Is there any validity to the concept of the lowest common denominator, the idea that by dumbing down (however you define it) one's material, there are massive gains to be made commercially? I'm especially interested in the pro-pop take on this.
One thing I want to avoid here is this thread turning into yet another useless indie vs pop or rock vs pop discussion. There are plenty of other ways that LCD can be discussed, such as:
-Nelson George writes in The Death of Rhythm & Blues that pressures towards crossover (to a white audience) basically killed R&B in the seventies
-Biz guys like Simon Cowell and Stock/Aitken/Waterman and Mutt Lange insisting that THESE ARE THE RULES and songs should be like this and not like that and if you break the rules, not only will you fail but you will DESERVE to.
-Hip hop commentators blaming the early 90s shift from political content to bitches-&-niggaz on pressure to please thrill-seeking white fans
-People who WILL NOT see a movie that does not have car chases and explosions.
-Adult contemporary.
-Jay-Z saying he has been deliberately dumbing down his rhymes.
-US rock listeners choosing AOR/corporate rock over punk/new wave in the late 70s.
-Magazines turning into Maxim.
-Nirvana leading to Creed.
Now I'm not saying all (or any) of those things are due to LCD appeal, but is there a general pressure towards dumbing down/blandifying down that performers will tend to fall into if they don't actively fight it, or are we talking about a bunch of random phenomenons - maybe there are plenty of examples of the public turning down the dumb/bland option?
― Patrick (Patrick), Thursday, 1 April 2004 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)
I've always thought that most music-loving people in whichever demographics that can afford to buy the most music will buy most of the records they like and not be too fussy over whether they actually love the record, or are just fond of it enough that week to want to buy it. If someone can afford to buy two or three singles a week, it's unlikely that everybody who does that went to the shop looking forward to buying those songs specifically, in other words, the records that people can afford outnumbers the ones they love (and so we buy the mediocre ones too). I think the blandness thing works by putting off as few people as possible, rather than appealing to as many as possible, hoping that just enough people will choose it as their third choice to sell enough to be successful (instead of everybody's first choices, the less bland something is then the more it'll be liked by the people that do like it, but it'll be liked by fewer people in the first place, and record sales rely on the amount of people that like it, not how much it's loved by the people who do).
― Gnimalf, Thursday, 1 April 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)
Doesn't it work the other way around as well? Like one reason that Shania Twain (who I like) sells so much is that she gets the people who usually never even walk into a record store, and her CD ends up being one of the 2 or 3 that those people will buy this year
― Patrick (Patrick), Thursday, 1 April 2004 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)
HaHa sym, I thought exactly the same thing.
― hmmm (hmmm), Friday, 2 April 2004 08:34 (twenty-one years ago)
There's this big button. and every time someone pushes it, some money comes out. Now, 'anyone' can push the button, but the thing is, there's a little less each time. Now, what should happen is that someone should go up top and add some raw ingredients, which don't cost much, but while this happens, you lose your place in the queue for the big button. And while you are adding these raw ingredients, the people closest to the button point and laugh at you. Eventually, they may get tired of button pushing (it kinda gets boring after a while), and wander off with what they have. Or someone bigger than them comes along and throws them off the button. If the latter happens, they sulk a lot, wave arms, and shout about how great they were at pushing the button.
― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 2 April 2004 08:46 (twenty-one years ago)