So what is it that makes these popular songs so… popular? It’s always been here since the start of music, but why are people not bored of the same old 120bpm, 4/4, Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus songs with no complexity. To one person, this may be mind-numbingly boring, but to the vast majority of people, it is the complex sounds of symphonies and atonal minimalistic songs that are dull and a struggle to listen to. What is it that makes these simplistic songs so popular? Myself, I enjoy both sides of the spectrum and I don’t see why the modern-day pop-culture doesn’t appreciate the virtuosity and complexity in some of the classic pieces that are written to the extent it was looked up on in the 1700’s. There are plenty of theories on popular music, and over the course of this essay I will be looking into the theory and culture as to why popular music is the way it is, why people enjoy it, and why this isn’t the case with classical music.
Last year (2017), RnB overtook rock music as the most listened to/streamed genre in popular music in the US. So, what is Popular music? It’s difficult to put it into words as it can be seen in many different ways. Popular music can be said to be music that represents the present-day culture and is created to appeal to the majority of people. However, many different genres are said to fit under this, such as Folk and Heavy Metal which aren’t always seen as popular amongst the larger ‘Pop Culture’ crowd. On the grounds that this essay will be on, I will be writing about music that is mass distributed, also seen as commercial music, such as Pop, RnB, Rock, and Dance, music that is normally aired on mainstream radio.
First, let’s talk about the theory of popular music. Since the 1960’s popular music has consisted of many common features. The keys, tempo, instrumentation, and lyrical themes, however the lyrical times often go with current affairs. The tempo has been a fairly consistent 120Bpm, the average tempo has gone up and down but stayed around the 120bpm mark. The resting heartbeat of a human is in-between 60-100bpm, however, whilst active, this rises to 120Bpm. At this tempo, you’re most likely to be bopping your head at the upbeat music and the music can beat at the tempo of your heart, this is said to mean you’re more likely to connect to the music. Whether this was a coincidental factor to appear in popular music or happened for a reason, this has become the industry norm for popular music. The same goes with the time signature. More often than not, the time signature in popular music is going to be 4/4. The 4 beats in a bar makes popular music extremely easy to listen to as you can nod your head without even thinking about skipping a beat or having to add one on. No effort is needed to listen to popular music. Another key factor in a large amount popular music is that it’s in a major key. In a study by the Kent music report of 52 songs taken from the National Film and Sound archive and the Australian Official charts, 82% of these songs were major, with the most common keys being E Major, C Major and F Major. These are possibly the simplest keys to play in on key popular instruments such as piano and guitar. Music is often written to convey emotion as we will get onto later. A popular point of mine made by Peter Kivy, is when he says that music is expressive of sadness, as opposed to expressing sadness. For example, the face of a St. Bernard dog looks sad to us, but this does not mean that it is sad. People want to feel happy and major keys are happy.
Does popular music go hand in hand with present culture? I think, popular music has always been representative of the present day culture. If we look at Childish Gambino’s – This is America or The Chainsmokers – #SELFIE, the lyrics are very much representative of todays culture. #SELFIE being about the iPhone age of having to take a selfie before everything, whilst Childish uses himself being America as the character, rapping about problems such as violence, and the way entertainment is used as a distraction. Whilst these two pieces go with the present times, they also stick to the 4/4, 120BMP style of popular music. Much of the popular music in the present day is youth-orientated. With applications such as Spotify and Apple music, youths are constantly listening to their music, it’s in the core of their culture. In fact, 16-24 year olds stream the most music in the UK. This is always going to have a huge influence on the music culture as they will be in control of what is popular and what isn’t.
On the terms that music does go with the present culture, this shows why popular music is developing quickly. Looking back to for example the 1700’s culture, it wasn’t as quick to develop, however it is quite the opposite now. Despite Theodore Adorno’s controversial views, I would have to agree with him in saying that popular music is part of the culture industry. He criticised it of being a contributor to the continual success of capitalism as it’s ‘agreeable’, but this is a purpose of mass produced music. Although Adorno criticised popular music this way, this is how the music is created, it’s supposed to be easy listening for the modern day culture. In 1, The musical material, by Theodor W. Adorno, he frequently speaks about the standardisation of popular music. According to Adorno, everything is standardised in the structure of popular music, from general features to some specific ones. One of the most common rules being that a chorus consists of thirty two bars, and a range that is limited to one octave. Considering this was written in 1941, maybe popular music isn’t changing as fast as I thought it was, as this still seems to be the case, however it does make sense for it to be 32 bars as this is makes the section feel complete. Adorno speaks about the difference between popular music and “serious” (Classical) music. Whilst more or less referring to popular music as gibberish nonsense, he goes on to say that there is also bad serious music and good serious music. Whilst leaving bad serious music out of the picture, he states that serious music is precise, and complex. Although this is what he prefers, could this be a reason why Classical music is not “Popular” music.
Theodor W. Adorno, G. (1941). On popular music: I. The musical material.
Available at: http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/SWA/On_popular_music_1.shtml
Accessed: 22 March 2018
You would think with the some of the masterful pieces written by composers such as Mozart and Steve Reich, these would be well known compositions, with so much time put into crafting these perfect pieces, it’s a shame they aren’t given the credit they deserve from the majority of the population. Although there’s a few factors that could make this the case. First of all, Classical music isn’t mass produced to the scale Popular music is, in the US during 2012, there were 7.5 million classical albums sold whilst there were 102 million rock albums sold, this is the lowest classical sales had been in the previous years. As well as it not being mass produced, it’s also too rare, Popular music is so accessible that anyone can make it, all it takes is a phone with GarageBand, and a tiny bit of creativity. This isn’t so much the case with Classical music, although you can create this on GarageBand, it’s not quite the same. Another reason classical music isn’t as popular is that it’s too complex. Although “serious” music is so perfectly crafted, there’s too much going on for an untrained ear. Not only is there a mass of instruments, but often, there’s going to be time changes, tempo changes, or even extreme crescendo’s/diminuendo’s, this is often too much for the average music listener. A final factor could be the stigma around Classical music, in today’s culture, Classical music amongst youths can often be seen as something that just gets listened to by pensioners, classical performers or rich people, which most certainly isn’t “cool” to youths! Although these are obvious factors, the first point is the biggest, Classical music never was made to be up at the top in the popular music charts, however there are a few songs we all know, such as Ride of the Valkyrie – Richard Wagner. So now let’s compare a Pop song and a Classical composition. Telephone – Lady Gaga, and Rhapsody In Blue – Gershwin.
From just one page of these scores you can see the complexity in the Classical piece over the Pop piece. Whilst the Telephone is using just quavers and crotchets, Rhapsody In Blue uses the whole spectrum of notes, whilst adding accents, grace notes, staccato’s and triplets, and that’s without going into depth. Whilst listening to these two pieces, they are both very stereotypical in what I’m trying to get at in saying Classical music is too complex whilst Popular music is very simplistic or standardised. Telephone is the same groove through the piece, whilst Rhapsody In Blue is all over the place, intentionally of course, with different sections of the orchestra coming at you left, right and centre, there are multiple things to pay attention to. Telephone heavily focuses on the main melody. The 1 main thing to pay attention to is usually the voice, which consists of many catchy hooks.
Simon Frith is a former rock critic, who specializes in the popular music culture. During his critical career, he looks into the idea of rock as a genre of as a force for oppression, liberation, leisure and as the youth culture. In “Taking Popular Music Seriously”, he speaks about the fact that one of the social functions of music is that it gives us a way of “managing the relationship between our public and private emotional lives.” This is a huge factor in my opinion, especially with genres such as rock and metal, where lyrics can have such an emotional attachment to the fans that listen to their music.
Frith, S. (2007). Taking Popular Music Seriously. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
https://fswg.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/towards-an-aesthetic-of-popular-music.pdf
Accessed: 30 May 2018
In western culture, during the 21st a large number of Popular songs have been love songs, especially in mainstream pop. Songs often make your feelings seem more intense and convincing, people tend to want more of this feeling when listening to music. With love being such an intense feeling, this is always going to connect with people. It’s basic psychology really!
So after looking at all of this, why is it that popular music so popular? Whilst generalising all these genres under Popular music, it’s clear that it may be one of the simplest styles out there in terms of theory, but still nonsense to elitists such as Theodore Adorno. We’ve discussed that maybe the lack of complexity is a key factor as to why it is so popular. With there being just one main focus, primarily the vocals, there isn’t too much to worry out. You also don’t have to think about concepts such as time and tempo changes. But maybe to take popular music seriously, what we have to look at is the lyrics, rather than the untechnicality of the melodies? The culture behind Popular music is always going to be flowing with the present culture, representing the modern days’ problems, high points, and emotions. We can also come to the conclusion that even though music seems like it has massively changed over the past century or so, it hasn’t, despite some of the instrumentation and production, lyrical themes and structure are almost identical to how they in the 50’s, yet they still manage to represent today’s culture.