I stand corrected..

[Blind_Io]

Remember the other day when I said that pop music sucked and that it was just a bunch of corporate no-talent hacks with voice scrubbers and auto tuners?

yeah, about that.

+ YouTube Video

She's cute too. I've heard the song before, but like most pop music I didn't really trust it to be genuine. What can I say, she's got some talent.

EDIT: Here's another one. If you thought it was pre-recorded this should alleviate your doubts.

+ YouTube Video

[Jacobfox]

My guitar amp has a similar neat little utility. It's a Fender GDec, so I can record bits and pieces of me playing rhythm guitar and then solo on top of it. It's really slick on songs with constant rhythm stuff (like freebird, which I cannot play).

[Blind_Io]

FREEBIRD!

[toma_alimosh]

Yes, finally a very awesome show of very good pedalwork. And that's how the guitar and vocals are really played ... with effects on them.

Sure, it would look so much better if the lead guitarist is running around on stage and jumping like a mad man all while doing wah-wahs, but seriously ... do we really have to notice how fake the concert was? Speaking out of experience of seeing guitarists and vocalists clearly having effects put on their instruments and it's not them doing it ... just looks so lame, but to the people that don't know squat about music it's "OMG, what an awesome show!!!". Do they seriously not notice the lip-syncing?

That being said, I thought she was a pop-up-out-of-the-ground too (don't listen to recent rock really ... mostly because of the fake shows). But now that I saw that, I'll be sure to buy her album. Good on her.

[bone]

that's not pop music

it's got a guitar in it

[NAIDANAC A]

who is she?

To me pop music is like Britney Spears, Green Day...

[Blind_Io]

Her name is KT Tunstall, she's hardly a pop princess either - she was born in '75 and her debut album just came out last year.

[Cobol74]

Had some hits here. Very very good.

[The_Finn]

i think i am the only person on the planet earth that can't stand her... now admittedly i have only heard her two singles maybe she has better stuff out there

[toma_alimosh]

Originally Posted by bone

that's not pop music

it's got a guitar in it

Well, actually pop music doesn't depend much on what instruments you use.
You could use pianos in pop music, you can use guitars, synthesizers, drums, trumpets, flutes, organs ... etc. Any sound that can make music.

What makes pop is that pop "artists" are picked up by managers, put together over night and without singing on any stage whatsoever, have already got a music video on its way in the MTV tops. Pop stars are energetic performers who are picked for the fact that they have either sex appeal or controversy surrounding them. They're usually very young and very rash. They will cause some major scandals in the newspapers and magazines mostly because they don't know better to the joy of the production company who gets all this nice and free publicity.

And although they have no role whatsoever in the musical production of their songs other than reading out the lyrics that someone else put together, they're labeled as musicians. The thing that makes some of them stand out the most is that on stage you won't see them playing any instrument, and maybe they have a band in the background, but nobody in there is named on the show, just the main stars, who are dancing like idiots in front. Oh, and they usually have a dancing group with them who make carefully choreographed moves... so if they have a music band AND a dancing band with them you can be 100% sure that they're pop stars (aka the creation of music labels to make some more money beyond what real musicians make for them).

So pop stars may as well be people that sing rock. And then they just perform a song on stage with instruments. But they didn't write a bit of it. Again, pop stars are performers, not musicians.

Oh, and not to forget: boy bands and girl band are ALWAYS pop stars. There's no way you can get 4 good looking dudes together and each one of them from different cities, never met one another before and in 1 week they already have half an album done, despite the fact that none of them have a background in music.

[Firecat]

Yeah, KT Tunstall isn't pop.

[Shawn]

I had this song stuck in my head for the longest time, it's a good little diddy.

But it's definitely very wrong of you to say pop music sucks. There are definite merits to the genre... pop has become terrible in recent years but all music has in a sense. There's some good pop out there though... and this is coming from a lifelong classic rock fan. The big problem is that most people think pop music emerged about 10 years ago with horrible 'bands' like Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls but pop music is a lot more than just your average talentless celeb. But even pop music from the last decade has some sporadic high points.

[Blind_Io]

Oh, I admit there is the occasional flash of brilliance that illuminates an otherwise terrible genre, but as a general rule Pop music stopped being cool sometime around 1989.

[Shawn]

But do you consider the more recent works of people like Elton John and Billy Joel as pop? Because those two are great examples of good pop music... plus even others like Phil Collins.

Anyway, that Black Horse and the Cherry Tree is one catchy-ass tune.

[Masternate2071]

[QUOTE=Shawn;426079 But even pop music from the last decade has some sporadic high points.[/QUOTE]


Depending on the country. Over here, from being forced to listen to the pop station at work, I was also forced to hear a lot of pop music. The only thing that struck me as good was Gnarls Barkley.

[epp_b]

That's so cool!

[Blind_Io]

Originally Posted by Shawn

But do you consider the more recent works of people like Elton John and Billy Joel as pop? Because those two are great examples of good pop music... plus even others like Phil Collins.

Anyway, that Black Horse and the Cherry Tree is one catchy-ass tune.

They (and KT Tunstall) are singer-songwriters and have more in common with the folk groups of the 60's than they do with manufactured Pop artists.

"Pop" has become a catch-all for any album that isn't Country, rap, heavy metal or Classical. Just go into your local record store and notice that there is usually a section for "Classical" "World" and "Pop/Rock" Sometimes they even stir Rap in with the pop. I will never understand how you can say that The Police, The Who and Queen are in the same category as Backstreet Boys.

[Masternate2071]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

They (and KT Tunstall) are singer-songwriters and have more in common with the folk groups of the 60's than they do with manufactured Pop artists.

"Pop" has become a catch-all for any album that isn't Country, rap, heavy metal or Classical. Just go into your local record store and notice that there is usually a section for "Classical" "World" and "Pop/Rock" Sometimes they even stir Rap in with the pop. I will never understand how you can say that The Police, The Who and Queen are in the same category as Backstreet Boys.

I've been known to move things around in record stores to where they should be. Usually I just get all of the Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco cds out of the punk section, and put the Clash in them. Eventually they got the picture and left the Clash there.

[Blind_Io]

Do you think I could get the same result if I moved all the religious texts to the Fiction section of my local bookstore?

[toma_alimosh]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

They (and KT Tunstall) are singer-songwriters and have more in common with the folk groups of the 60's than they do with manufactured Pop artists.

"Pop" has become a catch-all for any album that isn't Country, rap, heavy metal or Classical. Just go into your local record store and notice that there is usually a section for "Classical" "World" and "Pop/Rock" Sometimes they even stir Rap in with the pop. I will never understand how you can say that The Police, The Who and Queen are in the same category as Backstreet Boys.

Yup, I agree on that one. Music stores are notorious for misplacing genres of music. Heck, MTV does it all the time and everyone thinks it's a reliable source so they take after them. They're the people that classify dancehall as reggaeton and trance as "euro" there's no such genre as euro, where the heck did people dig it up?

That being said, people's genre-ignorance doesn't limit at MTV, I have to constantly deal with my romanian friends who clasify house as dance and light rock as blues ... to my own frustration.