until you mentioned it. Maybe that's the beauty of it - sounding like it's 2 songs bolted together a la Bohemian Rhapsody. It's a great song but it's far from his best IMHO. You should check out his other stuff - I think it might appeal to your musical taste.

I'm gonna give Sia a mention as another great modern songwriter. 'Fire meets gasoline' is a phenomenally profound lyric IMHO (check them out here:http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sia/firemeetgasoline.html) and equally so is 'Cheap Thrills' (although I hate the version with that clown Sean Paul in it. Se's other great songs like 'Chandelier', 'She Wolf' and 'Elastic Heart'. Very deep lyrics matched by unbelievable toplining and vocal delivery.

[Buc McMaster]

'Fire meets gasoline' is a phenomenally profound lyric IMHO

Whut?  phenomenally profound?!?  Really?!?  A lyric pleading for sex is profound these days?!

Sheesh.

[Sing4me88]

It's how that plea is articulated. Any anyway, other 'great' but perhaps not 'profound' songs were also pleas for sex - 'Let's get it on' by Marvin Gaye being just one example....

[Buc McMaster]

Yeah, but no one proclaims Let's Get It On to be profound.  It's just a silly love song like so many others..........very good, perhaps great.......but not profound.

[hardtwistmusic]

I do NOT think that there are more "great songs" written in any one period than another period. 

I don't agree that there are fewer "great songs" being written today.  I'm all over the internet listening to obscure artists who I think are writing great songs. 

What HAS changed is what is getting promoted and put over the airwaves.  But that doesn't mean great songs aren't currently being written.  It just means that they aren't being heard. 

If you study music through the ages (beginning around 1900 for the sake of argument) yuo find great songs in every era.  Guantanemera was written in 1902, and it's still fresh and viable.  Heck, "As Shye Moved Through the Faire has been covered and re-written so often that it's unlikely that anyone hasn't heard bits and pieces of it . . . and it's hundreds of years old unless I'm mistaken. 

If you actually take a hard look at songs produced since the era of radio began (the era of "mass listening," there are no "dead spots" or decades (or even years) when nothing noteworthy was written and produced. 

Django Rheinhardt and Bob Wills were doing things in the forties that fit right into today's listening tastes.  You just have to go find them. 

Since the radio age began, nearly 40% of "hit songs" (i.e. top 100 songs)  have been written by "one hit wonders"  --  writers who never have another hit.  Look it up if you don't believe me.  That means that great songs are NOT being produced only by "great writers."  Never have been. 

Okay... now I'm down off my soap box. 

[Helena4]

hardtwistmusic has got goooood points.

I find it strange that the charts are so so devoid of interesting different music these days. I was listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees yesterday and found out on the official charts website that "Dear Prudence" got to no. 3 and was thinking... no weird screechy goth lady would manage that these days. Not that she wouldn't exist, she would just be a small indie artist.

I find people to be rather unadventurous these days. I feel like in my lifetime... small changes in whats in style have happened but nothing particularly exciting has broken out there. In the 70s and 80s, it seems every minute some new weird thing is emerging. The rise of EDM seems like the most significant thing that's happened in my lifetime and that doesn't even mean much, except that we've finally escaped the cheesy faked-up 90s mimicking phase of the early 2000s and the nondescript phase that no-one can possibly describe from 2009-2015. Please, someone describe to me that phase in music. I suppose the one thing that came out of that phase was a quiet rejection of the extreme fakery of the previous period (e.g. Britney Spears).

[delb0y]

I think there's plenty of very adventurous stuff taking place - but if you're expecting all this adventure  to be reflected in the charts you'll likely be disappointed. The pop charts represent just the tiniest sliver of today's (and yesterday's) music.

There's also the issue of streaming now being counted towards chart "sales" and this has resulted in a very different set of results to anything that the charts has previously enjoyed.

I quote from this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36794105:

"Drake has been hogging the limelight for three months.

On Friday, the star's single notched up a 14th week at number one - meaning he could soon break the Bryan Adams barrier, and become the UK's longest-running chart topper.

But behind that huge success lies another story, because One Dance isn't the best-selling record of the last seven days. It isn't even in the top 10.

In fact, Drake's single only topped the sales-only chart in the first three weeks of its reign. It's only the inclusion of streaming data (where 100 plays count as one sale) that has given him a lock on the number one spot. And that's something that's starting to worry the music industry, because now that the charts measure consumption rather than purchases, they have practically ground to a halt.

In the first six months of 2016, there were 86 new entries in the UK singles chart. Ten years ago, that figure was 230. "

The highlights are mine. The article is well worth a read if you're interested in chart music.

[Helena4]

Yeah I agree there is some adventurous stuff going on. I didn't mean artists aren't adventurous, I meant the industry and consumers aren't. I'm sure there are modern day equivelants in weirdness to a screeching goth lady and such, and this is the sort of thing I like to search out, but it won't ever get in the charts.

Omg wow.... I fucking hate streaming. Streaming rips off artists and breeds even more non commital fans, which is hardly what is needed in this ADD climate. But this makes me even more angry. That's like basing the charts on every time someone plays a song ever!!! You can't do that! Songs that came out decades ago would still be in the top ten then! Oh god this is chaos.

[diademgrove]

Yeah I agree there is some adventurous stuff going on. I didn't mean artists aren't adventurous, I meant the industry and consumers aren't. I'm sure there are modern day equivelants in weirdness to a screeching goth lady and such, and this is the sort of thing I like to search out, but it won't ever get in the charts.

Omg wow.... I fucking hate streaming. Streaming rips off artists and breeds even more non commital fans, which is hardly what is needed in this ADD climate. But this makes me even more angry. That's like basing the charts on every time someone plays a song ever!!! You can't do that! Songs that came out decades ago would still be in the top ten then! Oh god this is chaos.

Nothing wrong with chaos.

Dear Prudence was a classic Beatles' song so its not surprising it was a hit. She also covered Dylan/Danko's This Wheel's on Fire. Although she didn't realise it was a Dylan/Danko song. If you have time check out the version by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger, which is the version Siouxsie took her version from.

[Helena4]

Nothing wrong with chaos.

Dear Prudence was a classic Beatles' song so its not surprising it was a hit. She also covered Dylan/Danko's This Wheel's on Fire. Although she didn't realise it was a Dylan/Danko song. If you have time check out the version by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger, which is the version Siouxsie took her version from.

I want crazed punk chaos not apathetic corporate lead chaos. Spotify...

And why thank you for the knowledge. I still don't think it would've got top 10 now, though.

[diademgrove]

Nothing wrong with chaos.

Dear Prudence was a classic Beatles' song so its not surprising it was a hit. She also covered Dylan/Danko's This Wheel's on Fire. Although she didn't realise it was a Dylan/Danko song. If you have time check out the version by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger, which is the version Siouxsie took her version from.

I want crazed punk chaos not apathetic corporate lead chaos. Spotify...

And why thank you for the knowledge. I still don't think it would've got top 10 now, though.

Knowledge comes with age and being around when Siouxsie and the Banshee's released their first single, its still sitting in my collection of vinyl 45s, ready to be handed over when I die. The joys of owning music rather than renting it from Spotify. 

It may not get into the top 10 now, but then it was part of a movement with a number of similar artists tasting success. The pop charts will change again, and who knows we may see something similar gracing our charts in the future. Always look on the bright side of life.

[hardtwistmusic]

Knowledge comes with age . . . 

I just KNEW there was something good about being old. 

I mean aside from the senior discounts.  'o)

[Helena4]

Knowledge comes with age and being around when Siouxsie and the Banshee's released their first single, its still sitting in my collection of vinyl 45s, ready to be handed over when I die. The joys of owning music rather than renting it from Spotify. 

It may not get into the top 10 now, but then it was part of a movement with a number of similar artists tasting success. The pop charts will change again, and who knows we may see something similar gracing our charts in the future. Always look on the bright side of life.

I don't use Spotify. Or Itunes, because I dislike Apple. Everyone seems bloody brainwashed by Apple, like they wuldn't even bother to own a phone if it wasn't an iPhone. One of my favourite bands' singers has a show on a paid for Apple Music radio station and it makes me very angry because there is no way I'm gonna be subscribing to an Apple service. I wrote a poem where I had a bit of a jab at apple.

I buy CDs. I don't buy vinyl because I don't have the money to go buy a record player when I can already play my music on CDs. I rip the CDs and whala! I can use it just like mp3s on all my digital devices but I have the little box with the photos and the lyrics and things (when I rip mp3s though, I do it in the highest possible quality, which is about twice as good as the quality you get from itunes).

[diademgrove]

I don't use Spotify. Or Itunes, because I dislike Apple. Everyone seems bloody brainwashed by Apple, like they wuldn't even bother to own a phone if it wasn't an iPhone. One of my favourite bands' singers has a show on a paid for Apple Music radio station and it makes me very angry because there is no way I'm gonna be subscribing to an Apple service. I wrote a poem where I had a bit of a jab at apple.

I buy CDs. I don't buy vinyl because I don't have the money to go buy a record player when I can already play my music on CDs. I rip the CDs and whala! I can use it just like mp3s on all my digital devices but I have the little box with the photos and the lyrics and things (when I rip mp3s though, I do it in the highest possible quality, which is about twice as good as the quality you get from itunes).

CDs didn't exist when I was a young lad.

The advantage of vinyl or cds over I-tunes, Spotify and the rest was you got to hear all the songs rather than the most popular tracks. Gave you a better impression of the qualities of the songwriters and always surrendered some hidden gems.

The other advantage was playing records was often a collective experience with your friends. As was trawling through your friends record collections. Whilst I'm sure the internet allows elements of that to continue its not really the same as being in the same room hearing the same thing in different ways and discussing it afterwards.

I hope you keep listening to music how the artists wanted you to hear it.