When musicians focus on one genre of music, it’s really hard. Its like multiple copies of the same sound or style. For the past couple of years, I have been unsatisfied with the songs that have come out. On average, I like 10-15 songs a year, due to songs sounding the same as I’m reaching the age of 21, I realize that the music I’m hearing is not as sweet as the music I heard in my early teens.
There is a clear understanding of why I got attached to songs such as “Cupids Chokehold” by Gym Class Heroes, but not “Sugar” by Maroon 5. According to an article on slate.com, “to understand why we grow attached to certain songs it helps to start with the brains relationship with music in general. Music is a crucial element to everyone’s lives but when every song you hear is similar, you can get frustrated. And 2010 was the year of pop, the decade that start of similar sounding songs, with artists such as Usher and Taylor Swift joining the pop bandwagon.
According to an article on billboard.com, “If you expand the definition of pop to include Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum, whose mainstream-leaning country hits were embraced at pop radio…you could argue that nine of the top 10 albums speak to pop’s dominance.”
Yes, Taylor Swift was a country artist when she first started but by 2010 her songs sounded like pop before her latest album which acknowledge her pop transition, “1989” came out.
I can easily state that “We are never ever getting back together” is a pop hit.
Pop is the dominant genre in music, but it is infused with sub-genres such as hip-hop, and EDM. Pop is where the money is coming from and clearly artists are getting away with making a song about anything, and music videos that don’t make sense.
For example, when I saw David Guetta’s video for “Hey Mama” ft. Nicki Minaj, I was getting “California Love” by Tupac vibes with the video concept, and yet it still didn’t make sense.
The song is about wanting to be a girl’s man. I don’t really think that people really focus on the lyrics to these songs, which helps with understanding the song better. According to the article on slate.com, “Pay close attention to the lyrics and instrumentation and you’ll activate your parietal cortex, which helps you shift and maintain attention to different stimuli”.
In other words, if you pay attention to both lyrics and sound, you could picture something different in your mind, and then the video the artist eventually gives us. Yes the “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by Silento is catchy, but the lyrics are repetitive and have no depth whatsoever. It is important to listen closely to the lyrics of songs but with today’s music, any song could get your attention.