My Take on Pop Music... and Music in General

Last year, I wrote a fairly long essay on Britney Spears, detailing several arguments as to why she should not be hated as much as she is, and why people should not immediately rush to judgement when they hear that I'm a fan. Not too long after that, a friend wrote something of his own, the topic being "Why I Hate Pop Music." I've recently been able to read what he wrote, and I think it's worth reading for anyone who is interested. Though I still don't agree with everything he's written, at least it's pretty well organized and thought out (more so than you can say about my britney essay), and it's good to see that he cares about what he is writing, even if it is an opposing view. To read, click here (there is also a link there to my original Britney essay)

Now, hopefully people did not mistake my Britney essay as being a complete endorsement of all that is pop music and pop culture. The essay was, as I said, written more as a defense of Britney, as well as myself, for the reason that nearly every person I knew hated her and ripped on me for being a fan. Also, let me say that I'm definitely not writing this little piece to be meant as a retort to Brian, because the last thing I am interested is engaging in a war of words over something like this. What I'm writing isn't really directly against what he's saying anyways. However, I do want to clarify some things about my personal opinons about pop music, or music in general.

Why I Like(d) Pop Music
First of all, believe it or not, I've never really liked pop music all that much. At the time I wrote the essay, I'll readily admit that I did indeed listen to a lot of the Britney and Christina stuff, or the Backstreet and NSync, etc. This was for a few major reasons:

1. A couple years ago, it seemed to me that a lot of other genres of music were going through a overall down period, lacking much of the originality or inspiration it once had. For example, hip-hop was getting to the point where every song was about big ol' booties and making the benjamins. Alternative music had also become rather old with seemingly the same exact guitar riff heard ubiquitously, not to mention the fact that every lead singer was doing his best Eddie Vedder impersonation. Even in the realm of Christian Contemporary music, I was finding it increasingly hard to identify with any of the newer artists and forced to look back to the good old days of Jars of Clay and DC Talk. (There were exceptions, of course, but I am talking in general). It wasn't that all of this music was terrible, just that it had maybe "fallen back down to earth" from the highs of a few years back.

2. Where unoriginality and a dearth of talent plagued other genres, the world of pop music was ripe with blossoming artists, bringing an intriguing new wave of songs that was taking the pop category to new heights. Long before a beast named TRL invaded this country, my idea of pop music was basically limited to "artists" like Celine Dion or Rod Stewart. That might not have been completely accurate, but at least in my mind, pop music was pretty boring, harmless, 93.9 WLIT stuff (not trying to diss the LITE, I would never). Anyways, when all these new pop songs started coming out with nice beats, catchy tunes, and well-produced videos, it was as if a whole new genre of pop was replacing the old, and I was forced to take notice.

3. I think the opportunity to see Britney Spears live in concert was one of the biggest reasons I became a fan of hers, her music, and other performers like her. It might sound a little dumb, but it's much like how I became so attracted to baseball, or how I became a Sox fan. To make a long story short, my grade school used to give free Sox tickets for Straight A's/Perfect Attendance. The consensus among a lot of people I know is that baseball is boring, and I don't blame them for feeling that way. As for myself, I probably would have the same feelings, had I not been lucky enough to get a chance to go to games at the ballpark in person and appreciate the game, its nuances and just how impressive the scope of the game really is; in other words, things you don't get from watching the highlights or even watching an entire game live on TV. In the same sense, hearing a song on the radio is one thing, seeing it on MTV is another, and experiencing it at a concert is a whole new level of its own. Not that her voice was so much better live (it's mostly lipsync anyways if you didn't figure already), but being able to see such a large-scale production, to understand how much work was put in by everyone involved and really be immersed in the energy of the whole thing was something that surprised me a great deal. The concert in itself didn't make me like pop music, but it did help me to see it in a new light and maybe allowed me to appreciate it more as a different way to enjoy music.

There were some other less obvious reasons that I found myself playing 98 Degrees and Mandy Moore mp3s all the time, but I want to keep this relatively short.

What Has Changed Since Then
Today, I don't listen to nearly as much of the pop stuff as I did back then, though once in a while a song will still catch my ear and invade my head for a while. Why the change, you ask? It's not that I've suddenly decided or realized that pop music is wrong, but there are still logical explanations I can give. For starters, reasons #1 and 2 above don't apply nearly as much to the current music scene as they did back then. Thanks to some great recent work by artists like Incubus, Outkast, U2, or Alicia Keys, there is reason to be optimistic that artistic creativity will once again flourish through the medium of musical expression. (Alicia Keys, by the way, still borders on being pop music but more on that later).

On the other hand, a sharp decline in the quality of today's pop music is proving to be a disturbing reminder of the shortcomings of such a genre (or industry, better put). Not only have shows like "Making the Band" (O-Town) or "Pop Stars" (Eden's Crush) made a complete mockery of anything related to pop music (didn't think it was possible to bring shame to the shameless), but it's also apparent that both time and originality are quickly running out for these people. When Britney, Backstreet, and N Sync first stepped onto the scene in this country, they and their producers had tapped into a void of the American consciousness and were breaking new ground. Say what you will about capitalizing on the young impressionable ones of the nation (with idle time and disposable income), but they had found fertile ground in the market and were good at what they did. Contrast that with today's saturated market; everything being done has already been done, each new boy band or female star is virtually a clone of the previous, and the quality of the music is suffering along with the decline in originality.

To be fair, you couldn't have expected pop's heyday to last forever. After all, bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains once ruled the airwaves and record sales but eventually they either self-destructed or lost their artistic edge of originality. And once 2Pac got himself rich and moved out of the ghetto, is it any wonder he stopped rapping about the trials of poverty and racism and was left with lyrics about money and hoes? Now in the case of pop music, they were never artistic or inspiring about what they did, but at least they were somewhat original and fresh at one time. As I said, that one positive about pop music back then is now losing its steam, and the inevitable result is that I grow more and more weary of the same old stuff I'm hearing and move back to better written and more relevant material.

Some Final Thoughts
If I had to summarize how I feel about pop music and music in general, the most important thing I would like to say is that there are different kinds of music and that everything should be taken for what it is, without mistaking it for what it's not.

As I've said before, there are some bands and individual artists in the world of music that have produced truly magnificent work by their own creative and original talent. Even I can't deny that this is the highest form of music, when an artist creates something that actually serves to inspire those who can relate to and enjoy it. For me personally, this includes bands like Smashing Pumpkins or artists such as Tori Amos, for example. I can't say enough how much I admire these people for not only their musical talent but also for their amazing intellect and ability to challenge someone like me in the music they create. It's this kind of music that is very, very important to me and dear to my heart for that very reason, and the many great experiences I have encountered in my life because of these artists' contributions have given me truest sense of respect for them.

There are also those in the world of music with great God-given talent, either in the form of a great voice, perhaps as a guitarist, DJ, songwriter, or whatever it is. Based on these talents alone, they still have a great potential to inspire people and provide enjoyment to others, but might not have the experiences to draw from and the ability as a whole artist to generate music that can challenge us intellectually, or in other aspects of life which we might be able to relate to. Some examples I can think of might include Yo-yo Ma, who is an incredibly gifted cellist but is limited in playing music written mostly by other composers. [As a side note, classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven really fascinate me because while their music has no words and was written hundreds of years ago, there's no doubt that their songs have the special ability to transcend speech and time to affect and stimulate people in a way that's hard to explain. And I'm not trying to belittle Yo-Yo Ma in any way, because he still has the ability that few others have to interpret a song with feeling, translating someone else's composition and expressing it in an original manner.] I tend also to believe that Alicia Keys falls into this category. She's got a great voice, but her success has owed much to having great producers and being promoted heavily in the media. I still bought her CD and enjoy listening to it a lot, but I just can't yet justify putting her in the same category as the artists I mentioned above. Of course, she's still young in age and I think as she matures she has the potential to be one of those great artists.

That basically leaves what is, in my opinion, a huge gray area that includes what most people would call pop music, but also includes all of the less musically gifted but still successful people in the industry. Besides the expected list of boy bands and girl groups, and solo pop stars like Britney, I also throw into this group stuff like Limp Bizkit, Ja Rule, Usher, Kid Rock, Pink, Enrique Iglesias, Metallica, or Jennifer Lopez. Basically, anybody whose music lacks any real substance and depends primarily on image, production and promotion, and a certain amount of luck to be where they are. My goal is not to bash all of these people for not being musically talented; after all, I was a big fan of Britney Spears, who is probably the epitome of all these things, and I still follow her music/career to some extent. I'm just saying that the "pop" music we listen to nowadays isn't really just limited to the teenybopper tunes, but that if you stop and think about it carefully, a great deal of what many of us enjoy listening to is actually not much different from, and no better than the typically labeled pop music (at least from an artistic point of view). Within this category, there are still of course different types of performers, and it's also important to note that there are also vast differences in the quality of the music. An analogy that comes to mind is movies: consider the two films Austin Powers and Jingle All The Way (there was nothing else to do on the plane ride to Taiwan). Neither movie is supposed to be inspiring, but I enjoyed Austin Powers because it was well done, while Jingle All The Way still haunts me now and then because it was utter crap.

The point I'm trying to make here, in a circumlocutory way so it seems, is that there are different kinds of music, and from each kind you should already know what to expect. Music in its highest form is meant to be an inspiration; while in other cases, there is music for the less noble purpose of providing entertainment and enjoyment. If someone feels that pop music is so bad that listening to it is a weight on their conscience, or believes that it is so worthless that listening to it is a waste of time, then I can respect that. The people who bother me are the ones who are such huge fans of Limp Bizkit and Ja Rule but find it so compelling to tell me that Britney Spears is terrible. I've never denied that image is one of the biggest, if not the single biggest factor for Britney's success, but image is also just as important for posers like Fred Durst and Ja Rule.

All I'm saying is, listen to the music that you like, but you should always know what you're flooding your brain with; take the serious music seriously, but don't put too much stock in what isn't. To me, it's ok to enjoy a little "candy" while not getting carried away to the point of rotting your teeth. At the same time, I would recommend that everyone should listen to and learn to appreciate at least some quality music because I have found in my own life time after time that great music by great artists makes for great food to the soul. If I can say one last thing in closing: Pop music never was, and never will be a form of artistic expression, but as long as people don't listen to it so much and so exclusively that they lose track of reality, then it's okay in my book.