An Obituary The Death of Modern Western Pop Music

It is with deep regret that I wish to inform you each of the untimely (but blatantly obvious) death of modern Western pop music.

Sadly, 'Pop' as it was fondly called was ailing for sometime, and no one appeared to notice when it finally bellied up.

'Pop music' was renowned for bringing us many great hits on the decades. check here of these 'hits' date as far back at the 1940s, and on the decades there were many memorable songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

One can even dare say that popular music from each age and from other parts of the world (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic) also have stood the best test of time, with the works of numerous composers being studied and performed to the very day.

But something strange happened from the dawn of the new millennium. At first none took any notice, but by the finish of another decade it had been painfully clear.

There is no innovation and originality anymore. Actually most artists, no matter musical category all began to sound the same, as if each one of these musical groups were being manufactured out of the same warehouse. It didn't matter if you were pop, dance, electronica, hip-hop or rock 'n roll (although I doubt the latter two will truly ensure it is onto a mainstream radio playlist), all music had the same flow, the same chord progression (I, V, vi, IV), the same breaks, dynamics, and virtually all the singers sounded exactly like one another.

It had been terribly formulaic. It had been too obvious not to notice, yet there were no cries for change.

Everyone appeared to be deaf from what was playing.

This writer believes the death was caused by three culprits, almost like the three legs of a good chair. But like other things after a while with deterioration, the legs of the musical chair started to rot, and there was no carpenter to repair the problem, so the legs became wobbly and the chair eventually collapsed.

The three legs were: Record Labels, Radio and the Artists themselves.

Record labels sprang up round the mid 1920s as a way to record, produce, market and distribute the music that was happening at that time. There were A&R departments (Artist&Repertoire) that sought out new talent and developed a roster of artists/groups that would 'sign' to that label and sell records to the buying public. But alas, the record execs became greedy and lazy over the years and also have all but stopped their A&R departments. The end result is, you being an artist, you gotta have it all, ready to go for a label to jump in on your own bandwagon. And website gotta be sell-able. If you are not cute, sexy, young or be hip with whatever gimmick is the latest trend, you then won't sell. It's that easy and crude. A label is only a bank now, and they want a great return on their investment. And the artist is the investment. The three main labels that are left now (because the others got swallowed up through the years) couldn't care any less about real music when compared to a bank cares about helping low-income earners get yourself a loan.

Next up: Radio.

In its' infancy, radio helped build a knowledge of a new, hip trendy music that has been taking the planet by storm. The first radio news broadcast occurred August 31, 1920 and shortly after music performances began to be aired. The new trendy music didn't have a name as yet, but all that was about to change.

America was sitting on a goldmine, and along with British kids, musicians took to the blues and jazz, mixed everything up and gave it their very own twist. The next thing you knew, Rock n Roll was created and the music of the late 1940s and 50s had spunk and VOLUME.

Rock n Roll brought music of the working man to very doorstep, it gave birth to numerous sub-genres - Heavy Metal, Indie, Alternative, Grunge, Shoe-Gaze and Pop music all owe their life to Rock n Roll. It's worthy to note that every sub-genre bore their own children, so we are able to say that Rock n Roll had many children and grandchildren.

To have a look at the children that Rock n Roll will leave behind (courtesy of Wikipedia, just head to Google).

But Jazz and Blues also had another offspring round the same time - R&B, a term sadly coined to differentiate music of African-American origin from Rock n Roll. Absurd and truly racist, nonetheless it is a term that 'stuck'.

Thus, Jazz and Blues leave behind two kids - R&B and Rock 'N Roll. Both had their fair share of radio airplay in the early days. Both kids helped to make Pop what it had been.

But as the story goes, there came along a thief - Payola.

Thanks to the labels, they made sure that the ONLY content on radio, was theirs. Soon mainstream radio was only paid advertising for a label. If you don't believe me, turn on any mainstream Top 40 station and leave it on for each day or two. The station will play a handful of songs at the very least about five times a day. So there's only a couple songs on radio for airplay? Never mind there are hundreds of thousands of musicians/artists/bands worldwide, only a couple of songs get played on mainstream radio.

Which brings us to Artists: it seems that most artists these days all want to be famous and rich (in the event that's even possible with the label and entertainment lawyers owning everything. And rather than writing anything of creative substance, most modern-day pop artists are out to create an instant hit. The word one-hit wonder can't apply to them because the terrible hits keep coming. They should re-name 'Artists' to 'Factory Clones' because in nearly every music genre there's a few that mostly sound/look exactly alike.

And then came along the worst part - the condition to end everything - Autotune (the device that made a terrible single a star)

Together, these three along with their man-made disease helped kill the pop music industry.

Sad that no one saw it coming, maybe something could've been done.

Nonetheless it is too late, and we now have are just the memories of when music used to mean something.

When we could remember a song from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.

But is it possible to remember any pop song from the new millennium?

I sure can't. And for the most part, I don't want to, it's that terrible.

Rest in peace Pop, we had fun for a time.

Francesco Emmanuel is a classically-trained guitarist who is madly in-love with the guitar. He teaches guitar for a full time income, so when he's not composing music for film/TV, he's off touring with Canadian world-beat group Kobo Town.