Creativity Quote by Jackie DeShannon

Nostalgia is doing double duty here: it reads as both an aesthetic judgment and a quiet industry autopsy. Jackie DeShannon isn’t just saying today’s hits don’t move her; she’s pointing to a market logic that no longer rewards the kind of craft she grew up inside, where a song’s engine was writing, not branding, vibe, or virality. The careful hedging - “some good songs,” “not the kind...that I remember” - matters. It’s not a cranky dismissal of the present so much as a veteran’s attempt to stay fair while still defending a vanishing standard.

Her name-checks are telling. Springsteen and Paul Simon function as living proof that the tradition she values is still possible: narrative, character, melodic architecture, lyrics that carry the emotional plot rather than just the hook. She’s staking out “songwriting” as a specific discipline, not a general compliment. That distinction is the subtextual fight: in the streaming era, where micro-genres and algorithmic playlists flatten authorship, the writer can become invisible behind the performer, the producer tag, the TikTok snippet.

When she adds “but that doesn’t dominate the charts,” she widens the frame from taste to power. Charts aren’t neutral; they’re a scoreboard built by radio formats (yesterday) and attention economics (today). DeShannon’s lament is less “kids these days” than “the incentives changed,” and with them, the public’s access to songs that unfold slowly, reward repeat listens, and treat language as more than decoration.