I have absolutely no problem with a song being light and entertaining, as long as it's a good song. I love Jimmy Buffet...he can be deep, A Pirate Looks At Forty, but most of his stuff is light-hearted party music, but it's *good light-hearted music. I don't wallow in elitism when it comes to music of any genre...my simple criterium is "is it a good song?" There's good music and there's bad music, of any kind. You don't have to like country music, and, many of us here, I know, loathe it, but in its own context there are good country songs and bad country songs. Old time Tin Pan Alley songs were production house stuff, but a lot of them are fun and hold up to this day. Loudon Wainwright III's Dead Skunk is a frivolous humor piece, but it's a great song. Pop music, too, from Al Jolson to just before the present scene, always seemed to produce some listenable and memorable stuff. In fact, most of the past icons from Elvis to the Beatles and on to Michael Jackson and Madonna (who worked with good writers) produced, at least, a couple songs, that were familiar to just about everyone of all ages, even if you didn't follow them or, indeed, disdained of them, some of their songs you just couldn't escape. In contrast, Britney Spears, supposedly an icon as big as any of these, doesn't have *one song I, or anyone I know of any age, can readily identify by the music or words. I know radio formatting is more specialized these days, but someone that *big should have one or two stand-out signature tunes that almost eveyrone knows (like Madonna's "Like A Virgin", for instance)...the same for the boy-band icons. Because the music and writing is just bad, bad, bad, even for light entertaining pop music.
And I like good country music, a genre vehemently disdained by a few on this board, so how can I be an elitist?
A Whiter Shade of Pale (Procul Harem), Cap, was a good song...the reason you're citing it now, the reason it has survived. So, for whatever reason, the words worked.
I've been involved with many songwriting groups, and currently attend a weekly workshop and songshare, and *most songwriters work *hard on their craft and art, they don't just throw words at music.
