‘Popular’ Music

Popular medicament is the broadest and as the name would suggest most prevalent genre of music today. The term Popular Music was world-class used in the 19th century only it is the twentieth century that has seen the most developments in popular music. , the technology it uses and the media it is conveyed in The start of Pop Music is mainly thought to have been in the 1950s with the advent of Rock n Roll. This is when music was first really brought to a mass audience watching on television.By the cobblers last of the 1950s over half the population owned a television. Millions to a greater extent than at the start of the decade. Popular tidy sums were made popular because they were being brought to the masses. The 1960s saw a broadening in popular music with TV shows such as Top of The Pops showing a selection of hits from the top 40 of the singles graph. This use of the media brought most styles of music that were popular to a mass audience. Later in the 1970s and 80s pop maga zines were introduced. Some such as Smash Hits were aimed at the younger early teen end of the mart while others such as NME or New Musical Express were aimed at older more refined music fans to popular music. The late 1980s saw a flurry of new popular music magazines, many of which are still popular today, rock magazine Kerrang being a leading example. I debate that the 1990s has seen a dumbing-down of some magazines such as Smash Hits . Now aimed at an even younger possibly pre-teen audience it is little more than a promotional vehicle for the groups and artists represented in its pages.The featured groups in these magazines are often from a new sub-genre that has developed from the 1980s to instantly and is known as the manufactured band. In recent years the idea of manufactured bands or artists has been embraced into the reality TV format with shows such as Pop Idol showing the development of a band or artist live on TV. I believe this innovation has been bad for music in gen eral as the top 40 chart is now flooded with either reality TV winners, reality TV losers or artists who have gone through a similar process but have non been televised in doing so.In recent years music television has risen to the fore as a major part of an artists success. When MTV was launched in the early 80s who could have thought that the music video would set about the phenomenon it now is. Artists spend millions of pounds and hundreds of hours making sure their video is just right. In the early twenty-first century there are now over 20 music channels showing every thing from rock to rap, from classical to teen pop. merely nowadays all artists videos are so good that the music video seems to have gone full circle and now the music is more historic again.In the pop music industry there have been thousands of innovations over the years but no genre has surpassed the sub genre of rap for innovational ideas. Originating from street corners where young black males would battl e against each other using lyrics rap is now a multi-billion pound industry with the leading players earning vast fortunes. Rap has for certain come a long commission since its humble beginnings. The 1980s were a massive decade of innovation for rap, a genre that had begun in the 70s. the start of the 80s rappers were still using manual mixers to combine beats and mix tracks in the way that has become a hallmark of rap. By 1990 rappers were using digital mixers to blend beats more harmoniously. The result a more clear-cut sound that has perhaps made rap the music of the 90s. Pop music has come a long way since it begun in the 1950s. Technology and the media have perhaps had as larger part in pop musics success than the music itself. However I believe the media has become too involved nowadays by creating stars themselves while not playing other artists music.After all popular music should be about the music not making things popular. However there is one dark cloud that looms ove r the organisations that run the music industry such as record labels and the media. The Internet. Technology has now come so far that music files can now be swapped over the Internet through such software such as Napster or Kazaa. Now when a teenager hears a song he or she likes on the radio they dont rush to the record store. They rush to their computer. It is not just teenagers either. Millions of adults frustrate in this type of music piracy every day.Even though they are ripping off the very artists they love. I believe however that the bother is not with the designers of Kazaa or with the mountain who are downloading it. After all millions of people use these services, law abiding ordinary people. The reason for this I believe is because people see record companies as big faceless corporations who dont really care about music or people, just making money. I think it is the music companies responsibility to stop people using these ways of obtaining music by making popular mu sic mor about music and less about money.