I recently read an article in The Guardian (Pop’s need for speed: ‘You have to drop new stuff constantly’, 9/19/19) about why Pop stars are “under pressure” to constantly release material and had to chuckle. I think the title says it all. I am of the opinion that good music, objectively good music takes time to create. Of course, we always hear the serendipitous stories about how this or that certain “hit” just magically happened; however, I don’t know of any long term successful artists that were able to fart out “hits” on a whim. To be a consistently great songwriter takes a lot of time and devotion to one’s craft and music in general. Once the line is transgressed between making good music for art’s sake and having to make music to stay relevant, I got news for all you Pop stars–you’re doing it wrong! Perhaps you should slow down…

What the article is really saying about Pop music is that it sucks, and it is noticeably “suckier” today. Because it sucks so much, it isn’t as memorable and falls out of rotation quicker, leaving the particular artists at the bottom of the dust bin. The horror it must be to lose status in the Pop world! Rather than spend more time on creating better, longer lasting music, Pop’s approach has been the opposite–spend less time on quality and focus on quantity. This hilariously upends the integrity of creating real deliberate good music and instead showcases the hypocrisy of creating music purely for money. What we end up with as consumers is cheap goods. They’re like dog toys.

The solution? Well of course…just release more crap into the stream and that will keep the shit flowing. That way record companies can take as little accountability as possible if the potential hit fails and obfuscate their failures with the distraction of new and (hopefully) better music. Today’s Pop artists don’t have to focus so much on writing hits and instead throw darts with their singles, hoping that one sticks. The problem is, the music isn’t sticking! This then requires a replacement “hit”, which ends up not sticking either. News flash for all the Pop record companies–gone are the days of Brittany Spears, New Kids and boy/girl bands that fans will love forever. We now have a large swath of talent-less artists who can barely play and sing, let alone write good songs, who have to rely on computers and samples just to manufacture music. Fans today just aren’t buying it.

This is your wake up call–money never sleeps. Start using those million dollar studios to produce better recordings; go back to the days of real A&R that discovered talent–cultivate that talent; take the right amount of time to create legitimate hits and stop force feeding us all the poop. It doesn’t matter how fast you can suck. Create music with respect for the integrity of music and I can guarantee that the songs that come out the other side will become great again. Wow, that even sounds like a campaign slogan…