Taylor Swift shilling for the PTB?

Musicinventor said:
As with Taylor Swift, and so with Willow; is it trending because people like it or do people like it because it’s trending? And who gives the trend that initial push?
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As far as I can see, Willow isn’t trending. At least not in the way Swift is. Quite far away from that. From what I can see, Willow is totally underrated and not that well known (for her current music) in popular culture. Not comparable to Swift in those terms IMO.
 
RE Willow Smith. Would she, or this song get ANY traction if she wasn’t connected to Will Smith? How massive is the support and promotion behind her which no mortal organic musician would ever get? Are the kudos from Youtube shills really valid and worth more than a nickel?

One obvious beef (to me) is that her vocal range is very narrow and she has to really push her voice into screech territory to get a second octave out of it.

Lastly, the “she” part. I’m reluctant to bring it up but there is the Hollywood gender reversal narrative and there are aspects of her physicality that fill that bill. I’m not sayin’ but given Mike Obama and Bridgette Macron, it is something to be aware of not that it really matters when it comes to music. (Except it could explain her narrow range. It is the females who become males that can gain a tremendous and impressive falsetto range which is totally a thing in pop: Men who can sing like women)

All wild speculation of course but some yellow flags at least that we are maybe not hearing what we are being told we are hearing. That said, the lyrics are very interesting indeed!
 
BHelmet said:
RE Willow Smith. Would she, or this song get ANY traction if she wasn’t connected to Will Smith? How massive is the support and promotion behind her which no mortal organic musician would ever get? Are the kudos from Youtube shills really valid and worth more than a nickel?
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I had a similar discussion earlier today. I remember, in my teens, when the "latest hit" be released on the radio. The hit was basically force fed to listeners at least once every hour. I remember how DJ’s would spout about how "this is the greatest song ever written and that these artists were absolute genius and so amazing, etc. etc. What I came to find; the far better music was rarely or not heavily promoted. It had to be discovered at either the local record store or through someone who was already familiar with the music.
 
Yeah, it's interesting how different people define great music. Symptom of Life is not bad, but it certainly didn't put me into musical nirvana like these people. I'll give it that the beat was very original and some thought was definitely put into the lyrics, but even that wasn't super profound for me and I don't care for the singing at all. It all just kind of fades into the background and I found myself thinking that it would be a good background track for some cerebral sci-fi movie, but not something I would listen to on my own. To me, pop is not a good genre for deep songs as the style is intended for feel-good stuff. Rock is better suited for that because the style meshes better with the grittier elements of reality.

This song is neither pretty nor complex, but definitely has a message:
I thought this one was beautiful, but it has no lyrics as it's actually videogame music:
 
Musicinventor said:
So, I heard this song about a month ago. I was rather surprised when I did because I immersed recognized the opening motif… The piece posted, I composed back in 2020 during the scamdemic lockdown. I posted it on YouTube recently to place in the comments of an interview with the pianist. Please feel free to tell me I’m crazy for thinking what I’m thinking but…

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There’s an obvious similarity, but the similarity is that both pieces start with an arpeggiated chord sequence on piano in a Latin style of a similar tempo.

Your piece is through-composed though and modulates, and it quickly moves on from the opening sequence, whereas hers continues along the initial theme.

Having followed a few music lawsuits, I don’t think you would have a case as, to my ears, the two pieces just have ‘stylistically’ similar intros, rather than the same chord progressions or melodies.

I once wrote a song and about a year later the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their Stadium Arcadium album which had a track called “Ready Made”. I was gobsmacked at the similarity. Same key, almost identical riff and drum part, the way it went into the bridge and the chord progression from there. I honestly put it down to us picking up similar stuff from the universe at the same time, since, as I said, their album came out around a year after I’d written my song - so maybe we wrote them around the same time.
 
dugdeep said:
Just exploring this a bit more. I'm thinking of many different instances where I've had rather profound experiences with music only to find out later that the artist is actually an idiot. One example would be Radiohead, who I think have some truly excellent music, yet they support Extinction Rebellion :rolleyes: I've often thought that a true artist has the ability to channel something higher, some level of universal truth, without inserting an excessive amount of their own personal and subjective sh*t; like they're actually able to step aside and let something beautiful come through. There are so many examples of rather terrible people creating great art and the only explanation I can come up with is that they're actually able to access something higher or objective in human experience and are conveying that without excessive subjective corruption (probably to varying degrees).

Probably because of the music I listened to growing up, I tend to respond much more to music itself rather than lyrics (although not always). I often find lyrics to be disappointing, TBH. Like I'll connect with a song at a musical level and when I start paying attention to the lyrics they just come across as self-indulgent, crass or just plain stupid. It's like the music itself is touching on something profound, but the artist then dumps a bunch of subjective junk on it; like corrupting the channel, to a certain extent. I'm sure this is also a technique for programming; deliberately tacking a bunch of negative 'stuff' onto a positive source.
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My favourite recording artist is John Frusciante who became famous for his work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers but who has an extensive catalogue of solo material.

In an interview he once did, he was asked about fame. His response was that to him, fame is kind of silly because a musician is just a channel and one should not conflate them with the art that comes through them.

One of my favourites by him:


You take me by the hand
A hand’s all i feel right now
It’s all i am
It’s all that i am
You think that I'm a man
I beg to differ
For i am her as much as I'm me
You know this moment in time
Is all my life
Every day is each day that's past
Every person alive is everyone who's died
A ship out in the distance
Is here if i draw it
Multiply time by letting it go by
You paint a star
You give many years ago
New life and it appreciates it
You know this moment in time
Is all my life
Everyday is each day that's past
Every person alive is everyone who's died
 
Cosmos said:
Dylan in which he very explicitly explained that he can't explain how many if not all of his early songs came into being. He was visibly perplexed and couldn't explain it at all, seemingly making it very clear that the songs came from somewhere else and he wasn't the creator but just the channel through which they came.
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I wanted to ask the C's a question about Dylan's muse. His songs are incredibly profound sometimes. In an interview with Ed Bradley, Dylan said that he basically sold his soul to the devil for the fame he has. I wonder if the deal included not revealing certain things or expressing certain sentiments - Bob Dylan was an icon of the anti-war movement of the '60s. Perhaps he made a deal to tone all that down. Some of his songs suggest he has delved into some fairly deep esoteric subjects - i.e., Gnosticism. Some of his songs may be so convoluted and cryptic because he still wants to send a message out, at least to those with ears to hear.

 
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Mark7 said:
In an interview with Ed Bradley, Dylan said that he basically sold his soul to the devil for the fame he has.
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He almost certainly didn't:

Cosmos said:
I don’t think he made a bargain with the devil (at least on a conscious level) in regards to that statement. Which is something many people have claimed who quote him out of context there. I think, in his mind, he made a bargain with god, at least back then. But if it was really god, is another question!
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Mark7 said:
I think what he was suggesting is that he made a deal with the 'deep state' aspect of the music industry - with the PTB.
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I will have to watch the whole thing again (in context) but when I researched it back then (and watched the full thing from a reliable source) it was quite clear to me that Dylan was/is a religious man and that he was talking about god there.
 
T.C. said:
My favourite recording artist is John Frusciante who became famous for his work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers but who has an extensive catalogue of solo material.

In an interview he once did, he was asked about fame. His response was that to him, fame is kind of silly because a musician is just a channel and one should not conflate them with the art that comes through them.
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Frusciante is a brilliant artist. I think he was nudged towards writers like Gurdjieff and Aldous Huxley by his mate Johnny Marr, another great guitarist and deep thinker. That song you shared is a great example of his solo work, where he goes introspective, far from the funk rock of the Chilis, although I love their work too. His solo work is well worth exploring for anyone needing a break from the tedium of mainstream releases, and he's very experimental in his approach too. "The Empyrean" stands tall as a great album by him, but there are gems aplenty in his work. Good share man!:cool2:
 
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