It seems that most pop musicians these days find a sound that works for them and stick to it. I don't know if it's because that's what their label wants, or because they don't believe it's necessary to keep trying new things if people already like what they are doing. But any time you turn on popular radio it is increasingly difficult to tell one singer from another.
I admit in many cases the policy of it ain't broke don't fix it is a good one. The desktop computer my wife and I have is a great example of that as we bought it in the year 2000, and have only added a better sound card and doubled the RAM. In the same time we've known people who've bought new systems on a regular basis, and watched as they have had to continually replace parts and spend the equivalent of another system in repair costs all because they've insisted on messing around with something that didn't need replacing in the first place.
But that philosophy doesn't apply when it comes to being creative. If you're serious about what you do then you need to be constantly experimenting with new ways of doing it or your work will get stale. When you consider the music business does not encourage risk taking or experimentation due to its dependence on the bottom line for existence, is it any wonder that the history of pop music is dotted with one-hit wonders? Folks who found a winning formula that worked once, but was allowed to go the way of the Dodo once they had been milked for what they could earn.
So when you're looking for examples of experimentation or risk taking in the field of contemporary music you need to look further a field than what you'd normally find on the Billboard top forty or signed to a major label. It used to be that individuals and groups unsigned by major labels, independents, were a source for most of this sound, but even they have been co-opted with the creation of music chart categories like "alternative" or "alt. Rock"
Now they have become just as formulized as any other chart oriented stream of popular music. The majority of the bands, or individuals, have all begun to sound alternative in exactly the same way, and what they call alternative is primarily just a revisiting of musical styles from earlier eras.
Article comments