i have long held that pop music repeats itself too often and i think ive realized why: it's because they're afraid of the solo. replaceable white men who sing would rather repeat the chorus eight thousand times than let the guitar do something awesome
i had this thought because i was in a diner listening to the radio play some classic rock and i realized i couldn't think of any recent popular songs that had guitar solos in them
@typhlosion I see it the opposite way! the solo is white male self-centeredness a poor imitation of the increasing franticness of jazz, and a rejection of the groove that requires repetition!
@chimerror okay but i think the repetition used by jazz is a different thing fundamentally than the repetition of the chorus way too many times in a pop song. if you're gonna do pop at least let a solo happen, i can only listen to an obnoxious british dude croon the same four bars about how hard his life is so many times in a row
@typhlosion that I can agree with! The lazy repetition of pop is definitely different; I guess I just much more often see white people coming down on repetition in black music as some sign as a failure to "develop".
nah, ride the groove
@chimerror no, repetition is sick actually. on one end i am an unapologetic advocate for minimal and techno, and on the other hand Headhunters by herbie hancock is one of my all time favorite albums and it starts with one of the repeatingest tracks out there
@typhlosion ok sorry that I over reacted a little, it was still a great conversation!
@chimerror oh it's all good, i didnt express myself very well in the original post so i think it was an understandable reaction
@chimerror just to be 100% clear who's talking, i'm white. if i was any whiter i'd be see-through. it is very much supposed to be a "get it together, us" type of sentiment
@typhlosion it's feels like what white people need to hear!
@typhlosion another theory: people are becoming aware that most songs' bridges suck and are therefore abandoning them without knowing anything to replace them with
@nev let the guitarist loose. if you don't have a guitarist then have your producer program a cool solo on the lead synth. fuck it, bass solo if you really want. this is a problem that has been solved. not every part of your song has to have the singer yapping over it
to be clear, repetition of musical things in general is not bad. my grievance is with people who think mumford and sons is the freshest new sound in music singing the chorus ten times in a row because they can't envision music that doesn't center around their voice