Thought I'd post this as it's incredibly relevant to what's going on atm. Feel free to move if it would fit better elsewhere but I thought that putting it in the Chart Forum would open up the most interesting discussion.

 

Sorry, Adele, but Someone Like You has ushered in The New Boring

 

The absence of Lady Gaga at this year's Brits accidentally opened the door to Mumford & Sons and an Ed Sheeran-fronted new wave of beige pop

 

All pop scenes have their defining moments. Britpop's was the Blur v Oasis chart battle; with punk it was the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club; for the late-90s pop scene it was Britney Spears looking at a school uniform and thinking "oh, that'll do". You might trace pop's current big thing back to 15 February this year.

 

Two days earlier, Lady Gaga had launched her Born This Way album campaign at the VMAs in LA by turning up inside an egg. In a move she has since regretted, she didn't come to perform at the Brits: instead of stealing the show, she gave it away. This year's Brits – with wins for Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling – was defined not by Rihanna's explosive hits medley or Take That's cast-of-thousands riot police performance, but by a woman, accompanied by a piano, banging out a ballad.

 

"WOW!" host James Corden wailed afterwards. "Wasn't that amazing? You know, you can have all the dancers, pyrotechnics, laser shows you want, but if you sound like that all you need is a piano." Forty-nine million YouTube views suggest that Adele's gut-wrenching performance still hits the mark. But watch the performance again and this time wonder how much better it might have been with, as per Corden's suggestion, "all the dancers, pyrotechnics, laser shows you want". As it happened, Someone Like You became 2011's first pop phenomenon. In LA, Gaga had hatched out of an egg to symbolise rebirth. By not bringing a ludicrous stage show to the Brits, she ensured that the main arrival that week was of a genre which has gone on to define 2011: The New Boring, a ballad-friendly tedial wave destroying everything in its path.

 

Now, of course, it's not directly Adele's fault that, for instance, by the time this year's X Factor boot camp rolled around, every white male contestant appeared to be attempting the self-consciously excitement-free vocal style of Tom Waits in a Strepsil famine. Nonetheless, just as Blur, Oasis and Pulp did not pen songs for Menswear but must shoulder at least some of the responsibility, there is culpability here. Let's not forget that Someone Like You's co-writer Dan Wilson had previously penned hits for bore-off allstars Semisonic, Josh Groban and Dixie Chicks, so the tune's general non-danceability must have been intentional on Adele's part and she must, sadly, accept and wear the Queen Of Boring crown. It is a crown made of SOLID BEIGE.

 

At a point when Old Boring heroes such as Coldplay and even Leona Lewis have moved on to the dancefloor, the next generation of boring is now taking root in the charts. While Adele may have smashed down the doors, The New Boring has found its posterboy in acoustic guitar-bothering singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

 

Sheeran's music is like a combination of every friend-of-a-friend's band whose pub gig you have ever witnessed, and while most of us learn, during our 20s, how to sidestep these social disasters it is less easy to avoid when wedged quite so far up Radio 1's A-list. And it is no wonder the nation's favourite was quite so keen to embrace Sheeran: he combines the station's twin obsessions of authenticity (acoustic guitars!) with cool (he sometimes sort of half-raps and collaborates with urban people!). The music is – well, a David Guetta club jam it most certainly is not, and his album "+" is a 12-bore shitgun (13 if you include the bonus track). His breakthrough hit The A-Team (which, like James Blunt's first big hit, was about a girl on drugs) seemed pitched somewhere between Blunt and Jack Johnson (Sheeran cites Damien Rice in his lyrics). Cherub-faced Sheeran is a confusing prospect: for instance, in You Need Me I Don't Need You, he goes to great lengths to establish that he is a singer-songwriter who writes his own songs (except all but only four songs on his album are co-writes), and who proudly declares "I didn't go to Brit school" (although he did audition to be in ITV1's Brit School-inspired jazzhands turkey Britannia High). It may seem odd that Sheeran is so desperate to lay claim to his lyrics when they include clunky disasters like "Suffolk sadly seems to sort of suffocate me", "I'm up an' coming like I'm f***ing in an elevator" and the epic "I've never owned a Blu-ray, true say" but one thing is certain: when borepop princess Birdy covered The A-Team for Fearne Cotton's Live Lounge that five minutes of music stirred up a vortex of boredom – a boretex, if you will – whose anniversary will be solemnly remembered by generations to come.

 

The most interesting point in the Someone Like You saga came a few days after the Brits when even Kiss 100, a station not often inclined to play anything below 128bpm when a club-lolz raveathon will do, sensed a shift in the public mood and plonked the tune on its daytime playlist.

 

At the start of 2009 the Guardian Guide ran a piece about how landfill indie, the bloated genre that gave us Scouting For Girls and the Pigeon Detectives, had become so unwieldy that there wasn't a V Festival lineup big enough to cope with its myriad hangers-on. It collapsed and left the door wide open for La Roux, Lady Gaga and electronic pop to storm into the charts.

 

Two-and-a half years on, that exciting new wave of non-acoustic electronic pop has mutated. The global pop sound is now, thanks to David Guetta, Pitbull, Taio Cruz and a cast of thousands attempting to recreate their partyvibezzzz, a swirling mass of mindless, in-the-club party records. It reached its nadir this summer with the release of Champagne Showers by LMFAO Feat Natalia Kills, an intensely bad piece of antimusic so alarmingly awful that it rather made you wonder whether all music should in fact be banned.

 

Thanks to The New Boring, a ban was not necessary. The New Boring has become the cold bucket of water, the ice age, the guy in bare feet in the corner of the house party imploring revellers to JUST CHILL OUT! Hold that Birdy-does-Sheeran cover close to your chest: it may just be boring enough to neutralise 2011's absurd parade of LOLpop party hits. It might reset pop. For some of us this will be an extreme test of tough love – and this is very upsetting to watch – but we must allow The New Boring to take hold, to flourish. It's a good thing, in the long run.

Oh dear at the article

 

It has a point though but dissing all those acts buries it deep.

 

Like, how La Roux are/were better than LMFAO? Different yes, but better?

 

The bottom line is: pop music has to be easy and full of hooks to sell... the form of it just varies a lot.

Edited November 8, 201113 yr by SKOB

Oh dear at the article

 

It has a point though but dissing all those acts buries it deep.

 

Yes, that's my job, although I'd never say 'dissing' for obvious reasons. ;)

I'm less worried about 'beige pop' than the utterly offensive sleugh of 'club bangers' which are utterly bereft of any musical value. I may not like Ed Sheeran, but at least I can see some appeal in his music, unlike stuff like LMFAO which is just tuneless, mindless drivel.

I totally agree with this article.

 

Loved the ban music section - too right with things like LMFAO and Pitbull clogging the charts - this was the year where I stopped following the charts religiously.

 

I totally agree with this article.

 

Loved the ban music section - too right with things like LMFAO and Pitbull clogging the charts - this was the year where I stopped following the charts religiously.

 

But then your attitude towards charts is totally wrong! Charts have NOTHING to do with the quality, never have. We just tend to glorify things from the past. I'm very sure that in the 70s people felt the same about disco music than you feel about LMFAO and stuff.

I agree too. Someone Like You is pretty boring and so is much of the new wave of pop from this year. Even the big and usually reliable popstars are kind of failing to deliver on the excitement front. Gaga made a great album but has yet to put in a great performance (set at 1 Big Weekend aside).

 

For the last few years I have tended to find that my tastes get less similar to what's at the top of the charts but this year it seems to have taken a much sharper dip than normal. It's just been terrible this year. There are only at a push six number ones from this year that I'd go as far as to say I liked. I really like both of Example's, the new Rihanna one is good too and the dubstep revolution of Nero and DJ Fresh are OK. The only other one I like, and I'm going to be a rare defender of it, is Party Rock Anthem, for the reason that it does its job far better than anything similar this year.

 

It is a club banger, it is incredibly disposable and it does seem like the lyrics were written in two minutes, but ultimately it's not pretending to be anything more. Of all the club bangers released this year, it's the one that does its job most. Do I want to listen to it outside of the environment for which its intended, when I'm not in some grotty club or bar pissed out of my face? No, not really. But when that is where I am, it's far far better than every other club song about partying and dancing and drinking released this year. Judging by its sales and the reaction it always gets, I'm not alone either.

 

Edit: Actually Glad You Came is the best boyband song for some years, make that 7 I won't turn off.

So, what is this article trying to say? I mean, 'The New Boring' is a pretty derogatory term to give to something that appears to be better than club-bangers. Do they want slow piano ballads or fast club songs? If they want compromises between the two dominating gneres, with current hits like We Found Love, Read All About It, Paradise, Moves Like Jagger, Mr Know It All out there... songs which aren't either of these two extremes, are these not enough? Paradise especially, they said that Coldplay had moved onto the dancefloor (:blink:), so wouldn't that be a solution?

 

All I get from this is that they are comparing eras of chart music against each other and saying it was better in the past.

I'm less worried about 'beige pop' than the utterly offensive sleugh of 'club bangers' which are utterly bereft of any musical value. I may not like Ed Sheeran, but at least I can see some appeal in his music

 

 

That is exactly what I was going to say. I would rather listen to Adele than another David Guetta/Calvin Harris/Dr. Luke/Stargate production.

Edited November 8, 201113 yr by tonyttt31

I'm going to be a rare defender of it, is Party Rock Anthem, for the reason that it does its job far better than anything similar this year.

 

It is a club banger, it is incredibly disposable and it does seem like the lyrics were written in two minutes, but ultimately it's not pretending to be anything more.

 

 

100% agreed. I find it acceptable, even enjoyable, because of how much fun they are having in the video.

I agree that the 2011 charts have been dominated by tedious ballads (Jar of Hearts, Someone Like You, The A Team) or insulting dance music (Party Rock Anthem, Give Me Everything).

 

I'm not saying I don't enjoy a bit of either types of music (above), but it seems unavoidable. Adele's success suddenly gave rise to other ballads, Templecloud and Birdy both decided to take a shot at the music industry, and Sheeran has suddenly found himself dominating the charts.

 

Hopefully 2012 will give rise to some creative and refreshing artists - I mean 2011 did see the breakthrough of Jessie J, so we should be grateful for that much, 'Price Tag' is simple, but released in January - not halfway through the year (in which case we've already had a million other songs like it). Labrinth's 'Earthquake' is a hopeful indicator of the music next year, the production is different to anything I've heard before - and for that I'm grateful.

I mean 2011 did see the breakthrough of Jessie J, so we should be grateful for that much

 

No, we really shouldn't.

Well, I like this 'new boring' music a lot better than tedious generic club bangers, so I'm not going to complain about its takeover (which I don't even think is much of a takeover, it's only really Adele and Ed Sheeran having big success and a select few others having limited success or being one-hit wonders (like Christina Perri)) and club music is still a pretty big force. The charts have been pretty diverse lately and I like that.

 

I wish dubstep would properly blow up, we've had a small handful of big hits from the genre (Blind Faith (questionable as dubstep?), Louder, Katy On A Mission, Promises, Stay Awake at a push and that's pretty much it) and a bunch of minor hits (Sunlight, Guilt, Me And You etc.) but it's not really blown up as much as expected.

 

Flo Rida's new song is a bit of a generic club banger but it seems less generic than previous ones based on the couple of times I've heard it. Perhaps the club banger has decided to finally EVOLVE to keep people interested in it. 'Good Feeling' is easily my favourite 'club banger' song of the year based on about 2 listens. (Or maybe it's just because I wasn't listening properly :lol:)

So, what is this article trying to say? I mean, 'The New Boring' is a pretty derogatory term to give to something that appears to be better than club-bangers. Do they want slow piano ballads or fast club songs? If they want compromises between the two dominating gneres, with current hits like We Found Love, Read All About It, Paradise, Moves Like Jagger, Mr Know It All out there... songs which aren't either of these two extremes, are these not enough? Paradise especially, they said that Coldplay had moved onto the dancefloor (:blink:), so wouldn't that be a solution?

 

All I get from this is that they are comparing eras of chart music against each other and saying it was better in the past.

 

It's generalising the two most obvious trends followed by the singles chart, it doesn't want either particularly but is saying that the 'new boring' may be a necessary short-term evil in order to clear the sheer mass of club bangers around. Of course there ARE songs which buck the trend (Coldplay moving onto the dancefloor is a bit of an exaggeration but Mylo Xyloto is a step in an electronic direction) but "We Found Love" isn't one of them - it's as much a club banger as "Bounce". There's always going to be songs that aren't fitting to apparent trends but it would be foolish to suggest that certain trends are somewhat dominant and the chart is starved of variety as a result.

And HOW DARE YOU SLANDER THE GREAT LYRIC THAT IS 'They say I'm up and coming like I'm f***ing in an elevator'?!

 

Entire article VOID on that alone.

You know what's really annoyed me this year? More than anything? Overplaying.

 

I know this happens every year, but not as much as this, trust me. "Now let's have Adele's new one, Set fire to the Rain" <<< Said by a Capital FM DJ in late october.

 

And then there's bieber. I went to a bowling alley a week ago, and I saw two fairly old women put 10 bieber tracks on, one after the other. (This gets played on loudspeakers and the video is played in the middle of the bowling info screens). So I spent a fiver on Eminem to get back at them.

 

Also:

 

Someone like you and '21' are still getting good downloads. You just have to wonder how badly connected people are in 2011 to not have heard these, I'm just saying.

 

And like Bré said, Dubstep never blew up. I remember just before Louder was released, everyone was saying that it would be a 6 week number one, etc. It got huge sales, but never fufilled it's great potential. It was kind of like the 'Someone like You' of dubstep, even the people that didn't listen to the genre were downloading it.

 

 

You know what's really annoyed me this year? More than anything? Overplaying.

 

I know this happens every year, but not as much as this, trust me. "Now let's have Adele's new one, Set fire to the Rain" <<< Said by a Capital FM DJ in late october.

 

And then there's bieber. I went to a bowling alley a week ago, and I saw two fairly old women put 10 bieber tracks on, one after the other. (This gets played on loudspeakers and the video is played in the middle of the bowling info screens). So I spent a fiver on Eminem to get back at them.

 

Also:

 

Someone like you and '21' are still getting good downloads. You just have to wonder how badly connected people are in 2011 to not have heard these, I'm just saying.

 

And like Bré said, Dubstep never blew up. I remember just before Louder was released, everyone was saying that it would be a 6 week number one, etc. It got huge sales, but never fufilled it's great potential. It was kind of like the 'Someone like You' of dubstep, even the people that didn't listen to the genre were downloading it.

 

Overplaying has always been an issue to be fair, although I suppose Capital going national (or whatever it did, I know it did something to that effect) may have exacerbated it slightly.

 

Bieber isn't that big in the UK, I've actually managed to mostly avoid him at least this year - I dread to think what it's like in the USA where his Xmas album is heading for #1 (only #13 here - his remix album was also a US #1 but only got to #17 here, plus of course he only got to #3 here with 'My World' and variations thereof, although it sold a worryingly large amount). Plus he only has 3 hits here of any notable size, maybe 4 if you want to push it and include 'One Time'.

 

It is bizarre how much 21 and Someone Like You (and Rolling In The Deep for that matter) are still selling but as with overplay that's pretty much always been the case even with the biggest of successes, there always seems to be a few thousand more people to download the song(s) each week and in Adele's case there's always at least another 20-30k+ people to buy her album each week.

 

As for 'Louder', I'm a big fan of dubstep but I HATE 'Louder'. So there you go. One of the worst songs from the genre is its biggest hit... :lol: On the other hand 'Blind Faith' and 'Stay Awake' are my two favourite songs of the year, with 'Promises' and 'Guilt' somewhere in the top 10 as well and those have all been at least modest hits.

And HOW DARE YOU SLANDER THE GREAT LYRIC THAT IS 'They say I'm up and coming like I'm f***ing in an elevator'?!

 

Entire article VOID on that alone.

 

I thought that myself :lol:

I agree with basically everybody else. 2011 has been a terrible year for music, and the worst I've witnessed in my lifetime. I've been very disappointed.

 

HOWEVER, the article does seem to be written by a Lady Gaga fan who's bitter that she hasn't had much success, and thinks Adele is to blame for You and I being released as a single. That's the vibe I've been getting from it.

 

And I got a bit confused at the point where he had whined about boring Adele and Ed Sheeran songs being hits this year, and that he wanted something more upbeat, exciting, electronic, and THEN says Champagne Showers is one of the worst songs he's ever heard. Surely isn't Champagne Showers exactly the sort of thing he wanted?

 

But other than that, I agree in general. I've said many times on here the past few months, 2011 has had practically no variety at all. It's all female europop/club bangers or female piano ballads. It's been awful. I thought 2009 was the worst year for music ever, but I think it's actually got worse.