Here's an interesting discussion -- songwriting...

[mjr]

I find the most profound lyrics in '60s rock/psychedelic/whathaveyou. Examples:

It's A Beautiful Day's White Bird
Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth
The Doors' The End or Riders on the Storm
Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction
Simon and Garfunkel's The Sun Is Burning

Well, Food Lady, I'm not necessarily even talking about "profound" lyrics. Your point stands, though.

I'm talking about the overall quality of lyrics on the radio today.

Of course, I shouldn't say too much about this, being as I don't really listen to a lot of "modern" pop music. So I might be, as my wife might say, "shaking my fist at a cloud".



At 41, I'm really not even old...

[Food Lady]

I get your point. It's how I personally measure quality.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

So, as I understand it, the original question was "Do you think songwriting has decreased in quality in the 15-20 years?"

To that I say no, I don't believe it has... but you have to look for the quality stuff, it doesn't 'pop' up in modern music so much anymore.

[mjr]

So, as I understand it, the original question was "Do you think songwriting has decreased in quality in the 15-20 years?"

To that I say no, I don't believe it has... but you have to look for the quality stuff, it doesn't 'pop' up in modern music so much anymore.

Ah, good catch. I should have said "mainstream" songwriting. Because you're right about looking for the quality stuff. But it's not necessarily stuff that gets airplay.

[Mental_Mouse]

So, as I understand it, the original question was "Do you think songwriting has decreased in quality in the 15-20 years?"

To that I say no, I don't believe it has... but you have to look for the quality stuff, it doesn't 'pop' up in modern music so much anymore.

It didn't back then, either, it's just that you replayed, and remembered, the good ones. Remember Sturgeon's Law! (Jack Sturgeon responded to a complaint that "90% of science fiction is crap", with "yeah, but 90% of everything is crap!".)

[Nunavut Pants]

Theodore Sturgeon, I believe, not Jack.

I think a fair bit of "it's all getting worse" is just old farts Just Not Getting It. There have been rich, complex lyrics in every age, and crap in every age.

Heck, take "Jingo", off Santana's first album. The lyrics?
"O ma-ma O ba-ba O ma-ma
Ooooooo! Jingo bah!"

Recent songs with good lyrics? How about "Someone I Used To Know"?
"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over"

You can pick more of good or bad from any era you like.


Though on the other hand, it seems like there is a lot more "writing by committee" than there used to be. Not necessarily any more "prefab" stuff (a lot of 60s and 70s music was as calculated as any modern boy-band stuff), but apparently fewer songs written by one single vision.

I am old enough that I see a whole lot of "everything young people do is crap" from my peers. I have found that I enjoy reminding them of what our parents, and particularly our grandparents, said about us. And how we even have letters from Roman times, literally two thousand years ago, complaining about how awful the young generation is and how everything will fall apart the instant they come into power.

I'm sure that back far enough there were old cave-people sitting around complaining about this new "fire" thing their kids were obsessed with...

[mjr]

Your point is valid, Nunavut.

Aside from the following:

• Lennon/McCartney
• Leiber/Stoller
• Hank Williams
• Tom Petty
• Bob Dylan
• Prince
• Diane Warren

Name a "modern" songwriter or singer/songwriter who could be considered a "great" or a "legendary" songwriter whose songs are actually getting airplay. Meghan Trainor? Pass. Taylor Swift? Eh.

That's more of what I'm getting at.

[Mental_Mouse]

Your point is valid, Nunavut.

Aside from the following:

Name a "modern" songwriter or singer/songwriter who could be considered a "great" or a "legendary" songwriter whose songs are actually getting airplay. Meghan Trainor? Pass. Taylor Swift? Eh.

That's more of what I'm getting at.

Oh, "aside from these 7..." How about Sting? There was also Leonard Cohen, and there was that guy (Jim Steiner?) who made the rounds writing for the likes of Meatloaf and Madonna... Of course, most of both our lists are recent departures who were active from my own youth or before that.

The other thing is, we have no idea who future generations will consider to be "the greats". Remember, in his own time, Shakespeare was considered lowbrow.... (Of course, some of his plays are still pretty rough even in our jaded age -- "Titus Andronicus", anyone? Not to mention the modern side-eye for "Taming of the Shrew"....)

[mjr]

Oh, "aside from these 7..." How about Sting? There was also Leonard Cohen, and there was that guy (Jim Steiner?) who made the rounds writing for the likes of Meatloaf and Madonna... Of course, most of both our lists are recent departures who were active from my own youth or before that.

Valid. But people aren't saying that Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift or Meghan Trainor are "good songwriters".

And I don't know that their music will endure like the ones I enumerated and the ones you mentioned.

Bieber and Trainor will likely be footnotes twenty years from now. In twenty years, it's likely people will STILL be listening to The Beatles and Hank Williams.