1990's Manufactured Pop Assignment

In a nutshell, Manufactured Pop of the 1990’s is nothing more than puppets and puppeteers. The pop bands of the 90’s were those created by clever minds, such as Simon Cowell & Simon Fuller (the brains behind acts such as Five, Spice Girls & S Club 7), to take the pop charts by storm. Unlike most bands of previous generations and various other genre’s of music, the majority of pop bands came together through auditions, advertised in magazines & newspapers, with a record contract waiting for them if they were successful (the mother of the now multi-million pound industry of reality TV talent shows such as X-Factor & American Idol).

The Spice Girls, one of the biggest selling female groups of the 90’s, are the perfect example of manufactured pop. The group had nine UK & US #1 singles, their first album ‘Spice’ is the best selling album, by a female group, of all time (23 million sales worldwide) and have sold over 55 million records worldwide. They were referred to as the pioneers of pop sub-genre, ‘Teen Pop.’ The lyrics to a various number of their songs, most famously their debut single ‘Wannabe,’ speak a feminist message throughout, talking of choosing friends over boys & relationships, making The Spice Girls an instant icon, and in some cases spokesperson, for what was to become known, in that society, as Girl Power. Although the lyrics were purposely written, with an intended purpose to relate to young teenage girls of the 90’s, the style of the song was a perfect example of the type of music the teens of the 90’s wanted to hear, up-tempo, hip-hop/RnB, dance music.

Unlike many of the previous manufactured pop acts, The Spice Girls, introduced idea’s that have influenced the business side of pop acts today. Although seen previously, but never before in manufactured pop, The Spice Girls shared the songwriting credits evenly throughout, regardless of who had more to do with the song and who had less, in terms of the writing of the song.

On the other-side of the pond, inspired by the first manufactured boy-band New Kids on the Block (1980’s), The Backstreet Boys were formed as a cleaner, younger version of NKOTB. Even before the line-up was decided on, through the usual process of auditions, the band had already had $3.5million spent on them, with much more being spent to launch their career.

“Comprised entirely of white middle-class Americans, the group sang a hybrid of new jack balladry, hip-hop, R&B, and dance club pop”

The sound of The Backstreet Boys was typical of the scene which was growing and growing towards the turn of the 21st Century. Just like the Spice Girls, their songs consisted of simple, repetitive music, accompanied by catchy lyrics and memorable hooks relating to the lives of, typically, teenagers.

Unlike genres of music such as Britpop, Grunge, and Synth-pop, manufactured pop music of the 1990’s ranged massively from song to song in terms of instrumentation. Songs such as N*Sync’s debut effort, ‘I Want You Back’ consisted of, strings, piano, drums, guitar, bass, other sound effects and of course vocals, which was the most common instrumentation for the songs but could range from a full orchestra to vocals and simply a piano or guitar. Although manufactured pop range massively in terms of instrumentation, they are usually simple in terms of consistent rhythmic elements, such as a constant drum-beat (for the duration of the entire song), and a traditional structure, sometimes using the semitone key-change (actually made famous by manufactured pop of the 1990’s). In manufactured pop, the main focus is on the melody of the vocal lines, often using a 4/5 piece harmony, with catchy, memorable hooks. Although the same music is used often for the verse and choruses the vocal line is the definition of the two sections using contrasting melodies, in terms of rhythm and harmonically.

Although the main audience for manufactured pop are teenagers and young adults, the intended purpose for manufactured pop was to appeal to the biggest market possible, everyone. The common use of basic instrumentation was there for a reason, which was to allow many different people to enjoy the sound.

With manufactured pop, there are so many different influences’ going into one genre that it is difficult to narrow it down to just the one main influence. The whole point to manufactured pop is to create the best of what is popular now. The bands worked with the best producers, the best songwriters and the best management teams who know what people want to hear. In the 1990’s dance music was becoming extremely popular, so combined with the best vocal talents auditions could find, bands were being created to go with a simple but catchy dance tune to create a number one hit. The success of this method was so great that it has influenced manufactured pop of the 21st Century. The biggest manufactured pop bands today, such as McFly, take elements of what is popular now (guitar-based, rock music) and combine it with the song writing techniques used by successful songwriters of the 1990’s to create top hits. The reformation of the 90’s pop-bands today has been hugely successful, especially in Take That’s case, where they have changed their sound to be successful with the music that is popular today. Not only did Manufactured Pop of the 90’s have a massive influence on pop today, it also directly led to some of the most successful musicians of this decade, such as Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

The success behind Manufactured Pop of the 1990’s is no shock when it comes down to all the behind the scenes work. The way the bands are purposely moulded into what they appear to be, starting from the very beginning of auditions up until their very last release, is that of intelligent minds. Taking the best elements of the most popular scenes at the current time is a clear way to make millions and to make the most successful pop band possible. The combination of massive budgets, world famous song writers, the best management teams, and the best voices auditions could find, is truly the biggest success story of the 1990’s. Manufactured Pop was and probably still is the highest earning, most popular music genre (in terms of success) of the last 20, and quite possibly the last 50 years.