[ad_1]

It is with deep regret that I wish to inform you of the untimely (but obviously obvious) death of modern Western pop music.

Sadly, “Pop,” as he was affectionately called, suffered for a while, and no one seemed to notice when he finally ran away.

“Pop music” was renowned for bringing us many great hits over the decades. Some of these “ hits ” date back to the 1940s, and over the decades there have been many memorable songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

We can even dare to say that popular music from each era and from other parts of the globe (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic) has also withstood the test of time, the works of many composers being studied and performed to this day. . .

But something strange happened at the dawn of the new millennium. At first no one noticed, but by the end of the next decade, it was painfully clear.

There was no more innovation and originality. In fact, most artists, regardless of their musical category, all started to sound the same, as if all of these bands were made in the same warehouse. It doesn’t matter if you’re pop, dance, electronica, hip-hop, or rock ‘n roll (although I doubt the latter two really make it on a mainstream radio playlist), all the music had the same flow. , the same progression chord (I, V, vi, IV), the same breaks, dynamics, and almost all of the singers sounded exactly like each other.

It was terribly formulaic. It was too obvious not to notice, but there was no call for change.

Everyone seemed deaf to what was going on.

This writer thinks that the death was caused by three culprits, almost like the three legs of a good chair. But like anything else after a while of wear and tear, the legs of this musical chair started to rot, and there was no carpenter to fix the problem, so the legs got wobbly and the chair fell apart. finally collapsed.

The three stages were: the recording labels, the radio and the artists themselves.

Record companies sprang up around the mid-1920s to record, produce, market and distribute the music that was going on at the time. There were A&R departments (artist and repertoire) who were looking for new talent and developing a list of artists / groups who would “ sign ” this label and sell records to the buying audience. But alas, the record executives have grown greedy and lazy over the years and have all but shut down their A&R departments. Ultimately, you as an artist, you have to have it all, ready to call on a label. to get you on the bandwagon. And you have to be salable. If you’re not cute, sexy, young, or fashionable with any gadget that’s the latest trend, you won’t be selling. It’s that simple and crass. A label is just a bank now, and they want a great return on their investment. And the artist is the investment. The top three labels that remain now (because the others have been swallowed up over the years) don’t care less about real music than a bank cares about helping low-income people get a loan.

Then: Radio.

In its early days, radio helped spread the word about cool, hip new music that took the world by storm. The first radio news broadcast took place on August 31, 1920, and soon after, concerts began to be broadcast. The hot new music didn’t have a name yet, but that was all about to change.

America was sitting on a gold mine, and along with the British kids, the musicians got into blues and jazz, mixed it all up and gave it their own twist. The next thing you knew was that Rock n Roll was born and the music of the late 40’s and 50’s had sperm and VOLUME.

Rock n Roll brought the music of the worker to the doorstep, it gave birth to many subgenres – Heavy Metal, Indie, Alternative, Grunge, Shoe-Gaze ​​and Pop all owe their Rock n Roll life. Interestingly, each subgenre had its own children, so we can say that Rock n Roll had many children and grandchildren.

To see the children Rock n Roll will be leaving behind (courtesy Wikipedia, go to Google).

But jazz and blues also had another offspring around the same time – R&B, a term infamously coined to differentiate African-American music from rock n roll. Absurd and really racist, but it is a term that “stuck”.

Thus, jazz and blues leave behind two children – R&B and Rock ‘N Roll. Both had their fair share of radio broadcasting in the early days. Both kids helped make Pop what he was.

But as the story goes, a thief has arrived – Payola.

Thanks to the labels, they made sure that the ONLY content on the radio was theirs. Soon mainstream radio was just paid label advertising. If you don’t believe me, turn on any Top 40 mainstream station and leave it for a day or two. The station will broadcast a handful of songs at least about five times a day. So there are only a few songs on the radio for airing? Never mind, there are hundreds of thousands of musicians / artists / bands in the world, only a handful of songs are broadcast on mainstream radio.

Which brings us to the artists: it seems most artists these days all want to be famous and rich (if that’s even possible with the label and the entertainment lawyers who own it all. And rather than write anything. either of creative substance, most modern pop artists are for making an instant hit. The term “one-hit wonder” cannot be applied to them, as the terrible hits keep coming. They should rename “Artists” to “Factory clones” because in almost every musical genre there are a few that are mostly sound / look exactly the same.

And then came the worst – the disease to end it all – Autotune (the device that made a terrible single a star)

Together, these three and their man-made illness helped kill the pop music industry.

Sad that no one saw it coming, maybe something could have been done.

But it’s too late, and we’re just the memories of when music meant something.

When you could remember a song from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.

But can you remember a pop song from the new millennium?

I certainly can’t. And for the most part, I don’t mean, it’s that terrible.

Rest in peace Pop, we had a little fun.

[ad_2]

Source by Francesco Emmanuel