[a / b / c / d / e / f / g / gif / h / hr / k / m / o / p / s / t / u / v / vg / vm / vmg / vr / vrpg / vst / w / wg] [i / ic] [r9k / s4s / vip] [cm / hm / lgbt / y] [3 / aco / adv / an / bant / biz / cgl / ck / co / diy / fa / fit / gd / hc / his / int / jp / lit / mlp / mu / n / news / out / po / pol / pw / qst / sci / soc / sp / tg / toy / trv / tv / vp / vt / wsg / wsr / x / xs] [Settings] [Search] [Mobile] [Home]
Board
Settings Mobile Home
/mu/ - Music

Name
Options
Comment
Verification
4chan Pass users can bypass this verification. [Learn More] [Login]
File
  • Please read the Rules and FAQ before posting.

08/21/20New boards added: /vrpg/, /vmg/, /vst/ and /vm/
05/04/17New trial board added: /bant/ - International/Random
10/04/16New board for 4chan Pass users: /vip/ - Very Important Posts
[Hide] [Show All]


[Advertise on 4chan]


We Built This City, the supposed worst song of all time, was the FOURTEENTH most popular song of 1986, peaking at #1. If the song is so bad, why did everyone like it then? It's obvious people couldn't get enough of it and called in to radio stations to hear it and bought the record. It wasn't until some late Gen Xer editors in the 00's starting giving it a bad rep. I think I'll take the opinions of the people who were there to appreciate it more seriously.
>>
>>131318816
1985*
>>
File: 1765316086659335.png (107 KB, 595x1174)
107 KB PNG
>>131318816
they had some pretty good competition. also what the fuck is your obsession with this song? i guarantee you are the only one who gives a fuck.
>>
>>131318853
>28 and 29
kek
>>
>>131318853
also why is careless whisper solely attributed to george michael when that was a wham! song?
>>
>>131318816
>If the song is so bad, why did everyone like it then?
the musicianship is good, the song is Ok, but it came at at tie of transition between New Wave and Grunge and Rap and so, in hindsight, it made you 'cool' to dislike it.
By disliking it, you put distance between yourself and music that wasn't downcast/depressed (grunge) and disaffected/angry (90s rap aka gangsta rap), aka the cool new things.
>>
>>131318816
Gen X are a bunch of edgy moody fags that never grew up. They literally had the best childhoods of maybe any generation in human history and look at how they act? Look at all the chaos and mess they are making in the world. If I could wish away one generation in history, it would be them. Fucking selfish scum fucks.
>>
>>131318904
a lot of 80s shit was devoured by that. 'edgy' was the new thing to sell. not only grunge and rap, but television became a lot edgier. fox transitioned to a real network and immediately tried to push the envelope as much as it could. the simpsons was subject to national scrutiny over shit like bart saying don't have a cow. wrestling changed its target audience from little kids to edgy teenagers and the attitude era blew up after wwf almost went under earlier in the decade. after grunge came hardcore and nu metal. if you went along with mainstream trends this was the trajectory and there was no real way out of it. that said, it's a pretty cheesy fucking song. remember a lot of these kids eventually went to college, smoked a joint and listened to jefferson airplane and had to do a double take. by comparison 80s starship is just corpo slop.
>>
>>131318899
The "Careless Whisper" single was credited to Michael as part of the strategy to transition him to a solo artist. Michael told the media it was issued as a solo record as it did not fit the style of Wham!, but told his management that Wham! would break up. In the US, where Wham! were less well known, it was credited to "Wham! featuring George Michael".
>>
>>131318936
>Gen X are a bunch of edgy moody fags that never grew up
this was by design. the parents and politicians of the era repealed the laws that prevented multi hour long blocks of toy advertisements aka cartoons from dominating children's programming on TV because everyone wanted in on the merchandising craze that george lucas presaged with star wars. so you have a whole generation that was raised on television and the television they watched was just contrived ds for plastic junk.
>>131318973
iirc the first full solo credit he got was for a different corner on music from the edge of heaven, idk maybe i'm senile now
>>
>>131318947
not American but i did visit the USA and I remember there was a show on TV called, iirc, Morton Downey Jr or similar.
It was shocking because it seemed to deliberately show the worst kind of normal (not serial killer or criminal, just lower class) people acting in a way that was very off-putting and horrible.
i can see now that kind of behaviour all the way through American society, especially in rappers and President Trump.

I think this was a very bad thing for what was then a very great country.
>>
>>131319011
broadcasting standards were constantly eroded until functionally nonexistent because the jew needed more money
>>
>>131318816
Boomers hated this too because it was Jefferson Airplane proving once again that boomers were kind of dumb for ever loving them.
>>
>>131319011
the biggest reason for the loss of decorum in society was the repealing of the fairness doctrine. tldr it was a law that stated when reporting the news you generally had to include both (i.e. democrat and republican) sides of a story/discussion. it's no surprise it was repealed around the same time morton downey jr was big (late 80s) and that it also repealed under a republican presidency. said repeal led to the creation of 24/7 news networks like fox news and cnn which busted wide open the doors for around-the-clock outrage to fester and foment and grow into the all-consooming beast it is today.
>>
>>131318816
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
>>
>>131318936
>They literally had the best childhoods of maybe any generation in human history and
This person was born in 2001 and that's being generous.
>>
>>131319390
I will say as a member of that generation the one good and irreplaceable thing we had was not growing up with the internet, cell phones, and social media. I was born at the tail end of Gen X. We went outside voluntarily. Frequently even. But yes as mentioned above we were also the first generation groomed from birth to be the ideal consumers, so there was that too.
>>
>>131319340
>and that it also repealed under a republican presidency
they had a Democrat Congress, it was a bipartisan effort
>>
It's mid. I like Sara though. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now is good cheese
>>
>>131319457
kek you incels love bringing it up when it's a bipartisan effort. been seeing that habit a lot in recent years especially with regards to trump but that's irrelevant to this discussion.

reagan, a republican, signed it into being. there was also an attempt to bring it back a couple years later but bush said he'd veto it if it reached his desk.
conservative talk radio led by rush limbaugh exploded in this time. i saw this shit rip apart my family in real time in the 2000s after 9/11.
meanwhile cnn and msnbc have been tanking in ratings in recent years now and fox new only continues to get more popular.

one side loves it being repealed A LOT more than the other.
>>
>>131319340
>the fairness doctrine
Wow.
That is wild.
People don't know this.
They assume the USA is like this because Americans are stupid savages.
Amazing there was legislation so beneficial to a society that was repealed for the private financial gain of a few families.
>>
>>131318853
the 2000s have never seen a year with half as many high-quality songs. why do things suck now?
>>
>>131318816
>the supposed worst song of all time
did whatever clickbait dogshit tiktok video you watched really deserve a thread response on the premier music discussion forum on the internet?
>>
>>131320188
yup and as i already stated it's benefiting one political side a lot more than it does the other largely because they are of low IQ and easily manipulated/riled up by demagogue hysterics
>>
>>131319457
The average NPC doesn't understand how government works, they think the president just does things.

>>131319990
as cf.
>>
>>131320537
the Fairness Doctrine was put in place in 1941 mainly to get rid of controversial broadcasters like Charles Coughlin, who was this infamous /pol/tard back then
>>
>>131320537
>no argument
>>
>>131320555
they tried liberal talk radio like Air America but nobody wanted to listen to it
>>
>>131318816
There are plenty of shit pop songs that hit #1.
>>
>>131320667
did I ever tell you about Bryan Adams?
>>
>>131320691
No. How big is his cock?
>>
>>131320211
>>131319261
>>
>>131320716
idk there's no unit of measurement that small
>>
>>131319440
>we were also the first generation groomed from birth to be the ideal consumers
lol
>boomers weren't being groomed from the early 50's on by the media to mindlessly consoom
jews literally created demographics to cater to them, you're beyond retarded
>>
>>131320263
This. OP is a mindless NPC, it doesn't matter how wrong the tiktok is (or factually incorrect) it will believe it regardless.
>>
>>131318816
The mid 80s were downright terrible for music. Even Bowie was entering a shitty era with Never Let Me Down, which is saying something. If you compare the mid 80s Billboard top hits with the late 70s/early 80s it isn't even close

1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbr60I0u2Ng
1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StKVS0eI85I
1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs

1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyTpu6BmE88
>>
>>131323361
they didn't have the experience and memory of an actual childhood replaced with hours spent in front of toy commercials. there's a reason american society is overrun with manchildren now. it was the intentional seth green-ification of a generation. the 50s were a testing bed for what would come later, but it was mainly restricted to housewives.
>>
>>131323433
86 was an overall excellent year with tons of classic albums but I agree that 85 was pretty weak and short on good music
>>
This was pre internet. There was no choice. Radio stations played what their program directors scheduled. MTV was still huge. They played what their program director told them to. The industry decided what got played. Did people like it? It wasn't horrible until they put it on heavy, heavy rotation.
In the 1980s college radio got big. Why? Because college kids played what they liked. Lots of underground and alternative bands got lots of play on college radio. They played what people liked not what the industry told them to play. If you look you will see the industry started paying attention and swooped in and signed lots of the indi bands... and forced them to get industry producers that changed the band's sound. It happened with "grunge."
The internet freed it for a while, but JooToob, the streaming services, etc have their algorithms now to push the garbage the industry wants pushed. You can see it here with the shills and bots pushing nepo babies and industry plants.
There was payola in the 1950s. It didn't end after the scandle. I talked with a record promoter from the 1970s that said he had an allowance from record companies to get records played in certain markets. He said he'd use hookers and cocaine to bribe program directors. I knew DJs in the late 1980s... one admitted there were black lists. Just because there is a perception of popularity that doesn't necessarily mean people like it.
t Gen Xer
>>
>>131323484
>>131319440
Not the anons you're replying to but you're talking about the 1980's which was Millennial children. Millennials started being born in the early 1980's and would have been the main group of kids experiencing the 'toy commercial' cartoons for the most part. Maybe the last couple of years of Gen X children but not the majority. If anything Gen X was the last generation to experience somewhat normal childhoods in the United States.
>>
>>131323807
Seriously, do you think anyone wanted to hear Bryan Adams 45x a day?
>>
>>131323807
The 60s were an unusually free-form era but that was quickly ending in the early 70s when Lee Abrams invented the AOR playlist which was to ensure AM radio was safe for suburban housewives to listen to.
>>
>>131318816
I'm honestly surprised this song is from 1986. I would have guessed 1976.
Rock bands singing about rock 'n roll is just as lame as rappers who rap about rapping. If you have no content to fill a song with other than reiterating which genre you're performing in, it's time to hang up the mic.
>>
>>131323818
also do you seriously believe Pat Boone's 72 hits were legitimate?
>>
>>131319340
"Muh Fairness Doctrine" is one of the biggest memes going. The media were total shills for the Democrats and the left when it was in place, no different than they are today.
If there's one media-related government policy that's to blame for today's derangement, it's the repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act, which had banned propaganda from being used domestically, under the Obama administration and a Democrat majority senate. It is no coincidence that wokeness went into ultra-hyperdrive immediately after that.
>>
>>131323973
It's actually amazing how NPR and PBS are now struggling financially since Trump has cut so much federal funding but the conservative radio stations are all raking in cash like there's no tomorrow.

That's not to say different factions of jews don't run both but the leftist/liberal viewpoint literally cannot survive in any market where they're not being artificially propped up by taxpayer money.
>>
>>131318816
MY DICK'S ALL SHITTY
>>
>>131320645
It was always rich, smug trust fund babbies from Lower Manhattan and Marin County who looked down upon the masses.
>>
>>131323807
Payola actually got worse in the late 90's after the (((Clear Channel))) takeover. Before that payola was hush hush sort of thing that went on behind closed doors but around 1998 the (((recording industry))) made it more or less the industry standard in (((commercial radio))).

(((They've))) literally been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for violating payola laws since 1998 but they just decided (((they))) didn't have to obey the law and baked the fines into their post Napster ((((business model))).
>>
>>131323433
was that 86 song supposed to be bad?
it’s cheesy but far from awful. you just hate soul/r&b ballad
>>
>>131323814
I was born in 1978 at the tail end of gen x, and I experienced all of that, as did the couple classes in school that were ahead of me. you could tell where the 70s kids ended and the 80s kids began, at least in retrospect, and it was the high school seniors when I was a freshman. they were almost alien culturally by comparison. imagine the dazed and confused kids mixing with the breakfast club kids.
>>
>>131324082
Does it even matter anymore? They drove everyone away from music radio by spamming Nickelback, Pink, and Black Eyed Peas on a constant rotation for an entire decade. Any payola that happens nowadays is just the radio stations and record labels circlejerking themselves into the void. Botted streams are the bigger problem now.
>>
>>131318816
>We Built This City, the supposed worst song of all time
First time I've ever heard this
>>
>>131324286
shitty corporate pop always existed. Pat Boone and Andy Williams didn't discourage actually talented people back in the day. difference is by Pink's time there wasn't any talented people anymore to provide an alternative to her.
>>
>>131324286
>Does it even matter anymore?
No, it doesn't. In the next decade or so after the great boomer die off I doubt terrestrial commercial radio or tv stations will be able to survive. No one under the age of 50 still watches or listens to either.
>>
>>131324340
>shitty corporate pop always existed.
Yes, but more convenient alternatives like filesharing, iTunes, and streaming that gave the end user near-total control over what they listen to didn't. The labels' and stations' scam only worked with a functioning monoculture, and they overplayed their hand by making it so relentlessly shitty that not even normalfags could stand it anymore.
>>
>>131324340
This is such a brain-dead take from someone who obviously wasn't there at the time to experience the shift in music from the late 90's forward. The existing market was completely taken over from top to bottom by the time Pink came along in the early 2000's.

And no that wasn't true in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, or most of the 90's. Most radio stations were independently owned and were in competition with each other for listeners, they were also in competition with MTV and VH1. There used to be all kinds of local music that got debuted on radio before it hit nationally.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ushered in the age of music being sought out on internet in the late 90's because (((industry boomers))) had bribed the US government into allowing them to lay a (((stranglehold))) on national radio playlists.

This all obviously happened before you were born, you sound stupid quite frankly.
>>
>>131324427
the industry has always been pretty centralized with a few exceptions such as in the 60s. but usually there have always been a few mega labels in NYC and LA that control everything. so that's nothing new.
>>
>>131324286
>Botted streams are the bigger problem now
lol this too dies with boom booms, no one gives a fuck what the jeet bot farms artificially drive to the top of the list. That's why all the biggest artists have sold the rights to their catalogs, they know some dumbshit investors will be left holding their worthless bags in a few years.
>>
>>131324445
>the industry has always been pretty centralized
No, it wasn't. Again, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
>>
File: 5878565788.jpg (567 KB, 1600x1200)
567 KB JPG
>>131324466
>No, it wasn't
ha no it was. prior to Elvis everything was run by a handful of labels in NYC and LA shitting out croonerslop. the postwar economic boom allowed a proliferation of regional labels and indie music to flourish. by the 70s that was ending as the industry consolidated in LA as one centralized rock/pop machine.
>>
>>131324500
Yeah ok, you're a retard lol

I just explained to you how privately owned local radio stations used to debut all kinds of new music, which is the exact opposite of centralized. Cannibal Corpse literally sold millions of records in the 90's without support from radio or MTV. Sub Pop was doing the same thing in the late 80's. The list goes on and on. The music industry wasn't even remotely centralized in way, shape, or form before 1998.

See, I know you don't know anything that's why I'm laughing in your face like this. Dumbfuck idiot.
>>
>>131324500
>ha no it was. prior to Elvis everything was run by a handful of labels in NYC and LA shitting out croonerslop. the postwar economic boom allowed a proliferation of regional labels and indie music to flourish. by the 70s that was ending as the industry consolidated in LA as one centralized rock/pop machine.

He thinks the Jews or something ruined music instead of accepting that maybe Millenials really had no talent to make anything good.
>>
>>131324584
Millenials and late Gen X, really, nobody born after the 60s has an IQ above about 85.
>>
>so assblasted you were reduced to replying to yourself
lol I graciously accept your concession, dumbfuck. Anything else before you slink away in shame?
>>
>>131324653
>>131324640
>>131324584
>>131324575
>>131324500
all one guy talking to himself
>>
>>131324670
Notice how after getting utterly BTFO'D with no hope of recovery you didn't want to keep arguing anymore?

That's called defeat lmao
>>
>>131324455
You would be surprised at how many younger music fans obsess over streaming numbers in the same way that /v/ does with Steam player count. For example, it's every BBL Drizzler's first line of defense against real artists despite Drake being BY FAR the most shameless about botting the hell out of his streams.
>>
>>131324584
List of outstanding zoomer artists:
>>
>>131324731
What looks like/passes for "Gen Z" online could easily just be the same jeets/bots getting paid by the (((music industry))) to shill, there's no way to tell. Here in the United States half of all Gen Z are also sub 70 IQ'd mutts so it'd be almost impossible to tell a wetback anchor baby's nonexistent thought process from a street shitter's.

Not to say that I necessarily believe the wiggerfied white slice of the Gen Z pie in the US would be doing much better, but still.
>>
File: 1779059618610221.jpg (58 KB, 680x576)
58 KB JPG
More like We Butt This Shitty lol
>>
>>131318816
I like We Built This City. Even if you want to rage at Starship and how far removed it was from White Rabbit or whatever, rage at Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - that's a far more heinous 80s power ballad.



[Advertise on 4chan]

Delete Post: [File Only] Style:
[Disable Mobile View / Use Desktop Site]

[Enable Mobile View / Use Mobile Site]

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective parties. Images uploaded are the responsibility of the Poster. Comments are owned by the Poster.