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The Death of Melody

Reid Rosefelt

aka Tiger the Frog
This video has nearly half a million views so far.

Despite the clickbait title, it doesn't suggest that melody is really dead, just that it seems to be out of fashion in contemporary music, where songs like Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" have one note, and many other songs have two or three notes.

It mainly talks about pop music, but also recent work by Hans Zimmer.

Thoughts?

 
This video has nearly half a million views so far.

Despite the clickbait title, it doesn't suggest that melody is really dead, just that it seems to be out of fashion in contemporary music, where songs like Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" have one note, and many other songs have two or three notes.

It mainly talks about pop music, but also recent work by Hans Zimmer.

Thoughts?


Clickbait indeed. "Simple" melodies in pop music. That's pop music. Pretty much.

Also the image of Billie Eilish, clickbait again. And he talks about one of her songs.... She has plenty of songs with melodies that are in no way different or somehow less than previous pop melodies.

"Death of Melody". Clickbait!
 
I guess he's right.
Imo especially longer melodies with lots of notes going up and down or moving (in a wider octave spectrum) are rare these days.

Sound-Design seems to have taken much more room on nearly everything which is processed.
Plus clever arrangements, which can help also poor melodies with a few notes to get prominent enough in the whole thing. So I guess arrangement and sounddesign are the winners here. Maybe melodies can appear as pathetic ear-catchers which are not welcome anymore. And of course they can be annoying. But also wonderful.

I'm a melody-fan - so in a way old school. It's a huge territory in any ways nevertheless.
EDM, HipHop were some sucessful forerunners to get away from the melody-idiom.

Then came the epic boom change for the movies. Short attention span plus high tension = instant broth, simply consumable. Maybe this. That's why I like that there is still folk/acoustic music on the opposite.
 
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Lady Gaga's and Bradley Cooper's "Shallow" finally fell off Billboard's Hot 100 chart this week, after a 45-week run, so I'd take "melody is dead" comments with a grain of salt.

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper's 'Shallow' Wraps Hot 100 Run as Longest-Charting Best Original Song Winner

Nonetheless, I'll grant that melody is not as crucial to hit songs as it used to be back in the heyday of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. It was already in decline when "Wild Thing" hit the charts—with The Beatles' "Yesterday" being more the exception than the rule.

Best,

Geoff
 
God, i find the video insufferable. He lists 4 pop songs and says "it's not cool to write a good melody anymore". So in Billie Eilish's "Ocean Eyes" or Lady Gaga's "Shallow" they weren't trying to write good melodies? Absolutely ridiculous.
 
The link says no video. In the case of Hans Zimmer, I think the opposite is true. If he’s deliberately setting up a groove where the idea is rhythmic or percussive for its own sake that would be one thing (to say, “no melody here.”) But when he writes deliberate melodies whether lyrical or a line above the harmonies as a texture, he’s top drawer. He steers around cliche and expectation masterfully (the mark of all the great composers of the past.) He also exploits harmony with melody in unusual, fresh and interesting ways. Even if it’s just for a bar or two. He’s never lazy that way.

I don’t know why people don’t latch onto his melodic writing because it’s everywhere in his music. There’s a two part bit in the low strings in the da Vinci Code (I think when the butler gets it or thereabouts.) It’s two melodies in counterpoint; highly dramatic, that is drop dead gorgeous and serves the film marvelously. In the classical way, the harmony is resultant from the two lines. So that’s multi-melodic writing which is a deeper level of just crafting a tune or a happy tune or whatever people are calling “melody.”
 
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I think, it is not only about the melody which causes that dumbing down. Also harmony and timbre diversity went this path.I remember a couple of years ago I was reading a blog of a composer which was saying in one of his articles that he would advice not using Dom7 chords because they do sound old fashioned. And that is symptomatic that lots of things in music are reduced or (over) simplified these days.
And that leads to another thing: Music is because of its over simplification sounding very similiar if not the same.

(It feels like when I am out in the city and see so many women trying to look like a Heidi Klum-> They look all built by the same factory. Look at the fast fashion industry. Imo that things are a global phenomenon and isn´t only in music but in many different parts in life.

Smartphones tend to have more design diversity in the earlier days. Remember where you could just identify a model because of its shape? Look at mainstream midrange cars. I think there is a global trend of equalisation going on. It applies even peoples opinions. In Germany there are political debates all over the place. Either you are this or that, but there is no grey nunanced area anymore as it feels to me.

A:"Liking potatoes?"
B:"Yes"
A:"But not liking french fries? Well then you don´t like potatoes at all!"
B:"You must be right"
)


Music is just one category of it. This video analyses lots of more aspects in depth which I saw 2 years ago. The millenial Whoop is a funny term in the video but matter of fact is, that device is somehow very exemplary for the path what music took.



PS: I like some songs from the backstreet boys though, so I guess I am a cultural philistine.
 
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We have been nagging over these things since, well guess since the beginning of nagging :grin:

Every generation is in some sort complaining how things are too simple nowadays and that they feel something essential is lost and yes, it's also quite common to say "yes but now really!!"
When I was in my teens in the 90's, it was said by the hippy generation that the music was too simple and that back then it was so much advanced, but in the same time they heard from their parents that the Beatles and the Stones where too simple (4 chords only? and gosh that hair!) and that jazz was much better etc etc.
This will be a thing of all times and it's a good thing. The younger generation needs to break free from us and go their own way and we somehow need to adjust to that, but also again cherish the moments from our own youth and from the things we like. And in 20 years a new generation will start complaining again ;)
 
It's not just that the melodies are missing, or are generally weak. Everything's missing. I sometimes hear pop music somewhere and I'm always completely taken aback and appalled. I tend to forget how bad it really is, but that's just the state of mind out there in the outside world.

Can't say I really care. Pop music isn't music. It's not meant to be, and it's not what the target audience is interested in. It's sonication and low-level animation of absent-minded and lowbrow masses. It's like debating the finer points of preparation, taste and nutrition values of fast food. Seems just of out place.
 
PS: I like some songs from the backstreet boys though, so I guess I am a cultural philistine.
Perhaps you'll like this then. I thought it was fun to watch anyway:



(Sorry for the off-topic post.)

Best,

Geoff

P.S. The keyboard player in the video above is Jack Conte, the CEO and co-founder of Patreon.
 
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Music is just one category of it. This video analyses lots of more aspects in depth which I saw 2 years ago. The millenial Whoop is a funny term in the video but matter of fact is, that device is somehow very exemplary for the path what music took.



PS: I like some songs from the backstreet boys though, so I guess I am a cultural philistine.


Please watch this video and question if the video you linked should be used in any type of qualifed argument about (pop) music.
 
Clickbait indeed. "Simple" melodies in pop music. That's pop music. Pretty much.

Also the image of Billie Eilish, clickbait again. And he talks about one of her songs.... She has plenty of songs with melodies that are in no way different or somehow less than previous pop melodies.

"Death of Melody". Clickbait!


Thanks for typing Billie Eilish, I didn't know who she was, I just opened the first result: Bad guy. awesome song.
 
Personally, I think that coming up with an original, simple and singable melody is a true pinnacle of music creation. Technology, sound design, being creative with arranging of the already finished elements is all great, but the basic musical elements - melodies, harmonies and rhythms must always come first.

The fact that most types of modern music are more and more away from these principles is only a reflection of the sad attitude of an average listener toward music. Most of the people nowadays simply don't have time, let alone will to appreciate the music as an art form and to truly experience it like it should be experienced. Instead, they're considering music as nothing more than a background distraction. The basic rule of mass media - give the people what they want (the line from "Tomorrow Never Dies"). This is evident in genres that are generally geared toward the masses, but unfortunately also in much more sophisticated ones, like film music.
 
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Either you are this or that, but there is no grey nunanced area anymore as it feels to me.
Has there ever really been a grey nuanced area? I would say not really, not for the masses. I think the dividing lines are pretty bad right now, but it seems like these things go in cycles.
 
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