![]() ![]() For those who don’t keep up with the world’s most insanely profitable pop groups, One Direction is a five-man collective that was conceived and assembled on the British version of The X Factor in 2010. ![]() I’ll give you another example: This week, One Direction releases its third album, Midnight Memories. My point is that calling Church a “country” artist does little in the way of describing what he actually does or how his music is appreciated by the people who love it, and this is a problem for a growing number of artists. I suppose the line where Church sings (in a rap-like cadence) “the players gonna play and a hater’s gonna hate / and a regulator’s born to regulate” could be construed as classically country (as opposed to music that doesn’t fit comfortably in an outdated paradigm) if you contemplate it strictly through the lens of Young Guns. Church was at the award show to debut his new single “The Outsiders” - which, again, is considered a country song, even if the actual music resembles a Cougar-era John Mellencamp track as reimagined by Iron Maiden. Church is considered a country artist, even though his biggest hit is called “Springsteen,” which he performed for tens of thousands of drunken millennials wandering between sets by Local Natives and Kendrick Lamar at Lollapalooza last summer. I’ll give you an example: Earlier this month, a multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter named Eric Church performed at the CMAs. But most notable new artists seem to have the musical fidelity of mid-’90s Ween. I’m speaking generally, of course, which is dangerous with post-genre modern pop. A cursory survey of contemporary hits supports the idea that all forms of pop music now sound like all forms of pop music - country singers are rapping, rappers are engaging with classic-rock tropes, and rock bands are trying to either sound like early Gordon Lightfoot or Destiny’s Child. In fact, it’s possible that I haven’t really “predicted” anything - there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that what I’ve described has already happened. If any aspect of what I’ve theorized proves to be incorrect, I suspect it will be the part about the process taking 10 years. The only way people will be able to distinguish between different kinds of artists is by the types of hats and pants they wear. I just don’t think there will be discernible musical differences between them (at least when it comes to the most commercial versions of those genres). 1 Let me be clear: I’m sure there will still be “rock” music and “country” music and “rap” music in 2023. It’s like predicting that 2 Guns will be deprived of winning an appropriate number of Academy Awards. The only reason I’m reluctant to state this belief publicly is that it almost seems self-evident. I feel 100 percent confident in predicting this. In 10 years, all pop music genre classifications will be obsolete. ![]()
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