There is no excuse for laziness

There is no excuse for laziness. There just isn’t.

Now, let’s get a few things straight.

1. Songwright.co.uk isn’t about the songwriting business. I’m not interested in whether a song makes money, I just care about the craft being done well.

2. Amy Winehouse has no redeeming features. She could never sing, she has never recorded an above average song, and she has apparently squandered the life she was so lucky to be given. She made some money for some people, but that doesn’t stop her sounding tinny and unpleasant, or looking so vile and unwashed.

3. Copying has to be done well if you’re going to do it.

What I’m building up to is the sheer waste of recording and video budget on the well-below-average song  ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful’? by Paloma Faith

The woman’s voice and to an extent her look have clearly been chosen for their similarity to Winehouse. That’s offensive, but I suppose it’s not suprising.

What really annoys me is that the song just isn’t good enough. I wanted to hear it, because I saw a TV ad that mentioned the title and played literally one line of the song. That one line sounded good, I liked the title, so I fired up the laptop and found the video on youtube. After listening to half the song my blood was boiling.

This song isn’t good enough.

If one of my pupils had written this, I would give it top marks and say ‘well done’. For a secondary school pupil it’s a good song. From a pro? No way. The verse is forgettable, but the chorus is something worse: it’s a bridge. It promises, it says we’re going somewhere, we’re going to get a chorus… here it comes…

And then it doesn’t.

And later there’s a middle 8, and it isn’t very good, and yeah it goes to the dominant 5th and the chord progression kind of makes sense. But so what? Where’s the emotion? Where’s the suprise? Where’s the art? 

I know the pop music machine has given up, has chosen immediate and bland because it can’t do interesting and musical. But I don’t want this lazy crap being released. I’m not just saying I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want it to even be recorded.

 I’m not in favour of any kind of  censorship except self censorship. What I want is for songwriters to be critical of their own work, and to realise that you should only be making public the truly good songs.

This isn’t good, it’s dull copycat music. It’s lazy and there’s no excuse for it.