Does today's songs really sound similar to each other? You decide.
It wasn't until after the year 2000 is when the quality of music had sharply declined, with the exception of only a very small amount of great songs and albums being released since then.
Some people blame this on all music sounding the same, because a majority of hit songs on the Billboard charts are pop songs. You might ask, what’s wrong with pop music?
Well, back then, pop music was in its own separate genre and was mostly sung by “boy bands”; teen idols, like Britney Spears, Brandy, Jessica Simpson, and Hilary Duff; including artists whose fan base are mostly teenagers.
Singer Michael McDonald said about pop music, “Many times the rules of play in pop music are, you know, dumbing down the audience, don’t give them anything they can’t understand or don’t give them anything different because they won’t be able to deal with that, they only want to hear what they’ve heard before.”
Some people do agree with McDonald, and consider pop music to be too light-hearted, simple, and repetitive formation in its lyrics and sound, so that an artist doesn’t have to have strong musical talent to make a pop song. As long as they have a unique look and sound, that’s what makes a successful pop artist. This is the reason why artists in other genres, like rock music, didn’t consider a pop singer to be taken seriously as an artist.
But that has changed. Now a majority of hit songs contain pop music. Alternative, rap, R&B, country, and some hip-hop songs have elements of pop music included in them as well. Rapper Jay-Z admitted to using elements of pop music in some of his tracks.
“I dumb down for my audience and doubled my dollars, they criticize me for it yet they all yell 'Holla,'" he said.
Pop music has definitely ruled the airwaves and is becoming more popular than ever. Why? Because most pop songs are upbeat and have catchy lyrics.
Initially, the word “pop” was used as an abbreviation for the term “popular music,” which was first created in the 1950s. Pop music tends to focus more on commercial success of a song or artist, and whether the artist will appeal to an audience. The main objective of pop music is to create songs that do exceptionally well on the charts and can make a large profit in sales.
This doesn’t mean that if an artist makes a pop album they are bound to be successful. In some cases it just doesn't work out that way.
Could this be one of the reasons why the sales of music have declined? It somewhat is, but there are other factors too. According to an article by Kourosh Dini, titled “The Lost Impact of Modern Music?” mentions several reasons for the decline of music sales. Some of the issues range from too much variety of artists, genres, and sub-genres of music; limited creativity from artists (as if their “well of creativity” seems to have dried up); people pirating music; over-compressed music; and the lack of music education taught at schools.
All of these are valid points, yet lack in strong evidence. But another factor of why music sounds the same can be attributed to successful artists using the same big-hit music producers.
Personally, I’ve noticed that artists are relying too heavily on such successful music producers, which include Timbaland, Dr. Dre, will.i.am, Scott Storch, J. R. Rotem, Linda Perry, and Jermaine Dupri. I will give props to these producers, who have made very successful hit songs that have helped new artists in their careers and in some cases, have even attributed to certain artists making a comeback in their careers. However, this popular trend is causing songs to sound very similar to each other. Sometimes even hearing certain beats in a song, a person can immediately tell who produced the track.
The downside with artists, both new and well-established, following this trend can in fact inhibit them to “think outside the box,” and try to come up with their own unique, originality. If everyone followed the same path, of course things will seem the same, predictable and not standing out as different. Sometimes using big-hit producers can work as a double-edged sword for artists. Sure the sale of their record/singles will increase, but at what cost?
Since there has been a decline in the quality of music within this decade, perhaps in the next decade music will change for the better. We’ll just have to wait and see because only time will tell.
Written by: Bridget Campos
Originally posted on March 8, 2009
Link: http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/25467.html
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