It Takes Confidence to Love Pop
I think often times, pop music gets a lot of hate that it doesn’t necessarily deserve. Musicians, the general public, and the pretentious music connoisseurs (who are actually just people that think they’re knowledgable on music after listening to Mozart once) all like to complain about how over-generalized and copy-paste the pop industry has become. It always boils down to this:
1. No one who sings pop music has any musical talent
2. Every song sounds the same.
3. There is no depth to the lyrics
Radio Killed The Pop Star
Personally, I feel it’s ignorant to say that pop music takes no talent, because many of these artists are skilled, but their choice of genre (pop) restricts them from breaking out of people’s preconceived image of ‘pop stars’ and becoming something more. You see, the problem with pop music isn’t the people, it’s the fact that it has become a “hit-making machine.” Artists understand that the songs that become popular are the songs that are the most catchy. This has led to an industry filled with the same artists trying to release radio-topping singles all with the same ear worm tune that gets stuck in people’s heads, making them want to keep hearing it.
Artists now believe the only way to earn exposure is by having constant Number 1 hits, prioritizing quantity over quality. When their sole aim is to become famous through radio directed hits, their intentions for being a musician no longer is to produce music for themselves, but for fame.
“Who Do You Play For” ; Paula
Black and white image of man with guitar on desert via Visual Hunt // CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Pop music is widely hated because it’s created for mass appeal, not bothering to take risks with its musical direction. Pop doesn’t lack quality, it just does not strive to be more than a straightforward tune with catchy lyrics.
Like Broken Record(s)
However, the same artists that are now considered revolutionary and have produced classic hits once started as pop artists too. In actuality, pop music doesn’t lack talented singers or people with the ‘it’ factor. When examined, these ‘timeless artists’ started with pop and were regarded as pop artists until they broke out of the mold.
1. Legendary boy group The Beatles, who broke numerous charts and records were also a pop group until they expanded to songs with more instrumental influence and serious lyrics. “Love Me Do” (one of their earlier songs) is clearly not on the same lyrical level as “Tomorrow Never Knows” (came out 3 years later).
“Defining a Generation” ; Paula
The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul Mccartney by skeeze via Visual Hunt // CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
2. Alanis Morisette debuted with her hit song, “Too Hot”. Like most of today’s pop songs, “Too Hot” is a catchy tune with that features surface level lyrics. Eventually, Alanis Morisette became the household name that she is when she transitioned from pop to grunge with classic songs like “You Oughta Know”.
These artists didn’t get magically better out of nowhere, but it was a matter of them gaining more credibility as an artist as their material became more serious. Perhaps when the older generation reminisce about “classic artists” like The Beatles, they only remember these people through rose tinted glasses and sing their praises like a broken record. The same things they complain about now are the things their parents complained about when they were younger and listening to the younger versions of classic artists.
“Modernity Has Failed Us”
The lyrics of pop songs sound very superficial and lazily written because pop music is overgeneralized and because the lyrics are played over simple, radio-directed tracks. The song lyrics to certain popular songs especially proves that musicians (like The 1975) can produce deep and meaningful song lyrics.
Take their recent hit song. “Love It If We Made It“:
You want deep song lyrics? The 1975 will hit you with a whole song about everything wrong with our world.
Every sentence is loaded with cultural references. Even if it’s not heard in the song, it’s shown in the video.
Everything from selling melanin to Eric Garner to our flawed the prison system. The 1975 was not afraid to lay out humanity’s wrongdoings plain and simple in the form of a 4:25 minute song.
“Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men
Start with misdemeanours and we’ll make a business out of them”
Melanin: Matty (lead singer) references to “selling melanin” – a recent phenomenon that ironically sees the rich and white purchasing melanin to purposefully make their skin darker. It exposes the irony and hypocrisy that is white people darkening their skin, amidst ongoing racism.
Eric Garner: The second reference “…and then suffocate the black men,” follows up white people’s idolisation of darker skin, with the phone-shot video of the death of Eric Garner, a African American man choked to death in New York by a police officer. The killing broke NYPD codes of conduct, which sparked nationwide protests, but also goes to show how ironic it is that white people somewhat fetishize the idea of darker skin when, for centuries, it has been the target of racism and discrimination.
Prison: In “Start with misdemeanours and we’ll make a business out of them,” Matty references to the increasing privatisation of the prison system, which had controversy not properly rehabilitating the prisoners, but instead, was a way for the rich to get richer off the private sectors.
These 3 topics alone were covered all in a 9 second span of time from 0:34-0:43, but is only a brief microcosm of the whole song.
Funny how a call to action for the world to admit its wrongs is being delivered in the form of a 4 minute pop song when the president of a first world country doesn’t even recognize global warming…And pop songs are the ones usually being trashed
“Love It If We Made It” is a song about finding hope in the hopeless world.
In a sense, that’s what lyrics are for; Giving you hope when you’ve lost yours.
Like the song says: “Modernity has failed us, and I’d love it if we made it” the lyrics symbolize the hope we hold in our society and as individuals that we will be able to learn from our mistakes and continue to live.
I know lyrics are just words, but words are power.
Music is about changing society by inspiring individuals – Matty Healy (The Guardian, 2018).
MLA Citations:
– Snapes, Laura. “Matt Healy of the 1975: ‘I’m Not Scared of Myself Any More’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 July 2018, www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jul/20/matt-healy-of-the-1975-im-not-scared-of-myself-any-more.
