Music Meme continues...

[shadowkat]

Music Meme

Pick a genre, list five songs or albums (preferably with links to the music).

The difficulty is knowing which songs fit in which genre - this sounds easy, but sometimes I have no idea. So feel free to correct me.

Pop

[The category for performers that don't fit in the "rock" category, country, jazz, R&B, Folk, Alternative, Indie, etc...usually seen as soft rock]

1. Billy Joel Piano Man

2. Helen Reddy I am Woman

3. Pink Try

4. Beyonce Single Ladies

5. Lady Gaga Bad Romance

Crooners or the Entertainers - Known as the Singers

This is the soft music, that was mainly in the 40s and 50s, and is still around. Not quite pop and not quite classical. Although some throw it in Pop. These are singers who do not write their own songs, and we really don't notice.

1. Frank Sinatra Summerwind
My father loved Sinatra's music, and he had all the Big Band albums growing up. His brother's borrowed them.

2. Seth McFarland Voices (This man can do just about any voice, and his range is amazing.)

3. Elvis Presley Heartbreak Hotel

4. Barbara Striesand The Way We Were

5. Judy Garland The Man that Got Away from a Star is Born.

By the way, a lot of them did duets with each other..

* Elvis and Sinatra Duet

* Elvis and Judy Garland - You'll Never be Afraid of the Dark

* An odd virtual duet with Barbara Streisand and Elvis she also did it with Sinatra.LOL!

* But Streisand actually did do a duet with Judy Garland Get Happy

* Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra You do Something to Me [ And Dean Martin joined.] OR when they were younger... Embraceable You

* Streisand and McFarlane (who is far too young to have done one with anyone else) Pure Imagination

Comments

[cjlasky7]

I've been accused of being stuck in the past (true!) when it comes to my taste in pop music, so here's five (fairly) recent pop hits I couldn't get out of my head:

Bruno Mars - Grenade
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Post Malone- Circles
Rihanna - Umbrella
Lizzo - Juice

[shadowkat]

I like Lizzo's. Actually they just did it on Monarch, with a country singer, which was interesting.

[cjlasky7]

Ooh, one more:

"Driver's License" by Olivia Rodrigo

[shadowkat]

I'm still trying to figure out why that song went viral. It's not memorable. I've listened to it five times - and I can't remember anything about it.

Pop is an odd genre...it kind of jumps between elevator/grocery store music and ear worm.

For example: Harry Styles Watermelon Sugar is a huge ear worm song, I can't forget it. And Taylor Swift's Mean is also a good ear worm. But I can't remember any songs by Bruno Mars. Katy Perry - Call Me Maybe - sticks in my head, but her other songs don't. Very odd genre.

[cjlasky7]

I was almost going to put "Watermelon Sugar" on the list. It's my favorite Harry Styles song by a mile.

I find Rodrigo's intense vulnerability on this song reminiscent of 70s singer-songwriters (like Janis Ian).

[shadowkat]

I'm listening to it now..and sorry, don't see any comparison or vulnerability similar to Ian...she sounds more like Taylor Swift to me? Or the song does. It's about a breakup or loss of a boyfriend. It's my issue with most pop songs, as a co-worker lamented about Swift - is they are all about losing a boyfriend.

I'll share Janis Ian - who does work better for me, and I'm listening to now - to see, and nope. Olivia is high pitched, almost a "whine" similar to Swift, while Ian's voice remains soft, quiet, almost a whisper, with a soft acoustic guitar. Olivia's is for the popular girls who get the boys, Ian's is for well the rest of us.

At Seventeen by Janis Ian

Also Janis Ian - is more folk than pop. Olivia is definitely Pop. I'd say Billie Ellish is closer to Janis Ian, her voice is more vulnerable.

You should see me in a crowd

And Taylor Swift..

Love Story

Rodrigo is very similar to Swift, particularly early Swift - before she began to move away from whiny breakup songs. There's this whiny feel to the lyrics and the voice that grates. Sorry, no. It's very Swift, with all the problems I had with some of Swift's early songs. Swift did, however get better.

Here's later Swift... Carolina

Ugh. Sorry. My goal was not to analyze the music or why I don't like it. There's a group of pop musicians who don't work for me, same with rock and country - I don't like "whiny" voices or high pitched ones (high soprano), I prefer deeper voices. (the whine or high pitch hurts my ears and I can't make out the words). Also I really don't like whiny love songs - they are so redundant. There's a few good ones out there - Jolene is excellent, as is I Can't Make You Love Me if You Don't. But most are interchangable like the Driver's License.

[cjlasky7]

This is where we'll have to disagree/diverge, because the high-pitched quaver in Rodrigo's voice when she hits the chorus--

I know we weren't perfect
But I've never felt this way
For no one

--is exactly why I like the song. It's so raw and imperfect and yet conveys the emotion perfectly.

Rodrigo wrote the song when she was 17 (I think) and it's a neat double rite of passage story--getting the driver's license and her first big break up. There's bound to be some big, messy emotions here, and she lets you hear them.

For some reason, I don't see Taylor Swift doing something exactly like this. She's too polished, too analytical, too attuned to the minutiae of her breakups to be that weepy.

[shadowkat]

Thank you for explaining why you enjoyed the song.

It doesn't work for me, nor does the singer. And it occurs to me that the reason is - we aren't hearing the same song. This is hard to explain to people. There's this assumption we all tend to make that everyone sees and hears and smells the world the same way? But we don't. I remember years ago, two college friends were doing a research paper on learning disabilities. Neither had one. They were interviewing another friend, Carter, on dyslexia. They were trying to understand how she perceived the world - did she flip letters? Was it that? "No," she said, "it's not that simple and I cannot explain it to you. For me, it's normal - this is how I perceive the world. I don't know how you see it. That's the oddity."

You hear messy emotions when Rodrigo sings, I do not. What I hear is high pitched squeal - that irritates. You hear the quaver, I hear a whine.
It's kind of similar to Bob Dylan - whose voice I dislike. I love his songs, but don't like his voice at all. Now, you may immediately think - oh you prefer a more polished sound? No, I don't. And I do hear the messy emotions in Swift, although I tend to prefer the songs she does that aren't about messy breakups.

I think the problem that I have with music criticism is it fails to take into account that no one processes sound the same way. We don't hear the same intonations or sounds. I cannot tell the difference between the "S" sound and "TH", they sound the same to me for the most part. Soft consonants aren't often heard. And for me, a high pitched soprano voice is kind of torturous. My mother doesn't like it either nor did my father - so this may be genetic? A lot of high pitched voices grate - it's why I probably prefer rock, blues, and the lower pitched musical genres and songs to the higher pitched ones.

If the listener doesn't like high pitched sounds, is weary of breakup songs...then they will possibly hate or dislike or just not bother with Olivia Rodrigo's License to Drive. It's not universally appealing due to subject matter and sound.

[cjlasky7]

That's fine. There are many popular songs that I just do not "get." I always want to hear your opinion. Ever since ATPoBTVS, your opinions have made me more carefully consider my own. And that's always valuable.

[shadowkat]

Considering how opinionated I am, that's good to know. I honestly think I turn off a lot of folks - because I don't exactly hold back.

The Entertainers

[cjlasky7]

No Rat Pack. Too easy.

1. Louis Prima ("Buona Sera"). Backed by his red hot bandleader Sam Butera, and often accompanied by his gorgeous and talented wife, Keeley Smith, Prima swung harder than all of his contemporaries (yes, even Frank). David Lee Roth stole whole chunks of Prima's act.

2. Peggy Lee ("Is that All there Is?"). Peggy transitioned from archetypal female big band singer to cabaret chanteuse. "Fever" is her timeless classic, of course, but the song above (a Lieber/Stoller gem) shows the breadth of her talent.

3. Johnny Mathis ("Chances Are"). As the big band era waned, the crooner/entertainer struck out on his own as a pop music powerhouse. Mathis was a dominant force in the 50s and 60s, with a huge range of material and slew of top ten singles.

4. Tom Jones ("Kiss"). The next stage of evolution: the Vegas years. Although he verges on self-parody, Jones has shown an uncanny knack to adapt modern pop trends to his own inimitable style. Could any other crooner/entertainer do Prince with such panache?

5. Tony Bennett. The standard bearer.


Honorable mention: Mel Torme. The rare crooner who actually wrote his own material ("The Christmas Song").

Re: The Entertainers

[shadowkat]

It's not supposed to be hard or a competition or game, it's just a fun little meme. But it's nice to know you feel the need to challenge yourself. ;-)

There's also Bobby Darrin - Mack the Knife, Nat King Cole - Unforgettable You, and Rosemary Cloony - I ain't Got Nobody.

More modern?

Petula Clark - Downtown

[yourlibrarian]

Interesting about all those duets!

[shadowkat]

Striesand is interesting - she felt the need to do virtual duets with all these dead famous people for some reason. It kind of works, and kind of doesn't.

They were all entertainers though. I can see them doing duets together.