In Greek mythology, the god Apollo promised Cassandra — daughter of Priam, the last king of Troy — the power of prophecy in exchange for her compliance with his desires. After accepting this proposal, she went on to ignore his requests, and as punishment, Apollo declared that her prophecies would never be listened to, or believed. In particular, the fall of Troy, and the death of Agamemnon, were two of Cassandra’s prophecies that came true, but were ignored, much to the peril of everyone involved.
Today, the story of Cassandra is used rhetorically as a way of indicating that someone is saying something important, but their message is falling on deaf ears. I believe this can be summed up with the outro of Taylor Swift’s song, “Cassandra.”
When the first stone's thrown, there's screamin'
In the streets, there's a raging riot
When it's "Burn the bitch," they're shrieking
When the truth comes out, it's quiet
It's so quiet
As Swift writes, the initial disturbance always garners some level of attention. People don’t like being warned about impending doom — and why would they? Nobody wants doom. In many cases, those who are sounding the alarm are denigrated and castigated. In fact, going back to the story of Cassandra for a moment, her own father had her locked away because of how she was viewed by everyone else, as a madwoman.
If you don’t know him already, Rick Beato is a veteran music producer turned YouTube sensation with over 5 million subscribers. His videos range from things like, how to properly record guitar, what his opinions are of the current top hits on the billboard charts, music industry insights, song breakdowns and analysis, plus many other subjects, all related to music. He also offers paid courses on things like ear training, and music theory. He’s a true old school professional with serious musical chops, and a wealth of knowledge about all things music production, audio engineering, songwriting, and music theory. A commenter on the video I’ll be linking below, “Catforce5,” said that Beato is “the Cassandra of the music industry,” and I couldn’t agree more.
If you didn’t know, Sabrina Carpenter’s new song, “Manchild” debuted at #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It’s rare for songs to debut at #1, but this is the first single from Carpenter’s highly anticipated album, “Man’s Best Friend” which is set to release in late August. To make an annoyingly long story short, some people are upset that the album artwork is, in their view, making light of feminism. I don’t want to get into the controversy over the album cover here, but if you’re curious about that, you can easily find more info by searching her name on Google, or any social media platform. This has, of course, led to people going through the lyrics of her latest song with a fine toothed comb for any hidden meaning or subtle messages.
This is where Rick Beato’s prophecy comes in. I’m not sure how many people are aware of this but, the overwhelming majority of pop songs are not written, primarily, by the artist they’re associated with. In some cases, these hit songs are co-written by multiple collaborators, with very little input from the artist.
There are exceptions to this, but generally speaking, if you check out the song credits on any of the top 100 pop hits, you will find many different people getting credit. As Beato mentions in the video, artists are presented with a litany of songs that have already been written, and generally, there are a few people whose songs are more likely to end up as big hits. I’m not talking about a million streams, or 10 million streams, but in some cases, upwards of 3 billion streams.
So while people are clamoring to find some hidden message in Carpenter’s “Manchild,” what they should actually do, is just acknowledge that the vast majority of pop lyrics dont really mean anything at all. While Carpenter may have tweaked some bits and pieces of the song, the credits for the songwriting include both Jack Antonoff, and Amy Allen, whose fingerprints are all over the pop charts.
It’s true that there are exceptions to this. Taylor Swift has often discussed her songwriting process, and her collaboration with Jack Antonoff in particular, is well documented. Beato is not saying that literally every artist out there in pop music is being lazy and refusing to write anything. Rather, he’s hoping to inform people that these songs don’t necessarily come about organically. In fact, there’s an entire team of people involved in the roll-out of these singles. Going back to “Manchild,” you’ll find that the music video, and all the social media teasers are crafted meticulously to ensure synergy between media consumption methods.
Admittedly, Beato uses a clickbaity subtitle on his YouTube video — “POP MUSIC EXPOSED” — but he’s making a good point here. When people fall over themselves to find meaning in song lyrics, they’re actually looking for meaning in a place where authenticity has dwindled. And this is part of the problem with modern pop music. It all sounds the same, and it’s written by too many people.
If you like this type of music, that’s completely fine. But let’s not pretend that it’s something it’s not. Sometimes there really is no there, there. People love vapid, repetitive, formulaic music that entertains them for 3 minutes. That’s okay! We should be able to admit this. As a self-professed music snob, I know full well that a Dream Theater song clocking in at 11 minutes is not going to be palatable to the average listener. And I can appreciate at least some of today’s modern pop music, especially, Taylor Swift who I think is fantastic, is well written. I just hope people understand that most of this music is more of a corporate entity than an authentic look into someone’s soul.