boldscout72 boldscout72 said:I hate serious debates on this forum, but you—you just can't help yourself, can you? Honestly. Let’s actually define what a "pop product" is. For me, looking at the music scene, a "pop product" is Linkin Park. It’s simple: you take five good-looking guys and a producer. The guys have talent, sure—they know a few chords on the guitar and they’ve got tasteful tattoos in all the right places. Then you bring in the producer, who has the cash and the vision. You slap the name Linkin Park on them, stick them in every major US record store right behind Limp Bizkit—who were basically the superheroes of the charts back then—and the show begins. On the flip side, you’ve got four guys from Chicago who are just bored. After spinning everything from Talking Heads to whatever else, they decide to start a band. It’s like, "Hey, let’s just have some fun," write some catchy lyrics, and make music that makes people dance. Soon enough, they’re playing on every radio station and TV channel across America. Why? Because they’re fun. I mean, brainless kind of fun—but fun nonetheless. Even if you aren't looking for anything deeper. It’s like watching a Coen brothers movie. They’re incredibly entertaining, yet it isn't just low-brow slapstick. Look, we’re talking about pop music here, not high art, or jazz, or whatever. Pop music doesn't necessarily push boundaries; its job is to entertain people. Sometimes it does both, but most of the time, it doesn't. Why is The Killers a better band than Franz Ferdinand? Maybe some cosmic force decided so, even though they play similar music and maintain a similar media image. Popularity doesn't guarantee trash, and being obscure doesn't guarantee quality either. Man, you remind me of those metalheads who think if you haven't mastered every single musical scale in existence or swallowed every textbook on music theory, you don't have a right to have an opinion. Music isn't an exclusive club; it’s entertainment. Whether I’m screaming along to Teenage Kicks at Spunk while covered in beer, or trying to wrap my head around the sheer genius of Miles Davis, I’m just glad I have ears. I’m glad I can feel a melody, understand a story someone is telling me, or just uncontrollably move my limbs to the beat. What a miserable, stiff world it would be if every time we heard The Beatles, we had to stroke our chins and try to decode exactly what the songwriter meant by that specific tone—was it literal or a metaphor? Where is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything? Is there a Bog? Dude, just grab your girlfriend by the hand and take her out dancing. 🙂
So, you think I can't handle the serious stuff? That you think I just breeze past the deep topics on this forum? Please. I don't "hate" serious themes—I just have zero patience for people who perform them poorly. There's a difference. If you want to dive into something weighty, fine—let's go. But let's not pretend that being loud or dramatic is the same thing as having an actual point. I'm here for the substance, not the posturing.🙂Look, you’re like a fish in water when it comes to talking about them—you really know your stuff—but honestly? It feels like you don't quite fit in with the usual, empty, superficial chatter that defines most of this forum.😉
Look, this isn't some deep philosophical debate or anything—but compared to a spoonful of Nutella and an Ahmed's beef slider, this whole topic feels like reading Schopenhauer.😲
I haven't exactly pinpointed where we actually disagree enough to warrant this massive, deep-dive lecture—but hey, I guess this is just your way of venting about the whole topic by using me as a punching bag.
Look, I’ve gotta disagree with you on one thing—you’re seriously underselling pop music as an actual art form. You're treating it like it's just background noise, but there's real musicality there. Now, I’m not exactly the type to sit around memorizing every single discography ever released—my memory isn't quite that sharp—but I distinctly remember back when this group was more in sync on this topic. There used to be this massive consensus here where everyone would passionately defend the genre, making a huge deal about drawing a line between what constitutes a genuinely good pop track and the absolute garbage. The standard wasn't whether a song was getting played on the radio or if it worked at a club; the criteria were purely musical. It was about the craft.
FF just isn't a musically relevant band—period. They’re constantly being shoved down our throats as this gold standard for quality rock and everything else, but it's all nonsense. It feels like what happened with Limp Bizkit, only FF tries to play the "cool" card by leaning on bands that we actually respect. Honestly? That's exactly why I can't stand them.
Look, man—bands, whatever you want to call them—they’re fine. It’s all just noise and vibes, and honestly, when it comes to R&R, you’ve hit the nail on the head. But FF is reaching that "status symbol" level, or maybe they're already there, and I just care about whether there's actually any substance behind the hype. That's really all that matters to me.
Besides, most of my points were just... well, let's call them purely old-man-ranting-for-the-hell-of-it reasons. I guess it should be obvious by now that music is subjective—one person loves it, another hates it, and there's no fixing that (thank Bog for that, really).
I was definitely poking a bit of fun at FF, but I also wanted to point out that "serious" moment where FF became this massive phenomenon—basically the protagonists of the current rock scene—which, in a pop sense, actually has much better bands surrounding them.🙂
