6 ms·

Modern pop music is a more refined commercial industry than it was in the past. It's been sliding further and further away from art and toward the commercial. I

Modern pop music is a more refined commercial industry than it was in the past. It's been sliding further and further away from art and toward the commercial. It is what it is.

bazoom42 4y ago
When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?
- msla 4y ago
  Exactly. That's what differentiates it from folk: Both are music of the people, but pop music was explicitly written for a commercial purpose, and it's existed in that form since before audio recording existed, as another poster mentioned.
  - colanderman 4y ago
    As someone who has played in several original but not monetarily motivated pop bands, I have to somewhat disagree. If I showed up to a folk festival I'd probably be booed off the stage. I think the more salient difference is that folk music is accessible to produce (simple, common instrumentation). Pop music is accessible to consume (catchy melodies, danceable beats). One could say these traits co-evolved with the contexts the genres serve (cultural tradition vs. commercialization). "Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - msla 4y ago
      > "Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation. This is a very good point. I think it would be like folktronica or indie folk or neo-folk or something else that's considered a folk subgenre.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  You'd like to think that the music (that became popular) didn't start out that way though. You'd like to think that the Beatles were emulating their Black American heroes, writing songs that got the kids along the Reeperbahn to kick up their heels and belt a few more lagers. That it found a larger audience and caught on is what made it "pop"ular. It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.
  - gmarx 4y ago
    Wasn't there a Beatles anecdote where Lennon says to McCartney "let's write a swimming pool!" People get good at music because they love it, but just because they love it and we love them, don't assume they aren't in it for the money.
  - bazoom42 4y ago
    Yeah they were unknown until they became popular. But if you suggest the werent commercial this is clearly wrong. They were styled and marketed.
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  Yes, you are right. Though, I think the idea is that pop music has become more of an industry now than it was before, in the sense that every aspect of it is optimized and all those optimizations are pushed to the extreme over any artistic merit, far more than 30 years ago.
  - pram 4y ago
    30 years ago we had fabricated boy bands like NSYNC.
    - bsder 4y ago
      Boy bands have been around since the start of TV. Frank Sinatra was probably close to the original "Boy Band(tm)". Singers were originally an appendage to the orchestra who was the big name. With TV, being young and attractive became much more important than the music and that equation flipped. Sinatra, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. All of them relied on being "boy bands" to spread their music initially. Sure, many of them became more sophisticated with time, but much of their initial catalog was ... extremely derivative. There were a bunch of contemporary groups who sounded just like Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. Without being Boy Bands who could move records, they never would have lasted long enough to get better and become the legends we now know them to be.
    - colanderman 4y ago
      Heck, 60 years ago we had The Monkees.
  - bazoom42 4y ago
    Pop music was produced on an assembly-line at least since the 1940’s eg the Brill building style. Of couse some of the music produced like this was great art.
lordfrito 4y ago
Same reason movie credits are now 20 minutes long
- zwieback 4y ago
  Except on re-run channels where they speed up the credits 100x to get them over with. Kind of like the drug interactions or terms and conditions at the end of ads.
- bazoom42 4y ago
  No, because you dont get royalties from a movie just because you are in the credits.
- 7952 4y ago
  I think a lot of those credits are for input from Visual effects companies and their input has grown massively.
canadianfella 4y ago
[dead]
at-fates-hands 4y ago
One can make this argument based on the fact Tom McDonald's "Ghost" went to number 1 and he was the sole writer, producer and musician on the song. Love him or hate him, he's still an anomaly as a 100% top to bottom independent artist. He often makes light of this in many of his video shorts.
- porterbeats 4y ago
  As insufferable as I find him you are correct, he's as close as you can get to being completely self-made
zwieback 4y ago
For sure, but the trend for some teenager on TikTok skyrocketing to fame with a 100% homemade song is also a trend. A welcome one, in my opinion.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I'll take your word for it that that's true (not on Tin Tok). I'm glad to see it.
  - czx4f4bd 4y ago
    It's definitely happened. The biggest example that comes to mind has to be Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road". I guess he was 20 when it blew up, so not a teenager, but close enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Road
    - scns 4y ago
      Justin Bieber? Pre TikTok but still.
- jerrre 4y ago
  Don't forget that that can also be a backported success story
manachar 4y ago
"Art that doesn't sell is just a storage problem." Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor. Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes. For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be seen at symphonies. Nowadays, it's the artists who can fill stadiums (and get fans to buy lots of merch) that make the most bank. As such, it is often those musicians who provide a sellable brand that do best. To many, this can feel fake and plastic. But like any product designed for mass consumption, it's essential. Looking at the symbiotic dance between artist and viewer/reader/listener is really something special, and helps to provide context for changes in trends. You could be the best guitar player in the world, writing the best guitar solos of all time, but if you can't get people to pay for it, it's just a storage problem for your guitar.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Far be it from me to try to define art, but at some point I imagine an artist must stop and ask him/herself "Is my work an original thought? Am I telling a story here, sending a message, engaging with an idea, being provocative, being honest, making my audience feel something, or is my work... mass-produced background mall muzak? A soulless sculpture for some corporate headquarters?" Pop music has always been right in the middle, toeing close to that line between "mostly art" and "mostly commercial product". Where the difference between what the artist wants to say and what the audience wants to see/hear is blurry. I'm sure when you enter that world, surrounded by producers, business people, investors, execs, marketing, focus groups, event organizers, you feel the pressure to go along with the flow and just build a formulaic consumer product. I don't think art that doesn't sell is lesser than art that does sell. I know, tell that to an artist who wants to make a living... but I really think you have to measure a work along more than one axis. How good something sells is a different dimension than how good something is. If that wasn't true, Thriller would be the best music ever and the Toyota Corolla would be the best car in the world.
  - qotgalaxy 4y ago
scarface74 4y ago
The “Motown Machine” was a thing since the 60s where the artists didn’t matter as much as the writers, producers, choreographers, marketers etc
JKCalhoun 4y ago
If there's been an indie/garage wave of music since grunge swept hair-metal out of the top 10 I guess I missed it. I had come to enjoy the reactionary waves of music like folk, punk, college-rock, grunge: the music that often started in small venues or at parties, that somehow broke through to find an large audience that were sick of the commercial dreck that studios and labels were pushing.
andsoitis 4y ago
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.” — Andy Warhol
- scns 4y ago
  Sorry for the snark in advance. Sounds like a justification/rationalization to me. Being able to persuade people to buy mass produced things they don't need makes you what exactly? Art needs to make me feel something, 100% subjective. A print of a can of of soup leaves me very unimpressed. Where is the Wow Factor?
davidgerard 4y ago
No. "Tin Pan Alley" was a cliche decades before pop as we know it started, and decades after it was a real place. Pop musicians as auteurs is also a marketing choice.

Modern pop music is a more refined commercial industry than it was in the past. It's been sliding further and further away from art and toward the commercial. It is what it is.

bazoom42 4y ago

When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?

msla 4y ago
Exactly. That's what differentiates it from folk: Both are music of the people, but pop music was explicitly written for a commercial purpose, and it's existed in that form since before audio recording existed, as another poster mentioned.
- colanderman 4y ago
  As someone who has played in several original but not monetarily motivated pop bands, I have to somewhat disagree. If I showed up to a folk festival I'd probably be booed off the stage. I think the more salient difference is that folk music is accessible to produce (simple, common instrumentation). Pop music is accessible to consume (catchy melodies, danceable beats). One could say these traits co-evolved with the contexts the genres serve (cultural tradition vs. commercialization). "Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - msla 4y ago
    > "Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation. This is a very good point. I think it would be like folktronica or indie folk or neo-folk or something else that's considered a folk subgenre.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
You'd like to think that the music (that became popular) didn't start out that way though. You'd like to think that the Beatles were emulating their Black American heroes, writing songs that got the kids along the Reeperbahn to kick up their heels and belt a few more lagers. That it found a larger audience and caught on is what made it "pop"ular. It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.
- gmarx 4y ago
  Wasn't there a Beatles anecdote where Lennon says to McCartney "let's write a swimming pool!" People get good at music because they love it, but just because they love it and we love them, don't assume they aren't in it for the money.
- bazoom42 4y ago
  Yeah they were unknown until they became popular. But if you suggest the werent commercial this is clearly wrong. They were styled and marketed.
vouaobrasil 4y ago
Yes, you are right. Though, I think the idea is that pop music has become more of an industry now than it was before, in the sense that every aspect of it is optimized and all those optimizations are pushed to the extreme over any artistic merit, far more than 30 years ago.
- pram 4y ago
  30 years ago we had fabricated boy bands like NSYNC.
  - bsder 4y ago
    Boy bands have been around since the start of TV. Frank Sinatra was probably close to the original "Boy Band(tm)". Singers were originally an appendage to the orchestra who was the big name. With TV, being young and attractive became much more important than the music and that equation flipped. Sinatra, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. All of them relied on being "boy bands" to spread their music initially. Sure, many of them became more sophisticated with time, but much of their initial catalog was ... extremely derivative. There were a bunch of contemporary groups who sounded just like Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. Without being Boy Bands who could move records, they never would have lasted long enough to get better and become the legends we now know them to be.
  - colanderman 4y ago
    Heck, 60 years ago we had The Monkees.
- bazoom42 4y ago
  Pop music was produced on an assembly-line at least since the 1940’s eg the Brill building style. Of couse some of the music produced like this was great art.

lordfrito 4y ago

Same reason movie credits are now 20 minutes long

zwieback 4y ago
Except on re-run channels where they speed up the credits 100x to get them over with. Kind of like the drug interactions or terms and conditions at the end of ads.
bazoom42 4y ago
No, because you dont get royalties from a movie just because you are in the credits.
7952 4y ago
I think a lot of those credits are for input from Visual effects companies and their input has grown massively.

canadianfella 4y ago

[dead]

at-fates-hands 4y ago

One can make this argument based on the fact Tom McDonald's "Ghost" went to number 1 and he was the sole writer, producer and musician on the song. Love him or hate him, he's still an anomaly as a 100% top to bottom independent artist. He often makes light of this in many of his video shorts.

porterbeats 4y ago
As insufferable as I find him you are correct, he's as close as you can get to being completely self-made

zwieback 4y ago

For sure, but the trend for some teenager on TikTok skyrocketing to fame with a 100% homemade song is also a trend. A welcome one, in my opinion.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
I'll take your word for it that that's true (not on Tin Tok). I'm glad to see it.
- czx4f4bd 4y ago
  It's definitely happened. The biggest example that comes to mind has to be Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road". I guess he was 20 when it blew up, so not a teenager, but close enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Road
  - scns 4y ago
    Justin Bieber? Pre TikTok but still.
jerrre 4y ago
Don't forget that that can also be a backported success story

manachar 4y ago

"Art that doesn't sell is just a storage problem." Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor. Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes. For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be seen at symphonies. Nowadays, it's the artists who can fill stadiums (and get fans to buy lots of merch) that make the most bank. As such, it is often those musicians who provide a sellable brand that do best. To many, this can feel fake and plastic. But like any product designed for mass consumption, it's essential. Looking at the symbiotic dance between artist and viewer/reader/listener is really something special, and helps to provide context for changes in trends. You could be the best guitar player in the world, writing the best guitar solos of all time, but if you can't get people to pay for it, it's just a storage problem for your guitar.

ryandrake 4y ago
Far be it from me to try to define art, but at some point I imagine an artist must stop and ask him/herself "Is my work an original thought? Am I telling a story here, sending a message, engaging with an idea, being provocative, being honest, making my audience feel something, or is my work... mass-produced background mall muzak? A soulless sculpture for some corporate headquarters?" Pop music has always been right in the middle, toeing close to that line between "mostly art" and "mostly commercial product". Where the difference between what the artist wants to say and what the audience wants to see/hear is blurry. I'm sure when you enter that world, surrounded by producers, business people, investors, execs, marketing, focus groups, event organizers, you feel the pressure to go along with the flow and just build a formulaic consumer product. I don't think art that doesn't sell is lesser than art that does sell. I know, tell that to an artist who wants to make a living... but I really think you have to measure a work along more than one axis. How good something sells is a different dimension than how good something is. If that wasn't true, Thriller would be the best music ever and the Toyota Corolla would be the best car in the world.
- qotgalaxy 4y ago

scarface74 4y ago

The “Motown Machine” was a thing since the 60s where the artists didn’t matter as much as the writers, producers, choreographers, marketers etc

JKCalhoun 4y ago

If there's been an indie/garage wave of music since grunge swept hair-metal out of the top 10 I guess I missed it. I had come to enjoy the reactionary waves of music like folk, punk, college-rock, grunge: the music that often started in small venues or at parties, that somehow broke through to find an large audience that were sick of the commercial dreck that studios and labels were pushing.

andsoitis 4y ago

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.” — Andy Warhol

scns 4y ago
Sorry for the snark in advance. Sounds like a justification/rationalization to me. Being able to persuade people to buy mass produced things they don't need makes you what exactly? Art needs to make me feel something, 100% subjective. A print of a can of of soup leaves me very unimpressed. Where is the Wow Factor?

davidgerard 4y ago

No. "Tin Pan Alley" was a cliche decades before pop as we know it started, and decades after it was a real place. Pop musicians as auteurs is also a marketing choice.