Elton John: ‘Chart Music Isn’t Real Music’

[Sister 9,907]

^ Excellent Post there @Adakam So true. I have watched the documentaries on Pink Floyd making their music. Amazing work.

Elton John is right though and I don't blame him for this opinion. Some of his hits would fit into the category that he is speaking of though, if he is to be clear, he is not above it, but he'd probably throw the blame on his continuous working through the change of popular music style of the eighties, he could not avoid it and still work in the business. 

To me, he is meaning the difference of sound style and production. The "chart" made songs sound so packaged and synthetic, a sugary earworm that often feels mechanically made. I would point to a huge number of one hit wonders by multiple players produced increasingly in the eighties up to now for example, songs that arrive out of nowhere usually from unknowns that become widespread guilty pleasures and owned and loved by the mainstream general public worldwide. They are often frivolous. They seem to have no soul, by design. Sometimes we want to hear just that, but a lot of times, the singer songwriter artist who's work is wholly all their own and body and soul, seems to provide a much bigger stake in the game, often moving the public by speaking for the generation at hand, creating changing attitudes and movements and creating a soundscape that stands the test of time and lives and describes a moment that becomes a whole culture. Elton just champions the singer songwriter music moments above the rest. It's not so pretentious, all types of art fit in the puzzle to create the full art. We can't have the high brow example without having a low brow example. Duality is good. We love both. Food for our souls and food for our parties.

[Bella Goth 1,144]

12 hours ago, ThisGuyTony said:

I just realized Sine From Above has 12 songwriters. Why?

because the song been passed all way round for years to different people and blood and gaga finished it i guess.

[Bella Goth 1,144]

and that's his opinion, and i kinda get his point, theres so many underated musicians/songwriters that more interesting from these artists that charting nowadays, chart made by business people to gain more money from the artists. real artist care about the process & journey of making their arts, he didnt say the music that charting is not a real music, but the chart system itself, you cant say that music that are charting is the ultimate best music out there, because there is so much behind the scene that business people do to make it chart for higher coins

[SKANK 14,288]

“Born This Way’’ will completely get rid of Gloria Gaynor’s 'I Will Survive.' This is the new 'I Will Survive.” 

Elton tends to get things wrong.

Conan Gray, isn’t doing anything Tegan and Sara haven’t been doing for two decades. Father John Misty isn’t reinventing the wheel with his song writing either. 

Ignore chart snobs. 

 

[Awakened M 2,686]

13 hours ago, CyanLights said:

agreed - this interview comes across as very stubborn and out of touch. Why cant we just let people enjoy what they want to enjoy

If I want to listen to Beethoven's 543929th Symphony after listening to WAP let me be 

And THAT'S on periodic Table!

[gypsy101 5,423]

is he implying that music is not real because it's successful and sells well? his music charted really well for like 30 years so wtf? dude had 57 top 40 hits in the US spanning 1971 til 1999 sooooooo he doesn't really have room to talk

i just googled it. he is the 8th bestselling artist of all time and has sold 80 million records. he can shut his trap on this one.

[Morphine Prince 96,260]

This is such a closed minded comment. 

[FameHookah 4,572]

13 hours ago, KanyeWest said:

Well maybe for a reason

Let's compare

Number 1 on the charts right now

Nothing wrong with it but which one is timeless with depth? 

The song is so Chromatica (house) lmao omg

So that sound is in? Alice and SC should slay the charts then.

OT. Elton is a Mess

[Cerny 4,095]

Surprised at the posts in this thread, isn’t what Elton said the consensus view on GGD? unless Gaga is topping the charts, that is.

Anyway, I personally disagree with his exaggerated view.
 

[malazam 15,710]

16 hours ago, ThisGuyTony said:

I just realized Sine From Above has 12 songwriters. Why?

It went through too many ppl.

[LilyLark 9,694]

18 hours ago, NathanC said:

Love his stuff but he can be a bit pretentious.

Agree. Love him, but he's pretentious as h*ll. Like there is a lot of great electronic music and yeah, even songs that have 12 songwriters (in this day and age it's not that uncommon due to new rules around sampling, etc.) can be strong (thinking of several tracks off Bey's Lemonade).

Also, people need to stop acting like everything's a personal attack against Gaga—he had recent photos of her in one of his books & basically said she's one of the only "superstars" in his opinion.

[Eighteen 5,420]

i can see his point. honestly i don't really care if music is "manufactured," if i like it i like it. but you get a lot of respect from me if you did it alone or if you did it all with two or three people. for example, i don't like billie eilish's music at all... (her music isn't for me) but i have a lot of respect for her because she did all that music with just her brother. that's amazing. and it sounds good too (in the sense that it's not like... a mess. but again, just not my type of music). 

[BloodyM 1,118]

On 8/27/2020 at 1:52 PM, 777777777777777777 said:

She will singing 1000 Doves (Piano Demo)

She will actually scrap everything and perform a Mozart piece on the piano. 

[KennyRichie 1,346]

i kinda agree with sir Elton here, top 50 of Spotify is basically the tik tok songs, where only the tik tok part is good

[pachinko 9,486]

On 8/27/2020 at 8:52 AM, Borislshere said:

Why is Elton so damn pretentious omg 

He's gay, are you surprised?