Mozart would make a great pop music girlie.
What is pop music? If pop music is based on the popularity or fame of an artist and their work, then there can never really be a death of pop music—because at any given moment in time, something or someone is popular.
As much as people hate to admit it, Addison Rae is a pop music girlie. The sheer volume of streams and fans she has qualifies her under the banner of popularity. Similarly, Mozart and Beethoven created what was, in many ways, the pop music of their time—albeit with slimmer competition and different distribution systems.
While the above point is also made—much better—by Suyash (and he doesn’t use Addison Rae as an example, yay), I like to be a cynic. So I’ll argue that there is a certain decline in pop music.
Because I am limiting what is considered music.
Music, ideally, should be experienced as a whole—an album, or at least an entire song. But the way artists are popularised today, we often don’t even know the full track. From loudly singing entire songs to now only kind of knowing the hook, our mode of consumption has shifted. We’re not listening to pop music; we’re listening to viral clips. I know I’m being highly generalistic, but still.
It also doesn’t help that pop music itself can’t be easily defined as a style or genre.
A song can belong to any genre—rap, R&B, indie, etc.—but once it becomes commercially popular, or the artist breaks into the mainstream cosmopolitan bubble, it’s labelled as pop. In today’s age, we know the artist before we know their work. They are a brand first, and their music is an extension of that brand—complete with a visual identity, personality, aesthetic, and attitude.
Take Sabrina Carpenter’s latest release, Manchild. It’s being called the song of the summer—largely because of her cheeky, on-brand, tongue-in-cheek music video. She followed that up with the announcement of her next project, again themed around classy sexuality, layered with a dash of laughing at men. The music, the rollout, the persona—it’s all part of the brand.
Pop music is such an interesting and dynamic social trend that reflects so much about the audience that consumes it.
Suyash is a drummer and music teacher, and throughout the episode, you can see how good he is in both those roles. A person who understands the craft and has the patience to explain it to a complete novice is such a treat to talk to—and I had a blast during this interview.
You can check out his work here, and he’s releasing an album soon—so stay tuned!
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