Joe Satriani says whats wrong with today’s pop music

Joe Satriani talked with Premier Guitar about today’s pop music saying what he thinks it’s wrong with the music genre.

Read what he said:

“Pop music generates a lot of money, and because of that, each new piece that comes out benefits from them spending a lot of money on production, getting the best people to be part of it. So, when a new million-dollar piece of pop music comes out, it’s extremely shiny, they’ve worked on it forever, and there’s been like 12 producers.

“You hear a really cool groove, you hear sounds you never heard before, and then, for me, you get let down when the person starts singing, because it’s some sort of trendy message that the artist feels they have to talk about.

“And you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t care about that!’ You just wanted to enjoy the groove, and you loved the texture, and then suddenly you have to deal with these lyrics, you know? That’s sad. There were periods of music, if you go back 50, 60, 70 years, where pop seemed to deliver messages that you could live with.

“When I was making records with Chickenfoot, it was a thing that we all, as a band, wanted to somehow get ahold of. Because Chickenfoot was our way of celebrating our roots. We were playing new music, but we were celebrating our roots growing up as kids learning how to play during what turned out to be the classic-rock era.

“We wanted to make feel-good music, but there were things that Sam [Hagar] felt he had to talk about. So, I think every band that’s got a singer and a lyricist has to come to grips with that. Are they gonna write a song where it’s all about, ‘I love you, let’s have a good time tonight,’ or is it gonna be ‘Avenida Revolucion,’ where Sammy is screaming about the injustice of life down at the border? You make that choice, and you plant your feet firmly on the ground.

“My earliest memory listening to instrumental music was listening to my parents play jazz records, and my mother playing a lot of classical records, because she wanted to get it into our brains. And I always loved it.

“I really felt instrumental music, both classical and jazz, and so any time my earliest rock experiences would show me an instrumental, I would gravitate towards it. Like, when I got that first Hendrix record, I loved everything about Hendrix, but ‘Third Stone from the Sun’ just totally blew my mind! It was so beautiful to me. So powerful.”