Pop is dead
June 26th, 2009 Martti RoittoOn 25th June 2009, Michael Jackson, the undisputed King of Pop, was found in a coma at his Bel-Air mansion and later pronounced dead after a CPR-filled ambulance trip to the hospital. I hope this morbid event touches every single one music fan out there so that we may finally put to rest the bland and dull disfigurement of ars musica called “pop”.
Sure enough, there have been excellent pop artists in the history of pop – and there still are. The rather extensive genre of popular music is, of course, generally well-liked by definition, and many pop icons have certainly showed some extraordinary talent becoming somewhat immortal in the eyes of the common folk.
Such is not the case with present-day popular music. Since some asshat decided to make money-making the prime directive of record companies, true talent has often been left in the gutter in the favor of generic, caricatyral copies of pop icons – some existing only as trademarks proudly waving the flags of the recording giants owning them. Since the dawn of digital recording, the world has seen endless armies of covers and remixes of tried and true hit songs including, but not limited to: annoying animal singers the likes of Crazy Frog, the Smurfs, MIDI string orchestras, b-class tabloid stars and even politicians, TV talent show stars and overproduced celebrity musicians (featuring Antares Auto-Tune™)… the list is inarguably endless.
Pop music, all the pre-90’s music that was really liked by everyone, has become a product. It’s more profitable to manufacture pure garbage, put it out under a nice brand and advertise it enough to fool a percentage of the population into buying absolute bullshit in a jewel case than to actually find genuinely fresh expression. And don’t even get me started about the loudness war.
As of 25.6.2009, pop is officially dead.