“Timbre” is the texture, color and quality of the sounds within the music being listened to. Timbre variety peaked in the 1960s and has since been steadily declining. That’s why 60 years later, it is no surprise that we get a severe headache every time we hear pop music for over 3 minutes. The simple instrumentation, the bad vocals, the stupid lyrics – all together just hurt our brains.

Here, we want to list the top reasons why we think today’s pop music is awful (and many of you will definitely agree with us.)

They all need AutoTune

Autotune is one of the biggest factors in the modern-day music industry cycle.
Back in the 80s and 90s, pop singers could actually sing and never used autotune. The Backstreet Boys may have sounded incredibly cheesy but at least they could actually sing naturally with their real voices. Modern top 40 pop stars are addicted to autotune. Sure, autotune can be used in an artistic way like the 2000s T-Pain, but nowadays, those top 40 pop singers who can’t actually sing use autotune to make people think they can sing. 

Terrible singers are everywhere, and they are listing international charts with their awful music. Moreover, music companies demand lots of money, as more lame, bland, generic, and repetitive music videos are released. This pushes the music industry’s greedy nature further, forcing them to demand more auto-tuned artists.

If you are thinking about starting a music career, at least try! On the other hand, If you are scared to mess up and you are thinking about using a computer to make everything perfect, perhaps you shouldn’t even be thinking of making “music” in the first place!

No instruments are played

There is simply no soul left in today’s music because songs mostly have no instruments played at all. A single boring beat and the same computerized tunes with samples played over and over. Thus, the brainwashed crowd listens to whatever it is being told/sold because they can’t comprehend that the computerized trash they are listening to is a whole combination of beats, samples, and notes with no instrumental soul, emotional movement, or varying sound.

It’s not necessarily to have instruments being played at all. It’s just that there is no longer any creativity, or any attempt at making anything other than overly simplistic, market-driven formula drivel. A computer can be an instrument too, it’s all in how you use it. For instance, we have witnessed a brilliant work through the vivid imagination of Yann Brassard, where the artist hasn’t used any instrument at all except for his mouth and one single beat.
Unfortunately, especially varied or creative instrumentals in music don’t really sell to the lowest common denominator.



Always talk about Love, Partying, Sex, and Drugs

It is great that you are allowed to sing about whatever your heart and imagination desire, but singing about the same stuff homogeneously isn’t gonna make your music better.

Would it hurt to sing about something else, except the same stuff again and again and again? Sure, there are plenty of rock songs about sex and partying like any KISS or AC/DC song. But there are also plenty of rock songs about Jesus either, like “Street Jesus” by Aerosmith or “After Forever” by Black Sabbath or even a full rock concert Jesus Christ Superstar. It is even undeniably groovy and head nodding on Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny’s soundtrack. The thing is that you can write a rock song about anything in this world and it won’t be disturbing or pesky.
What we are trying to say here is that Pop music’s topical variety is very limited to all familiar things. We could rant ALL DAY about how those topics are some of the only ones used, often being our least favorite messages from Pop music, especially from mainstream Pop music!


Pop songs are being overplayed


This is a massive problem for ALL modern music, NOT JUST POP. That’s why people tend to listen to stuff they grew up with because it never plays anymore and each time it feels like a fresh listen. It is very often that those who were born in the 90s can’t stand modern music because of the radio. In the 2000s, radio could also be annoying in some ways but never has it become this painful. By coming a long way with modern technology in the past 20 years, now it’s even worse to hear the same annoying song from a car, a phone, iPod, in the malls, at the cafes and restaurants, etc.

Stupid lyrics and messages

“Did I really just hear that?” types of lyrics are mostly common in Pop music songs. That’s a fact. The list of songs with stupid lyrics and messagesis infinite and we are not talking about poetry like on Bruno Mars’s “Grenade” – “Should’ve known you was trouble/From the first kiss/Had your eyes wide open/Why were they open?” It is obvious the only way he could know her eyes were open if he had his own eyes open. No, we are talking about the most mind-bogglingly stupid lyrics like Jessie Ware’s “Wild” with lyrics “Am I asleep? No, I’m alive”. Clearly, to be asleep you have to be alive! Or “Birthday Cake” by Rihanna with lyrical eloquence “I’mma make you my bitch / Cake, cake, cake, cake / Cake, cake, cake, cake / Cake, cake, cake, cake / Cake, cake, cake.”

And none of the pop songs really is about the real problems in the world. Have you ever heard a Pop song that has a simple message like “War is bad”?



Not enough talent

We don’t try to say that pop music is all that bad, but it is way overrated. Pop singers don’t even need to make a song that sounds good and it becomes a hit right away and gains hundreds of millions of views.

In comparison, Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” gets 531 million views while the highly talented musician Michael Kiwanuka’s – “Love & Hate ” only gets about 54 million views. While Michael showcases his talent in his songs along with his music and amazing skills, all Justin has to do is try to sound sexy in his pink clothes and all his fans go crazy. The majority of Western folks just eat up everything the mainstream offers them and never bother to venture out, mostly because they want to fit in by only listening to the same 15 or so songs that are played over and over, in every public place.

Sure, people have their own preferences and taste in music but it isn’t a coincidence that the majority likes only Pop. To all the pop fans out there, give them some time to listen to other genres like Funk, Soul, Alternative rock, Soft rock, G-Funk, Old School Rap, Jazz at last!

We can continue this article by listing reasons like – Pop songs are too simple; most modern pop artists are immature; there is no passion; bigger focus on the music video more than the actual song; it’s more for the money; most lyrics are written by ghostwriters and we could go on and on, but it would take us forever.