Mindless music fails us all
Modern artists like BTS don’t make me clap along; they simply make me and my friends groan in unison, says Adam Toogood
No longer is the music industry filled with talent, heart and passion. As it stands, the top 10s on apps like Spotify are merely created out of an obligation to sell. We are past the days of Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and ShBoom and are now moving into the age of Lady GaGa, BTS and Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby.’ Nowadays, vocals are all disingenuously crammed with auto-tune and filters. Freddie Mercury performed at Wembley with a cold and still gave a stellar performance; don’t we want to listen to music with that kind of talent behind the instruments?
Look no further than BTS’s ‘MIC Drop,’ a shallow flexing scheme lacking skill and ability which only succeeds because of pretty boys being the distributors. With this song reaching critical success and acclaim, it is unlikely that this trend of mass-produced digital tunes will go away any time soon.
When listening to music, I want to be moved by the lyrics. I want to feel like a different person after listening to a song for the first time. I do not capture that same magic when I hear a song made up of 20% “MIC Drop,” 23% “how you think ‘bout that” and 17% “how you dare” with slang terms like “haters” and “players” thrown in for clout. It is a fact that lyrics as a whole are becoming simpler, less meaningful and more generic with many top 10s repeating phrases over and over alongside the tiresome ‘millennial whoop.’ Music has never been more barebones and it shows.
Their music aims to appeal to young people with slang, acronyms and repetition. There is no variation, there is no reality and there is most certainly no talent. This is not simply limited to BTS either; artists across the globe have adapted this low-effort strategy, a strategy that is unfortunately working. Anybody who praises this music has had their ears eroded to the bare minimum, their music taste evaporated by the constant wave of garbage pushed to people all across the year.
Adam Toogood
No longer is the music industry filled with talent, heart and passion. As it stands, the top 10s on apps like Spotify are merely created out of an obligation to sell. We are past the days of Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and ShBoom and are now moving into the age of Lady GaGa, BTS and Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby.’ Nowadays, vocals are all disingenuously crammed with auto-tune and filters. Freddie Mercury performed at Wembley with a cold and still gave a stellar performance; don’t we want to listen to music with that kind of talent behind the instruments?
Look no further than BTS’s ‘MIC Drop,’ a shallow flexing scheme lacking skill and ability which only succeeds because of pretty boys being the distributors. With this song reaching critical success and acclaim, it is unlikely that this trend of mass-produced digital tunes will go away any time soon.
When listening to music, I want to be moved by the lyrics. I want to feel like a different person after listening to a song for the first time. I do not capture that same magic when I hear a song made up of 20% “MIC Drop,” 23% “how you think ‘bout that” and 17% “how you dare” with slang terms like “haters” and “players” thrown in for clout. It is a fact that lyrics as a whole are becoming simpler, less meaningful and more generic with many top 10s repeating phrases over and over alongside the tiresome ‘millennial whoop.’ Music has never been more barebones and it shows.
Their music aims to appeal to young people with slang, acronyms and repetition. There is no variation, there is no reality and there is most certainly no talent. This is not simply limited to BTS either; artists across the globe have adapted this low-effort strategy, a strategy that is unfortunately working. Anybody who praises this music has had their ears eroded to the bare minimum, their music taste evaporated by the constant wave of garbage pushed to people all across the year.
Adam Toogood
