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Popular Music & The Influence Of Technology

Throughout the history of popular music, there has been occasions, time and time again, that a particular artist or group manages to do something which is a technological landmark within the music industry. A selection of these songs have been chosen to feature on our ‘Landmarks of Technology’ CD for this weeks publication of ‘Technology Today.’

 

The first song on our CD is that of an English alternative rock-band, who in the late 90’s gained much publicity, from the controversy surrounding this song. The song is (quite ironically titled, as to what happens after the release and controversy of this song) ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ by The Verve. The song was released on 16^th June 1997, reaching number 2 in the UK singles chart. The song is, however, now credited to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones after the charges that the song was plagiarized from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of, ‘The Last Time.’

 

The Verve had agreed to contract allowing them to sample the song for their own use, however it was argued that too much of the sample was used as the foundation of the song. The lyrics were wrote by The Verve’s singer, and more layers were played on top of the sample - although parts of the sample, such as the violin, were highly prominent in the final mix of ‘Bittersweet Symphony.’

 

This type of sampling has gone on to become a rather popular use of technology in today’s music, especially within Pop and R&B music, with songs such as, quite possibly Kanye West’s biggest hit, ‘Stronger.’ Just like that of ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ the song is created around the sample of another song (Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’). The difference however is that the French house duo, Daft Punk, received writing credits for the song and actually had their costumes appear in the music video for Kanye West’s song. The reason behind this has to be that legal battles, such as the one with ‘Bittersweet Symphony,’ has helped the music industry learn and prevent them from making the same mistakes as others before them.

 

The second song to make it into our CD is ‘Sleep Now in the Fire,’ by a band that are infamous for their protests and the manner in which they do so, Rage Against the Machine. The reason for choosing this particular song isn’t really anything to do with the song at all – it’s to do with the music video for the song, shot on 26^th January 2000, the location, the New York Stock Exchange (Wall Street, NY). The video shoot actually caused the doors of the New York Stock Exchange to close, although not actually counting as a closure due to trading continuing on one of the floors. A few were actually detained by police, including Michael Moore the director, with a threat of being arrested, despite the band having a federal permit to perform (for their vide). The lyrics in the song do, however, relate to why the video was shot where it was. They refer to greed, for example the US slavery in the 19^th Century, as well as criticising the US government’s actions during wartime.  There is also a clip of sound from a Korean radio that was picked up on Morello’s (lead guitarist) amp.

 

It is not uncommon for musicians to use songs as forms of protest, such as Bob Marley. As a philosopher, the majority of Bob Marley’s songs had some kind of meaning, for example ‘Get up, Stand Up. This song is the official fight song of Amnesty International, and was actually relating to a Rastafarian belief: “that the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I (Ras Tafari) was God incarnate.”

 

Woodstock, is quite possibly the most famous music festival to ever grace the planet, which is why for the third song I made the obvious choice of Jimi Hendrix’s hit ‘Hey Joe.’ Jimi Hendrix was the last performer of the original Woodstock, and ‘Hey Joe’ was the last song of the original Woodstock.  During a time of conflict, the Vietnam War, and ‘racial discord’ in the US, the Woodstock festival took on such a huge role as a venue of ‘peace’ and ‘love.’ A meaning far beyond what was originally intended, the festival became a mass group of people, all living together in harmony, where minds were free and drugs were used. The atmosphere of the entire event was what many strive to recreate worldwide, with other mass events such as Live Aid.

 

“If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter ad more peaceful future.”

(Max Yasgur, the owner of the site the event was held upon)

 

Finally, in complete contrast to the last song I’ve chosen a song by a band that is often referenced to when talking about this particular genre/fashion. It was a big clique in the Mid-00’s, known as ‘emo’ or ‘scene’ and the band I’m talking about is My Chemical Romance. The band was often an idol or icon to the teenagers who followed the trends set by My Chemical Romance, which is why I decided to feature the song ‘Teenagers’ for the final song of the CD. Teenagers and young adults idolise their favourite pop star and look up to them in terms of behaviour, interests and, of course, fashion. Obviously people prefer to be around others of similar interests hence the reason the social groups form and stick. It’s surprising that something like music can influence people’s choice in friends.

 

My Chemical Romance is often associated to the clique known as ‘emo,’ as stated before. The way they dress and look reflects on the social group that idolise this rock band. In the videos for the first two singles released from My Chemical Romance’s third studio album, the entire band are seen wearing a black military style jacket with white parts on them. Within no time at all, stores were taking advantage of the way music affects society by selling this style jacket. It’s no surprise this jacket sold well as stated before, social groups want to dress like their musical idols. The most amazing thing is, the way a music artist expresses themselves with their music, also affects how society act and think. Groups of people not only dress like the person but can often act like them too. It’s trends like these that some artists and bands take advantage of when song writing/recording their next album by using techniques to appeal to their target audience.

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.