What Happened to Pop Music?
Photoshopped by yours truly.
Pop music isn’t for the faint of heart. Known as a genre that takes leaps and bounds into debauchery, fun, exploration and an excitement-driven lifestyle, the tunes of balladeers and discotheque-enthusiasts have meshed to create this music for the masses. It used to be distinctive. It used to be original. And it dared to invent. (JT, anyone?)
Now, each artist at the forefront of the pop genre seem to be riding on each others’ coat tails, only to realize that eventually, someone will have fall off the end, making way for a necessary replacement—most of the time drawing similarities to their predecessor. Leading the pack is, undoubtedly, the illustrious Stephanie Germanotta (am I allowed to call her that?). Needless to say, you all know her “real” name. Her voice may be uniquely akin to influences like David Bowie—who I could make serious money off of if I got a dollar each time she mentioned him—but her overall sound is nothing “new.” After countless listens I find myself craving something different.
Another prime example. Rihanna started off as a voice for Caribbean influence in pop. Her beats were simple and infectious and we all wanted to have a DJ as nice as the one in her debut music video. Two years later, she was a “Good Girl Gone Bad” which was, in essence, a mirror reflection of her drastic shift in style. Good…to, well, you get the idea. I could go on about so many artists known as today’s frontrunners of pop—don’t even get me started on Shakira and Beyoncé—but that would take a while. These artists all had something unique about them. And in a small twinkling of any eye, they changed into a regurgitation of each other, with mainly their physical, commercial image left to set them aside for mass production among different races and backgrounds.
It’s time for pop music to reinvent itself and find a new place on the music spectrum. Get the commercialism out and make commerical investors, talent scouts and big-wigs in the music industry beg to be a part of it.
Don’t let them rule it.
Comments (8)
8 Comments | Add yours
Leave a Reply
Comments that do not abide by our Comments Policy may be deleted.
Feed for All That Jazz
I have to respectively disagree with your argument. Pop music does re-invent itself, all the time. Music has shown that there are only so many combinations of chords and beats. With that in mind, artists like Lady Gaga have taken music of old and made it fresh, putting a unique spin on it.
In another respect I agree with you. Many artists are too prone to jumping on bandwagons. For instance, a few years ago Kanye West released “808’s” a terrible showing from a great rap star. His use and style of auto-tune has been copied numerous times, most recently by the aforementioned Rihanna. At the same time, artists such as the Black Eyed Peas have taken auto-tune and made it fresh with their club album “The E.N.D.”
Either way, I think pop is always reinventing itself. Gaga can now be credited with the formation of a new, modern genre, party-rock. Although artists like Ke$ha and Cobra Starship have used this format recently, she can be credited with making it mainstream, the same way Black Eyed Peas made techno mainstream.
In respects to Harris, I’m not trying to tell you off or anything, I just want to set a few facts straight.
First, “808’s” is not a terrible showing from a great rap star. He utilized autotune, but he combined it with a dark and robotic soundscape that captured the isolation associated with the record. I won’t say it’s his best work, but it still tops most uses of autotune.
Second, on a similar thread, Kanye’s use of autotune is not copied. T. Pain’s use of autotune is copied. People don’t use autotune to sound like a robot, to remove their humanity from their voice. They use it to straighten out a couple notes, add a new sound to an already lush electronic backdrop, and to just change the sound of their voice for once. Sometimes the use of autotune works, but in most cases, I just have to ask if it was necessary. It’s use is excessive.
Thirdly, the Black Eyed Peas in no way made techno mainstream. Daft Punk brought house music and revolutionized pop music with the release of their debut album, Discovery back in 2001. Since then, producers have borrowed generously from their frame works of disco inspired electronica.
I do agree with your overall point, Harris. Pop music, all music, reinvents itself. It just takes the right person to hear something and try to recreate it. Influences will constantly change and forever keep music sounding fresh, I am assured.
But I do agree with Aaron. I am not a huge fan of pop music right now, and would love to see someone change the game again this year.
I disagree that GaGa’s sound is nothing new. While I was never a fan during the “Poker Face”/”Just Dance” craze, her new 8-track album is genius, and it’s very, very fresh. “Bad Romance” is one of the most original pop songs to hit the radio in a long time (although the second single off of the album, “Telephone,” is trash). Ke$ha, some Glambert, and the “new” Rihanna, I’ll agree, are trying to ride the coattails of GaGa’s success, but that’s nothing new; in the lifetime of kids my age, we’ve seen the Teen Pop Princess period, the Boy Band era and the punk rock rebel age (when Fall Out Boy and Panic hit the big time). Pop music continually reinvents itself…we just happen to live in the age of GaGa and her wannabes.
I agree with Adam on Lady Gaga. Her innovative, performance-style approach to pop music (with hints of underlying themes and meaning in some of her most popular songs) certainly makes her a unique star in comparison to her pop music counterparts (I’m not even counting the outrageous outfits!).
However, pop music in general may not seem like an “original” genre because it’s just that - the popular music. Pop it’s necessarily reinventing itself or losing some initial quality we’ve since forgotten. It’s a style of music that fits well in a Capitalist economy and manages to make millions off of similar vibes, beats, themes, and styles that the general American consumer will buy and enjoy.
That being said, pop still provides different, new artists from time to time (again, Gaga), and of course, within pop music we may be able to interpret particular ideas, cultural values or social and political commentaries, but that doesn’t mean pop music is going to always seem variably new each year, nor does it mean pop has only recently become a genre that often favors recycled musical concepts if they prove successful in the market.
I agree on most of those points, Adam and Chris. The thing about Lady Gaga, though, is that her music (specifically on the Fame Monster) isn’t particularly amazing. Sure, it’s infectious and makes for a heck of a dance party, but is it really something that is going to last or evolve past its own time? I’m not one to say if it will, but I know the quality of music from lasting pop artists like Justin Timberlake and Madonna and I know that it cannot compare.
I guess my biggest qualm with Gaga is just what you mentioned, Chris. She forces other artists to try and catch up with her by recycling her ideas (at least the ones that don’t come off as random), thus sacrificing their own originality.
If Rihanna were to go back to the style she cultivated on “Music of the Sun,” she would not sell as many CDs as she does now. But I think she’d be respected for doing what she does best. Same with Beyonce. She was still sultry and attractive back in her “Crazy in Love” days, but not sleazy and gaudy in her current “Videophone” era—a part of her career clearly back seat-driven at one point by Gaga herself.
Artists are clamoring to do the thing that makes money and that fuels what most of us regard as capitalism. And that’s not always what pop has been. Hopefully someone will release something great in 2010!
Eh, you can call pop what you want, but that’s what it’s been for most of its history - an extension of business, and that’s why it often follows easily recognizable trends. Rarely has pop music ventured into its own sub-genre independent of corporate control and culture.
Referring to Lady Gaga specifically, I’m not necessarily saying artists are imitating her and “sacrificing” their own originality. I’m just saying pop music is a genre specifically designed to lack originality, for the most part.
Plus, it’s certainly fine if you think Lady Gaga’s music is less than interesting or amazing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t original. It just means you don’t like it.
It also doesn’t mean that she is, as mentioned, eroding any particular artist’s originality or preventing their full potential form reaching its maximum capacity by spearheading a new style.
Lady Gaga isn’t doing anything different than, say, Madonna. Or Briteny. Or the Backstreet Boys. Pop is a genre designed to mimic what’s popular. So, yes, Beyonce is going to briefly spend some time working with Lady Gaga in order to keep up with needs of a hyper-consuming economy.
In my opinion and in all honesty, none of this means the genre is in trouble, or that anything “happened” to it. It’s been the same genre since its development twenty years ago. We’re just in the Gaga Era of Pop History. There will be plenty of other eras, and there will be plenty of other imitators, there to sell and be sold.
I never said it’s in any trouble. It’s just not in a great place, so of course something happened to it. Things happen to genres all the time. They go through trends. So, my point is that whatever this “era” or trend might be called now, it’s not a great one—compared to others. And now, more than ever, it’s stemming mainly off one artist.
I’d just like to hear some better music, is all.
[...] http://theithacan.org/blogs/allthatjazz/2010/01/30/whatever-happened-to-pop-music/ [...]