Analysis: The Homogeneity Of Pop Music

The Homogeneity of Pop Music Pop music, or popular music, in the modern sense has been around in the United States for several decades, having begun around the late sixties, and has encompassed an assortment of genres throughout its progression. As pop music has aged and adapted, an increasingly common complaint among the critics of this genre is all pop songs being homogenous, or they “all sounds the same”. Typically, the fans of this genre respond by stating each song is easily distinguishable from one another, provide a unique musical experience, or they aren’t less unique than any other category of music. Nevertheless, recent evidence supports the notion of pop music sharing numerous underlying traits between many of its songs. The homogeneity

There are a plethora of factors which play into how music is perceived by the listener, whether it be the rhythm, tempo, instruments, lyrics, etc. and although all of these things are important, the overarching detail in music production contributing to the homogeneity of pop music is the element of variability. From my experience of listening to the radio, many songs have a strong tendency towards the repetition of certain words, usually related to the title or meaning of the song. According to Percino, et al. “Album sales numbers of a style, however, typically increase with decreasing complexity, see Fig. 5B. This can be interpreted as music becoming increasingly formulaic… under increasing sales numbers due to a tendency to popularize music styles with low variety and musicians with similar skills.” These findings support the notion of pop music lacking variety as it is one of, if not the, most popular music styles in the industry. One example of popular music reaching drastic levels of repetition is presented by the song “Gucci Gang”. Following its release in 2017 by the artist Lil Pump, “Gucci Gang” peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a chart of the 100 most popular songs in the United States based on sales, radio play, and online streaming, and stayed on the chart for 24 weeks in total. Although it has an official runtime of 2 minutes and 10 seconds, the lyrics end

The aforementioned factors play a significant role in influencing what is purchased by the consumer, but if they bought other genres instead of pop music, then the industry would be forced to change. When it comes to sales “The music industry is a Superstar economy… the top 1% account for 77% of all artist recorded music income” (Mulligan). Artists who would fall under this 1% criteria mostly belong to the pop genre, such as Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, and so on. Notwithstanding drama-related reductions in popularity, artists such as these, and several others of “superstar” status, are the ones providing a great deal of the profits for the pop industry. It is through the widespread support of these artists by consumers where the homogeneity of pop music is encouraged and