Critical Thinking On Music And Pop

Pop music can be said to be a genre of popular music that originated in its modern way in the Western world. Notably, the growth of pop music started in the 1950s as well as the 1960s as a softer alternative to the rock and roll. Moreover, on other forms of music, pop is held to a designate specific, territorialized genre. In other words, it is music defined by the Tin Pan Alley tradition of the three-minute song formula structured around narrative typifications, primary chord structures, harnessed to powerful commercial interests. Pop music genre has evolved since its inception, it has adopted various styles, such as instrumentation, rhythmic components, and the spoken passages, additionally, and it has been employed as a tool to highlight various social themes, such as equal rights, politics, and peace while maintaining various trends, such as melodrama and the use of clichés.

Pop is a well-liked genre while determining why this form of music is well liked; one must consider how it is composed, produced, represented as well as distributed. It is evident that pop musicians have had a significant impact on music, pop culture, fashion as well as film. Today’s pop music has been influenced by the growth of the recording technology. It is apparent that electronic music that is played as well as recorded digitally pervades most of the contemporary pop music. The genre continues to play a significant role in the mainstream music with artists, such as and Rihanna, Drake, Adele as well as Shawn Mendes. Pop singers have had an unparalleled output of hits that have spawned contemporary music videos, such as Send My Love by Adele, Treat You Better by Shawn Mendes as well as Just Like Fire by Pink among other. When talking about pop music, one cannot assume the impact that Michael Jackson and Madonna had in the world of music.

Firth described the term pop as slippery, according to him he submits that pop music must be regarded as a type of music harnessed to commercial rather than artistic imperatives which are formulated to attain maximum access. Firth offered at least four significant features of pop to consolidate his argument. Firstly, there is general appeal where pop music aims at developing a general cultural response. That is, pop music is not tied to the general subcultural experience rather it seeks to make an impact on everyone. Firth asserts that pop music grew out of a light of entertainment. Therefore, the genre holds no brief to challenge audiences socially or to inspire political activism. Pop music has credited for being conservative unlike folk, blues as well as country traditions that are often associated with resistance as well as opposition.

Additionally, the primary purpose of pop music is to generate revenue. Consequently, pop music places a lot of emphasis on the value of having professional song writers, slick production as well as many star images. Therefore, pop music does not strive to mold public reception nor does it entail the free articulation of people. Lastly, pop music is an industrial type of music that is aimed at appealing to the masses for personal identification. According to Rojek, the medium of expression is organized around achieving instant empathy with the personalities. The genre has maintained various trends over time; it works with clichés, stereotypes as well as melodrama. All these are aimed at connecting with the individual listeners. Pop artists woo their listeners by playing their songs in particular patterns as well as keys to connect with individual listeners. Moreover, the musical clichés that are employed in pop songs. For instance, many teens fell in love with Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time while Backstreet Boys’ I’ll Never Break Your Heart made it desirable for many to sing about love in various places.

Pop music has for long been a tool for highlighting various issues including politics despite its conservative nature. Therefore, as a genre of entertainment, pop music has played an active role in in the facilitation of various agendas including peace, freedom, climate as well as equal rights. It has been contended that there are different effects of listening to popular music that may be violent or sexually explicit. It is evident that exposure to misogynous song lyrics may cause aggressive thoughts as well as emotions. Moreover, sexually explicit music can lead to target individuals relying heavily on sexual appeal. An example of pop music that has engaged itself in a political issue is possibly Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. The song was released in 2011, and it cruised to become one of the fastest selling songs in the history of iTunes. According to the song, every individual, including the gay, is born the way they are. The song went ahead to influence many people, and it has since been dubbed as the official gay anthem. Consecuently, it is evident that pop music addresses various issues, and it has an impact on individuals as well as society.

In the minds of many young people, pop music of the 1960s, as well as 1970s, is synonymous. However, today, many pop artists have gone ahead to attain artistic acclaim as well as a commercial success around the world. In recent times, considering the Billboard charts, it is evident that the pop genre has become a force to reckon with in the world of music. This is because most of the pop artists have made it to the global scene. In the past resistance from media as well as music industry to accept pop music was real. Therefore, it was hard for pop music to conquer the world. However, artists are now able to develop commercially viable music, and they have the ability to market it globally. In the 1960s the media landscape was very different, there were few television stations and radio stations. The few available radio stations had popular music programming. Consequently, the ability of pop music to attain international acclaim was limited. However, the arrival of MTV and others has seen pop music flourish. Today, the impact of technology in pop and other genres of music has been enormous. Many music instruments, such as guitars have been advanced. Moreover, many artists have been able to market their music to global audiences due to websites, such as YouTube and other music streaming sites. Ultimately, technology has allowed various musicians to turn their melodies chords as well as rhythms into note-perfect sheet music.  

Conclusively, pop music is electric, and it regularly borrows elements from other styles, such as rock, urban, heavy metal as well as country songs among others. Just like heavy metal, pop music employs the power chord as percussive as well as rhythmic; sometimes it is indefinitely sustained, and it is used both to articulate and suspend time. Moreover, the verse-chorus form employed in other genres is also used in pop music. That is the verse-chorus form follows the structure of the lyrics that is attached to it. In most cases, the beginning of pop songs just like any other songs sets the mood. Ultimately, pop music has adopted many styles from other genres, in a nutshell, it gained its instrumentation from jazz and country as well as rock music, its rhythmic components from hip-hop and the spoken passages from the rap genre.