Why did Teenage Dream take such a horrible Metacritic score?

[Harry 26,836]

2 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I gather that...but it doesn't explain why they suddenly praise something so girlie and poppy when they normally hate girlie poppy stuff. I don't see what Taylor's doing that the rest of the pop world is not to make her such a critics darling. More popstars than ever are writing their own material, playing instruments, taking risks. She's not doing anything different and is actually taking a very generic path right now. So, why does she get praise for something so common and something critics normally dislike? And there's only a handful of songs across her career that I consider to be truly well-written. If I, a non-professional, can see nothing special in her writing, why do professional critics over-praise her for it? I think it's a general rule that if the public, who are supposed to be uneducated on this stuff and easily pleased, are saying an artist is generic, ordinary, awful, etc. then the critics should agree, seeing as their take on it should be of an even higher level, right? It's like, if you're a pop music lover and you hear a bad pop song. If it sounds bad to you, it must sound really bad to non-pop fans and educated music experts.

I just said that Taylor was the exception to the rule and I also said that I liked Emotion, I'm just giving a valid reason as to why it got rated better than her last album. Gaga was a slight exception to the rule as well, considering her debut was in the mould of quite girlie and generic (although the electropop direction was new and risky at the time, so that's probably what gained her that praise). But I don't think those good reviews would have continued if she had kept on that route, the critics appreciated it when she started experimenting. That's the reason she consistently gets decent reviews to this day. Critics and public alike don't like it when an pop artist doesn't grow and mature...except if you're Taylor, once again.

Okay.

[Kayla 7,595]

12 hours ago, Britney Spears said:

Exactly my point.When something is shamelessly pop and not too serious musically and lyrically they bash it. Electra Heart too (57 on metacritic)

I think it's because there are certain things that instantly exempt an album from a higher rating. Basic lyrics, common song content, lack of innovative sound, inconsistency in the album, too much consistency in the album, superficial concepts, etc. etc. inhibit something from earning that 100/100 score.

I mean, take an album like Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," where you have a mix of genres, he plays with his voice, creates characters, incorporates social issues, references history, creates rhyming schemes and lyrical patterns that show depth not only within the meaning of the lyrics but also in the very construction of the lyrics, symbolism, etc. etc. I could go on and on. 

You take an album like PRSIM and put it next to TPAB and there's no way their scores should even be on the same page. (EDIT: Sorry for referencing PRISM when your thread specifically referred to TD!)

So the issue is- do we LOWER the standards so albums like PRISM can get a higher score in an effort to acknowledge that the music being "enjoyable" is enough of a reason to warrant a high score, or do we set the bar high so only the albums that truly go above and beyond are able to earn a spot at the top?

I vote the latter.  Unfortunately this means Pop albums will often fall short on the ranking scale, because they often do not incorporate difficult lyrical structure, unique lyrical content, or depth. Sorry but the album fitting a theme just isn't enough. Yes- Teenage Dream is a great pop album fitting the overall theme of being a teenager, but that doesn't necessarily make it an album that deserves to stand the test of time, in my opinion.

[Kayla 7,595]

12 hours ago, Britney Spears said:

Well..Nicki got 70+ on metacritic with lyrics like "Oh my gosh, look at her butt
Oh my gosh, look at her butt
Oh my gosh, look at her butt
Look at her butt (look at her butt)" Oh I forgot,she raps so she can say whatever the hell she wants and still get positive reviews
 

 

I honestly don't understand how Nicki gets such high reviews.  I like the girl and I get into some of her music, but ultimately I find her albums as a whole to be kinda bad. And usually even when I personally don't like an album I can understand why others might and am also aware enough to point out the musical merit and reasons why it'd get such a score despite my personal feelings, but I REALLY don't see it with Nicki's albums.  

[Fiona Apple 13,006]

6 hours ago, Kayla said:

I think it's because there are certain things that instantly exempt an album from a higher rating. Basic lyrics, common song content, lack of innovative sound, inconsistency in the album, too much consistency in the album, superficial concepts, etc. etc. inhibit something from earning that 100/100 score.

I mean, take an album like Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," where you have a mix of genres, he plays with his voice, creates characters, incorporates social issues, references history, creates rhyming schemes and lyrical patterns that show depth not only within the meaning of the lyrics but also in the very construction of the lyrics, symbolism, etc. etc. I could go on and on. 

You take an album like PRSIM and put it next to TPAB and there's no way their scores should even be on the same page. (EDIT: Sorry for referencing PRISM when your thread specifically referred to TD!)

So the issue is- do we LOWER the standards so albums like PRISM can get a higher score in an effort to acknowledge that the music being "enjoyable" is enough of a reason to warrant a high score, or do we set the bar high so only the albums that truly go above and beyond are able to earn a spot at the top?

I vote the latter.  Unfortunately this means Pop albums will often fall short on the ranking scale, because they often do not incorporate difficult lyrical structure, unique lyrical content, or depth. Sorry but the album fitting a theme just isn't enough. Yes- Teenage Dream is a great pop album fitting the overall theme of being a teenager, but that doesn't necessarily make it an album that deserves to stand the test of time, in my opinion.

Well there is something between 95 and 50. I would NEVER say that Teenage Dream is worthy to be in the 90s or next to TPAB. It simply deserved to be at least in the low 70s or high 60s...I said that the album deserved higher than the score that it got,not that it deserves to get 100/100 or smth. And if you compare TD with most albums til the mid 60s it's better than 95% of them. How can Meghan deserve 60 with the most UNINTERESTING,generic and boring album and Katy deserves 50 with a generic-yes- album but that is really fun,catchy,smartly written and keeps you interested and has no fillers at all

[Duella Dvil 10,511]

THIS IS POINTED AT NO ARTIST THIS IS POINTED AT CRITICS AND HOW THEY SEE POP MUSIC!

 

Musically speaking, pop music is not usually "good" or "original" let me explain before you drag me, it all comes together

If we are going with your standard blanket music critique, all pop albums get a bad time because they so regularly follow the same pattern. Even in counts. 

So to look at a whole album of songs that are nearly structurally identical that all are the same type of song and have similar types of chord progressions, and similar types of melodic structure. It's difficult to call it good, on an objective stand point.

Just because it charts well, is catchy, is fun... etc. doesn't mean it's good musically. 

The thing that makes something "catchy" is familiarity. Not that it means that it's been done before but after one listen you feel familiar to one part of a song. Which is repeated, a lot to ensure it sticks. The Hook is what it's called.

With pop music it is ALL about hooks.

Often times songs that are well received commercially are panned critically and if it comercially... Usually does really well

It's not about bias, it's not about the critique being wrong it's about the fact that pop is manufactured to sell.

Usually it feels invented and not created.

And it's been refined and has turned into an evolving being, nearly a living entitiy.

If you consider how evolution works you could consider trends as being the seasons and the top songs/artists/trendsetters to be the ones that get the most reproduction, they make the most babies with things that were either successful or moderately successful. But the ones that made no impact still find a mate.

For every song there is, there is one ear to listen.

So anyways. the trends happen and they get followed by all of the top acts or get transformed and molded with the not so successful things to create a seemingly new sound. But really all of these sounds are being recycled and reproduced and reinvented. 

So critics see that as "bad" and "unoriginal" because they don't realize that that connection of the "playlist" IS the trend, where we want all of our biggest artists not necessarily sound the same, we want them to be familiar.

So hook heavy music always wins, which is heavy in repetition, instrumentally vocally, and lyrically. Pop music IS repetition at its core.

None of this is meant as an insult and it's not saying that it is "unoriginal" it's just that this familiarity is what makes pop music so "good" for us as an audience because we take it on a subjective level not an objective level.

Where we just get to enjoy it and "bop" they have to consider hmm, does this all sound new? Is anything "new" being done.

 

In the time it takes you to listen to one standard pop song (a little over 4 minutes) I have 3 full songs play, I layered each song overthemselves where they match accordingly. I didn't remove instrumentals, I didn't edit where vocals fell, I just cut and pasted them over each other.

http://www104.zippyshare.com/v/mn91OS3A/file.html

Two of these songs went number one for several weeks. Most of these songs are generally loved by this forum, I was gonna use perry but I don't have any of her music on my laptop apparently. O well... But yeah.

[StrawberryBlond 14,862]

9 hours ago, Uncle ARTPOP said:

Musically speaking, pop music is not usually "good" or "original" let me explain before you drag me, it all comes together

If we are going with your standard blanket music critique, all pop albums get a bad time because they so regularly follow the same pattern. Even in counts. 

So to look at a whole album of songs that are nearly structurally identical that all are the same type of song and have similar types of chord progressions, and similar types of melodic structure. It's difficult to call it good, on an objective stand point.

But that could be applied to any genre. All the acoustic guitar songs out now all sound the same. All rap sounds the same. All dance sounds the same. All country sounds the same. Sure, there's different sub-genres within genres but each genre has a set sound, style, aesthetic, etc. And it can all start to sound the same. What makes pop so different? Why do people get on at pop for not changing when literally every other genre is guilty of the same thing? There wouldn't be genres at all if there wasn't the concept of a set sound! It's fine to just not like a genre but to insist that genre change itself to your tastes is something I've not seen applied to any other genre than pop. I think it's unfair.

[Prismatic 4,789]

Aside from stans and online forum, the geepee don't care what score the album got and won't be bragging how high. They'll just enjoy it and buy it/stream it. I honestly doubt the geepee will even know who won the last Grammy. 

[Jenniferella 2,774]

16 hours ago, Prismatic said:

Aside from stans and online forum, the geepee don't care what score the album got and won't be bragging how high. They'll just enjoy it and buy it/stream it. I honestly doubt the geepee will even know who won the last Grammy. 

Literally nobody cares about those things except stans from various fanbases. I have never ever heard anyone talking about how great an album is because it won at an award show, lol. It's all more or less mainstream music in the end and they do not reflect whatsoever what music can be as a whole. Money money money, basically