By: Shane Brooks
Today, it seems, pop music is the “bread and butter”, so to speak, of American entertainment. Popular music has always been this way whether it be Louis Armstrong with swing music, Elvis with rock music, The Beatles or Katy Perry.
However, popular music has never had such a strong influence on our culture, fashion and even politics then it has today. We let our popular artists be our voice. Artists like Katy Perry or Lady Gaga use their platform to spread the message of female empowerment or the importance of self-expression.
Whereas, artists like Kanye West and Chance the Rapper use their platform to spread the message of faith and religion. Other popular artists sing about having a good time, relationships and other relatable topics, which is why these songs get so popular. Now, none of these topics areparticularly bad things, yet, there is a huge divide between pop music fans and fans of other genres of music.
Many people question the authenticity of the music or artist itself and others express concerns for the influence this type of music, and the image these artists represent, has on the people who listen to it.When a pop song is created it, generally, doesn’t begin with the artist being struck with inspiration, writing down some lyrics and getting with a producer and a song being born.
It begins in a meeting at a major record company, in a room full of record executives, producers, songwriters, A&R people, the heads of the label, demo singers and session musicians. These people get together, they talk about the message, the sound, and the image they want their new songs to represent. After the meeting the producers work together to create the song and they send it to the songwriters to write the lyrics.
The songwriters send it off to the demo singers who sing the lyrics in the tone the song is intended for and the song gets sent to the people at the record label. The artists signed to the label are then presented the song and they come in to the studio and sing the lyrics over the demo singer.Now, whether this process is good or bad is entirely up to you as an individual. Many people claim these artists have no talent when in fact, they do. Whether you think they can sing well is up to you but at the very least these artists are great performers.
They may not have the strongest lyrics or the mind-changing message in their music that you are looking for and that’s fine but the music they create make people from all over the world happy. So, love it or hate it, when Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” comes on the radio you just can’t help but sing along, and that will never change.
