50 yos on fb: why does the 20XX hottest 100 suck?
TLDR: It probably doesn’t.
Every year at this time I have to put together a little set of recent songs for a particular teaching exercise, so I am seeking the most singable and funnest currentish pop hits. In Australia we have this annual public indie radio station best-song-of-the-year thing called The Hottest 100 voted for by station listeners, and it’s always contentious. This year The Wiggles - a vintage Australian band that plays music for 3 year olds - won with a cover of a ten-year-old song, and oh my god you should have heard my fellow 50-somethings wailing about the state of music today. They were very unhappy about the #1 song - I know, it’s unbelievable! Middle-aged people with issues about 16yos favourite songs! They were trying to not actually shake their walking sticks but it was the same old questions… Why is there so much crap? Why do the cool 19 year olds have no taste? Why is it all porn? Why is the standard of the songwriting so terrible? Why aren’t there any GOOD songs like “It’s All In The Game” (google it) or “That’s Entertainment” (by The Jam, not the one from “The Band Wagon”, what am I, 90?) How could THAT TRACK have won the prestige #1 slot??
Anyway here are my answers to some of my peers’ questions. Maybe my teen readers can use this info when their parents start whinging at them. You know, all those TEENS who are on FACEBOOK and love reading old ladies’ pedagogy blogs! Cooltastic!!
Q1. Why is there so much crap?
A1. This is an easy one. Say the greatest era of popular songwriting there has ever been was the 1930s. Sorry that came out a bit wrong, I didn’t mean it was a hypothetical scenario. I meant: SAY IT: The 30s was the greatest era of popular songwriting there has ever been!
Yes, but even in the little Hal Leonard 30s Songbook - in between 2/3rds of my absolute favourite songs of all time, there are songs I don’t like THAT MUCH. I mean how good is “Boo-hoo” really? Even “I’m Just A Gigolo”, which has been a hit several times, greatly benefited from being mashed with “I Ain’t Got Nobody” by Louis Prima in 1956! And my little book is definitely a highlight reel. There must be thousands of songs that were written in the 30s, recorded by someone half decent, printed, played on the radio etc - that maybe enough people liked at the time for other people to make a living off them - but that probably ten and definitely 80 years later almost no one could recollect. This is a super obvious truism, but: the longer ago a song is from, the more stringent the winnowing process that has been applied to all the songs from its year. I mean who remembers any of the hits of 1582 except that one titanic banger “Unto Us A Boy Is Born”? Maybe some totally brilliant songs do get lost and forgotten as well as the dross, too - but someone will find them and bring them back. (“Te Quiero Dijiste” anyone?) Because I was 18 in 1985 think the 80s was a golden era of intellectual Britpop, but sometimes if I listen to other peoples’ naff 80s mix tapes, I’m a bit ‘good grief, what’s all that crap?’
At less than a year’s distance it’s impossible to know what is going to seem like a deathless classic after its moment has passed. Was it just the awesome video that whipped everyone into a frenzy and made them think they loved it? Was it that the lyric was DEAD-ON for its cultural moment? Is the singer just an all around top chick and our admiration for her makes us love her slightly weird boring ballads (more of Billie Eyelash later.)
Q2. Why do the cool 19 year olds have no taste?
A2. a) 19 yos are still engaged in the work of self- and peer-defining through cultural choices. Taste in current pop songs is their life, so much so that if you ask them about it they get embarrassed and might even say “I never listen to new stuff.” If you are roughly in their parents’ cohort, your taste and theirs basically CANNOT overlap except ironically when it comes to the music of now. They might, however, be quite into the music you used to play around the place when they were five … or they will be when they are 90. (Trust me for that last bit.)
Also. Soooo. Ummm. b) Maybe 19 yos’ taste is fine and YOU ARE A BIG OLD NANNA slash GRANDPA and also a GIANT DAG. I mean I pretty much hate most Drake songs. I don’t get his thing. It’s sort of boring and nothing happens. Yet I remember when the ATMOSPHERE of Icehouse’s Love In Motion seemed madly, irresistably intoxicating. (Actually I still quite like that, but I once thought Moving Pictures were cool - good grief!) So I know I am not cool. I mean: did you feel 20-80% ridiculous when you put your pronouns on your email signature? (I was reminded to do it by writing this and I just did it and felt a slave to fashion, like Elizabeth Banks in the Hunger Games.) Have you not done so AT ALL yet? Then - entschuldigung - I think you probably are no longer Herr Zeitgeist. I think you have to assume there may be some nuances of current youf culture (or all the nuances and some of the major themes) that are getting by you… maybe there are a million things in some current tracks that are whizzing straight through all of us olds without leaving traces, like radio waves, or puns in a Japanese movie… There are Billie Eilish songs that I am sure are doing a LOT of things that I am just missing. They may be alluding to thoughts that I just haven’t had or something. I dunno.
I might leave
3. Why is it all porn? and 4. Why is the standard of the songwriting so terrible? Why aren’t there any GOOD songs like [ancient song from when I was 15]? and 5. How could THAT be #1?? till next time! I have 8000 tasks! It’s Day 3 of the working year!