the necessity of pop music
I've been listening to X&Y, the newest Coldplay CD, again today. I like it better now than I did when I first bought it, but I'm still stuck on how...simple...the music is. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy this CD - but I can't get on board with my peers who've heralded stuff like this as a original and artistic musical revolution. There's nothing complicated, nothing revealing, very little even imaginative in their playing. It's not technically difficult, and the words flow the opposite direction of lyrical poetry, and yet they're insanely popular, and the album has sold many copies. Why?
Some people have said that Coldplay is the next U2, and that U2 is the second coming of the Police. But why does there have to be a successor, an inheritor, an heir, a continuation?
Because culture needs a someone, needs a winner, needs a favorite; because there must be someone who is most famous, most popular. It's a simple race to be the best, put out the first record with the new sound, wow the most listeners, and someone, it could be anyone, HAS to win. The people, especially the American people, with their intense need for distraction and endless ability to pay for it, will not allow the world to be otherwise.
Because our culture, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and will correct deviations in pressure/temperature/energy by pulling in anything anxious to move.
posted by RJ @ 3:39 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
People like to form groups and cliques... especially Americans. What music we listen to is just another way to group and classify. Sometimes a band gets lucky and enough of the right people make it cool to like them and they become a cult sensation. It has nothing to do with music and everything to do with culture/social factors. Ironically enough, examining a band's musical prowess has very little to do with a band's commerical success, because what they play and how they play have nothing to do with it, its all about who likes them when. You can easily make a list of bands that have been very popular, but not very talented. In an effort to offend people I will compile a short list of such bands (or performers), whether I like them or not:
Elvis
Johnny Cash
The Beatles
Nervana
Green Day
U2
Cold Play
The Rolling Stones
Any boy band
There are plenty more, but there are some of the more famous examples.
I think that the need you are talking about was created by The Beatles. Before that, there was no such thing as pop music. There was music that was popular, but never music that had mass appeal and definitional qualities that extended beyond one particular group. I mean, Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is the most selling album of all time, but it just wasn’t definitional for a whole generation of people for a variety of backgrounds. The Beatles changed all that. Now, certain times and events have a built-in soundtrack, not just music that is popular, but popular music that is part of the fabric.
Well, j. morg, if I follow the line of reasoning adopted for this post, the beatles are the effect - not the cause. Society was ready, waiting, and anxious for something like pop-music, and the beatles were lucky enough to get snapped up. If the beatle's hadn't been there, they would've chosen someone else, and pop music would be here today regardless. What do you think about that?
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