Today I'm gonna be talking about pop music- probably a controversial topic, so I'll be taking a relatively controversial view and actually defending it.
People complain a lot about modern pop- how it all sounds the same, it's all overproduced, it's lyrically boring, etc. Honestly, I agree- but I hate one-sided arguments, so I'm gonna consider both sides here.
Yes. A lot of pop songs use the same chord progressions, modulations, and sometimes instrumentation. There's a reason for this though- the songs are usually limited to around 3-4 minutes, and they have to be radio-friendly (catchy, able to invoke emotions, not too complex for someone half-listening while, say, driving). This doesn't leave much room for variation, unfortunately. To my (biased) ear, there are only really two types of pop song- the upbeat, happier song, and the slow, dramatic ballad. The upbeat one has a heavy beat, a catchy riff (often on a keyboard or synthesiser), and generally switches between a female singer and a male rapper. The slower one follows one specific chord progression on piano, has a lot of dynamics in the singing, and honestly feels a bit pretentious to me. (I'm not joking either- look up "Axis of Awesome 4 Chords")
Black Sabbath wrote Paranoid in about 5 minutes, according to Ozzy. They were writing an album (called War Pigs at the time), and needed to fill some time, so they played that. It ended up so catchy that they named the album after it, and it became a hit. On the other hand, albums like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Dark Side of the Moon, took a lot of time to produce. While they are regarded as legendary albums, they're not so radio-friendly. I don't know much about modern pop, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot, if not most, of hit songs are written in a relatively short time-frame- putting too much work into a song can make it feel convoluted, and can take away that catchy hit song quality (though it can definitely make good stuff too- for instance, the two albums I named).
When people say pop music has meaningless lyrics, there is one good way to counter this argument: Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin has some variety from song to song, and I definitely wouldn't call Stairway to Heaven meaningless (and I would call Fool in the Rain both meaningful and pretty funny, when you get to the twist). On the other hand.... Look up the lyrics to D'yer Mak'er, and tell me they're deep and meaningful. It's still one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs though, for a variety of reasons. The point here is, good lyrics can make a good song great, but less-than-optimal lyrics don't necessarily ruin a song. It's true that pop songs tend to lean more towards these cliche, uninspired lyrics, but if every song required the listener to study psychology, Greek mythology and Western literature (see: The Doors/The End), the average person would probably find them meaningless anyways.
That's gonna be it for today. Sorry if any of this seems rushed- I accidentally deleted everything I'd written about 2/3 of the way through and couldn't get it back. Hopefully you enjoyed it regardless!
