I used to drive by the International Flavour Factory on the way to school. Everyday a different usually fruit based scent permeated the air for kilometers.
Back on topic
Hey what about country music lyrics ...... the word shedonemewronginmuhpickuptruck is gotta be at least 5.
ManFromGlass wrote:I used to drive by the International Flavour Factory on the way to school. Everyday a different usually fruit based scent permeated the air for kilometers.
This is what my job smells like. Or at least it did, until I got put on gardening leave for my meth problem
Last edited by Logarhythm on Sat Sep 15, 2018 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I was going to suggest Mars Volta's 'De-Loused in the Comatorium', until I realised it's an album title, and it was released in 2003 - at which point I felt very old...
Then I found 'Vedamalady' from 2012's Noctourniquet.
Mike Senior wrote:OK, let me explain what I mean by that title. I've recently started a new free podcast where a friend and I take a not-altogether-serious slant on all things project-studio (http://www.projectstudioteabreak.com). For our latest recording, I mentioned that, although I don't normally agree with the "music was better in the 70s/60s/baroque/whateverpastperiod" point of view I sometimes hear from people of my age, I've begun to worry I might be starting to become such a curmudgeon myself...
You see, as I was reclining by the pool on holiday a couple of weeks ago, I heard ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love On Me', which contains the fabulous couplet "I used to think I was sensible / It makes the truth even more incomprehensible", with its six-syllable final word. So I started trying to think if there were any similarly long words in recent chart hits. And I couldn't come up with any!
Five-syllable words used to be commonplace ("Unforgettable" "You irreplaceable you" "Congratulations"...) and The Carpenters managed a whopping seven syllables in "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft" (a song which includes another 5-syllable and four 4-syllable words too). But the most recent six-syllable word I could find was "institutionalized" in So Solid Crew's "Broken Silence" back in 2003, and even five-syllable ones seem pretty scarce -- there's "opportunity" in Eminem's "Lose Yourself", for instance, but that's 2002.
So, please -- somebody! -- name me a hit song within the last 10 years that has at least a 5-syllable word in it, and preferably a 7-syllable one to stop The Carpenters looking so smug (a herculean labour, I know). Otherwise, I'm afraid I shall have to concede that Mars bars really are getting smaller, that policemen are getting younger, and that young people really don't show any respect for their elders any more. In my day, etc., etc., ...
Everything is getting smaller. It is called inflation.
Makers are afraid to keep raising the price so they make the product smaller instead hoping you wont notice that.
Dial soap used to be solid bars. Now it is scooped out on two sides giving maybe 1/2 as much as they did in years past.
In answer to the OP there have been scientific surveys done to show that pop music of the 2010s has been dumbed down massively. https://m.slashdot.org/story/336145
Interesting set of studies. I wonder if there's a link here with the demise of the album and the shift to streaming? If you've invested in an album (and the time to listen to it) you might be more open to more challenging material - the old 'growers'.
I wonder if there's a link here with the demise of the album and the shift to streaming?
Definitely re the album demise ‘Within you without you’ on Sgt Pepper grew on me, and ‘Baby as you turn away’ on Bee Gees’ Main course and Bap Kennedy’s ‘Baby it’s alright’ from Lonely Street weren’t singles as far as I can tell.
The latter album I heard one Christmas while in a long queue waiting to pay for other CDs I’d already chosen. By the time I got to the checkout I’d heard the whole cd I think and asked for that one as well.
Maybe streaming might change that since a lot of artists still set great store by releasing an album. So hopefully the whole album will get listened to if it costs the listener no more to purchase and they aren’t restricted to a twenty second preview as in the download scenario.
Out of your timescale but Jim Diamond (Should have known better) managed to squeeze 13 syllables out of a one letter word.
IIRC from Stephen Pinkers' 'The language Instinct' there are no lazy languages when it comes to syllables. For example, the Americans have managed to lose a syllable in 'government' but it reappears in 'police'.
Dynamic Mike wrote:IIRC from Stephen Pinkers' 'The language Instinct' there are no lazy languages when it comes to syllables. For example, the Americans have managed to lose a syllable in 'government' but it reappears in 'police'.
It's a good book that.
There may be no lazy languages but there are lazy dialects. Take a drive round Norfolk (the countryside is lovely) and compare the written village name with its local pronunciation...
Wymondham = Windham
Costessey = Cossey
Hunstanton = Hunston (though i'm told this is changing)
Happisburgh = Haysbrur
Etc.
Pretty much drop a syllable from every one. Even the county capital is generally pronounced Naardge by the locals.
You've staved off my curmudgeonism. Now I'm off to write a song with anticurmudgeonism in it...
