there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that.
There's also a market for black tar heroin, nuclear missiles, drones, slaves, and so on.
Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field.
Is pop music a good thing for the world? (It obviously isn't as bad as any of the things I listed above to avoid claims of hyperbole, but) should we think people who make pop music are doing a good thing?
Should we think 90% of the stuff produced by HN readers on a daily basis (I mean the software we write, not our comments, hehe) are good things?
Is Facebook a good thing? It just lets people stay in contact with one another, they could already do that with a phone, Facebook just makes it a little more pleasant.
Is Snapchat a good thing? It, well, I don't even know what it does, but it takes pictures and lets you share them with people or something, right? Is that really any more valuable to society than pop music?
I'm not saying Facebook and Snapchat are bad, just that they aren't really any better or worse than something like pop music. The idea is to make people a little happier, or let them do something that makes them happier. Get off your high horse. Bringing people joy or making their lives a little more bearable is just that, nothing more, nothing less.
Should we think 90% of the stuff produced by HN readers on a daily basis (I mean the software we write, not our comments, hehe) are good things?
In the world I want to live in, would 90% of the stuff produced by HN readers, software, comments, and everythign else be good things? Sure. So in that sense, yes, they should be. Are they? Definitely not.
Is Facebook good? It definitely meets a market need; but what's the social implication of confining discourse into the channels it does? What will the generation raised on the 'like' button be like? How has social media affected journalism -- would people use phones to share linkbait about 10 Things You'd Never Believe We Found in Justin Bieber's Trash?
Snapchat is definitely a good thing. It's single-purpose enough that it doesn't replace anything else, but it add something to the toolkit of how people can communicate. It also brought the concept of ephemerality back to digital communication, which I think is invaluable. You might disagree about that, but it's definitely significant in the way that Call Me Maybe isn't.
I disagree that the idea behind pop music is to make people happier. The idea behind pop music is to make money. Sometimes these values align, and other times they don't. I've never met someone deeply fulfilled on a personal or spiritual level from playing Candy Crush; I've never seen anyone moved to tears by an N*SYNC song.
Assuming that people who make pop music are trying to make people's lives a little more bearable, I definitely think they could do a lot better. This guy is probably incredibly musically gifted, and what is he doing? Writing crap that nobody will remember to make a few bucks, in exactly the same way the greatest minds of our generation are using fantastic computing power and computing over insane amounts of data, thinking faster and deeper than any human ever could, to get people to click ads.
I think he could do better. I wish we lived in a world where he could.
I agree with everything you said, and you said what you said far better than I said what I said, so my hat comes off to you (then goes back on or my ears will get cold, this is Montana).
I would point out that, in a capitalist system, nothing is produced to make people happy, everything is produced for profit (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/adamsmith136391.h...). And that is really what I was trying to get across, pop music may be crap, but it is what is profitable, to the extent that people want to buy it (presumably because it somehow makes them happy). People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and a bunch of people building social networks and ad-targeting systems live in very fragile glass houses...
Sure. Heroin and slaves are really, really bad. Pop music is just mildly bad. That's a comparison.
The point I intended to make is that there are markets for everything.
I don't even think pop music is that bad, but being successful in a marketplace is never cause alone for accolades. Blindly worshipping people who are successful at some business venture blinds us to the ethics of whatever they're doing. Success shouldn't disable critical thinking.
Blindly worshipping people who are successful at some business venture blinds
Completely agree, but I don't think anyone in the article or this forum could be considered "worshipping" this guy. The article was more of an observation about a not immediately apparent fact that was intellectually curious.
Not this man in particular, but in general I think people in this forum conflate "being successful in commercial enterprises" with "living a moral/fulfilling/best-possible life." As do plenty of people in society. (Definitely not all people in this forum, but certainly some, and certainly a plurality.)
No he didnt. All he did was say that its not an instant justification for something just because there is a market for it, by listing examples of things that have a market, but society doesn't want sold. Just because there is a market for something, it doesn't mean it should be sold.
I disagree that pop music is some how damaging, bad or undesirable, thats just snobbery. Its not my thing, but then I dont expect other people to like my taste in music. Its stupid, its like arguing that blue is good, and yellow is bad.
I wouldn't say pop music is damaging or bad, but it does seem undesirable in that it's very obvious that you can do far better. Listening to pop music (not necessarily popular music, but branded pop music like the Backstreet Boys and other groups mentioned in this article) seems like a waste of time in comparison to all the other things a human could do with their mental cycles.
I have pretty broad taste in music, and many other things, but it's still obvious even if I don't like something whether or not it's worth someone's time or not. This is also contextual; i.e., someone who listened to pop music and had an ear for the evolution of pop over time, was aware of people like the subject of this article, and understood the musical justification for things like catchy pop songs is probably doing a much better job of listening to pop music than I was at age 11 when I liked the Backstreet Boys.
Humans are amazing creatures full of potential. Is pop music really the best we could do? I doubt it, which is why I dislike it, and think that it's a pretty bad market to participate in.
Addressing your point directly, is pop music a good thing? Well, is music a good thing? I think yes. What makes pop music different from non-pop music? Probably something about ease of consumption. Does ease of consumption effect what makes music good? Possibly to a degree. I think its fair to say that pop music is more disposable, and also far less likely to challenge the listener - and that sometimes challenge is good.
That said, it still brings all sorts of benefits of music, and the sheer popularity of pop music makes the shared experience so much broader and possibly more powerful. So in balance, maybe pop music isn't -the best- type of music for people to listen to. But I don't really think it's -bad-. We can't really expect for everyone to wish to be challenged in all their activities and all the experiences they consume.
I'd offer in counter point that pop music normalizing some of the most base human behaviors in ease to digest packages is actually bad for us, and outweighs the benefits you propose.
You ask if pop music and the people who are writing it are doing a good thing? I think so. Pop music is abhorrent to me. I actually get nauseous listening to it. My wife on the other hand loves it. Before we got married I asked her why she liked it so much. She works in a Pediatric ER. She said, "Well, in my job and the horrible things we see, I have learned to cope with what I have to by doing four things: debrief with the other nurses, cry if I have to and not hold back, imagine that all my patients survive and go home to kind and loving parents, and listen to Top 40. It does not tax my brain any further after a 12 hour shift and is usually upbeat and tells a love story." So from my single anecdotal perspective, yes, some people need the escapism and bubblegum. Makes sense to me.
should we think people who make pop music are doing a good thing?
...and the tech industry is any better? We're mostly driven by advertising and consumer software/electronics. (Yes, exceptions exist, but they aren't the rule).
Comments
There's also a market for black tar heroin, nuclear missiles, drones, slaves, and so on.
Is pop music a good thing for the world? (It obviously isn't as bad as any of the things I listed above to avoid claims of hyperbole, but) should we think people who make pop music are doing a good thing?
Should we think 90% of the stuff produced by HN readers on a daily basis (I mean the software we write, not our comments, hehe) are good things?
Is Facebook a good thing? It just lets people stay in contact with one another, they could already do that with a phone, Facebook just makes it a little more pleasant.
Is Snapchat a good thing? It, well, I don't even know what it does, but it takes pictures and lets you share them with people or something, right? Is that really any more valuable to society than pop music?
I'm not saying Facebook and Snapchat are bad, just that they aren't really any better or worse than something like pop music. The idea is to make people a little happier, or let them do something that makes them happier. Get off your high horse. Bringing people joy or making their lives a little more bearable is just that, nothing more, nothing less.
In the world I want to live in, would 90% of the stuff produced by HN readers, software, comments, and everythign else be good things? Sure. So in that sense, yes, they should be. Are they? Definitely not.
Is Facebook good? It definitely meets a market need; but what's the social implication of confining discourse into the channels it does? What will the generation raised on the 'like' button be like? How has social media affected journalism -- would people use phones to share linkbait about 10 Things You'd Never Believe We Found in Justin Bieber's Trash?
Snapchat is definitely a good thing. It's single-purpose enough that it doesn't replace anything else, but it add something to the toolkit of how people can communicate. It also brought the concept of ephemerality back to digital communication, which I think is invaluable. You might disagree about that, but it's definitely significant in the way that Call Me Maybe isn't.
I disagree that the idea behind pop music is to make people happier. The idea behind pop music is to make money. Sometimes these values align, and other times they don't. I've never met someone deeply fulfilled on a personal or spiritual level from playing Candy Crush; I've never seen anyone moved to tears by an N*SYNC song.
Assuming that people who make pop music are trying to make people's lives a little more bearable, I definitely think they could do a lot better. This guy is probably incredibly musically gifted, and what is he doing? Writing crap that nobody will remember to make a few bucks, in exactly the same way the greatest minds of our generation are using fantastic computing power and computing over insane amounts of data, thinking faster and deeper than any human ever could, to get people to click ads.
I think he could do better. I wish we lived in a world where he could.
I agree with everything you said, and you said what you said far better than I said what I said, so my hat comes off to you (then goes back on or my ears will get cold, this is Montana).
I would point out that, in a capitalist system, nothing is produced to make people happy, everything is produced for profit (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/adamsmith136391.h...). And that is really what I was trying to get across, pop music may be crap, but it is what is profitable, to the extent that people want to buy it (presumably because it somehow makes them happy). People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and a bunch of people building social networks and ad-targeting systems live in very fragile glass houses...
Are you seriously comparing pop music to heroin and slaves???
Sure. Heroin and slaves are really, really bad. Pop music is just mildly bad. That's a comparison.
The point I intended to make is that there are markets for everything.
I don't even think pop music is that bad, but being successful in a marketplace is never cause alone for accolades. Blindly worshipping people who are successful at some business venture blinds us to the ethics of whatever they're doing. Success shouldn't disable critical thinking.
Yup, so is your comparison. Your comparision is really, really bad.
Thus you, are really really bad, so the world doesn't need you, right?
Completely agree, but I don't think anyone in the article or this forum could be considered "worshipping" this guy. The article was more of an observation about a not immediately apparent fact that was intellectually curious.
Not this man in particular, but in general I think people in this forum conflate "being successful in commercial enterprises" with "living a moral/fulfilling/best-possible life." As do plenty of people in society. (Definitely not all people in this forum, but certainly some, and certainly a plurality.)
No he didnt. All he did was say that its not an instant justification for something just because there is a market for it, by listing examples of things that have a market, but society doesn't want sold. Just because there is a market for something, it doesn't mean it should be sold.
I disagree that pop music is some how damaging, bad or undesirable, thats just snobbery. Its not my thing, but then I dont expect other people to like my taste in music. Its stupid, its like arguing that blue is good, and yellow is bad.
Thanks for being understanding and discerning.
I wouldn't say pop music is damaging or bad, but it does seem undesirable in that it's very obvious that you can do far better. Listening to pop music (not necessarily popular music, but branded pop music like the Backstreet Boys and other groups mentioned in this article) seems like a waste of time in comparison to all the other things a human could do with their mental cycles.
I have pretty broad taste in music, and many other things, but it's still obvious even if I don't like something whether or not it's worth someone's time or not. This is also contextual; i.e., someone who listened to pop music and had an ear for the evolution of pop over time, was aware of people like the subject of this article, and understood the musical justification for things like catchy pop songs is probably doing a much better job of listening to pop music than I was at age 11 when I liked the Backstreet Boys.
Humans are amazing creatures full of potential. Is pop music really the best we could do? I doubt it, which is why I dislike it, and think that it's a pretty bad market to participate in.
Yup... I think he is... Haha! :/
Addressing your point directly, is pop music a good thing? Well, is music a good thing? I think yes. What makes pop music different from non-pop music? Probably something about ease of consumption. Does ease of consumption effect what makes music good? Possibly to a degree. I think its fair to say that pop music is more disposable, and also far less likely to challenge the listener - and that sometimes challenge is good.
That said, it still brings all sorts of benefits of music, and the sheer popularity of pop music makes the shared experience so much broader and possibly more powerful. So in balance, maybe pop music isn't -the best- type of music for people to listen to. But I don't really think it's -bad-. We can't really expect for everyone to wish to be challenged in all their activities and all the experiences they consume.
I'd offer in counter point that pop music normalizing some of the most base human behaviors in ease to digest packages is actually bad for us, and outweighs the benefits you propose.
You ask if pop music and the people who are writing it are doing a good thing? I think so. Pop music is abhorrent to me. I actually get nauseous listening to it. My wife on the other hand loves it. Before we got married I asked her why she liked it so much. She works in a Pediatric ER. She said, "Well, in my job and the horrible things we see, I have learned to cope with what I have to by doing four things: debrief with the other nurses, cry if I have to and not hold back, imagine that all my patients survive and go home to kind and loving parents, and listen to Top 40. It does not tax my brain any further after a 12 hour shift and is usually upbeat and tells a love story." So from my single anecdotal perspective, yes, some people need the escapism and bubblegum. Makes sense to me.
...and the tech industry is any better? We're mostly driven by advertising and consumer software/electronics. (Yes, exceptions exist, but they aren't the rule).
Out of curiosity, what industry do you work in?
I don't think I said that.
True. But usually when you judge others, the assumption is that you personally would pass the same judgement.
E.g. the speck in your brother's eye vs. the plank in your own.
I was admittedly assuming you work in the tech industry, just given that most HNers do.
Which, yeah, I was going to have to eat crow if you work in orphanages all day.