FEATURE:
Everybody’s Happier Nowadays
PHOTO CREDIT: @hyingchou/Unsplash
Is Pop Music’s Recent Move Towards the Faster and Happier Here to Stay?
___________
ALTHOUGH this story broke a little while back…
PHOTO CREDIT: @kalvisuals/Unsplash
I have been thinking about modern Pop music and how it is changing. Last year, I bemoaned the relative lack of happiness in music and I asked why so many artists felt the need to be downcast and too self-absorbed when it came to their subject matter. Although there are plenty of depressive songs around at the moment, there is a split between sad bangers – songs that are sadder in terms of lyrics but have energy and a big sound – and tracks which are pretty optimistic and uplifting. This BBC article talks about the shift in tone of Pop, and what could be behind it:
“The outbreak of euphoria is as sudden as it is unexpected.
For the last few years, pop has been getting slower, as artists like Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish incorporate the leisurely cadences and rhythms of southern hip-hop and trap music into their songs.
Lyrics have taken a darker turn, too, with expressions of loneliness, fear and anxiety becoming increasingly common.
In 2017, a Californian mathematician called Natalia Komarova was so shocked by the negativity of the songs her daughter listened to, she decided to investigate.
The rise of the 'sad banger'
Using the research database AcousticBrainz - which allows you to examine musical properties like tempo, key and mood - she and her colleagues at the University of California Irvine examined half a million songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015.
PHOTO CREDIT: @laurenkashuk/Unsplash
Music journalist Charlie Harding, who hosts the Switched On Pop podcast, agrees there's been "an important psychological change" in people's listening habits.
"During moments of great distress, music provides hope. A pop song gives us permission to access joy, even when the world is burning.
"But music is more than just escapism. It can help us imagine a different way of life. Protest anthems motivate us to keep marching in the streets even when our feet are tired. Dance songs help us blow off steam at home, especially when we can't go dancing out on the town.
"This upbeat shift happened during the great depression and during World War Two. Once again we need sounds that help us forge a path to the world we want to live in, not the one we're inhabiting today".
I guess COVID-19 has shifted music in so many ways, and I was a bit worried that most artists would respond to the pandemic in a negative and deafest way. There is, again, some of that happening, but there is this movement towards something happier. Whilst modern music cannot match the catchiness and quality of the 1980s and 1990s – in my view -, it is heartening that Pop is, slowly, starting to turn towards the more positive. One of my favourite albums of the year so far is Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure?, and it splices Disco, Pop of the 1980s and modern-day sounds to tremendous effect! It is a brilliant album where one is lifted and motivated.
There are some serious and sadder moments, but Ware is showing that you can be personal and honest without being overly-morbid or serious. I think a lot of artists are seeing what is happening around them and, while it is hard to keep a smile or feel too hopeful about the future, maybe there is a sense that putting something positive and more fun into the world is a good way to spread something more joyous. I do not think that Pop as we know it will transform, and we will see this sort of return to a golden heyday. I do feel there is going to be a shift in the balance of the sad bangers/downbeat songs and the more colourful and sunnier. Pop music is at its best when it is broad and is not completely one-directional, so I feel the increase of happier songs, alongside Pop as we know it now, will do a lot of good. Many people have avoided modern Pop because it too unhappy. Modern artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, and The 1975 have put out albums this year that are not all-positive/happier, but there is something faster and more positive when you compare it to a lot of albums released last year. Maybe I am being too simplistic, but the report regarding a slightly more optimistic Pop sound is good news. I wonder where this will lead. As we move through 2020, I think the euphoria that has been coming out the last few months will continue but, when things slowly return to normal, will artists write Pop that is more introspective and a return to what we once knew? I don’t think that will be the case. I believe there will be a continuation of the Pop sound of now. So many people, myself included, listen to Pop of our childhood to get a burst of happiness and comfort, as we listen to what is coming now and it is hard to feel motivated. As modern Pop is increasing the serotonin and upping the pace, it will definitely…
PHOTO CREDIT: @cajugos/Unsplash
KEEP people tuned to the Pop music of the here and now.