Does present day pop music send you into sensory overload?

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adromedanblackhole
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25 Oct 2020, 1:16 am

For one, let me be clear:
I would not describe what has been peddled to audiences since the early 2000s to present day as pop music as music. It is a highly simplified, highly repetitive, and extremely mechanized both in sound and function. Zero creativity and definitely no soul.

If I am in location that plays popular music I physiologically have a hard time handling it for more than a few moments. I legitimately do not understand who is listening to this. It is not necessarily a matter of this being a difference in taste. Popular music of the present era is measurably less musical than what was popular 50 years ago.

QUESTION: Do you also find you have a visceral repulsion to music produced for mass consumption in the US and abroad?

Some light reading for anyone who is interested:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thever ... mper-music

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... e-8173368/

https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/S ... 0Sucks.pdf

https://pudding.cool/2018/05/similarity/



Sweetleaf
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25 Oct 2020, 1:39 am

adromedanblackhole wrote:
For one, let me be clear:
I would not describe what has been peddled to audiences since the early 2000s to present day as pop music as music. It is a highly simplified, highly repetitive, and extremely mechanized both in sound and function. Zero creativity and definitely no soul.

If I am in location that plays popular music I physiologically have a hard time handling it for more than a few moments. I legitimately do not understand who is listening to this. It is not necessarily a matter of this being a difference in taste. Popular music of the present era is measurably less musical than what was popular 50 years ago.

QUESTION: Do you also find you have a visceral repulsion to music produced for mass consumption in the US and abroad?

Some light reading for anyone who is interested:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thever ... mper-music

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... e-8173368/

https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/S ... 0Sucks.pdf

https://pudding.cool/2018/05/similarity/


Yes like a lot of the like later 90's earlly 2000's popular music was really bothersome for me. I didn't know I had autism till I was 23 but for sure I noticed some of that stuff was like even painful to listen to. Also one time when I was tripping on acid and some of that kind of music came up it was even so much worse...like made my stomach hurt like I needed to vomit. It was kinda crazy like on acid that music went from intolerable to like pretty much torture...that was a weird experience. Like on acid that s**t was literally making me physically sick...it was terrible till I turned it off, then of course because still tripping it was also hilarious to me that it was effecting me that way. And I figured if I had some secret info someone wanted me to tell them...all they would have to do is inject me with acid and lock me up forced to listen to 90's pop music and I would probably give in, just so long as they make the 90's music stop.

And well currently I just haven't even payed attention at all to what the pop music is, I just listen to metal and like other random s**t outside of that and largely ignore the more pop culture stuff so as of now I know music I like but not even really sure what the top like popular bands are.


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funeralxempire
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25 Oct 2020, 5:04 am

I wouldn't know, I don't listen to it and seem to block it out if I've ever encountered it.


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adromedanblackhole
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25 Oct 2020, 8:14 am

funeralxempire wrote:
I wouldn't know, I don't listen to it and seem to block it out if I've ever encountered it.

I don't know many people who do listen to it, but being out in the world it's hard to avoid. Stores that are a corporate chain typically are playing top 40 hits over their pa. I'm in a virtual conference now where their intro music before a presenter comes on the stage is the most mindless god someone shoot me what is this strange and unusual Waco Siege sound punishment experiment.

It's so bad and physically repulsive just no way to tune it out. Art is dead and if no one bought this crap the music industry would have to meet the public's demand for actual music.



adromedanblackhole
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25 Oct 2020, 8:31 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
adromedanblackhole wrote:
For one, let me be clear:
I would not describe what has been peddled to audiences since the early 2000s to present day as pop music as music. It is a highly simplified, highly repetitive, and extremely mechanized both in sound and function. Zero creativity and definitely no soul.

If I am in location that plays popular music I physiologically have a hard time handling it for more than a few moments. I legitimately do not understand who is listening to this. It is not necessarily a matter of this being a difference in taste. Popular music of the present era is measurably less musical than what was popular 50 years ago.

QUESTION: Do you also find you have a visceral repulsion to music produced for mass consumption in the US and abroad?

Some light reading for anyone who is interested:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thever ... mper-music

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... e-8173368/

https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/S ... 0Sucks.pdf

https://pudding.cool/2018/05/similarity/


Yes like a lot of the like later 90's earlly 2000's popular music was really bothersome for me. I didn't know I had autism till I was 23 but for sure I noticed some of that stuff was like even painful to listen to. Also one time when I was tripping on acid and some of that kind of music came up it was even so much worse...like made my stomach hurt like I needed to vomit. It was kinda crazy like on acid that music went from intolerable to like pretty much torture...that was a weird experience. Like on acid that s**t was literally making me physically sick...it was terrible till I turned it off, then of course because still tripping it was also hilarious to me that it was effecting me that way. And I figured if I had some secret info someone wanted me to tell them...all they would have to do is inject me with acid and lock me up forced to listen to 90's pop music and I would probably give in, just so long as they make the 90's music stop.

And well currently I just haven't even payed attention at all to what the pop music is, I just listen to metal and like other random s**t outside of that and largely ignore the more pop culture stuff so as of now I know music I like but not even really sure what the top like popular bands are.

I definitely would say what is playing over the radio waves is a type of cruel and unusual torture.

It's all an incoherent blend of the same formulas to produce a hit tune. What I don't understand is who buys this? Who intentionally listens to this? I tend to also keep myself fairly isolated from what gets produced as music - and to be fair, it's not just pop, if it's produced now by a major label it's a steaming auto-tuned pile of garbage - these days. But it's everywhere. I have no idea how this crap sells, how can a person not recognize what they're listening to is categorically essentially mechanized noise. There are allegedly quotes from Goebbles about using music as a tool for mass hypnosis. Not sure why the music industry seems to have colluded around the early 2000s and never let up that this would be a great strategy for the garbage they produce but fine.
Art is dead in the machine world of mass consumption. And if not dead, then massively hidden under layers of trash.



kitten_caboodle
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25 Oct 2020, 8:41 am

YES, I can't stand the dance beat stuff especially when the songs are constantly promoting sex.



Chummy
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25 Oct 2020, 5:58 pm

I don't experience sensory overload but I do share that repulsion to modern pop music.
It just doesn't tingle my senses in the right way. It's overly trying to overload one's senses with cheap and senseless excitation tricks. No Harmony, no dynamics, almost no real instrument (even guitar is rare). I call it 'music for zombies' (whatever's on MTV or top tier Spotify playlists).

The new music I would enjoy to consume does not get the attention I believe it deserves thus I wouldn't know of it unless I dug real hard - It's just not easily accessible at all. For all you know there could be artists who create music just to your taste but the chance you'd miss them is greater than you finding them.



kitesandtrainsandcats
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25 Oct 2020, 7:03 pm

Most music of most categories has too many different sounds happening and at too fast a rate.
Creates actual physical anxiety symptoms.

For years now I've used YouTube instead of the radio.

Lots of stuff like this, https://youtu.be/4hKQz-WeHpQ

Quote:
Relaxing Music: work, focus, light, spa music - 9 hours mix
7,438,717 views•Oct 3, 2013


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P_James_Moriarty
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26 Oct 2020, 3:20 am

The best description I've heard of modern pop music:

Too much production, not enough talent.

'nuff said.


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ASPartOfMe
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26 Oct 2020, 3:21 am

With the internet I can listen to all retro music and I do not go in stores all that much.

When I do listen to it with a few exceptions it does all sound repetitive and trite. I just assume the problem is not that is sucks any worse then pop music of the past but that I am just too old and clueless to get it. That is not a bad thing. When I was young old people that tried to seem up to date made me cringe.


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kitesandtrainsandcats
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26 Oct 2020, 3:29 am

P_James_Moriarty wrote:
The best description I've heard of modern pop music:
Too much production, not enough talent.

Production is like certain aspects of science, that you can isn't always a sign that you should.


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adromedanblackhole
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26 Oct 2020, 10:24 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
With the internet I can listen to all retro music and I do not go in stores all that much.

When I do listen to it with a few exceptions it does all sound repetitive and trite. I just assume the problem is not that is sucks any worse then pop music of the past but that I am just too old and clueless to get it. That is not a bad thing. When I was young old people that tried to seem up to date made me cringe.

The problem is not you, the problem is the "music"
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... e-8173368/



Spunge42
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28 Oct 2020, 2:42 pm

I definitely agree some music i hear in stores sends me into a sensory overload! Especially, if the store is already busy and a bunch of people are talking at once.

I went into hot topic a few months ago to get a present for someone, it was the only place near me that carried the gift I was looking for. I decided to look around for a few minutes because they had some anime and doctor who stuff. Bad idea. By the time I left the store I could barely get to my car. The music was so loud and it was this screaming mass of banshees with ear rupturing bass. The people were all yelling because the music was turned up so loud, and the store it tiny so it was crowded. Anyway. When I got to my car I was crying and didn't even realize it till some tears dripped on my hand. I had sit for a while before I could drive home.

So yeah. I don't like a lot of music out there today. I have found a few current artists that are nice but its mostly instrumental or trancelike calm music. Tony Anderson and Hammock are what I've been listening to a lot lately.


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SportsGamer35728
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28 Oct 2020, 3:06 pm

I don't mind certain songs since they help get me pumped up at sporting events, for example the one below that they played during warmups at basketball games in high school roughly 10 years ago.



adromedanblackhole
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28 Oct 2020, 3:22 pm

SportsGamer35728 wrote:
I don't mind certain songs since they help get me pumped up at sporting events, for example the one below that they played during warmups at basketball games in high school roughly 10 years ago.

Trigger warning: this song is essentially exactly what the title of this thread is talking about



SportsGamer35728
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28 Oct 2020, 3:50 pm

adromedanblackhole wrote:
SportsGamer35728 wrote:
I don't mind certain songs since they help get me pumped up at sporting events, for example the one below that they played during warmups at basketball games in high school roughly 10 years ago.

Trigger warning: this song is essentially exactly what the title of this thread is talking about

I personally like music like in the infomercial below, but alas, the song I posted previously is the kind of music sporty women I find attractive like :P