One such definition of pop music suggests that it is “popular music intended for, or accepted by a wider audience”. Whilst this sounds about right, there has been a strange trend in the last decade or so which has seen the counter culture take over. Any genre that is seen as anti-establishment automatically becomes cool; the minority becomes the majority if you will.
Back in the 1950s Elvis Presley shuffled his blue suede shoes and drove women wild, similarly four young lads from Liverpool called The Beatles achieved world domination in a way never seen since.
A quick look at the last fifty years and its clear to see that popular music had complete control of the charts, whether it’s Michael Jackson’s unparalleled ‘Thriller’, James Brown’s reassurance that, after all, he is a sex machine, or David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust guise.
The Spice Girls sold their ‘girl power’ ideology to audiences around the planet and consequently were one of the most successful bands of all time. However, since the birth of the new millennium pop music has been, by and large, in the doldrums somewhat. Why?
Maybe it’s the society we now live in.
Britney Spears seemed almost too perfect a machine when she burst onto the scene with Max Martin production and a skimpy school skirt like some kind of masochistic messiah. The problem was that it was too perfect.
The celebrity culture we crave means that we put artists onto an elevated pedestal before taking great pleasure in knocking them back off. It’s a shame but there was almost voyeuristic pleasure taken in watching her doing her Bruce Willis impression and hitting cars with an umbrella.
True, we have stars like Justin Timberlake but for all his record sales and female adoration it’s not like he’s come up with anything close to ‘Billie Jean or ‘Beat It’.
In the same respect Girls Aloud are too interchangeable with their styles to be truly identifiable- one minute its post-punk (Sound Of The Underground), the next its whole hearted teenage fun (Love Machine) and more recently it seems Cheryl Cole listened to a couple of The Supremes albums (The Promise).
And this is the problem with the artists of today. The Beatles gave people something to believe in. Madonna was fresh, edgy and reinvented herself without ever losing what made the record-buying public fall in love with her. Compare that to the vacuous fluff released by Leona Lewis et al and it’s not hard to see why people are turning to something different.
Hence the colossal resurgence in indie music, an abbreviation on the word independent, indie bands have now ironically been signed up to major record labels on multi-million pound deals. The Strokes transformed modern guitar music and now we have had Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and of course the ill-fated Libertines implosion in recent years.
‘Is This It’ was released in 2001 and now eight years later, a new generation of youngsters are coming through with only the knowledge that guitar music or R&B are cool.
Oasis and Blur kept the country transfixed by their Britpop battles in the charts but Alex Turner doesn’t quite grab attention like Liam Gallagher did, in fact he’s positively anti-celebrity. Which is odd considering Arctic Monkeys smashed all known records for the fastest-selling debut ever when ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not’ came out to rapturous applause from critics and fans alike.
Another case in point is Gerard Way, love him or loathe him, he is at the forefront of the much maligned ‘emo’ genre along with fellow contemporaries Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy. Songs such as ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ and ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ really resonated with audiences. And of course when The Daily Mail printed their laughable article on ‘emo’ being a dangerous cult that promotes self harm and suicide, it allowed thousands of black clad teenagers to protest together, as a community.
It is this which is missing from today’s pop music. People aren’t queuing in their droves to pick up the new Christina Aguilera single; you don’t see hundreds of kids anymore waiting outside the stage door for a quick glimpse of their idols. No, instead we are borne with a faceless industry that is throwing out conveyer-belt pop stars with a limited expiry date.
A lot of this may be due to programmes like ‘X-Factor’ which actively encourages people to become pastiches of other artists by covering songs throughout. In no way do Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh ever try to inspire artistic creativity. Whereas with something like ‘Orange Unsigned’ at least the participants were performing their own material; that said, it’s far too contrived a show to be truly successful. Indie music should not be rising from the ashes of Reality TV and especially with Alex James and Jo Whiley’s interminably smug face there trying to count the money rolling in.
Maybe another issue with the fall of pop music as a successful genre has been the death of the CD. Now there has been a mass surge in downloading (often illegally) rather than taking time out of the day to go to your local record shop. This has de-personalised the whole affair of acquiring music, instead of buying the CD, admiring the artwork and having a quick look at the album sleeve and thank-you notes, we now click a button and it’s on our iTunes play list immediately. There’s no connection with the artists.
Okay, we may have all guiltily hummed along to ‘Don’t Cha’ or quietly enjoyed ‘Just Dance’ when it came on in a club but what pop music is there now to inspire us? On the other hand when the DJ plays ‘Killing In The Name Of’ or ‘Last Nite’ there’s a huge rush to the dance floor and rightly so. These tunes are standing the test of time; I mean people aren’t going to be singing along to ‘Buttons’ in ten years time are they?
It’s not all doom and gloom on the horizon though, it seems that the goalposts of popular music are changing. Instead of cherub-faced boy/girl bands releasing ‘Reach For The Stars’ it’s time for exciting, passionate music. Florence and the Machine, La Roux and Dan Black are moving things well and truly into the 21st century.
So whether you’re a skinny-jeaned indie kid, a baggy-trousered metal head or a neon-splattered electro fiend, it seems fans can generate a common bond together much easier.
For decades now we have had out musical subcultures- from the mods and rockers to punks, moshers and goths. It may just be that these different strands of musical taste are now more engrained than the Top of the Pops era of old. And yeah, it is ‘horses for courses’ in the respect that diversity breeds interest and a wider industry but there should still be certain songs that elicit communities to enjoy themselves. As good as it was, Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ wasn’t exactly on a par with when the ‘Thriller’ video had everyone throwing synchronised shapes on the dance floor.
In a time where our cultural identity is currently unknown because of political and economic upheaval it would be nice if popular music was actually well, popular.
Apart from Scouting For Girls, they should never be popular.
