Re: [Harp-L] Re: {Harp-L] Opps I did it again. Pop is for the week.

[Joel Fritz <jfritz666@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard Hunter wrote:

> "Chris Michalek" wrote:
> <Pop music is only popular because that what people are told to like.
> <It's all about marketing.  Do you think a song is popular because you
> <hear it on a pop station twice per hour?  Companies pay for that kind
> <of exposure.  You know this Richard.  Weak minds are subjected to the
> <same things over and over thus they believe it is what they are
> <supposed to like.  They believe it is popular. Marketing in the Pop
> <sector involves a technique called Forced Evangelism. 
>
> Oh, come on.
>
> I heard the same argument from Al DiMeola, the guitarist in Chick
> Corea's Return to Forever band, years ago.  According to DiMeola, jazz
> lacked a popular audience because it wasn't on the radio.  Just put it
> on the radio, and everybody would rush out and buy it.
>
>  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   Big Snip <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

> Jazz isn't hard to find on the radio because of payola.  Jazz is hard to
> find because stations that play a lot of jazz attract fewer listeners
> than stations that play a lot of pop.  Period.
>
> It's not surprising to me that music that's more complex intellectually
> and emotionally has a smaller audience.  It's surprising that so many
> musicians who should know better think that putting their brilliant,
> emotionally and/or intellectually complex music in front of a larger
> audience will make it more popular than the Bay City Rollers.     
> Again, this isn't about what sucks and what sings.
>
> Thanks, Richard Hunter
> hunterharp.com
>
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>
>  
While pop music might be better if it didn't come out of factories and 
weren't written to satisfy the findings of sophisticated market 
research--e.g. country music pre 1960 or r&b and soul music before the 
disco era--Richard is right.  People don't want to read T. S. Eliot or 
Dostoyevsky as much as they want to read John Grisham.  Most people find 
jazz other than the smooth variety not very interesting.  They don't 
like classical music either. 

Good pop music like the standards from before WWII, early Beatles, Hank 
Williams, some contemporary rock...is good music.  It's too bad that the 
90% rule doesn't apply to today's pop music.  They seem to be going for 
six sigmas in the wrong direction. 

--
Hear Barrelhouse Solly--that's me--on the web.
http://www.soundclick.com/barrelhousesolly