The very notion of "popular" music is evolving before our eyes and ears. The appeal of a catchy tune hasn't changed, but we are no longer the mass audience we were during most of the 20th century. Hence, massively popular hit songs are becoming fewer and farther between. We go off by ourselves and listen to new music that appeals to us individually. But when we get together in large numbers we keep using the old songs, over and over again.
Two recent observations have reinforced for me the idea that as a society we are coming to experience and use pop music very differently than we did during what I am starting to think of as the "golden age" of recorded music.
1. I'm at a college hockey game. What do you think they are playing over the P.A. to get the fans excited for the home team's appearance on the ice? A new song by the Foo Fighters? Something off Jay-Z's new hit album? Guess again. It's "Won't Get Fooled Again," a 36-year-old track by The Who. And what does the pep band play in the stands during a pause in the action? "Jungle Boogie," by Kool & The Gang, from 1973.
2. I'm watching TV. A commercial comes on for some baby product or other. The music: Steppenwolf's 1968 hit, "Born to be Wild." Too much time has gone by for it to be meant as a nostalgic appeal to the parents; this music predates the formative years of most of today's baby-mommies and baby-daddies. It's simpler than that: "Born To Be Wild" is a song just about everyone knows, whatever your age.
If you had told me, back in the 1970s when I was in high school, that the records my friends and I were playing at our parties would still be supplying the theme songs for sporting events - and college sports, at that - three decades in the future, I'd have said you were nuts. After all, 30 years before my musically formative period, big band swing and Frank Sinatra were all the rage, and no one was listening to that any more (except "old" folks experiencing nostalgia). As a rule we didn't appreciate, or even like, the music of one or two generations back.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - Donald Gibson
I don't think listeners are as dependant on big hits now, in the sense that we seek out our own favorite music whether it's popular or not. If I just listened to the radio and had no other means to know any better, I'd have never even known that Springsteen has an album out now.
When I was a kid, I used to listen every Sunday morning to Kasey Kasem's top 40 countdown and that's where I found out what was popular (and then I'd hound my parents to buy those records).
I think digital music and satellite radio have widened the means for discovering music so much that there really isn't a focal point anymore for a mass audience to converge.
-Donald
2 - Mark Saleski
really great stuff jon. there's no doubt this is what has happened...and also why the major labels can no longer count on "the big bang" to stay in business.
3 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Great Article...
I would have to agree with Donald $ add to it by saying that FM Radio did themselves in with their focus on money & not musicianship or talent. I personally think it the consumers fault as well.People are hooked on image & status as opposed to melody,harmony,[again] musicianship & talent.
I noticed w/"Rock",nowadays, the production is focused on the vocals & not the instruments. The band can play your basic 4/4 shite & it still gets high marks on Billboard. Even then, alot of these "Vocalists" can't reproduce in a live setting.
So, with the introduction of Satellite Radio & an abundance of internet music sites(legal or illegal),Plus all the independant record labels, FM doesn't have the legs to stand on anymore.
Thus,imo, the reason for "No more [real] Hits".
4 - JC Mosquito
I think you basically got it dead on in your article. But as an alternative thought, maybe it's just perhaps that our collective consciousness can only hold so many "megahits"/"megabits" and we need a memory dump to open the way for a fresh generation of music for...well, music for everyone, I suppose.
But I dunno - there's at least a few of the rock heroes of our youth now relegated to fogey status - aren't there?
5 - Joanne Huspek
Music has morphed into a business, so they take the catchiest, prettiest, or most bizarre and have them put out a CD.
I think the death of music was the day Carly Simon sold the rights for "Anticipation" and it became a ketchup anthem.
These are the bad old days.
6 - El Bicho
music has always been a business