Those of you who paid attention to the 2011 Billboard Year-End charts may have developed the same conclusion as other intelligent consumers of popular culture – most of the year’s successful songs were performed by artists who can’t sing. So, where are all of the powerhouse vocalists? At the bottom of the charts.

Top 40/Pop radio was once a battleground for some of the industry’s best singers. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were lauded for their massive vocal ranges and incredible skill whereas those acts who were unable to compete with a plethora of grandiloquent high notes were mocked. In fact, if artists such as Madonna and Janet Jackson didn’t compensate for their lack of vocal ability with shocking visuals and dance-heavy performances then they would have had no chance of scoring a hit single.

However, we are now in a completely different era where the tastes of the average young consumers are polar opposites to their older and quite frankly, more intelligent counterparts. Members of the dominant iTunes generation do not demand vocal bombast bolstered by intricate runs or thrilling trills. Instead, those individuals crave catchy hooks, memorable melodies and bouncing beats to which they could dance. Really, the consumer of the modern era merely desires simplicity.

We live in the Digital Age; a time where people demand speed and accessibility in every aspect of their daily lives. Think about it: 20 years ago, you would have taken the time to slap your classic Nintendo at just the right angle to stop the screen from jumping and if that didn’t work then you would have probably blown the tape to remove the dust. Now, if an app on your iPhone takes too long to load then you would promptly delete it and slander the developer on Twitter. Well, guess what? A similar mentality applies to music.

“People flocked to iTunes in droves to purchase Rihanna’s idiotic ’We Found Love’ because it was simple enough for even the silliest Media Take Out reader to understand.”

Many people didn’t want to listen to Jessie J use complex staccato and vibrato as she soared through the octaves in ‘Who You Are’ because that required too much time and energy to learn. In other words, it would involve too much work. Instead, the same persons flocked to iTunes in droves to purchase Rihanna’s idiotic ’We Found Love’ because it was simple enough for even the silliest Media Take Out reader to understand.

Let’s use more comparable artists for our next example – Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga. The former’s ‘Not Myself Tonight’ was a solid record with all the elements of a club hit. Yet, the song was a mediocre success and failed to crack the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Gaga, on the other hand, ruled the charts with ‘Bad Romance’ – a song that was also geared toward club audiences.

Why did ‘Not Myself Tonight’ flop on the Hot 1000? Not considering Aguilera’s horrendous PR in 2010, the single tanked because she was doing too much singing. People did not want to hear all of those vocal tricks while driving their cars or shaking their backsides at 3am in the club. It was too much for the lazy young fans to handle; a noisy disruption of their steady diets of ringtones and jingles.

“But Trent, Adele is a great singer and she dominated 2011!” It is true that Adele had a phenomenal year and appealed to a wide range of listeners but is she really an amazing vocalist or is her talent exaggerated when compared to her feeble competition?

Honestly, Adele does not execute the vocal gymnastics of Jessie J or Leona Lewis. Rather, like most traditional British Soul performers, she functions within a comfortable pocket of her range and her singing is far more expressive than impressive. For instance, dozens of artists, such as Nicole Scherzinger, covered ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and easily hit every note but failed to deliver the same emotion and that is why their versions paled in comparison to the original.

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

http://thelavalizard.com/...dio-today/

Who is that on the left?

HAPPYPERSON said:In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

You make one good point, in my opinion:

Average radio listeners today (and yesterday, for that matter) are lazy retards.

You can check the Billboard Hot 100 charts from the 60s onward and it's littered

with godawful bullshit.

If you think music today sucks, you lack perspective and don't know beans about

music history. The radio is an aural bastion of suckitude.

However, the reason why Frankenstein and Double Dee Cup have "prolific" careers

is because they release trendy music - not because they are not vocal virtuosos.

In fact, when is the last time vocal virtuososity was what was needed to have a

hit song or lasting career in pop music? Not never.

who wrote that? you?

yanowha said:

Who is that on the left?

Christina Aguilera

[img:$uid]http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-6/christina-aguilera-sexy.jpg[/img:$uid]

thekidsgirl said:

yanowha said:

Who is that on the left?

Christina Aguilera

[img:$uid]http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-6/christina-aguilera-sexy.jpg[/img:$uid]

I like fat Xtina.

Humping skinny chicks is like banging a bicycle.

I need meat to grab onto.

Beyonce does pretty good on pop radio.

duccichucka said:

thekidsgirl said:

Christina Aguilera

[img:$uid]http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-6/christina-aguilera-sexy.jpg[/img:$uid]

I like fat Xtina.

Humping skinny chicks is like banging a bicycle.

I need meat to grab onto.

Tina does look nicer with more meat on her bones... she look like a robotic Playboy Bunny from thekidsgirl's post.

mancabdriver said:

who wrote that? you?

No his name is trent, he a mass communication major, who owns a very popular music site

thekidsgirl said:

yanowha said:

Who is that on the left?

Christina Aguilera

Hmph. Her fat phase went completely unnoticed by me.

Beyonce does pretty good on pop radio

While none of singles from 4 have cracked the Billboard Top 10 so far, alot of her previous singles have done so, and there are plenty of folks on this forum who would swear on a stack of bibles that she oversings, so in that sense it undercuts his argument. He also doesn't mention that Xtina took big gaps between her albums, while Britney, Beyonce, Gaga, Rhianna and a bunch others don't take so long. 4 years or so is an eternity in pop music and in that time, you risk your alot of your audience moving on to someone else. And in Xtina's case, that someone else turned out to be Gaga, who isn't exactly a slouch in vocal ability either.

HAPPYPERSON said:

Those of you who paid attention to the 2011 Billboard Year-End charts may have developed the same conclusion as other intelligent consumers of popular culture – most of the year’s successful songs were performed by artists who can’t sing. So, where are all of the powerhouse vocalists? At the bottom of the charts.

Top 40/Pop radio was once a battleground for some of the industry’s best singers. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were lauded for their massive vocal ranges and incredible skill whereas those acts who were unable to compete with a plethora of grandiloquent high notes were mocked. In fact, if artists such as Madonna and Janet Jackson didn’t compensate for their lack of vocal ability with shocking visuals and dance-heavy performances then they would have had no chance of scoring a hit single.

However, we are now in a completely different era where the tastes of the average young consumers are polar opposites to their older and quite frankly, more intelligent counterparts. Members of the dominant iTunes generation do not demand vocal bombast bolstered by intricate runs or thrilling trills. Instead, those individuals crave catchy hooks, memorable melodies and bouncing beats to which they could dance. Really, the consumer of the modern era merely desires simplicity.

We live in the Digital Age; a time where people demand speed and accessibility in every aspect of their daily lives. Think about it: 20 years ago, you would have taken the time to slap your classic Nintendo at just the right angle to stop the screen from jumping and if that didn’t work then you would have probably blown the tape to remove the dust. Now, if an app on your iPhone takes too long to load then you would promptly delete it and slander the developer on Twitter. Well, guess what? A similar mentality applies to music.

“People flocked to iTunes in droves to purchase Rihanna’s idiotic ’We Found Love’ because it was simple enough for even the silliest Media Take Out reader to understand.”

Many people didn’t want to listen to Jessie J use complex staccato and vibrato as she soared through the octaves in ‘Who You Are’ because that required too much time and energy to learn. In other words, it would involve too much work. Instead, the same persons flocked to iTunes in droves to purchase Rihanna’s idiotic ’We Found Love’ because it was simple enough for even the silliest Media Take Out reader to understand.

Let’s use more comparable artists for our next example – Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga. The former’s ‘Not Myself Tonight’ was a solid record with all the elements of a club hit. Yet, the song was a mediocre success and failed to crack the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Gaga, on the other hand, ruled the charts with ‘Bad Romance’ – a song that was also geared toward club audiences.

Why did ‘Not Myself Tonight’ flop on the Hot 1000? Not considering Aguilera’s horrendous PR in 2010, the single tanked because she was doing too much singing. People did not want to hear all of those vocal tricks while driving their cars or shaking their backsides at 3am in the club. It was too much for the lazy young fans to handle; a noisy disruption of their steady diets of ringtones and jingles.

“But Trent, Adele is a great singer and she dominated 2011!” It is true that Adele had a phenomenal year and appealed to a wide range of listeners but is she really an amazing vocalist or is her talent exaggerated when compared to her feeble competition?

Honestly, Adele does not execute the vocal gymnastics of Jessie J or Leona Lewis. Rather, like most traditional British Soul performers, she functions within a comfortable pocket of her range and her singing is far more expressive than impressive. For instance, dozens of artists, such as Nicole Scherzinger, covered ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and easily hit every note but failed to deliver the same emotion and that is why their versions paled in comparison to the original.

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

http://thelavalizard.com/...dio-today/

People want good songs - well written pop songs.

That's what pop music is - especially stuff that is written to move people.

Sure there are tons of crappy singers out there but someone like Rihanna has a catalogue of songs that are well written and well sung.

It's easy to knock a lot of these artists but if writing and composing a hit song was so easy, even Christina Aguilera would have hits on radio.

As far as I can see, some of these artists have the songs and the look to go along with what people are into these days.

J

No.

Not myself tanked because it was a lazily written song, Bad Romance sky rocketed because it was well written.

Adele is a great singer by any standards, not just when compared to Rihanna.

And We Found Love is well written, not idiotic.

Who You Are was never a US single so why is it even brought up?

I don't get why people get so worked up about the vocal abilities of pop artists. It's pop music, not soul. A well written pop song can be sung by anyone.

RKJCNE said:

A well written pop song can be sung by anyone.

Some people are tone deaf and have no business singing at all.

HAPPYPERSON said:

Top 40/Pop radio was once a battleground for some of the industry’s best singers. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were lauded for their massive vocal ranges and incredible skill whereas those acts who were unable to compete with a plethora of grandiloquent high notes were mocked. In fact, if artists such as Madonna and Janet Jackson didn’t compensate for their lack of vocal ability with shocking visuals and dance-heavy performances then they would have had no chance of scoring a hit single.

Absolute bullshit. The reason that Madonna and Janet were successful is because their songs were very catchy.

However, we are now in a completely different era where the tastes of the average young consumers are polar opposites to their older and quite frankly, more intelligent counterparts. Members of the dominant iTunes generation do not demand vocal bombast bolstered by intricate runs or thrilling trills. Instead, those individuals crave catchy hooks, memorable melodies and bouncing beats to which they could dance. Really, the consumer of the modern era merely desires simplicity.

More bullshit. The author certainly seems to have an awfully high opinion of themself.

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

Yup, even more bullshit. Pop music has always been about simplicity. Always. If listeners of yesteryear were so much more sophisticated and craved complexity in their music then why wasn't jazz more successful as a genre? It is a complete fallacy to assert that listeners in the past were much more demanding than today's listener, all one needs to do is look at the charts pop charts over the last fifty years to see that. There has always been simple and mindless pop music. Sometimes you get a perfect marriage of a great singer and a great song but more often you get a mediocre singer and a great song. What is wrong with that? I'll take a great song sung by a mediocre singer over a mediocre song sung by a great singer every single time. Mariah and Celine may possess amazing voices but their music bores me. I would much rather listen to Ray Davies squawk his way through a song than listen to them.

I think the author of this article is full of shit and needs to do their homework.

MadamGoodnight said:

RKJCNE said:

A well written pop song can be sung by anyone.

Some people are tone deaf and have no business singing at all.

I don't see anyone who is legitimately tone def with a recording contract.

well besides that William Hung guy from American Idol.

duccichucka said:

HAPPYPERSON said:In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

You make one good point, in my opinion:

Average radio listeners today (and yesterday, for that matter) are lazy retards.

You can check the Billboard Hot 100 charts from the 60s onward and it's littered

with godawful bullshit.

If you think music today sucks, you lack perspective and don't know beans about

music history. The radio is an aural bastion of suckitude.

However, the reason why Frankenstein and Double Dee Cup have "prolific" careers

is because they release trendy music - not because they are not vocal virtuosos.

In fact, when is the last time vocal virtuososity was what was needed to have a

hit song or lasting career in pop music? Not never.

You cannot claim this as absolute fact as it is more a matter of opinion than anything.

rialb said:

HAPPYPERSON said:

Top 40/Pop radio was once a battleground for some of the industry’s best singers. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were lauded for their massive vocal ranges and incredible skill whereas those acts who were unable to compete with a plethora of grandiloquent high notes were mocked. In fact, if artists such as Madonna and Janet Jackson didn’t compensate for their lack of vocal ability with shocking visuals and dance-heavy performances then they would have had no chance of scoring a hit single.

Absolute bullshit. The reason that Madonna and Janet were successful is because their songs were very catchy.

More bullshit. The author certainly seems to have an awfully high opinion of themself.

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

Yup, even more bullshit. Pop music has always been about simplicity. Always. If listeners of yesteryear were so much more sophisticated and craved complexity in their music then why wasn't jazz more successful as a genre? It is a complete fallacy to assert that listeners in the past were much more demanding than today's listener, all one needs to do is look at the charts pop charts over the last fifty years to see that. There has always been simple and mindless pop music. Sometimes you get a perfect marriage of a great singer and a great song but more often you get a mediocre singer and a great song. What is wrong with that? I'll take a great song sung by a mediocre singer over a mediocre song sung by a great singer every single time. Mariah and Celine may possess amazing voices but their music bores me. I would much rather listen to Ray Davies squawk his way through a song than listen to them.

I think the author of this article is full of shit and needs to do their homework.

CO SIGN. While pop has always been on the simple side there have been better well constructed pop songs even some with alot more depth. This why I never understood why some would choose a good singer that makes bad music over a average singer who makes GOOD music because at the end of the day MUSIC is all it is. Nobody is listening to the radio analyzing if someone is a good singer or not.. their listening to the song.

So explain Adele...

rialb said:

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents. Simplicity is the key to success and if the average person is unable hum all the notes of a song then it would probably fail to chart on the mainstream formats. Perhaps, that is true reason for Rihanna and Katy Perry’s prolific careers.

Yup, even more bullshit. Pop music has always been about simplicity. Always.

ditto. the beatles were simple and very good vocalists. "overwhelm lazy listeners" WTF?

sosgemini said:

So explain Adele...

People would think she's a "rarity". Please. The music industry can be so stupid sometimes. They act like they know what's supposed to sell. But what's actually selling and what's not is TELLING when you see the fucking charts lately. Your girl still got top ten hits on the charts and on iTunes and is pushing like 30,000 more units than the No. 2 album right now!

I find it hard to believe anyone thinks Adele is a good singer. She misses about half her notes because of the millions of cigarettes she's smoked.

And by "misses" I don't mean she hits the wrong note.

I mean no sound comes out of her mouth. It's like listening to The Sounds of Emphysema.

smoothcriminal12 said:

duccichucka said:

You make one good point, in my opinion:

Average radio listeners today (and yesterday, for that matter) are lazy retards.

You can check the Billboard Hot 100 charts from the 60s onward and it's littered

with godawful bullshit.

If you think music today sucks, you lack perspective and don't know beans about

music history. The radio is an aural bastion of suckitude.

However, the reason why Frankenstein and Double Dee Cup have "prolific" careers

is because they release trendy music - not because they are not vocal virtuosos.

In fact, when is the last time vocal virtuososity was what was needed to have a

hit song or lasting career in pop music? Not never.

You cannot claim this as absolute fact as it is more a matter of opinion than anything.

You've added nothing to the conversation at hand by pointing out that my opinion of today's

music, is in fact an opinion.

I get ducci's argument. There were some shitty records that charted real well from the 1950s on. It wasn't like the industry just started releasing music that sucks recently!

duccichucka said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

You cannot claim this as absolute fact as it is more a matter of opinion than anything.

You've added nothing to the conversation at hand by pointing out that my opinion of today's

music, is in fact an opinion.

You said specifically "you lack perspective and know nothing about music history," which just isn't true.

smoothcriminal12 said:

duccichucka said:

You've added nothing to the conversation at hand by pointing out that my opinion of today's

music, is in fact an opinion.

You said specifically "you lack perspective and know nothing about music history," which just isn't true.

Timmy's got my point: you cannot point to a particular time in pop music

and state it was universally accepted as "good."

If you believe that music is bad today only; or, that music yesterday was better

than music today, then yes, I stand by my assertion that you lack perspective

and don't know nothing about music history.

duccichucka said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

You said specifically "you lack perspective and know nothing about music history," which just isn't true.

Timmy's got my point: you cannot point to a particular time in pop music

and state it was universally accepted as "good."

If you believe that music is bad today only; or, that music yesterday was better

than music today, then yes, I stand by my assertion that you lack perspective

and don't know nothing about music history.

Universal acclaim does not equal being awful.

People try to make the arguement that, there always was bad music

That is true.

There even were bad pop songs.

HOWEVER, there were vastly more better pop songs constructed during the 60s, 70s, etc compared to NOW in THIS music industry and whoever disagrees is delusional if you think it has gotten better or has stayed the same.

Nobody is arguing that pop was always simple.. even though there are some deep depth pop songs but they were BETTER written pop songs FOR THE MOST part compared to today.