I was beginning to think that the reason I dislike todays pop music is because I'm old.
It's not.
I think the songs all sound alike or some slight variation from one to another. Take Meghan Trainor for instance, "All about that Bass," is a catchy pop tune that is refreshing even though it sort of has an old familiar doo-whop twang to it. It's her second single, "Lips are Moving," that made me switch the channel. It sounds just like the first single. I was hoping for more from this girl, but she has one formula and she's sticking with it. At least she has a vocabulary and can write a decent lyric without falling for the, whoa-ooo, gimmick that's so pervasive in pop music, or the stutter that the Katy Perry's have perfected. It goes like this, "And you're gonna hear me ROAR-or-or-or-or-ororor." And, Demi Lovato's, "If I ever did that...I think I'd have a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack.
I think back to the pop music of the 70's with the songstresses, Carly Simon or Melissa Manchester that didn't have to employ these tricks. They simply sang the beautifully written lyrics with their own interpretation.
Mariah Carey is to blame! No doubt she has a wonderful voice and octave range, whistle register anyone? But, it's the melismo or running up and down a scale, that bothers me. I suspect the girl just can't hold a note for very long and that is her way of improvising to distract us from the fact that she can't hold a note for very long.
I don't think people know how to write a lyric anymore. They're lazy writers, using a few words and a lot of, "ooh-ooh-ooh" or "Whoa-o-o-o-o-o," to fill in the blank space. You would never catch Cole Porter being a lazy lyricist. He crammed more words into a song than the song had notes to contain it.
It would seem I'm not the only person who accuses todays songwriters of being lazy. The below video shows an astonishing list of current pop songs that use the, "Whoa-o-o-o-o" technique as a crutch.
I'm not old and crazy after all.
