When Tonje Langeteig’s “I Don’t Want to be a Crappy Housewife” became a viral video hit, the comparisons to Rebecca Black’s “Friday” were ubiquitous. Finally, our short attention spans had a new object of so-bad-it’s-good kitsch ridicule.

I thought this might be an interesting opportunity for a mashup. As it turned out, the songs work surprisingly well together. They’re in closely-related keys and have simple and largely compatible harmonic structures. They share common formal elements – a bridge with an unexpected male rapper.

Most strikingly, however, their lyrics create an interesting counterpoint – “Friday” is unabashedly about being young, while “Housewife” is about being old, and futile attempts to reclaim the innocence of youth. Friday’s heroine is a kid being a kid, while our crappy housewife is an adult, desperately trying to be a kid again.

I’m generally not a big pop music listener. This isn’t some kind of ivory tower stance – I don’t have any problem with the idea of music as a commodity. It’s just that I usually don’t find the music itself all that compelling.

But I have a huge amount of respect for contemporary pop music. From a production point of view, there’s so much to learn from chart radio – how to get a big sound, how to create “hooks,” etc.

With modern music production tools being so inexpensive and easy to use, I’m especially fascinated by the fact that certain songs win while others lose and still others become kitsch icons, when the surface level of all of them is often largely indistinguishable.

What is it – the essence of the thing – that makes these two songs the object of such ridicule? Sure, the lyrics are a little trite. But are they really that much more trite than many of the songs that sell millions of copies?

If I knew the answers to these questions, I’d be a millionaire instead of an armchair musicologist. But what’s clear is that inexpensive, easy tools have not evened out the playing field as much as we like to think. Yes, anyone can make music in their bedroom now, and it will sound 98% as good as anything else.

But there’s something in that other 2% that’s neither inexpensive nor easy.

Don't do this.

• Notation should be considered a set of instructions for performers. And nothing else.
• Notation is not art, nor is it a program note. Perhaps most importantly, it is not music.
• Augenmusik is useless at best and destructive at worst. Baude Cordier, George Crumb and others were wrong to use it. This fact does not diminish their value as composers – only as copyists.
• The quality of a composer’s musical idea is distinct from his/her ability to notate that idea. Composers who lack the desire or technical ability to notate clearly should hire copyists.
• If an extramusical-idea-as-notation is necessary for a composer to move forward with the composition, then this version of the notation should be thought of as a draft. Upon completion, the work should be renotated to facilitate easier performance.
• Performers should not be expected to renotate music to facilitate easier performance.
• There may be extramusical reasons to provide scores to performers which cannot be played. But there are no musical reasons to do so. Performers who receive such a score should expect/request a corrected version.
• If there is a simpler way to notate a given idea, then that is the correct way. There are no exceptions.
• Certain instruments – in particular, most percussion instruments – do not sustain. Notation cannot make them do so. This information can be used to, for example, determine appropriate notational durations, ties, etc.

Instead, do this.

• There is widespread belief that obfuscated, florid or unnecessarily complex notation may impress judges in composition competitions. Composers who enter competitions and who work under this assumption should then create two sets of scores: one for competition, another for performance.