Popular Music: Aspects of Style
At the forefront of American popular culture is popular music. The word popular refers to individuals, activities, or culture that permeates a broad audience. Popular music as an American culture begun as early as 1855, but it was not until the 1930s, and 40’s that the term became a commercial success. Popular music is then defined as a genre of music that reaches a wide audience, deploys a repetitive rhythm, and uses electronic amplifiers for recording and production (Shukar 5). Categories of popular music include hip hop, rhythm and blues, metal, and electronic music. Herein, a brief dissection of popular culture and its cultural significance that relies on the use of technology and revolutionary intentions are explained. As helping aid, this paper uses American pop singer Katy Perry’s music to illustrate the cultural and social elements of popular music.
The predominant cultural theme in popular is the portrayal of emerging trends such as technology. Pop the for the longest time, through its evolution, has often deployed diversity in its production, making it the most common music genre ©. For instance, from 2000, the hot 100 has changed its frequency styles in popular music. Perry’s ‘fireworks,’ which earned number on the Billboards in 2011, was Popular music today focuses on the evolution of music topics such as relationships and social issues afflicting Using emerging trends to create popular music, which is essential because it contributes to the commercial success of that project. With social media platforms, political discourses can be discussed with a broader target audience. For instance, Katy’s political economy has been close-knitted with popular mass media as early as 1977 (Shukar11). As such, a capitalist system of production has ensured that popular music sells emerging trends through visual-audio recording and production for wide-base consumer targeting. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Popular Music: Aspects of Style
Pop culture encompasses a cultural aspect that is linked to the pervasive nature of technology use in pop culture works. For instance, for vocal performances, pop artists mostly use autotune and melody to create a harmonic, vibration like voice. For aesthetic value, pop music uses Technological productions such as recording studios to create commercially liable music. For instance, Fireworks use electronic contraptions to create a repetitive pattern of ‘intro, verse, and hook and chorus’ that fluctuate with the frequency that can be only be produced by technological adaptations. Lastly, popular music is linked with political inclusions that border on the concept of revolution to reach a wider audience (Mauch, MacCallum, Levy, & Leroi 3). For instance, studies show that between 1991, 1964, and 1983, popular music underwent a revolution that comprises rock and soul elements (Shuker 6). Perry’s music often fluctuates from love songs to electronic pop, such as ‘Utopia.’ The one that got away (2015), to electronic songs, for instance, ‘unconditional’ to ‘swish which can be classified as urban pop music.
Popular music as Katy Perry’s belong to a genre of music referred to popular music secular rhythm and blues. While Katy does not hold a consistent follow up in her recent albums, it is correct to mention the two main characteristics of this genre of music. One there, there is the inclusion of technology in its production. Janssen and Bennett assert that technologically mediated texts bring forth cultural resonance that aligns with the needs of the millennials. In any case, the use of such technologies garners more audience. Another characteristic stem from the use of repetitive sections of the song like the chorus. For instance, ‘fireworks’ uses a repetitive work phenomenon that uses ‘hyper-compressed’ rhythm and fills. Pop music, as a genre, is believed to have evolved from Britain. Archives from the British Library Sound Archive show that The Beetles’ I want to hold your hand in 1963′ is among the first British popular songs. From here pop music spread to America where the evolution of its styles has been rampant to other parts of the world
An extension of popular music from rhythm and blues is the 1950’s rock and roll. According to Rolling stone, the first pioneers of rock and roll music, such as Fats Dominoes, solely described rock and roll as nothing ‘but pure rhythm and blues.’ The distinguishing feature of this popular music genre is the heavy instruments such as the electric guitar, piano, and even drums that are widely used today. The electric guitar replaced the saxophone. The second distinguishing element of rock and roll is the Cultural Revolution that is observed in the context. Rock and roll have and continue to serve as a multi-ethnic performance that focuses on cultural and social issues such as talks about sex, politics, and wars.
For a typical pop music performance, the emphasis is placed on the need to address emerging trends such as technological inclusion. For popular music, technological revamps are important in feigning old emotions of neglect and abandonment (B.O Music Production paragraph 6). For instance, Perry’s 2015 ‘roar’ uses computer-generated imagery of a tiger to imitate the predictive text ‘roar.’ The inclusion of technology in the production of this type of music attracts the digital age making it a trend. Two, performance that elicits a ‘free-to-dance’ type of beat in the popular culture
Conclusion
The popular music culture, although dynamic in structure and what it sells, remains a genre of music that will never cease to exist. Because it bases its production of emerging trends through music, its cultural, social, and political impact that this music genre on the general population will be lasting. Because popular music has extensions such as electronic pop and rock and roll, popular media capitalism, coupled with the proliferation of today’s electronic technology, makes it still the most sought out music genre. In any case, the revolutionary causes of culture and politics that come wrapped with popular music is one that should not be downplayed as it shows new trends.