For years, people have tried to separate the music world by genre. And while it is true that music differs in sound, it would be negligent to not note music's intrinsic similarities. However, the similarity has been obscured by pride. The categorization of music spawned the act of devaluing and valuing genres based on taste. While pop culture is regarded as lacking taste and originality, underground music fads are labeled as "real" music. Nevertheless, if this were the case, we would be ignoring the basis for music. Sound, or in this instance, music is a means of survival. It is a way for us to distinguish ourselves in a world that is regarded as a unsatisfying, oppressed, separated, hateful and mundane. With that said, it's no surprise that music created stories for us; Little havens providing an escape from reality. It made possible or at least, imaginable, worlds not accessible in the everyday world.
Willamsburg’s use of a mix of tribal sounds to formulate what is acknowledged as a worldbeat is the same as pop music’s reapproriation of the characters of pop music’s past to create an identity. They are both taking the sounds or characters of the past, to foster something new and original. This is most prominent in Brooklyn’s most successful musical talents. In MGMT’s videos, the sounds of Williamsburg are embodied for the world’s eye. Immediately, we see that it is meant to evoke a trance-like state, taking us beyond the bounds of an all-too-mundane reality.
What the Williamsburg scene gives us through sound, the pop scene gives us through visuals. Under the mask or the alter-ego, we make the impossible possible. One of the most fascinating things about the most successful and memorable pop artists is even though they were typically the most heavily decorated, they were also the blankest slates. They are filled with mystery, ambiguity and androgyny. We are seeing this play out in acts such as Lady Gaga and Janelle Monae. In this sense, we can live our lives through them since they can be anybody. They are beyond the bounds of reality and the body.
But what is it about this contrived world that seems so real to us?
I think this fascination is fueled by the façade of self-importance and a state of frustration that is leading to protest.
On the one hand, music is allowing us to be larger than life. Technology gave us the façade of self-importance. We have everything we could dream of at our fingertips. We can be who we want to be through customizing our profiles, our phones our laptops, etc. In this same sense, we can pretend to emulate stars just like stars emulate past characters.
On the other hand, music has always been a venue for protest. Embedded within pop videos is a social critique. Underground scenes verbalize social critiques. Both plead for unity and understanding.
So yes, we could call pop inauthentic, but this very act is contradictory. Pop music, just as any underground genre, paints a picture for us that offers a social critique of the world. It is a social critique that might be submerged under the décor of the pop world, however, it is there and it is very much as real as the truth that the underground advocates. It allows us to survive in a world we have no control over. It allows us to rewrite our truth.
Neglecting to acknowledge the similarities would be a setback for the ambitions of all genres and artists. Superiority does not exist in the world of art.
All The Worlds A Stage
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