By Tolu Salako
Staff Writer
When regarding the music today, most people assume all of it is as just pure garbage. However, people tend not to realize how music has actually changed for the better, especially with the new genres being created that were unheard of several years ago.
If you exclude the music heard on the radio on a daily basis and what teens regard as “mainstream,” you can tell that music today is not as bad as people say it is. Take Indie pop artists for example, many of their songs contain a deeper meaning that do not only consist of the different aspects of love and superficiality, which was very popular during the 1940s – 80s.
If you rewind to 1949 when the song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” debuted, you can see how this song reflects the highly superficial music that was popular at the time.
Do not get me wrong; the 1940s – 1980s had some amazing artists including, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and Tina Turner. However, there is no denying that there were a number of songs that contained mostly the same meaning. In fact, to this day it is hard for me to differentiate songs from one another because of their similar themes.
Indie pop artists such as Kerli, Foster the People and Marina & the Diamonds are some of the many artists that people are not familiar with and these artists have such depth and creativity in their lyrics that was not very common in the 40s – 80s. Take the song “Walking on Air” by Kerli, this song can be perceived in multiple ways making listeners use their imagination and see how this song can relate to their lives.
Take the popular song, “Pumped up Kicks” by Foster the People. Everyone assumed this was just another happy upbeat song, but as people started to tune in more attentively and actually listen to the lyrics, they finally saw the true meaning behind the song. It was unheard of in the past that an artist would go in the mind of a psychotic human being and create an amazing song from it.
As the years have progressed, new technology has inspired new genres of music including dub-step and techno-dance. People are quick to criticize this genre of music because it is different than most of the songs they have heard for most of their lives. But with technology becoming more and more advanced, people can have freedom in the music they produce today rather than 30 years ago.
People fail to see the wide range of music provided in the 21st Century. Today, there is a wide variety of music that people can listen to, including pop, rock, dub-step, hip-hop/rap, alternative, trance, pop and much more.
Many people in America want to be the next biggest star, especially in the music business, which everyone knows is one of the toughest careers to be successful in. People may say that due to sites such as YouTube, Facebook and even MySpace, more musicians can let their music to be heard by many people, making it easy to become famous.
However, excluding the annoying auto-tuned songs that we hear on KISS FM 106.1, Indie artists’ today are better trained vocally and have amazing songwriting skills. In order to get the fame they deserve, these artists must have actual talent in order to ‘make it big’ in the entertainment industry.
The music today is not as bad people say it is. Artists today have a much wider imagination and have become more and more creative in their lyrics ever since
