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media bias in the music industry
influence of pop music
influence of pop music
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The Consumer and the Gimmick
Today there are many factors that hurt the music industry. One factor involves the way we push musicians into allowing the industry to popularize one good song thus forgetting the rest of the album. We the consumers have somehow been satisfied with just one good song from one mediocre band. Perhaps there is a simple formula for disaster. First the song is played on the radio and then the video is constantly on MTV, thus causing us to get tired of the music. It's as easy as that!
We sit and whine about not hearing enough from our favorite band, but once they come out with new music we smother ourselves in it. We then get sick of it and are left looking for something new to fulfill our cravings. This is when we, the monster consumers of music, decide to take our interest to the next hit song. It's not all our fault. You have to put at least some blame on the bands themselves. They feel that it is part of their job to indulge our wants.
We as lovers of what these songwriters do are appalled and disgusted by hearing anything but the best from our favorite bands. Once we have what we want it's not long before we want more. This is because we consume the musicians' talents like a fast food happy meal. We open the box, take out the toy, throw away the contents, and then bitch about being hungry. When we do this we always say,
"It's a cool song, but they are a one hit wonder." We the hungry consumer do not give the bands a chance to show their true musical talents. One example involves the group Verve Pipe and their hit song "The Freshman." This songs LP was out in December. No one noticed it until halfway through the month of
March. "The Freshman" was played every thirty minutes on the radio and fifteen times a day on MTV. This in my opinion results in the complete overplay of one bands hit song. Now we consider them a "One hit wonder." The Verve Pipe has more good music, but who is to say that anyone will ever hear it?
Another thing that hurts the industry is the reliance on gimmicks.
Finding talent in a band that relies on gimmicks is as easy as lifting a three-hundred pound man above you head. Sure for some it is easy, but for others it's damn near impossible. A few bands that rely on gimmicks are Marilyn
Manson and basically any rapper you can think of off the top of your head.
Occasionally a strobe awakes from its narcoleptic slumber to wink at the nocturnal nation cavort across fog flooded floors. I sit in the shadows. I am an island ( not in the geographical formation sense, but rather in the Simon and Garfunkle sense). Music seems so tainted; its freshness extracted by the incestuous industry. Get an acclaimed producer, and make a video to show how pretty your band is. Become a whiney lesbian folk singer professing cynical prophesies with an acoustic ax, a violent criminal that uses his vehemence as an art form, a diva whose love songs are darker than her exposed panties, or perhaps a greasy haired bar-chord master with a chip on his shoulder and a heroin needle in his arm proclaiming how hard life is in suburbia. There must be something new in rock's tepid arena, and not just another "underground" sound that is this week’s salt-lick style. There must be a band out there in the very nucleus of pop music that will not take its precious history and throw it away. That will endure to "stand on its shoulders," understand it and explore its depths to form new music (Percy 49). There must be a band that has a lead singer who wrote a poem about Neil Young vomiting, and then had the audacity to name the band after it (Park). There is. This is Soul Coughing.
only listen to the music that they like, but to support that band. There are
... the end, getting your music on a series is a positive thing, but I think you also need a killer live show, killer songs to compete, and have staying power as a new band.”
away. A lot of modern music has a short but intense life span. People are
The genre of pop rock has taken the music industry by storm, giving record companies enormous amounts of power and endless financial success along with a way to reproduce it. Owing its popularity to the “light” nature and simplistic, yet catchy melodies, pop music is one of the broadest genres. There’s no way of clearly defining parameters as to what distinguishes a pop music song from other genres. This is largely due to the genre's’ reliance on popularity. Pop music has taken many forms over the decades, keeping characteristics through each generation it passes through.
Earlier this year (DATE???) alt-rockers Cake topped the Billboard 200 chart with their first album in seven (???) years, Showroom of Compassion. The album sold 44,000 copies the first week of its release, a record low for the number one hit. At the same time, Britney Spears' single “Hold It Against Me” scaled the digital song chart with 411,000 copies sold. The two charts illustrate the change in the way we listen to music. The Internet—as it did for almost everything—has radically affected the way people get music.
Music is in sad state of affairs today. No matter where you look someone is offending someone else and no one attacks the issue at hand. It is always taken one step up and nothing is ever resolved. In closing this paper I would just like to say that just because it is there and it is obscene it doesn't mean you have to listen to it. You may not like it but to someone else it may be genius. In the words of John Lennon, "LET IT BE."
... in Amityville in 2009 when they opened for Rise Against. Dan Campbell, the singer, gave everyone a free copy of their album just to get their name out there. They are now at the peak of the pop punk genre by selling thousands of albums, playing the main stage at Warped Tour and headlining a show at Best Buy Theater this April. Bands that make this sacrifice and eventually make it to a successful level deserve the natural rush music gives them.
...By convincing you that their product is the perfect game time snack. In contrast "metalheads" are the outcasts of society, they are the ones that do not fit in, those that choose to not conform. They are not accepted by mainstream society and they live alternative lifestyles. They are disliked and they carry a negative stigma and therefore their choice of music does too.
In today’s evolving and changing society, many people do not appreciate how extraordinary music truly is. Since the birth of the vinyl record, there are less people who own and are interested in them. Even though vinyl records have recently been making a comeback, they are still not as popular as they once were. People take for granted how easily accessible music is today though in the past it was not as simple. Even though vinyl records may be costly and may not have a large quantity of songs, as time progresses and technology continues to develop, the way that people listen to music degrades their appreciation for music due to easier accessibility, weaker sound in terms of quality, and decaying genres.
... been changing in movies and television to adjust for everything feeling “familiar”. Horror-spoof flicks and action, romance, comedy movies have been made because sticking to one genre would now bore people and would result in them walking out or changing the channel. The only question left is what will happen once people are bored with genre mixing. In other words, when the “strange” becomes “familiar” what will satisfy people’s appetite for entertainment? Maybe the emergence of the perfect genre will take over the market by stealing the best parts of all music and combining it to please everyone. The Internet Age is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to music. A person is able to create masterpieces by using other people’s music and blending various genres but one must not forget the Internet is what has caused people to crave creativity in the first place.
The record labels in the industry select what music they think people want to hear, and they try to sell the music. Although a lot of times the artists the labels push are not successful, there are also times where they succeed. Art...
...d of music heard by the public. The lyrics of modern songs indicate unruliness and anger among musicians. This indicates that the attitudes exist and it is possible that out of this overwhelming desire to resist authority, new songs will be written in new styles that may eventually lead to a new genre. The feeling that does not exist is the feeling that all citizens are the same and that they are conforming to societal standards. With increas-ing censorship of the Internet and privacy being infringed upon with new anti-terrorist laws, this feeling may begin to take hold of the nation. It is not within the foreseeable, however, because these issues do not affect most of the population. Music is a medium of expression for all people, so the people’s music must speak to the people. Smaller changes have been made to rock music in the last forty-five years. If this genre is so malleable, then change must come frequently. Once the elements are in place, music will undergo a change. Rock music evolved out of conditions in society. If these conditions exist again, another music revolution will occur. Many of the elements are already in place, it is only a matter of time before the change.
Let’s flashback to the early years of childhood when artists would announce when their album would be released and us kids would get all excited and couldn’t wait to get into the store to buy it. We would save up all of our money for that day, beg our parents to drive us to the store, then would put the CD in our little CD players and listen to it on repeat. Nothing made us happier than buying that new CD from our favorite artists.