2005-07-01 - 1:45 p.m. The Modern Re-Death of Pop Music I have a theory. Normally, sharing something like this would be open season for mocking. I will hand you an example. Gump: �Avril Lavigne will change the face of Pop culture.� -- proclaimed after I watched the MTV premier of her first hit Complicated on TRL in 2002. This is a proclamation that I have lived to regret, considering that all my friends mock me by saying this to me in a Movie Phone type voice. What I meant, of course, was that The blonde hair Britney Spears era was over. And frankly, I was right. While we still get assaulted with pop stars, when was the last time you heard a popular boy band, or even a good hit from Britney? Now, the last time Pop died was the 90�s. During the recession in early 1991-1992 Smells like Teen Spirit Change the face of Popular Culture. I will whole-heartily state, �Complicated� didn�t do the same thing. Now this is just Food for thought. But as I was watching MTV, they played a video. It was a depressing dark number sung by a group of goth looking kids. I have no idea what the band�s name is, but I realized something. Time suck right now. America is a sham. We are fighting a neverending war. We have a really shitty economy. We have more unemployed discouraged workers, we have low interest rates, and we have high housing prices. Times S-U-C-K! Remember my favorite speech by Bill Clinton, love him or hate him, it started �Times are Good.� And they were. Boy Bands, Britney, tech stocks, internet startups, consulting firms, exploding GPD, a strong Dollar, low oil costs, a surplus, no war, two towers. Times were good. Music was Pop. Grunge killed off the hair bands, and headbanger�s ball, which honestly was pop. They weren�t angry! They wanted drugs, booze, and chicks. Grunge didn�t give a shit about sex drugs and rock and roll. They made money on angry songs about societal problems. But as the 90�s boomed Pop pushed out the Grunge movement, leaving me feeling lame for still digging Pearl Jam. But remember that during the first Bush�s era, we were at war, deep in 80�s debt, we had high oil prices, and we have a recession. Times sucked. Seattle Answered. Lets look at the 70�s. Most people remember it for its disco. People look back and think of the 70�s as a time when people were snorting coke, and going to dances, and were exuberant little puppies and bunnies enjoying life and enjoying free love. That was not exactly the case. The 70�s kinda sucked. Remember Vietnam? How about Carter�s oil problems. Cars waiting miles to fill up their gas tanks? Stagflation? High unemployment? Nixon getting impeached? Times sucked. Big time. They were honestly some of the worst in American History, besides the Great Depression and possibly this War on Terror. Now, you know what occurred in the 70�s? Punk Rock. The first real anti-establishment music movement which began about 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. When times suck people don�t want to party. They don�t want to have fun. They are pissed and art reflects life as I feel our music really starts to become meaningful and angry. When I have a job out of school making 80,000 dollars, I want �Baby one more time.� When I have a friend die on forgieng soil, as I wait in the unemployment line, the last thing I want is pop music. This is just food for thought, and I think that a lot of darker, more meaningful music of angry 20 somethings is going to crash onto the scene soon. I�m not saying I am right. I am pointing out a corelation in modern music and modern culture. A good record will still be big no matter the times. A great modern example of bands that make music with the times are US and Green Day. U2, constantly changes. If times are good we get great pop songs. If times are bad, they release political albums. Green Day made a big pop punk record in the 90�s, now they make American Idiot, and people love it. If you can think of any, please, list them in the comments. | |||||||||||
