This Is Pop Music

Transcription

Here's an idea you might enjoy pop music because you can't get away from it. Okay, before I even start saying the stuff I wanna make one thing exceptionally clear and that is: I love me some pop music. I'm not gonna say that I definitely know all the words to Katy Perry's "Roar", but I've got the eye I of the tiger, a fighter I'm dancing through the fire. But objectively I think we can all agree that there are some songs in the pop music canon that are played with frequency. There's even a sometimes unshakable feeling that Rhianna or Lorde or Mr. Timberlake are following you. At first maybe you're like, "Alright, this is a new song," which after a while could become, "Okay, I get it," but before long that might evolve into, "And we'll never be royals" And it's all over. They got you. You know the words, you're gonna sing along when it's on, and oh hey look the single's the only 99 cents on iTunes! Perfect. Then it's just a matter of not pulling a Macarena and saturating the universe so completely that even a few notes of it can send people into a boundless rage. Now, the second most impressive thing about this whole arrangement, assuming that the first most impressive thing is the writing of a song that is worthy of such an effort is the aligning of Glob knows how many forces to make sure that no matter where you go you know that you shine bright like diamonds in the sky. Of course we'd like to believe that the songs we constantly hear are played so often because we the music buying public have decided it should be so. That through record sales and downloads and whatever else we've all, or at the very least a large and representative group of us have agreed and dereed, 'yes Miley Cyrus everywhere please.' But it might not be so simple. It turns out to be a kind of chicken-and-the-egg problem that lots of art forms deal with, but which has been exemplified by music. That problem is knowing how much music is worth. Seeing as how it is ubiquitous, arguably THE most popular art form, easily acquirable, both legally and ill, yet no less impactful culturally, it can become very difficult from a business standpoint to accurately predict which pieces of music are going to be worth the time and money to promote and have produced at world-class studios by people with golden ears which incidentally is why pop records are so expensive to make. Golden ears don't come cheap. So recording industry people, not the ones with the golden ears, but the ones with the very thick rolodexes... rolo- -deces... rolodex-i...phone contact list do some stuff to encourage a kind of market stability to clearly communicate which recordings have value and what that value is. In short, they work very hard to make a certain selection of music very ...visible, I guess. Songs are placed in commercials, TV shows, and movies. They're specially selected for playlists played in retail settings, and maybe most meaningfully, they are played on the radio. Now before you deploy all of your scoffs, and are like, "Who listens to the radio?", the answer's like, pretty much everybody. According to Nielsen ratings, fully ninety-two percent of Americans over the age of 12 regularly listen to the radio. I know, I was shocked too! And I regularly listen to the radio. Nearly a quarter of those people say that they love the radio so it should be less of a little jagged pill when Mike Masnik of Techdirt described radio as a key, if not THE key way to break an act. As such, radio airtime is a valuable commodity and wouldn't you know, the people in charge just happen to figure that out! The practice of payola, which is a portmanteau of pay and Victrola, a name of early phonographs, is one where record companies pay broadcasters to play their songs on the air. and weirdly, the promotional consideration in television and movies, paid product placement in music videos, and tons of other like stuff is not only expected but usually considered necessary. Payola is illegal. Massive label X can't pay huge radio station Z to play the new single by band-who's-gonna-make-it-big Y, which is incidentally also the name of my new banjo-infused noise rock group that's gonna make it big. Y. However, and of course there are tons of ways around these payola laws. Some of them involving implicit understandings broken around trips to exotic locations, and tons of other crazy interesting stuff we just don't have time to get into For the reading in the description, if you're interested. So payola effectively happens anyway, and given the surprising influence of radio, this gives rise to a quote "commodification in taste-making" Put another way, in a paper from Media Culture and Society, Charles Fairchild cites research which notes the more difficult it is to define the economic value of the product the greater power that rests in the hands of those who act as intermediaries for that product to influence the perception of its value. So, through the quote "targeted deployment of music", both on the radio and in public spaces meaning, and therefore value, is created within that music. Which makes sense right? Like if you've never heard a song and have no positive associations with it, you might not think of it as having meaning. But if it's totally your jam because it's on every time you're out with your pals, that's pretty meaningful. And there are, I think, two ways to look at the situation that arises as a result of all this. The first is to cynically cast this whole thing as a kind of media-related Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is a symptom of victimization where a hostage or prisoner might start to feel positively towards and even defend their captor. Clearly it's hugely irresponsible to draw a total equivalency between people stuck in violent or dangerous situations and feeling like, "God, that Robin thick song is just everywhere!" It is, however, an unfortunately useful shortcut to evoke a perceived imbalance of power "I can not escape this song!" And the eventual, maybe somewhat guilt- laiden change of heart. "You know, that Gotye song actually is pretty good!" It's the process we've probably all experienced at least once of learning to love a pop song because we kinda feel like we have to. Which might come before never wanting to hear it again for as long as you live so help you Pete. You could also say that this is just how pop music works. If you consider popular music as capable of having meaning in the first place, Maybe one of the ways it gains that meaning is how it's used and where it's played. seeing as how it is by definition popular, context and prevalence are part of the equation. Maybe even more so than sound itself because, like, Drake and Mumford and Sons are both equally pop music. Maybe "Get Lucky" gains just as much meaning from its content and the personal space it creates in your headphones or your car, as it does from being played in other contexts like in the club, at the grocery store, on TV, at the mall, or in the hundreds of covers on YouTube. And the people working to make sure that happens are simply pushing the best most promising songs. Though, why they decided on "My Humps" at one point is a little beyond me. I'm sure they had a great reason. What do you guys think? What are the ways that pop music gains meaning? Let us know in the comments. And since I know you're gonna ask, it's a Dan Deacon shirt. please subscribe. So, new Google+ integrated commenting system. It's gonna be a long while until we get our sea legs. Let's see what you guys had to say about Ender's Game. So first and foremost, an apology. In that last week's episode, we showed a picture of a bunch of white gentlemen in the demotivator that was captioned "fascism". What we didn't realize is that that photo was of the General Counsel of the Church of Latter day Saints and we therefore implied that we thought Mormons were fascist. That was absolutely the last thing that we intended on doing. We just simply did not know that that picture was of the general counsel and that is no excuse. We should not be putting things up on the show we should not be using assets if we do not know what they depict but I want to apologize to all of our Mormon subscribers and to anyone who was offended. I'm really sorry we're gonna just try to be better at that and I hope you'll forgive us. T4mercustomz says that the problem with getting hung up in a piece of art's politics is that it stops you from having that authentic, aesthetic experience of experiencing the thing as itself, as a work of art which, yeah totally. I mean and I think that is the problem a lot of people had that day: wanted to enjoy Enders game as a film but just got stopped dead in their tracks. John Needy says that if we have to take into account the political stance of the people making everything we consume, then we will eventually be naked, hungry, and not entertained at all, and yeah, I mean, I think you can't be expected to know everything about everything, though there are certainly some people who think that that state of being is preferential, it gets complicated when people feel as though a decision that they're making or a thing that they're supporting is actually going to affect a structure of power in some way or is going to sufficiently comment on that structure of power, and that is the question with Ender's Game. It is a very visible movie made by a very visible man, with very well-known politics, and so the combination of its visibility and politics makes some people uncomfortable about supporting it. To Thomas Humphrey, I honestly don't know whether or not it is possible to not bring politics into things I just, I think that yeah, it would be a very difficult thing to make, especially as far as Media is concerned an apolitical piece of media. To starius2, it's fine. This is a very common mistake. It happens all the time. You'd be surprised actually Pewdie is four doors down and to the left. Veronica Bourgois said that the most important thing to her was not Orson Scott Card's politics, but how the movie was gonna be and says that basically anybody can make the statement they want by choosing or not choosing to go see the movie, but that it is unfair when someone is made to feel like a bad person for making either of those decisions. Agreed. Furthermore Rocket Possum, who has an awesome name, said that Orson Scott Card could have insulted her directly and she would still go see Ender's Game. That's dedication. Whoa whoa whoa, Brian Downes, I just wanna be totally clear that we're not advocating any stomping out of anyone's opinions, rather just saying that however you orient yourself towards seeing Ender's Game or not seeing Ender's Game, the reason that you have is important. Period. Andrea Elise writes a really thoughtful comment about the complexity of the decision to go see Ender's Game if you have been the victim of homophobia and goes on to say that it might not be about money but it might be about not wanting to contribute to Card's cultural relevancy to keep him in the spotlight which is, yeah, that's totally valid. Michael McGee says that as someone who is somewhat conservative if he were to only consume media that expresses his political viewpoint especially in the sci-fi genre there wouldn't be too much for him to read or watch and says that he will respectfully ignore the political stance of creators if people who disagree with him respectfully ignore him. That's one way to do it. Aaron Moore points us towards a really thoughtful blog post by Neil Gaiman who tackles this very issue. It's super great. We'll put a link in description Jack Connell said that Card's politics influenced him heavily in his decision to go see Ender's Game, but in kind of the opposite way that we've been talking about in that after he learned the Card is conservative that made him more interested in seeing the film. which yeah, fair enough. This week's episode was brought to you by the hard work of these diamonds in the sky. We have an IRC and a subreddit, links in the description and the tweet of the week comes from Duncan MacLaury who points us towards the tardis eruditorum, which is a critical history of Doctor Who in preparation for our episode next week about the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who we recommend that you read all of it. Better get started.