good beat

The only thing kids today listen for in music. A "good beat" is all it takes for kids to hear to a piece of dance-pop radio garbage and declare it a master piece. Having a "good beat" just means is that a song is written in a bland, repetitive 4/4 time signature with a back-beat that kids can dance moronically to and with the same slightly catchy but mostly annoying motif looped over and over again for the entire track. Songs like these usually fall into the dance-pop/Hip-hop/R&B genres and almost always talk about the same hackneyed topics (alcohol, sex, drugs, clubs, break ups, etc.). It used to be that music was about displaying playing prowess through the use of complex riffs, creative instrumentation and virtuosic solos. It used to be that calling yourself a musician meant that you actually knew something about music theory and/or songwriting. It used to be that people who wrote music could actually play an instrument beyond just 2 or 3 notes. And it used to be that lyricists actually put their heart and soul as well as intelligent thought into their words. Those days are long gone.