Now That's What I Call Marketing! by antiGUY

Consumers used to have to wait about five years before pop-hits started appearing on compilations. It's the whole nostalgia thing, package a bunch of songs from any given year and people will buy them up to relive some long past memories. Now it appears that consumers no longer have to wait, they can get these pop hit collections immediately and relive terrible radio hits of the present! 

It makes sense, if the songs are hot right now then the CD's are bound to sell a lot more if you hit the public while these artists are hot, instead of waiting a few years when they are long forgotten.  But wouldn't fans opt to buy these compilation CD's instead of the artists full-length releases if they could get the hit songs without all the filler? That was how the old thinking went, but things have changed. 

The biggest change is marketing savvy. Record companies understand that most pop artists today have a very limited shelf life, so they opt to cash in on them as much as possible while they are hot. Most of these "artists" are so devoid of substance, the record companies seem to understand that once the hype wears off people will more than likely forget all about them and move on to the next batch of pre-processed, plastic, focused grouped artists engineered to appeal to the lowest common denominator. 

In a way today's pop music parallels the television and film industry. Pop music is the equivalent to "Dude, Where's my Car?" and "Friends". In other words, mindless, shallow entertainment targeted at a young audience that doesn't know the difference between quality and fluff. Have you ever noticed that blockbuster movies usually have simplistic plots with lots of special effects? Or hit sitcoms (I call them s***coms) humor is the equivalent of fart jokes? You can't confound the masses with substance or intelligence if you expect to be successful, can you? The same goes for most pop music. It's engineered to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's mostly catchy hooks with insipid lyrics set to computer programmed background music. The groups are interchangeable as are their songs, which are usually written by the same handful of songwriters. Just look up the name Max Martin at ASCAP's website and you'll find he has written hit songs for Britney Spears, N Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion and Five just to name a few. He is even credited with co-writing Bon Jovi's "It's my Life". Then there is Michael Carlsson who's writing credits almost mirror Max Martin's. So it's no wonder pop music all sounds the same today, it's all written by the same small group of people! 

Ok, I've heard the pop defenders say, "If you don't like it, don't listen to it! Stop bashing it because you don't like it."  That's fine and dandy but the problem is that serious music fans miss out on quality artists because the record companies keep signing these prefab pop singers, thus leaving little room on their rosters for real musicians. Now Pop might be what you call music, but to the discerning ear it's nothing more then extended commercial jingles engineered to sell a product, CD's. Granted it does take at least a little vocal talent to record these songs. The funny thing is, if you listen to say a song by Britney or The Backstreet Boys the vocals are clearly processed through more computers than the Pentagon's war games! A natural voice does not sound like that. The sad thing about Britney is she does have a great singing voice but you can't hear it under all of these effects and the Whitney wanna-be singing style. Sure vocal effects are used in the studio all the time by singers from almost every genre of music. However, most use these techniques to help give the vocals a fuller sound, not to replace the natural vocals all together. So these singers who are manufactured in the studio and taught to dance by high priced choreographers are cashing in while hard working musicians slave away by playing clubs, paying their dues and having enough talent to write their own music and not having to resort to using studio effects to cover up their musical short comings. As you read this, the chances are good that there is a band playing somewhere in the world who could possibly be the next revolutionary band like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Guns 'N' Roses or Nirvana. Unfortunately, they may never get the chance to have their music heard by more then a few people because the record industry is too busy filling their rosters with Pop groups. Don't be fooled the record industry no longer has anything to do with art or music, it's all about marketing. And that my friends is a sad state of affairs. In the end, we all miss out on true talent because the record companies are so short sided that the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys are what they think of when they say, "Now! That's What I call Music!". When in reality they should be saying "Now! That's What I Call Marketing!"