Pieces Of Hundred Chart - Number & Operations In Base Ten: Fill & Download for Free

The most important thing for young kids to know about math is the pattern behind the numbers. One thing I do in my primary classroom is number puzzles.I have the students make a hundreds chart.Image from googleJust the making of the chart helps them to see the pattern that numbers have. Then we cut them out in different shapes but we only cut on the lines so each two digit number stays together on each piece. Then the students put the puzzles together. They have to understand things like 35 is above 45 so they are exactly 10 digits away from each other.After they get good at doing these at the two digit level, we do ones that start at 101 or 701 etc. Finally, I just make random boxes and put a random number in and they have to figure out what other numbers would fill in the boxes on that piece of a puzzle.Image from googleThe upper right hand problem is an example of what the random boxes might look like.If your brother understands numbers well then the adding, subtracting, and multiplying will come easy so start with that. You can also work with him on practical math like time, money, measurement, cutting food into fractions etc.

Originally answered: Is there a viable method to clean up space junk?I have worked this problem on an off for about 20 years. I will tell you why.But first, I will explain to you that it is not intuitive at all. People respond to this problem the way the mice responded to a cat. If we just put a bell around its neck, we can hear it coming. That is true that’s a great solution. Except for actually getting the bell around the cat’s neck part.People have come up with a net, a robotic arm, putting sails on the debris, blowing air in front of them, hitting the debris with a laser. Unfortunately, they have not actually calculated how much laser energy or how much fuel would be involved in getting to the piece of debris. It is not intuitive how much energy is takes to catch up with debris.When I was head of the systems engineering for the space based-laser integrated flight experiment in 2001, I was asked to have my team look at one of these schemes, specifically to use a high energy laser to boil off material on the leading edge side of the debris to give it some retro thrust. This is now known as the LASER BROOM scheme. It just took an impractical amount and time of laser power. Like millions of watts for dozens of hours for each piece of debris. In case you don’t know what that means, it is close to a billion dollars to bring down one piece of debris. And we don’t have megawatt lasers anymore.I have seen schemes to grab debris with nets or to blow high speed gas at the debris. Although many of the schemes are delightfully imaginative, they are very naïve and impractical.The thing that many people seem to totally misunderstand is that being in space is only about 10% of the energy problem. It takes 3 megajoules per kg to lift something into low earth orbit and about 28 megajoules per kg to accelerate it to orbital velocity. Since you have to carry the fuel with you for on average 3/4 of the trip, and the fuel weighs a lot more than the payload, these numbers are very low in estimating the total energy you need to get to an orbital state.The next thing that most people get wrong is thinking that all the debris is more or less going in the same direction around the Earth.Here is the actual distribution in low Earth orbit.You see that a lot of stuff is not going the same direction as the Earth rotates around the equator but instead at all sorts of angles. A whole lot is going in orbits from 60 degrees to the equator, and a lot is in polar orbits. There is even quite a bit going in retrograde orbits.Most people have trouble understanding this. They just can’t believe that stuff is just going in every direction up there. They think that to take advantage of Earth rotational momentum, most satellites orbit around the equator in the same direction as the Earth.Now here is the next problem: it takes about a megajoule of energy per kilogram to change the orbital inclination by one degree. So once your space debris collector is up in orbit, it has to spend a huge amount of energy changing orbit to match the velocity of each piece of debris. Let’s take a simple case. The debris piece you want to catch is 1 km higher than your debris collector and inclined by 5 degrees more than your space collector, and let’s say that both orbits are circular to make this an easy calculation. To change the height by 1 km takes only 10 kJ per kg, but to change the orbital inclination by 5 degrees takes 5 MJ per kg. That small orbital change alone is about 15% of the total energy it took you to get to orbit in the first place. That means you are going to burn a lot of fuel, I mean like a small launch vehicle full of fuel just to chase this one piece of debris. Remember the enormous rocket that it took to launch your debris collector into space? You need something about 1/6 that large just to change inclination angle to go after one piece of debris.Let me put that in perspective. The shuttle had an orbital maneuver (OMS) kit. It could carry 20 tons of fuel and oxidizer. Burning all that fuel would manage a delta-v of 300 meters per second. Not enough to change the orbital inclination of the shuttle by even three degrees.Wait a minute I hear you say. I don’t have to do that. I just figure out how to get up to the right altitude and plan an intersection, I stick out a net, and catch it. Save all that fuel.I can’t believe how many people come up with that and are serious. That debris I describe inclined at only 5 degrees to your orbit is moving at a bare minimum 650 metes per second relative to you. Yes, twice the speed of a bullet in the same circular orbit at the same altitude but inclined 5 degrees. That’s only about 8.7% of its total velocity. Thank goodness you are going in almost the same direction because the relative velocity could be a lot worse. So a piece of debris moving relative to you at 650 meters per second is going to totally destroy your net and put a lot more debris in orbit. (Can you catch a cannon ball with a net? Have you ever seen a cannon ball hit something?) So far the space debris nets are capable of catching debris with a relative velocity of less than 15 meters per second. A major league pitcher can pitch a baseball at twice that velocity.People have suggested that to get a feel for this, you need to get the Kerbal Space Program, and play around with it making orbital changes and seeing how really hard it is.After you do a few of these experiments in a simulator, you begin to realize that you are going to need to launch something like 2000 Delta IV rockets to chase down all the debris and catch it. Since these cost about $1B each, you quickly have an impractical solution no matter what you do when you catch up with each piece of debris.Note that the debris is going around the Earth in all sorts of directions, with the exception of the geostationary belt, which is the main ring in this picture. But notice that fuzz ball in the center. That’s the debris in low Earth orbit. It is everywhere, not concentrated in a ring. Since each orbit crosses the equator twice, those objects are coming into the equator at rather large angles - as a matter of fact, the angles given in the first chart above.IDEAS FOR REMOVING DEBRISHere are some of the ideas that have been suggested about collecting space debris:LASER BROOMThe idea: Laser Broom. Hit debris with a laser. Some material will boil off on the side hit by the laser. This will give velocity in the opposite direction. If you hit it from the correct angle, it should cause the debris to go to a lower orbit. Do it long enough and it should re-enter. This is a solution that NASA and the Air Force asked my team to evaluate on the Space Based Laser program.The drawback: It would take many megawatt hours of laser power for each piece of debris. That would bring the cost to de-orbit each piece of debris into the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars with today’s technology. Perhaps in the future if we get megawatt diode pumped lasers, it might be more affordable. Also, any laser that could be used against space debris could be used against a satellite. Development of such a capability would potentially be in violation of treaties.SPACE PROBE CAPTUREThe idea: Space probe capture. Send a robotic space probe up to capture debris with a net and bring it back.The drawback: Each piece if debris is moving in a different direction at 5 to 7 kilometers per second. That is many times faster than a bullet. You can’t catch it in a net unless you match the speed to within a few meters per second. Example: you can catch a baseball thrown by a pitcher, but you can’t catch one blasted from a Naval gun. (Note: the space net cannot actually handle a ball pitched by a major league pitcher. It can handle a maximum of 44 miles per hour.) On average, you need a delta-V of about 1 km per second to get to the next closest (easiest) piece of debris. It will cost about $200,000 per pound to catch up with debris and bring it back, assuming you maximize the debris compared to the mass of your space probe. Further, you can’t just go out and snatch debris without permission from the owner. And a robotic space probe that can snatch a ton of debris will be viewed as an anti-satellite weapon. It could go up to a small satellite and snatch it, and bring it back.MISSILE INTERCEPTIONUS Navy SM-3 Missile Intercept a damaged spy satelliteThe idea: Missile interception. Hit debris with a missile.The drawback: Unless you do it expertly, you are just going to break up the debris and probably put more debris into orbit. Plus, a missile that can hit debris will be viewed as a potential anti-satellite weapon.PARTICLE BEAM DESTROYERThe idea: Particle beam. Hit debris with a particle beam weapon (i.e. plasma beam). It would work like the laser beam solution.The drawback: You can’t shoot charged particle beams very far because they diverge from self-repulsion. You need to shoot from a space probe. The space probe will get pushed as much as the debris. It will take a whole lot of plasma at close range to de-orbit a piece of debris. A particle beam weapon in space will be terrifically expensive. It will be viewed as a space weapon.SATELLITE HARPOONThe idea: Harpoon A harpoon fired from space probe to capture debris.The drawback: This is really the space net system re-labeled. However, SpaceX is looking at ways to make it work. Video here: This harpoon could be the solution to space junk in Earth's orbit“SWISS MAID”The idea: The Swiss-Maid. Swiss researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology have devised a small satellite, called CleanSpace One, which could find and then grab onto space junk with jellyfish-like tentacles. The device would then plummet back towards Earth, where both the satellite and the space debris would be destroyed during the heat and friction of re-entry.The drawback: This is a just a particular kind of space probe capture.SPaDE (Space debris elimination)The idea: SpaDE. This system blows air in front of debris to give it artificial drag.The drawback: You have to be in orbit just ahead of the debris (all of the delta-V problem of getting to that position and velocity) plus you have to blow air *really hard* like super-sonic velocity. You would be better off just reaching out and grabbing it.EDDE (Electro-dynamic Debris Eliminator)The idea: EDDE. A spacecraft probe powered by dragging a wire through the Earth’s magnetic field will capture debris with a net. It will deliver debris to a re-entry trajectory and then climb out to find more debris.The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is investing in the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, or EDDE, a space "garbage truck" equipped with 200 giant nets which could be extended out to scoop up space garbage. The EDDE could then either fling the garbage back to Earth to land in the oceans, or push the objects into a closer orbit, which would keep them out of the way of current satellites until they decay and fall back to Earth.The drawback: The thrust is orders of magnitude too low to climb out of a decaying orbit and go chase down more debris.SAIL AWAYThe idea: Sail Away. A space probe catches up with the debris and then attaches a large sail that increases drag and brings the debris back to Earth.The drawback: The sail could break off and create more debris. The probe still has to match the position and velocity of the debris. Rendezvous is extremely expensive from a fuel point of view, and you might just capture the debris instead of trying to attach a sail.GIANT SPACE BALLOONSIdea: The GOLD system. The Gossamer Orbit Lowering Device, or GOLD system, uses an ultra-thin balloon (thinner than a plastic sandwich bag), which is inflated with gas to the size of a football field and then attached to large pieces of space debris. The GOLD balloon will increase the drag of objects enough so that the space junk will enter the earth's atmosphere and burn up. If the system works, it could speed up the re-entry of some objects from a couple hundred years to just a few months.WALL OF WATERAnother idea for cleaning up space junk, from James Hollopeter of GIT Satellite, is to launch rockets full of water into space. The rockets would release their payload to create a wall of water that orbiting junk would bump into, slow down, and fall out of orbit. The Ballistic Orbital Removal System is said to be able to be put into action inexpensively, by launching water on decommissioned missiles.SPACE PODSRussia's space corporation, Energia, is planning to build a space pod to knock junk out of orbit and back down to earth. The pod is said to use a nuclear power core to keep it fueled for about 15 years as it orbits the earth, knocking defunct satellites out of orbit. The debris would either burn up in the atmosphere or drop into the ocean. A company representative claims that they could clean up the space around Earth in just ten years, by collecting around 600 dead satellites (all on the same geosynchronous orbit) and them sinking them into the ocean.Tungsten MicrodustIn theory, tons of tungsten microdust put into low earth orbit, on a trajectory opposite that of the targeted space junk, would be enough to slow smaller space debris (with dimensions under 10 cm). The slowed debris would then decay into a lower orbit, where it could be expected to fall into earth's atmosphere within a couple of decades, not the hundreds of years which the debris could remain in orbit at their current altitudes. The biggest problem with this idea is the possible health issue of tungsten entering the atmosphere - tungsten compounds have been associated with stillbirths and abnormal musculoskeletal development in some studies.PHOENIX RECYCLING SATELLITESInstead of just trashing space debris, some dead satellites could be "mined" by other satellites for usable components. DARPA's Phoenix program could create new technology to enable harvesting of some valuable components from satellites in so-called "graveyard" orbits. The program would work to devise nanosatellites that would be cheaper to launch, and that could essentially complete their own construction by latching onto an existing satellite in the graveyard orbit and using the parts it needs.STICKY BOOMSAltius Space Machines is currently developing a robotic arm system it calls a "sticky boom", which can extend up to 100 meters, and uses electro-adhesion to induce electrostatic charges onto any material (metal, plastics, glass, even asteroids) it comes into contact with, and then clamp onto the object because of the difference in charges. The sticky boom can attach to any space object, even if it was not designed to be grappled by a robotic arm. The sticky boom could be used to latch onto space debris for disposal.These space junk cleanup concepts could potentially help to clear some of the debris which is currently littering the area around Earth, but many of them still have one major drawback - they tend to focus on getting the junk to come back to Earth to land in our oceans, which have enough problems without the added debris. We're still waiting for a decent solution to space junk that not only cleans up the debris, but which also disposes of it in a mindful and environmentally friendly way.ELECTRICAL SLINGSHOTfrom Goran SavicA ring-like janitor satellite with several harpoon-like catchers. The janitor would:go below the satellite (i.e. between it and the Earth), for example a few hundred meters,fire (electrically accelerated) these catchers (grabs, pincers, net...) on long wires at the satellite,lock the catchers on the satellite,pull back the satellite to the Earth.The satellite would burn in the atmosphere, while the janitor would gain on altitude and speed presumably towards its next target. If the operation is carefully planned, this janitor wouldn't consume the rocket fuel at all and would be completely electrically driven, jumping from a satellite to another satellite. For small debris, a big retired satellite targeted towards the Earth might intercept and pull it along.My take on this is that you still need the same amount of energy whether you grab it with a net and sling it, or whether you use an electrical field instead of the net.Goran also mentions the possible use of particle beams. painting the debris with electro-negative material and spraying this paint into low earth orbit.Goran Savic's answer to Is it plausible to remove space debris by charging it so that it comes under Lorentz force in Earth's magnetic field?Goran Savic's answer to How could the space debris in Earth orbit be cleaned up?None of these address the energy problem of getting stuff into orbit and spraying paint particles into low earth orbit seems like creating more debris not less. Stuff below about 350 km will slowly come down on its own already.DON’T MAKE DEBRIS IN THE FIRST PLACEThe idea: Don’t make debris in the first place. Require new satellites to deploy without creating debris, and require new satellites to remove themselves from orbit (or move to a graveyard orbit) after their useful life.The drawback: Only applies to satellites launched in the last 20 years. Not every country follows the guidelines.These ideas are from my answer: Bill Otto's answer to What are some innovative ideas to remove (or destroy) debris from space which are still in their experimental stages​? (Bill Otto's answer to What are some innovative ideas to remove (or destroy) debris from space which are still in their experimental stages​?)See also:Bill Otto's answer to Is launching a space net to capture orbiting satellite debris an effective way of removing space junk? (Bill Otto's answer to Is launching a space net to capture orbiting satellite debris an effective way of removing space junk?)5 High-Tech Space-Junk Solutions (5 High-Tech Space-Junk Solutions)

This is an interesting question.An awful lot of people feel like modern music is getting worse, or at least that older music is better music, and I addressed this at some length in Alex Johnston's answer to Why do people insist that old music is better?But this complaint is still made.And I would like, if I may, to look at one highly popular articulation of it.There’s a popular YouTube video which attempts to prove, using science, that modern music isn’t as good as older music.It’s called ‘The TRUTH why Modern Music Is Awful’, it’s made and presented by an English YouTuber who calls himself ‘Thoughty2’, and because I am a scholar, I give it to you here:At the time of writing, this video has over eight million views.It has 302,000 likes.And 23,000 dislikes.In this answer, I will argue that those 302,000 people are absolutely wrong.Mr. Thoughty2 puts forth various claims in this as to why he thinks ‘modern music’ is objectively not as good as older music.I will argue, in this answer, that the claims he makes lack substance.I will argue that:this entire video is, in fact, a failed attempt to provide objective support for his personal dislike of contemporary pop music;that he is largely ignorant of musical history;that he misrepresents serious research to make it seem like it supports his personal opinion, when it doesn’t;that his ‘arguments’ are incoherent, and lead to conclusions which he would almost certainly not agree with;that he makes claims of fact but fails to provide evidence for them;that he makes claims of fact which are demonstrably untrue.This can’t be done in a couple of paragraphs. Are you ready?One of his first claims concerns a study by the Spanish National Research Council which, he says, measured the ‘harmonic complexity’ and ‘timbral variety’ of thousands of songs over the past fifty-odd years and concluded that music was becoming simpler.Therefore, Thoughty2 triumphantly claims, music is becoming worse.The study in question is Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music, by Joan Serrà, Álvaro Corral, Marián Boguñá, Martín Haro and Josep Ll. Arcos, published on 26 July 2012, and you can read it for yourselves here: Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music .Interestingly enough, Serra et al. do not quite come to the same conclusions as Thoughty2.Their study aimed to see how much people are able to perceive change in popular music, not how people judge quality. Their study was trying to find out if the tastes of audiences are changing, and drew no conclusions whatever about whether this taste represented any kind of large-scale improvement or deterioration in musical understanding.Thoughty2 observes early on in the video that his personal taste in music is stuck ‘in the middle of the last century’.I, who was born at the beginning of the 1970s, thought for a second He likes Romantic music? before realising that, of course, he means the music of the 1960s.Sure enough, when he wants to use the Serra study to beat popular music, he contrasts the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ with Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’, and concludes that ‘A Day in the Life’ is better because it’s got way more instruments and Robin Thicke just used a drum machine.‘A Day in the Life’ is, he is arguing, better than ‘Blurred Lines’, because it’s got more timbral variety.The trouble with that argument is that, by the same logic, ‘Blurred Lines’, which contains a number of different kinds of beat, as well as Robin Thicke’s vocal, is better than the Chaconne from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 for solo violin, one of the cornerstone masterpieces of the Western classical tradition, because the Chaconne just has a violin in it.Hilary Hahn, please tell Mr Thoughty2 what he can do with that.‘Timbral variety’ is not an index of musical quality. It doesn’t have anything to do with how good a piece of music is. It’s just a feature of that piece of music.If you think it’s unfair to compare Robin Thicke with Bach, fine; how about Robert Johnson, the delta blues singer? One man and a guitar. Less timbral variety than ‘Blurred Lines’. Or the late traditional fiddler Tommy Peoples. Or any other traditional solo musician you can think of, who happens to be a virtuoso in their field.Next, Mr Thoughty2 criticises contemporary music based on the observation of some music blogger who noted that a lot of contemporary pop songs use a particular musical formula which the blogger dubbed the ‘millennial whoop’: a four-note pattern going from the fifth to the third, twice.Here’s why he says that’s bad:The millennial whoop can be heard in hundreds of chart-topping pop songs, created over the past few years, and its usage is becoming more frequent all the time. […] Literally every single major pop star today has included the millennial whoop in at least one of their songs. But why? Well, quite simply, familiarity. The more we hear the same sounds, the more we enjoy them. The millennial whoop has become a powerful and predictable way to subconsciously say to the masses, ‘Hey, listen to this new song. It’s really cool. But don’t worry, you will like it because it’s also really familiar. Because you’ve actually heard it hundreds of times before.’ And in this wildly unpredictable world, this makes us feel safe. Sticking to the same cookie-cutter formula comforts people. And that’s important.…Yes?Your point?I think we are meant to infer, from this, that music should not use formulas, and that it’s a sign of ineptitude, or laziness, or cultural decline, when it does.To which I have two words:Mannheim rocket.The Mannheim school of 18th century composers were not, in themselves, very famous. They composed for the court orchestra of Mannheim in Germany, and include such not-so-well-loved names as Franz Xaver Richter, Carl Stamitz and Christian Cannabich.But they did introduce a number of innovations into the language of the music of the time, such as the whole-orchestra crescendo.One of the most influential of their innovations, which ended up being used in work after work, was a swiftly rising arpeggiated line from low in the bass to high in the soprano. This is an example of one:This formula became known as the Mannheim rocket.It was used in many pieces of music—and if we agree with Thoughty2, then that’s a sign of second-rate musicianship, because good musicians don’t use ‘cookie-cutter formulas’.Among the musicians who used this particular cookie-cutter formula are W.A. Mozart, who used the above one in the beginning of his Symphony No. 40, and Ludwig van Beethoven, who used one at the beginning of Piano Sonata No. 1:The thing is, ‘familiarity’ in music is not some sinister, low-grade temptation which needs to be warded against.Familiarity is an essential part of how we make sense of music, and how we enjoy music.We cannot make sense of music, when the musical language is completely unfamiliar to us. In order to connect with music, we have to be able to hear how it works.We might enjoy the mere sound of it, as when people first hear a work of classical music that gets them interested in classical music, but because we aren’t familiar with the musical language, we won’t recognise any of the language as consisting of formulae that one composer was carrying over from another composer.But the music of the classical era, the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, is full of formulae like the Mannheim rocket. That’s what makes them hard to tell apart, if you don’t know their music well.Take the turn, which is at least as much of a formula as the so-called ‘millennial whoop’:There is a turn at the beginning of the waltz by Anton Diabelli which Beethoven used as the basis for the Diabelli Variations. Beethoven was so struck by this turn that he used it as the basis for the ninth and eleventh variations.I can’t emphasise this enough: there is nothing in itself wrong with using a formula in music.It’s whether or not the music is effective that matters.And whether or not it’s effective is a subjective matter.It won’t do, as Thoughty2 tries to do, to simply say: Look: formulas. Sad, eh? How safe and unimaginative can you be.His beloved Beatles used formulas, too: Rubber Soul is full of backing vocals that take the form ooooh-la-la-la, which the Beatles almost certainly copped off the Beach Boys.Next, he criticises what he perceives as the lyrical banality of contemporary music.He does this by using yet another ‘study’ that supposedly analysed the ‘lyric intelligence’ of ‘hundreds of Billboard chart-topping songs’. The result is a chart that slopes downwards. Against this, he sets Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.Let’s put this rather simple-minded faith in ‘studies’ aside and point out two things:Popular music is supposed to appeal to a wide audience, and therefore it is hardly likely to be great poetry;Popular music has always been dumb, and there have always been exceptions.In the 1946 movie A Matter of Life and Death, a heavenly trial is being conducted at which one character (Raymond Massey) is trying to argue that life in Britain, as compared to life in the USA, is banal and boring. To do this, he plays a dreary radio broadcast of a cricket match.His English adversary (Roger Livesey) counters with a recording of Phil Moore’s swing song, ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’:Shoo, shoo, shoo babyShoo, shoo, shoo babyBye, bye, bye babyDo-dah do-dayYour papa's off to the seven seasDon't cry babyDon't sigh babyBye, bye, bye babyDo-dah do-dayWhen I come back we'll live a life of easeYes, a dumb song from the 40s.Since Thoughty2’s favourite music was from the 60s, let’s not forget that as well as the era of Lennon and Dylan, it was also the era of Freddie and the Dreamers:All the trees were made for little things that sing and flyAnd the sun was made to burn so bright and light the skyPretty eyes were never made to cry, they were made to seeWhen I hold you in my arms I know that you were made for meAgainst this, let me just set a song from an album that reached 19 on the Billboard 200 in 2014.The song is ‘Never Catch Me’, from Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead!, and the lyric below is from Kendrick Lamar:I can see the darkness in me and its quite amazingLife and death is no mystery and I wanna taste itStep inside of my mind and you'll findCuriosity, animosity, high philosophy like the prophesied meditationReminisce on my wonder years and I wonder yahSentiments of my words ain't been so sincereThe sentiment of my nerves that I just persevereThe big thought of fallin' off disappeared to my fateThey say that Heaven's realAnalyze my demise, I say I'm super anxiousRecognize I deprive this fear and then embrace itVandalizing these walls only if they could talkConversations don't contemplate to my dark thoughtsLookin' down on my soul nowTell me I'm in control nowTell me I can live long and I can live wrong and I can live rightAnd I can sing songs and I can unite with you that I love, you that I likeLook at my life and tell me I fight'Never Catch Me' is a masterpiece of popular music.I defy anyone to argue that it isn't.There are still people out there getting good lyrics into the Top 20.Next, Thoughty2 goes to great lengths to point that numerous top-selling acts have the same songwriter, Max Martin:This one man is single-handedly responsible for over two dozen number one singles and thousands of songs in the Top 100 charts—Let me stop you right there, mister, because he isn’t.Between 1999 and 2016, Max Martin wrote or co-wrote 22 No. 1 songs.Of these, he co-wrote 21 of them.The only one where he has sole credit is the first one, Britney Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time’.And writing the song doesn’t make you ‘single-handedly responsible’ for it. It also has to be performed and produced, and Max Martin doesn’t perform these songs, and always works with at least one producer.But even if he didn’t, even if he had written and produced them all by himself and the only other people involved were the singers, what does it matter?Because, says Thoughty2:And you wondered why everything sounds the same.Only if you don’t like the music, pal.He then goes on an extended rant about iPods and streaming which devolves into a complaint about music all sounding the same, blah blah blah.There’s also a long bit about the Loudness War, which doesn’t say anything that other people haven’t said more eloquently, and more importantly for someone who claims to value originality so much, other people said first.But he ends with a remarkably inaccurate account of how the record industry works. Let’s just look at this:In the fifties, sixties and seventies, record labels would receive hundreds of demo tapes from budding young artists every week. They would sift through them and the most talented acts would receive record contracts. Even if they weren’t that special it didn’t matter too much, the record label would just throw a few thousand pounds into marketing, and if the public liked their music, they would naturally gain traction and make it big. If not, they would fade away into the night. And this is crucial, because importantly, the public were voting with their ears for the best, the most talented musicians, singers and songwriters. We, the people, were the final judge and jury. The ultimate arbiter. And so musicians had to be really bloody talented enough to stick around and make more music. There was just no room for sloppiness or the untalented. But this method was risky, because many times record labels would pump thousands of pounds into an act that weren’t destined to be. And their gamble wouldn’t pay off, losing their investment. But when they signed the really big acts, it would balance the books.He then goes into a whole thing about promotion and how much more money gets spent on it than ever.This account of how the record industry worked between the 50s and 70s is actually, I think, an account of how Thoughty2 understands the notion of a free market.It certainly isn’t accurate about the record industry, leaving out as it does any account of Payola, for a start.But also, it has it backwards: the record industry did not sign ‘really big acts’.It signed acts that it hoped would become big.The record industry was hoping to make money, not make the music that Thoughty2 loves so much.And that’s why the Dave Clark Five were, by industry standards, a massive success, even though hardly anyone but a few diehard fans really like them: they sold a shit-ton of records.They weren’t awful, but neither were they ‘really bloody talented’. Countless forgettable musicians became successes in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but Thoughty2 doesn’t know about them, or prefers not to mention them. To him, the music of the past is just better, because he has edited out the forgettable dross.A far more accurate and first-hand account of how the record industry worked in the 60s and 70s was given by Frank Zappa, in his memoir The Real Frank Zappa Book:So, how did The New Guys get in there? Some got in because their Dad was one of The Old Guys. Some of them actually worked their way in -- the guy with the cigar said one day: "Sherman, look, I took a chance -- it went out there -- next thing I know, we sold a few million units. I still don't know what the fuck this shit is, but we gotta do some more. I tell you, Sherm -- I need some advice! Why don't we get one of those hippie bastards in here?"So, they hire the hippie bastard -- not to do anything 'big,' just carry the coffee; bring the mail; stand around and look happening. So one day the old guy says: "Sherman, listen -- I think we can trust him; he looks like he's 'happening.' We'll make him an A&R man -- let HIM talk to these stupid fuckers with the tambourine 'n incense. He understands this shit -- he's got the same hair."From there, he's moving up and up; next thing you know he's got HIS feet on the desk and he's saying, "Get rid of Sherman, Ms. Maxwell -- and -- oh, that 'new group'? We can't take a chance on them. . . it's just not what the kids really want -- I know -- I got the same hair."And at last we get the core of Thoughty2’s claim that modern music is terrible.He points out that it costs a lot of money to promote pop musicians and then says that the industry has dealt with this by ‘removing the risk’:Instead of trying to find genuine musical talent, they simply take a pretty young face, usually from a TV talent show, and then simply force the public to like them by brainwashing them. Instead of allowing the public to grow to like an artist and make their own mind up about the quality of their music, the industry now simply makes you like their music. […] ‘Brainwash,’ you say? ‘How on earth do they do that?’ Well, have you ever noticed how that popular new song seems to follow you around everywhere you go? It’s on every radio station, it’s played in your favourite stores, the supermarket, all over the internet, and even in the latest Hollywood movies and popular TV shows. This is no coincidence. What that is, in fact, is the record label’s three million dollars making sure that that new single is quite literally everywhere, completely unescapable.I dunno. I seem to be able to escape it.Thoughty2 is playing, here, on the viewer’s paranoia, assuming an attitude of undeceived superiority. This is very seductive to people who feel like they’re poorly informed.But there’s another assumption behind this, which we’ll get to in a moment.You will hear it whether you want to or not. […] Can you remember the first time you heard your favourite pop songs from the past ten years? Whether it be ‘Gangnam Style’, ‘Happy’, ‘All About that Bass’, ‘Blurred Lines’, ‘Hotline Bling’.‘Gangnam Style’: on a mobile phone in the living room of my old flat.‘Happy’: in a cover version by Pomplamoose on YouTube.‘All About that Bass’: in a car on the way back from glamping in Fife.‘Blurred Lines’ and ‘Hotline Bling’: just now, for the purposes of this answer.Did you truly like it the first time you heard it, or were you, in fact, kind of repulsed? Did you have this brief moment when you thought ‘What the hell is this?’ But then you heard it a few more times and then you thought ‘Well, I guess it’s kinda catchy.’ And then your friends are all listening to it and then you hear it a few more times and boom, it’s your new favourite song and you can’t stop playing it. If this has happened to you, then I’m afraid you have been brainwashed.Actually I liked ‘Happy’ the first time I heard it, and I still like it.I’ve heard ‘All About that Bass’ a million times, and I like it less and less each time.The others I just don’t like.But that’s not the point.Surely if a song is a truly great song, then you wouldn’t need to force yourself to love it. You wouldn’t need to be won over through a period of repeated exposure. You would just like it the first time you heard it.Well, but then, ‘Happy’ must be a truly great song, Thoughty2.Because I just liked it the first time I heard it.But…you obviously didn’t like it, the first time you heard it.We can’t both be right.There must be something else wrong with this argument.We all have different musical tastes. But they are sadly being overridden, diluted, emulsified, by the brainwashing activities of big record labels. […] It’s really important to not let creativity and originality disappear. Music, as an art form, is dying. It’s being replaced by music which is a disposable product, designed to sell, but not to inspire. So we shouldn’t be so complacent in allowing systematic, cold, factory-produced music to dominate, or else the beautiful, soulful and truly real music that we’ve all at some point loved […] could soon be a distant memory, never to be repeated.No, Thoughty2.That’s not what it is.Yes, the music industry is spending a shitload of money on exposing us to music that we may or may not like.But the paradox of music is simply this:A piece of music that was cobbled together out of shreds and patches and formulae, by an inexpert musician who was working against the clock, can precisely end up being perceived by us as ‘the beautiful, soulful and truly real music that we’ve all at some point loved’.One of the awkward truths about music is that you really don’t, necessarily, want to know how it got made.Some truly beloved and wonderful music was slapped together using secondhand material, by musicians who were doing it because it paid the bills.While some very serious and dedicated musicians worked very hard on heartfelt music that simply didn’t communicate with people. Their music is sitting in landfills, and in dusty sheet music in secondhand bookshops, barely listened to, and unplayed.The Chainsmokers are two American musicians who have been widely criticised for making formulaic pop music.But I have reasonably broad musical taste, and I never liked any of their music until I heard their collaboration with another group of musicians that I didn’t like, Coldplay, who are also widely regarded as being kinda mediocre. ‘Something Just Like This’ is not the most complex or lyrically intricate song of all time, but it hit me the first time I heard it, and damn near made me cry. I immediately connected with it.Because unlike Thoughty2, I don’t dislike contemporary music to begin with.The bottom line is that Thoughty2 just doesn’t like modern music, and he can’t understand how anyone else can like it. He doesn’t connect with it, so he feels that it is impossible to connect with it.So he has decided that people are being made to like it.But this amounts to telling people, Your thoughts are not your own. Your opinions are not your own.I know better than you what you really think, and you can’t really like this.Because I don’t like it.No, mate.It’s just you.And about three hundred thousand other people.