When I turn on the radio, it triggers an immediate gag reflex. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Our generation’s mainstream music scene is pathetic. In part, we could blame the changes in the way music is produced. But by and large we are the ones responsible for Meghan Trainor’s unfortunate fame.
As I write this, OMI’s Cheerleader is the #1 song on iTunes, which might be the worst song of the decade (in my humble opinion). But the trouble isn’t that the music is annoying, it’s that the popular artists have no real connection to their music. Many mainstream artists, granted not all, don’t make their own music anymore. These artists aren’t attached to their music like they used to be because they aren’t given the opportunity to truly be artists.
Because there is no real relationship between the musician and the music, the top songs lack depth.
Current mainstream music is fairly lighthearted, but it was once powerful and influential. In the ’60s, Woodstock Music Festival was a political movement that went down in history. John Lennon’s “Imagine” is widely considered one of the most influential songs of all time. In 3 minutes, he discusses complex social and political issues like war, religion, hunger and world peace.
Aside from Macklemore’s “Same Love” and a few others, popular songs that influence the masses don’t exist in our era.
We have also robbed ourselves of the fundamental concert experience.
No one buys albums anymore. Most people listen to music via Spotify or Youtube; people don’t want to pay to listen to music. Fans used to wait in line outside record stores on the day an album was released, because they wanted to be the first to hear it. The Internet allows music fans to hear an album for free, so there is no reason to pay for a physical copy. This means artists have to charge more for concert tickets to make up for that loss in revenue.
It costs a pretty penny to see your favorite artists live these days, especially if it’s a popular artist. We’ve normalized paying a hundred dollars to sit in a stadium with binoculars trying to see Ed Sheeran’s face for an hour. Concerts used to be an experience. It might cost fewer than ten dollars to see the biggest bands of the time. The value of a dollar may have been greater, but it’s still amazing that you could see The Rolling Stones for the price of a movie ticket today.
But the shows weren’t just cheaper, they were more passionate too. Artists were connected to their music in a unique way. They interacted with the crowd and they put on a show. Current artists don’t perform the same way.
In May, I saw Courtney Love and Lana Del Ray play at the same concert. The two artists should not have shared a headline, because their styles were vastly different.
Courtney Love came to the stage as any true 90s artist would: absolutely wasted.
She took the stage nearly an hour late, screamed profanities and sounded like the 50-year-old ex-heroin addict and tragedy that she is — but she put on a show. She interacted with her audience, while Lana Del Ray didn’t speak at all. Del Ray was well rehearsed, but not nearly as exciting. Her voice sounded much better, but she was uninteresting in comparison to Love. Del Ray was a carefully curated image juxtaposed with Love’s energy and strife.
My generation’s popular music scene disappoints me.
We’ve lost the authenticity of mainstream music. When we turn on the radio, we hear a lighthearted ballad or an electronic song that simulates a seizure. These artists might influence the music industry, but they don’t influence the masses. I hope that in my lifetime true performers take the charts by storm like they used to.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.