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Comment by morgante | Hacker News Reader

This is a great article, but I don't understand the undercurrent of judgement and the overt judgement here on HN. Yes, songs are produced by teams of people behind the scenes who adopt common formulas and churn out hit after hit. So what? They're a product just like anything else.

My enjoyment of the latest movie isn't lessened by the fact that the actors didn't write the script. I don't dislike my iPhone just because it's a mass-produced item which is just a small tweak from its previous iterations.

Just because music is a product doesn't mean it's not enjoyable (or worthy of enjoyment).

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I think the difference is that the actors in movies aren't trying to give the impression that they wrote the script, whereas musicians talk about "their" songs like they conceived them in a process of true artistic expression. Revealing that they are actually manufactured in a formulaic manner by the same people who wrote all the other hit songs can leave a sour taste in the mouth of a fan who is perhaps emotionally invested in a song or artist...

I agree that some fans might have a negative reaction to realizing that the performers don't write their own music, but it's hardly a secret. Songwriting credits exist for a reason.

Even if they do find that out, the music is still enjoyable. I'm literally listening to mass-produced music as I write this comment, fully aware that it's produced but still enjoying it.

Indeed, I think that the benefit of good songwriting outweighs the downside of knowing how songs are written. I'm a pretty good musician, and the one skill that I really envy is songwriting, which I just don't know how to do.

It'd have been a shame if Sinatra had tried to write his own songs, or if the Beach Boys had tried to record their own instrumental parts.

That sort of missed the point, though. The songwriting is a tiny part of a song. Most of the popularity value is in the audio and video production and in the persona of the person who mouths the words and stars in the video, and those aren't credited.

Perhaps in a few years, we'll read an article about how all of the tweets, interviews, and off-stage antics of pop stars are also the creative work of 4 middle aged guys from Scandinavia.

The impression that I form, on rare occasions when I'm exposed to what those musicians say about their work, is that it's just as formulaic as the work itself.

However that music is just a product is not what many of the slogans around copyright say ("protect the artists etc").

> Just because music is a product doesn't mean it's not enjoyable (or worthy of enjoyment).

This is true, but it's a straw man, at least for me. I don't care that I'm consuming a product. I do care if I'm manipulated, or if other people are being manipulated in a way that affects me. In this case, I don't like any of the music these people create, but I'm forced to listen to it quite frequently because the formula they've created manipulates so many of my peers into liking it.

If you care about being manipulated, then you're probably not being manipulated overly much, and it's worth it to just not worry about it, because no one is going to stop them from trying. It's just music or clothes that people wear or hair that they style, and it will all change, but always be there. It means nothing.

It's not me, it's the people around me who are being manipulated, and even if they enjoy it, it annoys me.

Then manipulate them to not be manipulated. :)

Agreed. And more importantly, this is nothing new. It's been going on since recorded music was invented. And even before that, in the era of sheet music and live music performance of all sorts. Music is not unique, either, among entertainment formats.

With each one of these products it's clear that they weren't produced by the "figureheads". the iPhone is not a Tim Cook/Steve Jobs product but an Apple product. This isn't the case with music.

I'm not sure I entirely agree.

Steve Jobs was definitely portrayed as an iPhone figurehead. His personal image was highly tied to the Apple products. Likewise, movies put leading actors/directors forward as figureheads for the production.

However, I do agree that there is more widespread misunderstanding of how music is made. What I don't agree with is that this misunderstanding is essential to the popularity or enjoyment of music.

I'm fully aware that music is produced and I still enjoy listening to it.

Or take the example of K-pop/J-pop, which is more overtly produced than American music. In some cases, fans literally vote on who gets to be included in the band. Despite the "production" process being in full view, fans still love the music and artists.

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