The culture is compressing what people are allowing themselves to feel. In 1980, Devo had a hit on three continents with a video in which they were all dressed as potatoes, and the bridge lyric said “in ancient Rome there was a poem about a dog who had two bones, he lick the one he lick the other, turned in circles then dropped dead“. That’s unthinkable now. Even big mainstream 80s hits like Tina Turner are filled with rhythmic and arrangement complexity that you just won’t hear anymore. 50% of modern content is about “I’m having fun, and my social group is better than your group“. So it’s obvious that some kind of gigantic ass has come along and sat on what people feel they are allowed to express. You correctly point to something like Rebecca Black as the hard line beyond which a perfectly ordinary pop song became too cringe to live.

Kendrick is a great rapper! He won a Pulitzer Prize. Phenomenal storytelling and artistry/lyricism

The second song is only in the billboards because it's part of a rap "beef" between kendrick Lamar and Drake. Without this tabloid context, it probably wouldn't have made the billboard. It's a rap song, not a pop song, though it is catchy. What that means for the music itself is that it articulates with a musical tradition: what came before it and what is being produced currently (and is not afraid of being critical of what is current). The other two are only trying to be popular, using the most clean and conventional ways to do it to attract as large an audience as possible.

I wonder how you'd react to Jacob Collier's music

Nearly aĺl of it comes across as scary and demonic to me at some kind of deep level. I'm only exposed to it by accident. It's like I can almost smell the faustian commercial calculation in the record companies. They want that cocaine and prostitutes and will do what's necessary.. I'm simultaneously aware of the sujbectivity of my perception and that Im more positive towards older pop.. I recently developed a hypothesis that popular music actually since the 60s has been modelled on the thought patterns and speech of low IQ individuals. Not even average people. Somebody worked out this was a commwrcial goldmine. Even if you take nobel prize winners like Bob Dylan (not his real name) his petformance persona is not real. Its modelled on some kind of rural uneducated person who accidentally utters poetic phrases. Joni Mitchell called him out on this. A lot of pop culture is a degenerate freak show. Freak shows made money. People can't avert their gaze.

6:28 I think it actually is, the gaming and online entertainment industries are taking a lot of people away from music. There is another thing I heard, not sure if it's true, that the younger generations listen to way more older music than what used to be the case in, let's say the 60's and 70's.

I don't understand how and why the #1 song is #1. Not like us should be #1. I don't know who make these lists.

Thank you for this video. I think it's great the way you pay attention to Kurtag. Only, you say that you have problems with Hungarian names, but, you try as best you can. Certainly you should have paid Kurtag the honor of at least pronouncing his first bame correctly. 'Gy' is a 'ge', much like the 'Ge' in the English 'George'. So, how difficult can it get? Into the bargain, you will pronounce György Correctly. And you could probably work out how a Hungaria 'ly' will sound (i.e, like the 'y' in 'yeti). And 'ny' is like the 'ni' in 'onion.

To quote Cioran in a slightly different context, the democracy of laptop music has created "a festival of mediocrity." And it is even worse than that. The exceptions to this rule are the product of extreme Left hemisphere dominance, an obsession with technique or abstraction, devoid of aesthetic development similar to the qualities inherent in mastering a Playstation controller. This is the art that gets produced in an age dominated by spectacle and technoscience.

I'd love to see you react to TOOL

Quel courage cher Samuel !

I'm a note to color-shape music theorist gone filmmaker, and with each passing hour I feel more and more compelled to re-post this video, but only with the actual Feldman track added in, and with me in a side-window listening to the piece as i'm locked in my closet while Samuel casually keeps speaking about the music. (And, of course, all shifted down to an A432hz Scientific-tuning pitch reference.)

It seems the three songs area about identity crisis. The first song from Post Mallone is the white American male singing sing-songy monotonous rap-music jingles but but in a forced Country Music twang. Therefore, saying :I am a while American male youth, but my masculinity is strong enough to be a young, BLACK American male. But but don't work, i'm still a real white American male who's parent's listened to that forgotten Country Western music on the radio. Each video is a sort of intended conformation about how you WILL dress, WILL sing and, above all, WILL behave if you are to be socially relevant. Sure there must be some sort of story or theme being told in the songs here, but, as per this channel, the goal is more of a sound-aesthetic discussion. A music break-down. Therefore we got breakdown of a music which seems to have eroded to it's most base, anti-intellectual posturing. A sort of blind, empty pride in the total submission to empty consumer culture. Ladies and gentleman...where have you gone? I must say, though, the Kendriick Lamar was kinda funky! These are the idle opinions of: _The Acoustic Rabbit Hole_

I though being out of the loop for 15 years was bad, but 30?! Wow. Interesting nonetheless how static popular culture seems to have become in terms of aesthetics. The change from, say, 1960 to 1990 is tremendously palpable but from 2000 to 2024… quite less so. But on the other hand with the internet we’ve now got access to every imaginable niche international subgenre. Still strange how the dominant cultural aesthetic barely crawls forward in comparison. There’s also (obviously) been a lot written about the phenomenon (usually tying it to economics/capitalism).

Now review Yeezus

It’s actually so funny that you’re reacting to these songs and these artists specifically. I’m not very in touch with popular music either but Post Malone and Kendrick Lamar are some of the biggest names in the world LOL

Hey, Samuel. Loved it more when you were doing the more technical analyses instead of "X reacts to Y", but i understand you are trying to grow your channel. In this regard, you should at least mentioned that you listened to the whole song (which im sure you did), but in this one it's as if you start commenting on them after 3-4 seconds whcih is kind funny.

I like that you examined popular music. I like your conclusions. All of this was great even though it was wasting resources of a profound thinker on music which had only one goal, to make money. There are people today making amazing, original forward thinking deep music that isn't being heard. It would be fun to hear your opinion on that! I could show a special song every day for 3 years and yet few would be aware of them! This is where the future of music should be going. Your channel, where all thing wonderful is given a deep analysis would be the best place for this to happen! Good luck!

Beautiful presentation as always ... sometimes too convincing as any objectivity i might have had goes out the window, I find myself swooning before the first note of a piece announces itself..such refined but passionate criticism is inspiring and cumulatively sexy...

All the same degenerate, imbecilic American rap detritus that we all have to worship as music fans as if it's the writing of prophets. I just don't get at all what you see in that Kendrick Lamar "song".

I've always been as much as into hip-hop as I have into classical :) Hopefully that's not the first track you listened to by Kendrick Lamar - I think it's just ok, but I'm not surprised your reaction was that it stood out as being more creative and having personality. That is how I would describe Lamar in a nutshell, for a mainstream artist he's always been a lot more experimental and weird than his peers, playing often with form and delivery in surprising ways. I recommend listening to his older albums which while perhaps not as harmonically rich as you might hope (complex harmony is often not the point nor idiomatic to the style), but check out DAMN and Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers (you might find "United In Grief" interesting, it definitely has a lot more contrast and unlike anything you might otherwise hear on the charts).

it's interesting to hear your observations. I find it disheartening, however, that this is even considered in ANY analytical sense. These things are well below the threshold of artful consideration. The culture is dead, It stopped breathing around 2000.

Samuel you should really listen to the album to pimp a butterfly by Kendrick Lamar if you get the chance. It is widely considered the best piece of art to come out of “popular music” in the past decade and I think giving it a listen would be very worthwhile.

The tunes you played are opaque to me, but many derive joy from them, so who am I to judge. I still get some value out of listening to popular forms of music in that I can sometimes pull things from the songs (a chord progression, a drum beat, an interesting turn of phrase) that I can use in a composition of mine. This, BTW, is more than I ever get from listening to modern classical, which all sounds to me like a guy falling downstairs with an armful of silverware (but who am I to judge)

This video surprised me. You are a brave man to confront the soulless and brainless dreck that is the great majority of modern pop music.

Not sure if you're aware, but Kendrick Lamar is actually a Pulitzer Prize winner (and the only winner outside of classical/jazz). This is what they had to say about his album "DAMN" in 2018: "a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life." His win seems like a category error to me, but it's interesting to see his work garner attention from an "art music" crowd. Though, as usual with awards, they gave it to him too late-his previous album "To Pimp a Butterfly" is the one that's more worthy of critical analysis. I presume someone on the Pulitzer board heard it and decided they'd give it to whatever he releases next to stay hip. Seconding everyone who recommends his music, by the way, but be careful before you turn into another "composer reacts" channel 😉

"Processed to death!" ...not a value judgement, though!

You should really check out Lamar's "To Pimp A Butterfly." It's pretty amazing stuff.

Yes you have a sharp ear Samuel but don't you also benefit from the repeated listening effect? From Stravinsky to the Monkees, enjoyment increases through 3, 4,.5 repetitions - for me at least. (Because the BEST part of music is the anticipation of what you know is coming.) If 50 million people re-play a vapid song, there's probably an ear-worm you're not picking up on immediately. But time will win out. And Burt Bacharach will be seen as art music in 2060. (random!)

I think all three songs are rubbish -- they lack discernible melodies, and they have monotone or no harmony and computerized boring arrangements. Mind you, though I'm a classical music afionado I don't look down on pop music (I'm a huge fan of the Beatles and Yes), but in recent decades pop music has become very dull, and poorly written in general (there are exceptions of course). Most hits nowadays sound more or less the same to me. Creativity has taken a blow in the pop world..

Great reaction video! You bring out the musically technical aspects of the works... rather than just talking about how you personally feel towards it like everyone else does.

I actually think the view count being lower today is simply because people don't watch that kind of content anymore, compared to back in the day. I feel like content is either long form +10 mins, or short form, tiktok length. Like 3-5 min. videos are just this weird middle ground, not much space for it in people's habits and the algorithm today.

Please do one with black metal or some extreme style of music!

As a person who listens primarily to pop music but also has some interest in “new music” (thanks in large part to the book The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross), I found this video really interesting. I had some preconceived notions about how a composer would look down their nose at pop music. But this video felt really earnest, and I’m surprised at the things you singled out to comment on. In short, please make more of these videos!

I watch all your analysis videos I hope you don't stop 😅

If you really want this series to get more hits/clicks, I highly recommend putting the artist(s) name(s) in the title. Perhaps instead of "billboard 100". Love your content, by the way.

Well, it happened to me when I was young a listening to P-Funk, My mom thought it was trash, ha ha I think this is trash...but I'm not the targeted audience

BTW, You're studio and the lighting looks really good for this video. The blue lights in the back are cool. It's helps create a vibe. Keep it up. Thanks for the great videos Samuel!

Lots of Auto tune on the first guys voice, a funny vibrato happening. Decent track.

O my gosh, THIS IS INCREDIBLE ! !

really interesting perspective, I basically agreed with everything you said but pop music is so fragmented now that 3 songs isn't really enough to give a picture of what's happening, not that I think it's really in a good place

A quote Bill Drummond of The KLF springs to mind: "All eras in pop music are golden ages, or will be looked upon as such by the only generation that matters at any given time. Not only are all ages in chart pop equal, chart pop never changes, it only appears to change on its surface level."

You were too polite with regard to the stupidity you were watching and listening to. And you know it. Also, I think the reason the “top” three songs have so few views has primarily to do with the polarization of our current culture and the sheer number of options out there made possible by the ease with which any fool can put a video on the internet.

I'd put Kendrick in as a name that will be remembered from this era (although musically and lyrically he has gone *way* deeper than this on several occasions, you'd be surprised, Samuel)

I'm starting to think Wuarinen was right about the death of high culture

Important context: "Not Like Us" is a diss track. Kendrick Lamar and Drake (the other rapper involved) had been trading subliminal disses in their lyrics for years, and the feud finally broke out into the open a short while ago. The track, produced by DJ Mustard, is a distinctly West Coast beat, and his vocal performance here is actually more restrained than normal, as Kendrick was using a flow that was very much in a recognizable Compton/LA style. Musically, he's declaring "I'm authentic because I'm from a distinct place that has a distinct musical culture, distinct lingo, a distinct way of speaking and sounding-indeed of being. Unlike you, Drake, you culture vulture, you empty shadow." The text/lyrics (in the third verse) and the music are thus reinforcing each other. This was Kendricks last salvo in the battle, coming a mere 24 hours after his last diss track. According to most who followed the battle, Kendrick killed Drake with "Meet the Grahams," a dark, menacing, psychological attack on Drake, and this was the "bop" or fun club banger, a way for Kendrick everyone else to collectively dance on Drake's grave. Which many did. This was Kendrick's fifth song in the battle, and apparently he had five more at the ready just in case, all of which he recorded on a single day. Which is to say, the production is rather sparse and rushed, serving the needs of a real-time musical battle more than anything. I would suggest watching Kendrick's performances with a live band. The guy is incredibly musical, and he's one of the best lyricists-certainly the best storyteller-in hip-hop right now.

loved this. please do more of this. your perspective is needed in this space i think

I just couldn't finish this "treatise" - without hubris of any kind, I must say I progressed beyond this "rabble" a long time ago. Music really does no progress by LEAPS and BOUNDS, we have a distorted perspective if we analyze the development of music, because we may ignore the thousands of composers and artists who never surfaced above the fray.

SAM, I’m so glad to see this post!!! Your channel is truly the best

PS., ITS NOT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: IT’S SOILENT GREEN! I MEAN THE MASSES GOBBLING UP THE SLOP! Goodbye cruel world!🤢🤮💀😈