So, I recently read Seamus Duff's blog post on Metro UK's site; “After Lady Gaga’s Applause fails to hit the top stop: Has
Britain got bored of pop music?" and felt he'd missed a few points so I decided to write down my thoughts. You can read Seamus's original piece here
Pop music is defined by David Hatch and Stephen Millward,
authors of From Blues to Rock: An Analytical History of Pop Music as “a body of
work which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk music”. Pop music can be described as a different genre
which is primarily aimed at a younger market and can often be considered a
softer alternative to rock and roll. Based on this we can assume that
throughout your blog post you’re referring to pop music as a separate genre;
however it’s fair to assume that music can be considered pop by the mass appeal
it receives upon release.
First of all I’d like to point out that Lady Gaga rushed the
release of her new single “Applause” based on a leak of the track, this will
have no doubt damaged the sales of her track as there was a free alternative to
buying the track, therefore reducing her sales and chances of hitting the top
spot of the charts.
You also mention One Direction not making the top spot with
their release “Best Song Ever” and describing the effort as “the most shocking
flop yet”. In the first 24 hours of this song going on music video website VEVO
the video was viewed 12.3 million times setting a new record for most views on
day one, I don’t think this could be considered a flop by any stretch of the
imagination. Love them or loathe them they’re a force to be reckoned with.
One Direction was held off of the top spot by Swedish
producer Avicii with “Wake Me Up”, this song was knocked from the top spot by
Miley Cyrus with “We Can’t Stop”, a pop track itself.
In reality it’s easy to see how the music world is changing,
artists no longer need to make it to the top spot to be considered successful, and
money is made from other endeavours by both the artists and their management,
for example US alternative hip-hop/rap collective Odd Future.
If you’re not familiar to them I’ll fill you in a little,
Odd Future are a controversial rap collective from the United States, notable
artists including Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean all going
on to have successful solo careers. In the beginning of their career the group
would give their music away as free downloads using sites such as Myspace and
Tumblr, their income was generated by pop up stores selling handmade
merchandise at premium prices. While having little to no commercial success
with any single releases from their albums yet still making money.
While pop music may not be making as much of a splash in the
charts as it once did it’s still a hugely important style of music to a lot of
fans, you mention Lady Gaga having 40 million plus followers on Twitter, this
is irrelevant to the UK top 40 as its 40 million worldwide, record sales from
outside the UK have no impact on the charts. Services such as VEVO are highly
lucrative to artists and incredibly important based on the decline of music
sales, artists have to evolve and change their operations to keep up.
While I find your blog post to be a fascinating observation
of the current state of the music industry I have to respectfully disagree,
while established artists may not being hitting the top spot Britain has
definitely not got bored of pop music, unfortunately it is here to stay.
