Last night on the TV news (CBS, I think) there was a segment about the closing of the Virgin Megastores music retail chain, and to my thinking the problem wasn't the downloading of music illegally...it was the fact that pop music has been failing as a cultural institution.
When was the last time you quoted a CURRENT pop song in conversation or as the punchline to a joke? When was the last time you tuned into a Top 40 radio station and wanted to boost the volume on your speakers or headset? When was the last time you really got excited about a concert by someone you hadn't seen before? Pop music is just not RELEVANT any more as a cultural force, like it had been in previous generations.
The music industry is just so entrenched and self-absorbed too these days. I took a quick peek at this week's Hot 100 over at Billboard's website and saw that Jason Mraz has kept a single on the chart for MORE THAN A YEAR. This would have been impossible when I was a teenager. There was a lot more competition in music then, and there was always something or somebody new coming. Nowadays there are too many established "artists" and the game is rigged for their benefit.
And the music business continues to be disconnected from the rest of mass media--even the rest of the entertainment media. There is no synergy to generate excitement among the audiences.
What's weird is, I think the culture needs a strong pop scene right now, and it's a shame that we don't have one. We need somebody to come in out of nowhere and shake everything up. And American Idol is the wrong way to find that somebody.
FP
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