Evolution

People of my age have seen the various periods of music pass us by. We survived the bubblegum pop/boyband era, the emo and obsessed with death period, and now we’re in the pop-rock era with bands singing about high school and hook-ups and making out.

Min Jie said once that songs in the past used to be made of sappy love songs, especially the songs by boybands in the pop era that was dominated by British bands (Spice Girls, Westlife, Boyzone etc.) And now everything’s all about promiscuity and sex.

The pop songs of yesteryear take us back to our childhood, with groups like Spice Girls, Westlife, Backstreet Boys, A1, N*Sync, A*Teens, Bardot, All Saints…  To put things in perspective, they were the money-making machines of record labels. But no longer. Mention any of these groups nowadays and you’ll get laughed at for saying you like any of them. That’s kind of what I endure for liking Westlife.

As Bob Lefsetz says “If you're a pop act, you're screwed.  Because no one thinks your albums are any good.  Despite a few exceptions, most people believe the touring rock acts, who've been at it for years, are the ones creating a body of work that is worth owning and investigating.  The pop single is an evanescent artifact.  It's hard to reap huge financial rewards on evanescent artifacts.  In other words, the web might kill the pop star.  Video killed the rock star and replaced him with a pop star, the web is bringing the rock star back.  Someone who knows how to play, who you bond with based on his music and identity as opposed to his looks and his hired creative posse is positioned well for the future.”

Well, next came the onslaught of bands that were obsessed with death, suicide, slitting wrists and all things black that took its roots here in 03-06. I’m talking about bands like My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte, Green Day, and Yellowcard who jumped on the bandwagon waaay too late. Green Day is a long-standing rock band, and to a lesser degree, Good Charlotte is too. It might have started with The Chronicles of Life and Death by Good Charlotte, though I would be biased in saying that since I’m a huge fan of that album, but anyway, MCR burst onto the scene with Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge with songs like Helena. And American Idiot by Green Day came along and fuelled the already full-on punk rock movement obsessed with death. Just as it was dying out, Yellowcard came along with their third album Paper Walls. And the video for the first single “Light Up The Sky” was filled with all things black and burning. Of course, the album failed miserably here, but not in the USA. It was up there in iTunes as one of the most popular albums.

Then came Fall Out Boy, and Pete Wentz declared they were an emo band. No idea why their music is emo, certainly doesn’t seem so to me. They only gained popularity here with their album From Under the Cork Tree, with the first single “Sugar We’re Going Down”. Their first few albums were still filled with that raw pop-punk energy that was new. And after that came the more slick and polished album, Infinity on High. Obviously it contained some hits written for the charts, and of course, people lapped it up. Fall Out Boy was still new at that time.

But listening to their earlier albums like Take This To The Grave, their sound has totally evolved. From the raw sounds of a band developing, still filled with zest and youthful energy to the slightly matured and slick sounds that reflect the gaining of full-fledged celebrity status.

And Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz decided to help some bands along, so then came along The Academy Is…, Panic at the Disco, Paramore, Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes, Hey Monday. These are just a few of the bands on the Fueled By Ramen/Decaydance label. There are other pop-punk-electronica-indie-alternative (genres no longer define types of music, everyone’s “breaking boundaries”) bands on other labels as well, like We The Kings, All Time Low, Cash Cash… These bands are gaining large numbers of fans every day and with every venue they play. Their fans are made up of mostly people in their late teens, definitely still made up of many people still in high school. I admit, I’m guilty of liking many of these bands, especially the FBR ones. Which kind of shows I’m a sucka as well.

So while the older teens are getting into pop-punk bands, the pubescent early teens are mainly into the JoBros, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miranda Cosgrove, just to name a few. And I don’t wish to say any more lest I puke. And the number of haters to these “celebrities” are growing every day as I write.

So, where are we headed from here? Where is 2010 going to take us? The face of music changes every year, or even in the span of a few months. Soon enough, people my age will be too old to keep up, and we’ll be standing in the dust of forgotten songs and one-hit wonders.

P.S. I have not mentioned R&B/Hip-Hop because that is one genre that I concede defeat to, a genre that I cannot bear filling my music library with. (I got the latest BEP cd, and after listening to it once, I gave up trying to like it). Which is surprising, considering my library consists of the wide variety of good classic oldies (Beatles) from Min Jie, the mainstream, popular, and indie songs from Amanda Sun and a few of the songs that come from Jia Long’s bizarre Symphonic Metal-only library.