I may sound like an old man (after a few glasses of wine) , but much of today’s “modern” popular music is the musical equivalent of fast food. It is the 1lb Taco Bell burrito that hails not as delicious, but as a “full pound of ‘ingredients’ to fill you up”. Much of the music leaves my soul as emotionally empty as eating a Big Mac leaves my body nutritionally empty. There is very little available out there that makes you want to savor and enjoy every musical “bite”. —- When is the last time you “wore out the grooves” of a record (figuratively, I know) trying to absorb every drop of music, soul and artistry that you could? —- Most music is now produced for quick consumption, merely to “wolf down” while occupied doing other things – later feeling more stuffed and miserable, than fulfilled and satisfied – causing the listener to fall into a “coma” rather than feeling light, inspired and energized.
Like the process of mixing overly processed “food”, chemicals and fillers to create any fast food, the over-use of technology to “fix it in the mix” has brought on a generation of “artists” with little or no musical ability, rewarding their style over their substance. Singers who can’t sing, players who can’t play and the deterioration of songwriting to the lowest common denominator is rampant in the music industry and has become the “norm” rather than the exception. Granted, I may be a bit spoiled playing with an amazing songwriter for the last 16 years, but the problem is prevalent. The quality of the songwriting coming out of Nashville right now it atrocious and just plain dumb. The “over-processing/compression” causes songs to come across as a lump of squashed white noise instead of a group of instruments playing individual, integrated parts.
Just as I hate to use the word food in conjunction with fast food, I hate calling some of some these folks singers and musicians and their product music.