With the passing of the Grammy Awards comes the opinions of how they went. There are going to be people shocked that Justin Bieber didn’t win any awards who are girlishly shrieking their complaints. There are bound to be some inner-city guys stoked on Eminem’s wins. Me personally, I’m just disappointed with the direction popular music fell into.
Popular music in our society is too easy. Anyone with a catchy name and a sound-autotune program can make it in music today. A good example of this tragedy is my personal least-favorite, Ke$ha. She gallivants herself around a stage, essentially talking into a microphone until her voice is amplified by a computer to simulate a melody. Mathematically, I would say it’s addition; a catchy beat plus terrible vocals plus computer-generated melody equals a Billboard hit.
This is not to say all contemporary music is bad by any means. As mentioned above, I was pretty stoked Eminem won for his album Recovery. His is a story of triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. His music has evolved and matured to what it is today and that the music academy has recognized that is really cool.
The thing I would really like to discuss is, what is my idea of the degeneration of popular music as a whole. I recently found myself looking at the last thousand Billboard 100 No. 1 hits. On this list included recent hits from artists like Katy Perry, P!nk and Lady Gaga. These artists were sharing this space with immortal artists like Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
This, to me, marks the degradation of society’s taste and interest in popular music. Fifty-five years ago, the majority of society was enjoying the musical stylings of Presley and Dean Martin. These guys sang songs about love and heartbreak and were charming the population. Nowadays, I see artists marketing themselves through sex appeal and larger-than-life personas.
I just observe these days music is no longer the main motivation of popular musicians. As opposed to creating something that is personally satisfying, musicians are trying to meet a societal norm so they meet some degree of success. How does that compare to bands like Alice in Chains or the Offspring? They created music they liked, and while being moderately successful, they haven’t really ever achieved national critical acclaim.
This applies to music in a number of ways. There are no Mozarts or Beethovens in our day and age. People don’t assign the same value on music as they used to. People used to treat going to the symphony like we treat going to the movie theater. It was a way to pursue culture when things like the Internet and cable didn’t exist.
The Internet specifically has led to the downfall of places like record stores and orchestra houses. The increased availability of MP3s has made the existence of places like record stores unnecessary. It has also led to the decrease in the popularity of orchestra houses. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has actually canceled the remainder of this year’s season. These are just a few examples of this tragedy.
So, good people, I urge you to span out with your music. If you like pop music, have a look at the current jazz scene. Are you a metalhead? I would suggest looking into the underground Hip Hop scene that’s blowing up right now. The lesson I’m trying to tell all of you is not to limit yourself musically. No one genre can cover all of your musical needs. Listen up, it’s good for you.
