12 16th, 2008| 
I’m a 23 year-old male, and I spend a lot of time in bars. If you’re anywhere within the ages of 18 and 35, then you can probably relate to the following: you go to a bar that has either a band or a dj, and without really understanding why, by the end of the night you find yourself screaming along, at the top of your lungs, to some ‘classic’ like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” or “Don’t Stop Believin’.” And if that’s true, then you probably fall into one of two mindsets: Either,
A) you looooove 80’s music and love wailing ‘just a city boyyyy!’ at the top of your lungs, or
B) you grudgingly drink until you’d yell just about anything, and scream along with the lyrics because hey, why not, everyone’s doing it?
I place myself firmly in category B, and my friends have all heard my (often drunken) ‘why the hell does everyone love 80’s music so much?’ rant. But that’s not what this post is about. Not exactly. (I encourage someone smarter and more interested than I am to probe the murky depths of my generation’s fascination with 80’s one-hit-wonders.)
No, the true source of my anger / disappointment / resigned acceptance is the death of shared pop music. As Major Record Labels make layoffs and Radio Stations lose market share the pop market is effected in 2 major ways:
- There are fewer ‘huge bands’ that sell millions of records (e.g. Coldplay, Britney Spears, etc.) so that the market dissipates, and artists at the end of the long tail gain more market share, and
- Said ‘huge bands’ no longer reach mass audiences on the airwaves.
And now, a quick anecdote: Back in the late 90’s, my friends and I used to come home from school every day and watch the now defunct TRL. It was a far cry from great television, and its audience generally lost interest sometime after the age of 13, but it was a crucial part of the cultural zeitgeist. I remember when Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” video came out, largely because it was around the same time my libido went into hyperdrive, but also because it was everywhere, all the time. And that’s the point: TRL’s top 10 may not have been populated by the ‘best’ music, but virtually every song on that countdown was a huge radio and commercial hit. Which meant that everyone my age knew “…Baby One More Time” and all the other mega-smash hits that bombarded our airwaves.
But that rarely happens anymore. And it will happen less and less in the coming years, as the market continues to splinter and diversify. TRL has gone off the air, MTV plays virtually no music, radio stations are already cementing their playlists in the 80’s and 90’s, and the old machines of pop mass-marketing are headed for extinction. Which means that the number of shared pop songs will continue to diminish as well. Oh, the Britney Spears’ of the world will continue making music, but now you won’t hear that fresh new single everywhere you go. Which brings me back to those drunken nights where I wear out my vocal chords to some song I don’t even like.
Most bars, like most radio stations, play songs with the most mass appeal. There are niche, corner bars that play whatever they want, or that let patrons take over the jukebox, but for the most part, bar playlists are a collection of what’s ‘hot’ and what’s ‘popular among drunk people.’ So you have your Top 40 hits (Flo Rida, anyone?), and your old classics (Journey, natch).
Now, I understand that as the host of a so-called indie music blog, I’m at the extreme of the “Top 40 vs. Indie/Smaller Band” spectrum. But this effects us all, people. It is entirely possible that in 10 years, there won’t be any Top 40 left, or if there is, it will be a hollow shell of its former already-pretty-hollow self.
So there will be virtually no shared-experience pop music, but bars still have to play something that appeals to the majority of their audience. And when the Flo Rida’s of the world fail to reach critical mass, the bars will simply resort to the old zeitgeist. Which means (drumroll please)…We will be listening to “Don’t Stop Believin’” in bars for the rest of our lives.
Happy Holidays!
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Tags: Britney Spears, Death of Shared Pop, Don't Stop Believin', Essayin', Journey
