I recently watched that Ray Charles biopic with Jamie Fox, and I enjoyed it so much that I got inspired to compose some music the next day and obtain his entire discography. Much to my chagrin, I realised that 90% of his songs are about meeting women, relationships with women, women leaving him, him leaving women, anything along those lines, etc.
Do people in regular society genuinely enjoy listening to songs about these topics? When they hear something like "baaaaaaabbbby yooouuuu leffffft meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" does it really send shivers down their spines? I personally can't think of anything more boring than writing a song about love, romance, or relationships.
I'm not sure how you've only just noticed this mate. 99% of pop music is about love, falling in love, or falling out of love.
People like it for the same reason they like Corrie or the "comedy" of Michael McIntyre. It feels relatable, even to people whom nothing interesting has ever happened, ever. People hear a song that goes "I NEVER KNEW HOW I WOULD GET BY WITHOUT OUUUU* (OOOOH-OOOH)" and they think "Wow, this really speaks to me, this is just like when Arron dumped me! I felt shit then too, it's like they really understand me!"
I might sound cynical, but people get extremely defensive if you slag off their pop music. It's a very emotional connection, and for that reason I'll never claim shit pop music lacks artistic merit. It's just incredibly low brow.
*The letter Y has been under embargo in mainstream pop music since 2012 or so, when that fat bird what did the James Bond song popularised the technique of replacing the syllable with a strangled gurn instead.
>>12213 I'm not entirely convinced by this argument. My music collection includes plenty of pop music from all eras and the lyrical content is largely irrelevant to my enjoyment of it. It just sounds good.
I think the tendency of songwriters to write about love is kind of a crutch to meet the aim of making the music widely accessible, easy to remember and easy to sing along to. Bear in mind that a lot of it is written by someone other than the person singing it, with the goal of making money rather than conveying a meaningful idea in an artistic format.
