"It's taken me all these years to realize I hate pop piano ballads" Sun Jul-20-14 11:42 PM by imcvspl
Like with a fucking passion. I think I managed to tune them out for the majority of my life. Like yeah that sucks but it's not even worth my time. But something happened over this weekend as me and my wife were catching up on SYTYCD (say something I dare you) and were subsequently subjected to like five of them bitches in a row, complete with 'contemporary' dance routines to 'bring them to life.
Yo them shits epitomize everything that I hate about pop music. You can start with the piano playing, which is required to be the most non playing of an instrument you'll ever find using, the most cliché minor chords you can fucking imagine. Then you have a singer who probably did like twenty takes of this faux emotion bullshit which is supposed to get them over because they can't sing worth a shit anyway, but the wavering tone is meant to be powerful. Then you give them these conflated cliché's about lost love and angels or flames or something being torn, and whatever you do make sure you include a reference to the heart somewhere in that bitch. Throw all that shit in a blender and it'll make soccer moms pine for their high school sweetheart who's probably a methhead now but they still think, "if only..."
I think my hate for it was highlighted by having to watch the same fucking choreography to the same fucking song by three different people garner the same elephant tears. Like you gotta be fucking kidding me people. By the fifth time I was screaming at the screen, "DON'T FALL FOR IT!!"
Good fucking god, what a horrible horrible subset of music.
Joe Corn Mo Member since Aug 29th 2010 15139 posts
Mon Jul-21-14 06:24 AM
1. "i usually dislike them, but i can think of a gang of exceptions. " In response to Reply # 0
MJ, "She's out of my life," prince, "the beautiful ones" stevie wonder, "lately."
and really there are songs that are pop piano ballads at their core that have other instruments weaved in. like "after the love is gone" by EWF or maybe "waiting for a girl like you" by foreigner.
i think the key to me likming a pop piano ballad is how interesting the chord changes are and how dope somebody's voice is.
i agree that most pop piano ballads fail on both counts.
>i think the key to me likming a pop piano ballad is >how interesting the chord changes are and how dope >somebody's voice is. > >i agree that most pop piano ballads fail on both counts.
...which is a damn shame, because pianos have the capability to not play some wack shit. all the notes are there.
15. "providing examples would mean acknowledging them as music" In response to Reply # 6
lol
I'm sure there are some fantastic exceptions, but i'm 99.9% positive even the best of them wouldn't crack my top 100 songs of all time so I'll just throw them all under the bus.
This post was inspired by a John Legend one though.... ugh.
Joe Corn Mo Member since Aug 29th 2010 15139 posts
Mon Jul-21-14 02:08 PM
17. "is this about piano pop ballads, or I-V-vi-IV chord progressions?" In response to Reply # 0
there are dope songs that use it, but most of my favorite songs don't.
it's not an accident, i don't think, that i love Stevie's ballads so much. when i started working out his songs on piano, i realized that some of them could be jazz changes.
32. "one of Stevie's greatest gifts to music." In response to Reply # 17
>it's not an accident, i don't think, >that i love Stevie's ballads so much. >when i started working out his songs on piano, >i realized that some of them could be jazz changes.
I noticed it in his pre-"emancipation" years at Motown, when he was allowed to have his own compositions on his albums.
"Give Your Love" (linked above) was one of those songs that were I alive to have heard it when it was released, I would have been "STEVIE ON SOME OTHER SHIT!!!" just because of that intro. Earlier examples produce a similar reaction.
in fact, one of my favorite things is when Stevie sings a song from SIGNED, SEALED... on backward and he purposely colors outside the lines.
43. "That progression is the obvious crutch" In response to Reply # 17
but it's crutch upon crutch upon crutch. It's not a singular thing. It's the layers of cliché that make it intollerable.
Artists that have shown they can do better than that, and just throw one out there every now and then for 'the people' i'm alright with. i'll still call em on that shit. like stevie and prince at their cheesiest are doing some basic shit like this. but the real problem are the artists that have made careers of this crap and have no depth beyond it. that shit i just can't tolerate.
i made a post previously about losing an artist to lose all of the shitty knockoffs. i'd readily lose the piano pop ballad for mat to lose all of the horrendous music that was born from it. you wouldn't just lose songs you'd lose whole fucking careers that sucked ass. and yeah there may be a few cuts from talented artists that got lost in the shuffle, but those artists have more than enough other material to make up for it.
18. "I'm still shocked that All Of Me was a hit." In response to Reply # 0
There's like 9 different tab versions on Ultimate Guitar.com. You only see that many versions of a song if it becomes a Broadcast It Into Deep Space For The Aliens To Hear kind of smash hit, like Come As You Are, or Imagine or something.
22. "RE: I'm still shocked that All Of Me was a hit." In response to Reply # 18
Song was top 10 since Grammys and number 1 for like 6 weeks..
yea..
shits a smasssh
Double 0 DJ/Producer/Artist Producer in Kidz In The Hall ------------------------------------------- twitter: @godouble0 IG: @godouble0 www.thinklikearapper.com
28. "It's, quite literally, for the Adele crowd..." In response to Reply # 24
Remember when he remade "Rolling In The Deep"? John been searching for his Adele-type hit ever since. He found it in "All Of Me". I actually know a girl who loves Adele, Sam Smith, John Mayer... all that poppy shit. She hit me up talking about I HAD to hear the new John Legend, and she was talking about "All Of Me". Not my cup of tea, but I understand EXACTLY why such a music listener would like it.
You don't know nobody who like that shit, because you don't have the misfortune (I keeeed, sorta) of talking music with that type of listener.
33. "Yah....but it's a well-written song." In response to Reply # 18
I always change the radio when it comes on. But there's no denying that it's got the chords, key changes and melodies for success.
I'd probly love it if the arrangement was more to my liking. Something about the singing doesn't do it for me either. Maybe too 'deliberate' I'll say? Can't put my finger on it. But I can see why it's a hit. Not just because it panders to white people....it's got good composition. Someone should cover it.
30. "CAUSE YOU KNOW I"D WALK A THOUSAND MILES" In response to Reply # 0
_______________________________________ When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer
34. "Way too broad a statement for my likes." In response to Reply # 0 Wed Jul-23-14 05:23 AM by denny
I assume you're talking about the arrangement model? Cause we all know that the majority of all down-tempo hit songs start out as piano ballads and then are arranged accordingly. 'Change is gonna Come'....'You really got a hold on me'....etc etc etc....songs that were most likely initially written as piano ballads. So you're not saying you hate the aforementioned 'Man in the Mirror'....you're just saying you hate that arrangement style yah? Slow song arranged with piano and voice right?
A consideration....it's possible to hate an arrangement without hating the song. The distinction might be self-evident for some....but it's important to remind ourselves. The exact same lyrics, chords, changes and melodies could result in a recording that we either love or hate. Whether we like a recording or not is often based on arrangement....the tempo, rhythm, instruments, vocal performance, who plays what when...that type of stuff.
Anyways....off the top of my head...and working with assumption that 'ballad' means the song has to be about love:
Outside your door (meshell) Hello (Richie) Flying Shoes (Van Zandt) Sands of Time (W Nelson and B Raitt) Song for you (Hathaway) Georgia on my mind (Charles) Will always love you (Houston)
These are very random...I could go on forever. Recently I found Sam Smith doing a piano ballad version of 'Latch' that is wayyyyy better than the dance arrangement. His piano player is a young dude...don't know his name....but an incredible talent. Seen him play on a lot of Smith's live stuff and he always combines so many genres. Rnb, jazz, pop, gospel....something about his phrasing just really gets me. And he's unconventional enough to always keep it interesting. He's tasteful...not showing off skills/technique. More of an idea/conceptual player. Just gotta nice style. Check him out:
Joe Corn Mo Member since Aug 29th 2010 15139 posts
Thu Jul-24-14 12:42 AM
40. "a great arrangement and a competent performance can save a shitty song." In response to Reply # 35
let's take foreigner's "waiting for a girl like you." if John Legend sung that with nothing but his piano, i wouldn't dig it at all.
i'd hate it.
and there's not much interesting going on harmonically with the song, so without a great arrangement, there is nothing to sink your ears into.
but with those synths weaving in and out, as from a dream... the keyboard melody sounds perfect. and the lead vox are soulful (enough) so bam...
pop classic.
some songs have enough going on rhythmically and melodically and harmonically that you'd have to damn near struggle to fuck up the arrangement. i have never heard a BAD cover of "ain't no sunshine."
it's just such a strong song that anybody can do it. meanwhile, a tune like "hello," if you don't have a good arranger and a good vocalist... it just goes nowhere slowly.
none of this is to say that i disagree with OP. most piano ballads really do suck.
> >>A consideration....it's possible to hate an arrangement >>without hating the song-writing. > >How you can separate the arrangement from the *song* (=the >performance/recording we hear) is beyond me...
36. "Reducing it to arrangement does the general shitiness a disservice" In response to Reply # 34
You start with shitty chords pieced together at a piano. Not a lot of thought is put into these because they aren't the point, and so as such they just sort of sit there. Anyone could be playing them. Then you come up with the cheesiest cliché's you can fucking imagine and just string them together in a row. Put them in an order which 'builds the emotion'. Change those chords slightly particularly on the dynamic end to give it all a beginning middle and a climactic end. Cue elephant tears.
It's the musical equivalent of a Danielle Steele romance novel.
Oh sure you can get some performers and arrangers to dress it up real nice to make it sound like there's something there, but then we're talking about the performers not the shitty fucking excuse for a song.
And I will not go point for point using examples because what's the point, the formula is ass. Who cares if someone did a good job with it.
42. "on the last EWF album" In response to Reply # 0 Thu Jul-24-14 11:58 AM by Dr Claw
(highly recommended, btw)
there was a song, "Got To Be Love"
that had one of those intros that I almost hit "skip track" on.
then the song begins and I'm good with it. that "pop piano" element was there.
The Time's last album had something like that, can't remember the track -- I want to say it was "Hey Yo" (which was actually the song I liked the least)
-DJ R-Tistic- Member since Nov 06th 2008 51986 posts
Mon Jul-28-14 07:34 AM
47. "Hell, "After the love is gone" starts off as if it could be a corny" In response to Reply # 42
80's sounding Pop ballad...but then it comes in...and then those changes start hitting...then the hook comes, and it's like whoa. This is damn amazing.
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
