Commercial popular music

Subject: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 03:40 AM

1.will commercially popular song,[eg songs written purely to make money] ever erase songs written by poeople who write purely for fun.
2.do commercially popular songs songs become folk music if they are sung on football terraces and adapted by singing sports fans.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:02 AM

1. A lot of commercially popular songs are a lot of fun, and they will endure. The Duke of Earl will live forever, and so will Love Potion Number Nine. But then, I don't think songwriters write songs "purely to make money." Leiber & Stoller and Rodgers & Hammerstein certainly wrote to make money, but I think they also wrote songs because they loved music.

2. Do commercially popular songs become folk music? Depends on how one defines folk music. Are Stephen Foster songs and Carter Family songs folk music? I think they are, but some think they aren't.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:26 AM

I will clarify , I meant songs written purely with the intention of making money rather than songs written for other reasons.
Carter family songs were mostly trad songs either adapted or collected from his neigbourhood or claimed to have been written by A. P Carter, most of them [not all] were not originally written with the sole intention of making money.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:49 AM

1) No! As long as people want to write songs for fun and others want to sing them, they will survive up there with the commercial songs. There is nothing special about commercially written songs that give them the power to erase other songs. I agree with Joe - very few songs, outside of advertising jingles, are written purely to make money.

2) Sports fans taking up a commercially popular song to sing on football terraces doesn't automatically make it a folk song but it can happen. It may stick around for a season or two and then fade away or like "You'll Never Walk Alone" it can become engrained in the nation's consciousness to the point where even non-sports fans associate it more with football, and Liverpool F.C. in particular, than with the musical Carousel. At this point it has taken on a life of its own and is a good candidate for being described as a folk song.

DC

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:02 AM

Probably most songs (and poems, novels, etc.) about strong feelings have been written in a sober state of mind - whether for money, for fun, or for a broad desire to do good, or other reasons in arbitrary combination. Good songs can be written by bad people.

We all know examples of successful songs that sound purely commercial. These are bad songs by definition.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:12 AM

A good song is a good song. Why it was written is beside the point. If a song is popular or is z commercial success that does not diminish its value. I think that this issue of "commercial pop music" is an absolute red herring.music is music.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,Richard
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:42 AM

Most of songs we think of as folk songs, in particular Broadside ballads, were written to make money. Lots of them are excellent songs; however, the good ones spawn a host of derivatives, some good, and some bad.(How many Broken Token songs do we need?) This seems to parallel the case of pop music, where eg. the Beatles were followed by huge numbers of embarrassingly derivative "Merseybeat" copies. Mind you, I liked a lot of them at the time; but the originals survive, and are frequently sung in folk circles without too many grumbles.
Richard

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:32 AM

"A good song is a good song. Why it was written is beside the point."
no, i disagree,how many songs that are written purely to be commercial are good songs? most of the songs that i would describe as good songs were written because the writer was passionate to say something.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:34 AM

...an argument could be made that most heartfelt 'amateur' self composed singer songwriter 'contemporary folk' songs
ever inflicted on other people's ears are utter crap....

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:38 AM

"how many songs that are written purely to be commercial are good songs?"

By now, probably many thousands...

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:27 AM

"how many songs that are written purely to be commercial are good songs?"

By now, probably many thousands."
what a facile comment, give us some examples.
hilarious, depends rather on what you call a good song, doesnt it?
right,here are some examples of good songs not written with the sole intention of making money, first time ever i saw your face, thirty foot trailer,joy of living, manchester rambler,moving on song,freeborn man. now we all know first time ever became commercially successful , but it was not written with the intention of solely making money.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:35 AM

"Facile"... hmmmm...

Ok - I'll swap you 'facile' for 'clueless sweeping statements'.... 😜


..and you want examples... it's not too late to open your ears and find out for yourself...

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:41 AM

Dick
People are responding to your questions with perfectly reasoned arguments and you are responding with insults (facile). Your own stance here is simply your own opinion and definitely not fact.

What Richard is saying is actually FACT.

Your 2nd question. I would ask you what you think. Which aspects of songs sung on the terraces do not qualify as folk song? In my opinion they all do!

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:42 AM

you stated something back it up with examples, i have no wish to open my ears to the hits of hermans hermits, britney spears or cliff richard ,i have heard enough of that type of commercial shit, go off and listen yourself you supercillious poster

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:53 AM

Oh dear! Dick, you are not doing yourself any favours here. Don't be so narrow-minded!

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 08:55 AM

blimey... first time ever I've been called 'supercillious'...

"The first time, ever I got called supercillious
I thought the sun shone out my arse..... etc.. etc.."


oh dear.. I've been hanging around mudcat too long and it must be starting to rub off.....?????

oh god no... how long before I end up smug and cantankerous...!!!??? 😱

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:10 AM

I don't presume to know the motivation of songwriters, money or passion. I don't see those things as mutually exclusive. I repeat my original statement, good music is good music. Much of opo music is just fun to listen to, it does not claim to be great art, it is the music of its day, people enjoy, then move on. But many of these "pop" songs are great song and stay with us over generations.
   Your view seems to suggest that if music makes money it is bad music and that is just rubbish and a very narrow view, I think.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:36 AM

Well recently I've been editing (which meaning doing a bit of abridging and splicing and making medleys) of mostly pop songs for our local dance teacher and friend. I have to listen to bits of songs over and over to get the cuts and joins right, and I've been utterly gobsmacked by the sheer quality of some of the stuff I'm working on. Much of the most commercial modern pop music is performed and produced to a staggeringly high standard. Most of it is not to my personal taste, but what I've been doing has educated me away from the usual dismal "all this modern stuff is rubbish" school of thought. After all, that's what my mum and dad said about the Beatles. So, to me, this thread is predicated on false premises. A good song is a good song, and a big healthy dose of "matter of taste" and "whatever stirs yer loins" enters into it, and long may it be so.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Stu
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:53 AM

"britney spears"

Ever heard Richard Thompson singing Brtiney's "Oops I did it again"? A good song is a good song, and the whole thing is subjective anyway. I liked the original too.

As for the intent of the writer, who cares? What we take from songs invariably has sod all to do with what the writers were thinking about when they penned them anyway. If they wrote a song to make a few quid and it's a good song, so what?

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:09 AM

I guess my extensive diverse & eclectic record collection of the last 40 odd years would be Dick's vision of a nightmare hell...

Oddly enough I own very few of the countless thousands
of self written / self produced / self concious pompously self-styled 'folk artist' vanity project cassettes and CDs...

oh well... each to their own....😜

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:18 AM

I care, and i have not been convinced by any posts saying otherwise. firstly i have not said that all commercial songs are not well written, for example.. first time ever became commercial,but it was not written with the sole intention of making money, it was written for peggy seeger to perform at a concert, but it was not written with the intention of being a number one ,it was an expression of how Ewan felt for Peggy., IT WAS WRITTEN AS A PASSIONATE STATEMENT.
contrast, we are all going on a summer holiday, written for the film of the same name, its purpose was to make money, likewise the young ones,both songs are absolute drivel, and typical of many of the substandard songs by elvis and cliff that they performed in second rate commercial films.
lyrics to the young ones here

The Young Ones

The young ones
Darling, we're the young ones
And young ones
Shouldn't be afraid

To live, love
While the flame is strong
'Cause we may not be the young ones
Very long

Tomorrow
Why wait until tomorrow?
'Cause tomorrow
Sometimes never comes

So love me
There's a song to be sung
And the best time is to sing
While we're young

Once in every lifetime
Comes a love like this
Oh, I need you and you need me
Oh, my darling, can't you see?

Young dreams
Should be dreamed together
And young hearts
Shouldn't be afraid

And some day
When the years have flown
Darling, then we'll teach the young ones
Of our own

Once in every lifetime
Comes a love like this
Oh, I need you and you need me
Oh, my darling, can't you see?

Young dreams
Should be dreamed together
And young hearts
Shouldn't be afraid

And some day
While the years have flown
Darling, then we'll teach the young ones
Of our own

The young ones
Darling, we're the young ones
The young ones
Darling, we're the young ones


personally i would not let Cliff near any young people ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqmNuvHScrc

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:22 AM

Steve Shaw says it all--

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:30 AM

ahhh.. yes... "The Young Ones" an achingly good classic pop song....

I'd love to hear what June Tabor could do with that...😎

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:31 AM

Dick,
Does it make any difference at all that you have been outvoted by millions and millions of 'Folk'? By 'folk' I obviously here mean the people in the street not those cliquey small groups who sit listening to the commercial songs of two centuries ago.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:43 AM

Of course there are loads of bad "Pop" song, there are folk songs that are real clinkers, that is music, some is good and some isn't. You haven't been convinced because you have closed your mind...stop agonizing over definitions and just enjoy the music.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:46 AM

Tin Pan Alley grew out of the need for songwriters and song pluggers to demonstrate the tunes they had to sell to vaudeville and Broadway performers. Out of this came the classic songs of the Great American Songbook. If you want examples of songs that are written purely to be commercial which are good songs, then you will find them here in abundance.

Are you seriously trying to say, Dick, that Gershwin, Berlin, Porter and the like did not produce great music?

DC

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:57 AM

Not to mention Carol King, Gerry Goffin, Lieber and Stoller who toiled away in the Brill Building and created classic pop songs.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 11:00 AM

Dick - publicly vented prejudice of any form, just ...well.. smells bad...

To mildly misquote Kurt Cobain'''

"Smells Like Old Man's Spleen Spirit"..... 😬

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,#
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 04:24 PM

This thread is a testament to the belief that there's one born every minute.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:01 PM

Offhand, I think one of the best examples of how a song can transcend genre is "If you gotta Make a Fool of Somebody". Compare the Freddie and the Dreamers banal version with the poignant Bonnie Raitt rendering.    If it had another verse I'd sing it myself.


"Poison and Wine" is another damned good pop song with a layer underneath it.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:03 PM

i suppose the real difference is that the music you call drivel is loved and known by millions.

play the The Young ones to any roomful of people in England they'll sing along - knowing every word. i can't think of a single Mac Coll that is true of. they know most of the first verse of Dirty Old Town but thats it.

you dedicate your life to whichever you think .....

i think i've tried to bear in mind both. that way you despised by both schools of songwriting.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:06 PM

Hi Al. Travelling Light is another guilty pleasure....

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Smedley
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:08 PM

I'm a bit baffled why 'The Young Ones' is being held up as an example. It's half a century old & popular music has taken, to put it mildly, a few twists and turns since then.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: olddude
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:11 PM

No right or wrong when it comes to music. People have fun either way. I listened to barry manilow taking about his jingle days and what fun it was to write for mcd's and Pepsi etc

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:17 PM

What was MacColl's day job ?

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:03 PM

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:07 PM

Oops, sorry about that. I was about to say that the listening to any music is an entirely voluntary pastime. You're entitled to your opinion, but, get all heavy about it and, well, you'll look like a bit of a twit, frankly.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:45 PM

I think that the idea of songs written "purely for commercial purposes" is, for the most part, a myth I used to believe in. But as I study a wider variety of music, I find genius in all genres. Sure, there are lots of flops, but the flops are not all commercial.

I've been following Taylor Swift's recordings lately. Her "Mean" is a classic. I think she's an extraordinary songwriter, and very clever and insightful. When I researched songs for the "Millennials" chapter of the Rise Again songbook, I was amazed at the intelligence of lyrics of songs that were popular when my kids were teenagers.

Here's a very commercial song, Feist's 1, 2, 3, 4, released in 2007. And here's the Sesame Street version.

Oh, and here's Sons and Daughters, recorded by the Decemberists.

There's still a lot of very good music being written - some of it for profit.

-Joe-

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:03 PM

Why I wish there were less of it:
Book review

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 01:02 AM

thankyou for that book review,at last a post worthy of reading.
the young ones is an example of banal lyrics Smedley.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: michaelr
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 01:58 AM

Just watched the Steve Coogan/Rob Bryden film The Trip, in which they sing the Abba song "The Winner Takes it All", and had to admit to myself that that is actually a very well-written song. It certainly seems heart-felt, the way "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" does.

No one here can claim to know what was motivating a songwriter at the moment of creation (although reams of speculation have been published analyzing, say, Bob Dylan's work). All that counts is whether the song speaks to you, engages you on some level. If it engages many, it becomes a commercial success; if it engages few, it may still be an artistic success. The two are not the same; neither are they mutually exclusive.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:24 AM

An interesting book review, Joe_F, though it didn't really explain to me why you want less of it. The more that's out there, the bigger the choice. It might take more effort to sort the wheat from the chaff but it should be possible to find something that suits.

The first thing it shows, for me, is how subjective the appreciation of music can be. The reviewer sets out his own stall by the comment:

"Briefly, in my book popular music peaked about 1900 and became vile about 1940."

but, for me, the period between the two world wars was the Golden Age. Others, of course, will have their own views.

DC

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:27 AM

Anyone who wants less of it simply needs to turn the wireless off!

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Stu
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:30 AM

Lyrics are for singing and not every lyric needs to have meaning, they can just be fun. 'The Young Ones" (as has been mentioned) is a great singalong, as is 'Highway to Hell' by AC/DC or 'When Jones' Ale was New'.

There's heaps of really good music being made now, by talented young musicians who write wonderful songs. Spend a couple of days listening to BBC 6 Music and revel in the diversity and joy of all genres modern, old, folk, rock, pop and everything else.

Why close your mind off? Life's too short!

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:42 AM

Well done, Steve: "wireless" not "radio". Jolly U! Nancy Mitford would have been proud of you!

≈M≈

Now, back to my nice lie-down -- nothing if not obedient to my masters!...

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 07:55 AM

How nice to see "wireless" and "lie down", the latter as distinct from "lay down" which might be more fun although less restful.

How about Billy Idol's "White Wedding" - that really gets them yelling along on the dance floor, and "Hi Ho Silver Lining"?

And some of Pink's stuff is damned fine too.

Christina Aquilera is fun but "Horny" is not great literature.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 08:13 AM

Basically, none of us and the vast majority of music lovers need to justify or apologize our enjoyment of all kinds of music
to a useless minority of dead in the ears & heart & heart old dogmatic fundamentalists... 😣

If they don't get it - f@ck 'em... it's their loss... 😜

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 09:21 AM

Basically, none of us and the vast majority of music lovers need to justify or apologize our enjoyment of all kinds of music
to a useless minority of dead in the ears & heart & heart old dogmatic fundamentalists..
a very offensive statement,
Iam not asking anyone to apologise for anything.
my belief is that the best commercial songs were not written with the intention of being a commercial success, and that all the best written songs were written because the writer felt strongly about his subject and his motive was not solely to make money, I would classify three songs immediately in this category, masters of war, imagine, first time ever.
now i do not know, about the first two, but i think its unlikely, it has been recorded, why MacColl wrote the last song and it was not to be a number one hit. now punk folk rocker reead my posts and stop making childish and offensive comments

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 09:34 AM

Masters of War is a rip off of Nottamun Town.

Subject: RE: Commercial popular music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 09:39 AM

Dick - with all due disrespect - you cannot sit up there in your damp dusty shrine of self-righteous superiority
pronouncing all you dislike as 'facile' 'banal' childish', or 'unworthy' of your wise sagelike consideration...


From down here you do make yourself look somewhat pompous, ignorant and silly...😐