Let’s put it this way: most radio music that has been made in the last few years isn’t real musicianship. It’s not that it’s necessarily over-produced, but it’s no-talent music. It doesn’t take a genius to make a catchy, fun song that will hit the Billboard top 100. I’m not saying that the music that gets played on the radio isn’t worthy of awards or recognition, what I’m saying is that it is made for the sole reason of getting singles. Most mainstream music albums produce an average of 2-5 singles from one album.
Underground music most often produces one or two singles in order to let their fans know that a new album is indeed on their way to them. Let’s just look at Miss Lady Gaga for a second. Her debut album The Fame garnered 5 singles in just over a year. She is now re-releasing the album in many different editions one of which has generated its own single (an unreleased song). The Fame Monster is the name of her re-released debut which will contain 8 new unreleased tracks as well as some b-sides from The Fame, from when it was originally released last February.
To address the auto tune craze as of late it can be attributed to one reasons. T-Pain is arguably the most recognized person to use an auto tuner regularly. This can be in his own music or in the ever popular hip hop parody “I’m On a Boat” featuring the guys of The Lonely Island. Trust me I am one of the foremost people that will agree that an auto tuner does nothing for music besides distort its sound. Now with the release of the auto tuner application on the iPhone and iPod touch things will only undoubtedly get worse.
It’s not that all music that is played on the radio is bad, but it’s the fact that none of it is original. Nickelback for one have created 6 albums out of the same basic chords, notes and lyrics. When you listen to an album you are going to want variety and change, most likely, but you still want the same great artist you are buying the album to listen to. With quite a bit of mainstream music it is going to sound so similar that you’ll wonder if the song you started with is on repeat. One different chord or note should not be able to separate songs on an album. When you can’t tell who the artist is listening to a song, then maybe it is time to scrounge up some originality and bring that to the table for your next record. This is especially trendy with post-grunge bands such as Nickelback, Saving Abel, Buckcherry (new material), Tantric, Hinder, Crossfade, Puddle of Mudd, Saliva, Three Days Grace, Theory of a Deadman and Trapt.
Like previously stated, most mainstream success is brought on by the ability to produce singles. Most of the aforementioned bands have quite a few singles to their name, whereas bands that are legitimately talented musicians sit in the dust and hope that word of mouth helps their newest album sell so they can support themselves. Where I live there aren’t enough people to support an obscure radio station to play music from underground bands, but they are making themselves known by getting on the newest Guitar Hero video game. Are all musicians that made the radio talentless? Absolutely not. If you throw aside the majority of older music i.e. AC/DC, The Doors, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, you can truly see what the music industry today has become. Let’s take some modern albums from older musicians. Megadeth just put out their new album called Endgame. Is this terrible because it will most likely end up as some radio hits? No it is not. Some reviewers have called it Rust In Peace Pt. II, as reference to their previous platinum album. Metallica’s new record Death Magnetic isn’t the same old Metallica we know and love but they still are sticking to their roots. Chris Cornell is a great example for a sell-out. After the demise of Soundgarden and the eventual demise of Audioslave as well, Chris embarked on a solo career. After 2 semi-successful solo albums he decided to put out one more with the help of rap star Timbaland. He took some ill advice from Timbaland and created what is referred to as one of the worst albums of 2009. He traded in his alternative rock bowler for a pink fuzzy hat that was filled with terrible pop, electronic and some horrendous guitar solos. His newest album Scream produced 5 singles on its own months before the actual album was released. If you watch what I like to call radio rock bands, as they keep producing albums the number is singles on each just go up and up.
The reason that radio music is so popular is because of the radio. People have radios everywhere. Whether it is in the car, at work or in their home. Top 100 radio stations are paid to play what people want to hear and that is most likely the songs you will find annoying and repetitive. When you listen to one of those stations you cannot go 2 hours without hearing the same song over again. People request what they want to hear and the radio plays it. It’s catchy and supposedly good music but some will disagree. The music is recorded, put into a machine to smooth it out and then sent out to the radio stations nationwide. Nothing is real anymore. The Beatles (along with other bands/musicians) were the pioneers of making music without all the finishing equipment. They wanted to make real music so they recorded their music in a natural fashion, just The Fab Four and their instruments. That went on to be some of the greatest and most influential music ever written and you can attribute that to their promise to make real music. The real musicians are out there, you just have to look harder to find them. If you are looking for some better musicians I suggest reading on some review sites. Sputnikmusic, RateYourMusic, Lambgoat, absolutepunk and Metalsucks are all fantastic sources to find obscure, hidden music.
