New “Trolls World Tour” Movie Makes Critical Point About Genre
Oh you’ve got to love this.
Now please, understand this is not a movie or music recommendation for the new Trolls World Tour joint. In no way am I promoting anyone go out of their way to interface with this particular piece of popular media. And since the Rona has many people’s pennies in a pinch, ponying up $20 bucks to DreamWorks to stream it since the theater release was preempted is straight up out of the question for some.
But this movie has some in the popular music world in a major tizzy, and poptimist types putting it on blast because it has the audacity to (gulp) assert that major music genres are better for not all sounding the same, and for allowing the diversity of different music styles to thrive as opposed to allowing one specific style of music to take over.
In other words, this new Trolls movie with its major cast of stars like Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Kelly Clarkson, Rachel Bloom, and others, is very explicitly—though in a roundabout kids movie kind of way—lashing out against the monogenre, and the intrusion of other musical forms into other genres, just like what Saving Country Music has been actively advocating against for a dozen years now. And the fact this is all going on in a kids movie, targeting the very impressionable that are supposed to be getting groomed as the future consumers of the monogenre makes this whole thing extra delectable.
Without getting too in the weeds about the plot, long story short, in this imaginary Trolls world, there are six major tribes that are symbolized by six major genres of popular music—Pop, Rock, Country, Techno, Funk, and Classical. Of course you can’t get too married to these terms. “Techno” is sort of outdated lingo, but is basically symbolizes EDM, for example. And though hip-hop is definitely the largest of all popular genres in the real world at the moment, it’s left relatively on the sidelines on Trolls World Tour (though it’s mentioned). There are also subgenres represented in the movie, including Yodel Trolls as a subset of country, and Smooth Jazz, K-pop, and Reggaeton Trolls.
Each tribe (or genre) is represented by a “string” where the power of each tribe resides, and the strings are represented by specific colors. As the movie unfolds, you find out that once upon a time, the original Pop Trolls tried to steal all the strings and remix all the other styles of music into pop—a fear that will resonate quite familiarly with some country fans. While telling the story of pop’s dominance, the King of the Funk Trolls (voiced by the great George Clinton) explains that differences in music are not a bad thing, and trying to make all Trolls the same is wrong-minded. This is the reason the six different strings were separated in the first place, to keep this from happening.
However in the modern era in the Troll world, it’s not pop attempting to dominate the other tribes, it’s the Rock Trolls, led by “Barb” who is voiced by Rachel Bloom. Her plot is to take over the other Troll tribes and unite all six strings in a guitar which will give her the power to turn the trolls into “zombies” who only like rock. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up for the rich symbolism for what is happening with the blurring of lines of popular music, and the zombification of mainstream listeners to the drone of often mindless music mired in sameness across genres.
Of course, this Trolls World Tour plot isn’t exactly parallel with the real world, because in the modern power struggle of popular genres in the human realm, rock has been severely diminished, and if there is any specific art form impinging on others and threatening dominance, it would be hip-hop. But of course, if you tried to push this narrative, it might result in accusations of racism or something along those lines, so the loud, gruff, and spike-adorned Rock Trolls make for a believable-enough villain for this kids film.
So what ends up happening? Well, (SPOILER ALERT) Queen Barb of the Rock Trolls ends up getting all of the strings and using them to strum a power chord on her electric guitar, bringing her to the brink of Troll World domination. But the Queen of the Pop Trolls named Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick), ends up breaking the guitar, and all the Trolls turn grey without the power of their magic music strings. But eventually the day is saved when a heartbeat gets all the Trolls singing together, and the color is restored to the Trolls world via the diversity of music.
The plot of this movies is so parallel with the founding philosophy of Saving Country Music (and against the grain of most popular culture sentiment), it’s almost eerie. It’s never been about labeling pop, hip-hop, rock, or any other genre as inferior to country, or even saying that artists can’t collaborate across those genre lines upon occasion. It’s about preserving the original influences of music so that a rich and lush diversity between popular art forms can prevail. Genres are like the primary colors on a color wheel. Artists should have every right to mix those colors together in creative expression. But if you mix all the primary colors together from the beginning, you just get a gray blob that no colorful expressions can be pulled from.
No more than country fans should want hip-hop and EDM to be overrun by country influences, EDM and hip-hop fans shouldn’t want that to happen to country. And no style of music should be allowed to dominate all others. Music is a way for people to express their distinct heritage and experiences with the rest of the world, and that diverse tapestry of influences and expressions is where the strength of music is derived.
As the hero Poppy says near the end of the movie, you can’t have harmony if everything sounds the same. The villain Barb even portrays the wrong-minded notion many poptimists have that all genres have done is divide people. That’s why these often well-intended but misunderstanding individuals work to destroy genre. The movie ends with the trolls “celebrating their differences,” not trying to resolve them.
The prevailing sentiment in popular music media is that somehow genres are akin to a type of segregation and should be abolished. That’s why you see so many celebrating genre benders like Sam Hunt and Lil Nas X as forward thinking and vitally important, even though their music is derivative from a clearly analytical standpoint. To them, this sameness of click tracks, trap beats, and rapping migrating to country is the definition of “diversity”—to make all popular music sound the same no matter the genre. But as Trolls World Tour explains in a manner that even small kids can understand (but many popular music writers apparently don’t), when you try to unite all popular music under one sound, you end up destroying them all.
Granted, at times country music can be too guarded and uptight about its borders. This is even portrayed in Trolls World Tour when the Pop Trolls first show up to the country world, and are initially jailed by the leader of the Country Trolls named Delta Dawn, voice acted by Kelly Clarkson. There are other negative stereotypes about music portrayed in the film, including making fun of country for being too sad, classical for lacking words, and smooth jazz for making you zone out. And before you begin to take this exercise too seriously, don’t expect the music portrayed in the film to fulfill your particular expectations of the way the genres sound. Again, this is a movie for small kids. Basically, all the music in the movie is a version of pop.
And it’s also foolish to think that Trolls World Tour is somehow going to result in much more educated music consumers 10-15 years from now who understand the beauty and importance of retaining the diversity of music, unlike many of their modern-day counterparts.
But I would be lying if I didn’t say that it’s a little gratifying to see the counter-argument to the prevailing mindset in popular music that for some reason demands country music succumb to pop, hip-hop, and EDM. Because a silly kids movie got right what a lot of admittedly well-meaning musical and cultural writers get incredibly wrong. Genre is a good thing, and Trolls World Tour illustrates this somewhat brilliantly.
April 22, 2020 @ 9:49 am
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love George Clinton, have spent quite a bit of time around him, and have enjoyed every second of it…but…
It’s been about 8 years since I last saw him, and just seeing his name in “print”, I could instantly smell him like he’s sitting here beside me! Talk about funky – damn! 😀
Sorry George. Love you man! Wash your hair. 😀
April 22, 2020 @ 4:53 pm
My band opened for him once in Tallahassee FL back in 2004. I took my Mothership Connection and One Nation albums backstage after the show so he could sign them, which he did…while two huge nekkid biker gals sat on his lap. Through a fog of ganja smoke, he told me that we “played our a$$es off”. I’ll take it…true story.
April 22, 2020 @ 11:00 am
Strings = rings?
Here I thought “Trolls World Tour” would have something to do with some of the other comment sections..
April 22, 2020 @ 11:15 am
Well stated. I’ve mentioned here before that humans all generally enjoy having a unique culture that differentiates from other cultures. Seems like a “well duh…” statement to many of us , yet the hardcore mono-genre proponents do not seem to understand the concept, at all. Different cultures are the spice of life. Music is a healthy part of what defines a culture. Rather than seeing music genres as a dividing barrier, I see them as colorful and intriguing. When I visit Barbados or anywhere else in the Carribean islands , I expect to hear some reggae or ska. In fact I would be sorely disappointed if I didn’t. When you visit the Briitish Isles, you hope to catch some Celtic music. When in Texas I’m looking for western swing and honky tonk. And that’s the beauty of it. Why folks can’t grasp the concept is lost on me. What a boring world when everything’s the same. Kinda like driving only on the interstate and seeing the same hotel and restaraunt chains at every exit. Until you get off the most traveled roads, you never see anything. .Music genres are the same, meant to be explored and enjoyed.
April 23, 2020 @ 3:08 am
Of course, Reggae and Ska originated in Jamaica, and the music that Barbados is most famous for is Rihanna, so I’m not sure that’s a good example. But I get your point. 🙂
April 22, 2020 @ 11:19 am
Damn, I’m actually going to have to watch this now.
What’s interesting in all of this is how technology has played a role, especially in the “EDM” world. If a song comes out anywhere in the world, and it gains any kind of popularity, within a few days or less, there is someone on YouTube showing you exactly how to remake the song – which invariably involves using a mouse or trackpad to sequence a computer. Consequently, any regional styles that used to develop over time in a particular scene, can immediately be copied, often within hours, with step by step instructions. Add to that the fact that you can just insert vocal samples of little phrases into your “song” that you were able to instantly download (often an “ethnic” phrase), you can basically copy or appropriate an entire culture within hours, and post it for the entire work to hear. Now add to THAT, that more and more tools are becoming available to “help inspire you” to find chord progressions, but essentially write the progressions for you. I know there are exceptions to this, and there is a lot of creativity to be found, but there is also something about the SNL skit about EDM DJs that rings true.
I think EDM and pop are most susceptible to this, because there is less concern for authenticity and respect to regional heritage. Vocals in hip hop lend at least some adherence to regional styles and authenticity (not to mention a human element). With EDM, it seems to me all bets are off. There’s something cool and liberating about that in a way, but also something lost as well.
Anyway, it’s the technology that makes it so easy to just insert cultural references (and in a sense a sort of virtue signaling) into country music. Yes, it could be done before as we saw with pop music, but now, it’s become so easy for anyone with a laptop to do it and then get some sort of “buzz” online. Add to that the fact that you have “journalists” who have to sustain their own existence with a certain accepted orthodox ideology, all while driving clicks, and you start to see this (or I do at least), as some sort of dystopian cultural wasteland, devoid of less and less humanity – more and more so with each passing day. It’s good to see people at least talking about it. The end.
April 22, 2020 @ 11:39 am
Trigger/Poppy 2020
April 22, 2020 @ 12:22 pm
I watched the movie with my wife and daughter. I noted some of the things you talk about, as well as the country trolls portrayal as little hillbillyish, but overall I just took as most of these cartoons. It was cute, funny, and worth a watch. Nothing I would call overly controversial or of much substance.
April 22, 2020 @ 1:09 pm
I think the sort of folks who frequent this site would be interested in the conversations that occur in hip hop music that are extremely similar to the ones that occur on here. I’ve always founds country and hip hop very similar as they are both come from working class communities and are more concerned with questions of what it means to be authentically country/hip hop than other genres are.
I bet intellectual a lot of people on here would relate to and be interested in the way these same conversations happen among hip hop fans.
April 22, 2020 @ 4:36 pm
No doubt. This is not a philosophy mutually exclusive to country. All genres face this encroachment from other genres, often under the guise of collaboration or experimentation, when the true motivation is commercial exploitation.
April 22, 2020 @ 6:09 pm
Both genres are reliant on the narrative ballad as well. I think Guru and Tom T Hall would have had a lot to talk about.
April 23, 2020 @ 5:45 am
Regionalism is one of the things I find interesting in that it used to be a huge thing in hip hop and has been mostly erased in the past ten years. Once upon a time you could tell by the beats if a rapper was from New York, Memphis, LA, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans. Now it all sounds the same.
Though as a southerner I am glad the mono sound is mostly from the south and especially Memphis. The south won.
April 23, 2020 @ 11:13 am
You guys were due.
April 22, 2020 @ 7:21 pm
Yeah, i would be happier with ghetto rap in my country than tractor rap.
I suppose Brad Paisley tried it on Accidental Racist with questionable results, but definately better than tractor rap.
April 22, 2020 @ 1:24 pm
“The prevailing sentiment in popular music media is that somehow genres are akin to a type of segregation and should be abolished. That’s why you see so many celebrating genre benders like Sam Hunt and Lil Nas X as forward thinking and vitally important, even though their music is derivative from a clearly analytical standpoint. To them, this sameness of click tracks, trap beats, and rapping migrating to country is the definition of “diversity”—to make all popular music sound the same no matter the genre.”
I haven’t watched the movie, so I won’t be addressing any of the particular parallels cited in this article. But as someone who enjoys the diversity of genres while also having no conceptual problem with Sam Hunt, Lil Nas X, and the like, this is where I disagree with you, where I have always disagreed with you. The cross-pollination you speak of does not lead to homogenization; it instead creates a new sub-genre. Sam Hunt differs from the country music canon, yes, but does he sound anything like Future? Or DaBaby? Or Kendrick Lamar? Or even Drake (which has been cited as the explicit hip-hop reference point)?
In this case, instead of having healthy genres (country and rap) we now have a third, a fusion of the two. That doesn’t sound like a monogenre to me. That sounds like progression.
April 22, 2020 @ 2:25 pm
So what is this 3rd genre you speak of? Can you name it? Has anyone won an award for it yet? Have these artists “moved out” of the country genre label and into the 3rd genre, thus letting country artists receive the exposure and attention they deserve as country actual country artists?
April 22, 2020 @ 2:34 pm
Two issues with your approach:
1) You’re focusing on an ideal – and picking some very specific examples to support your notion – in which people are combining different genre influences to create new sounds.
In reality, many artists are just making songs in one genre … and then branding them as another. Songs like The Bones, The Other Girl and Look What God Gave Her are not some sort of new, hybrid genre – they’re 100% pure pop radio singles.
I do think you’re hitting on an important point about modern critics egregiously and lazily misusing terms like “hip-hop” and “EDM” to describe today’s non-traditional country artists, but I think you’d be wrong to suggest there’s a discernible difference from a lot of hit country singles … and today’s hot adult contemporary sound.
And this isn’t just a country thing. Some of the biggest alternative/modern rock hits of the past few years are songs like Shut Up And Dance, Sober Up, High Hopes and Thunder. These aren’t in any way rock songs – they’re just pop radio-friendly songs from people who brand themselves slightly differently than Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez.
I think much of the criticism directed at Sam Hunt is valid, but I also think most would admit he is doing something a bit different (at least on some of his songs). But he’s the exception, not the norm.
2) The other thing, too, is that even if all artists were creating their own new, awesome, hybrid genre – should we be OK with that squeezing genre-specific songs out of their own format? Shouldn’t we want to make sure some actual country – not the new Sam Hunt form of country – gets played on country radio?
And it’s easy to play the race or gender card in country … but this same argument can apply anywhere. It would suck if Old Town Road, let alone a song from Walker Hayes, got more urban radio airplay than a Kendrick Lamar track. Billie Eilish has a cool, unique sound, but should we be OK with Billie (and the increasingly large # of knock-offs) taking modern rock airplay away from people who actually play rock music with guitar solos and the like?
To me – “pop radio” (formally known as “Contemporary Hits Radio”) is the perfect place for these hybrid efforts, because it’s supposed to be a collection of everything that’s popular at a given moment … not a specific sound. Yet the industry doesn’t really work that way. There is no indication that Sam Hunt’s hybrid stuff will ever get more pop radio airplay than country radio airplay. Even Billie, a mainstream superstar at this point, is doing better at alternative radio than pop radio.
April 22, 2020 @ 3:00 pm
I’m “focusing” on your claim that we now have a “third” genre. Seems straight forward enough. What’s it called?
April 22, 2020 @ 3:09 pm
Where did I claim we have a third genre? What are you talking about? I was responding to the same person you did.
April 22, 2020 @ 3:13 pm
Uhhh my bad, I’m sorry. You’re both “saving” something and I was being lazy and thought you were replying to me. It slightly changes the context of what you said!
April 22, 2020 @ 3:14 pm
I chose the examples I did because — in this article and elsewhere — Trigger has cited hip-hop as the genre encroaching onto country, and Sam Hunt as the premier example of the rising monogenre. Here’s a statement of Trigger’s from the comment section of his recent Sam Hunt album review:
“Sam Hunt isn’t questioning the rules. Sam Hunt IS the rules. He’s an arch conformist that the majority of “country” artists in the mainstream attempt to emulate for commercial acceptance in the headlong effort to get country music to conform to the almighty monogenre blob where every song, album, and genre sounds the same.”
Concerning radio: as you noted, the issues with radio are pervasive beyond country music. I think looking at radio as an indication of genre, quality, lineage, or anything other then what the music industry is trying to sell you is a fraught approach. If we are to talk about genre as a legitimate way to describe music, we need to decouple it from radio, which has been universally awful for a very long time now.
April 22, 2020 @ 4:42 pm
SavingDiversity,
If folks want to go off and start their own genre or collaborate between genres, I’m totally fine with that. But that is not what Sam Hut is doing. When his song “Body Like a Backroad” spent 34 weeks on the top of the country charts, which at the time was a record, this directly shaded out actual country artists and songs from the chart that deserved to be there. This isn’t starting anew genre, this is co-opting an existing one with music that shouldn’t qualify as “country.”
Later, a pop star named Bebe Rexha had her song “Meant To Be” that originally was not meant for the country market shatter Sam Hunt’s record by spending 50 weeks at the top of the Hot Country Songs chart. Yes, that’s two weeks short of an entire year. Bebe Rexha has nothing to do with country music, but has the longest-charting #1 song in the genre ever.
These concerns are very directly reflected in the themes of “Trolls World Tour.”
April 22, 2020 @ 5:08 pm
The new genre is real Trigger, it just happens to be nameless. Don’t question it.
April 22, 2020 @ 5:28 pm
Again, I think it’s important to delineate between genre as a way to describe actual musical qualities (chord progressions, instrumentation, vocal styles, etc.) and genre as a marketing ploy. Sam Hunt, musically speaking, is doing a version of country music heavily inflected with hip-hop and R&B, but he gets marketed to country radio because:
1. He does have a musical claim to the lineage of country music.
2. He isn’t going to succeed elsewhere. Definitely not on rap radio.
3. Despite all the anxiety about him, for the most part, radio country music listeners have impressed his songs.
A very similar thing happened with Linkin Park, a rap-rock band that got very little play on hip-hop stations and yet dominated metal and rock radio. But I think we’ve strayed from the original point. It’s one thing to state that Sam Hunt has infiltrated country music; it’s quite another to suggest he is indicative of a mass-homogenization effort, which I don’t believe is happening.
April 22, 2020 @ 5:46 pm
“A very similar thing happened with Linkin Park, a rap-rock band that got very little play on hip-hop stations and yet dominated metal and rock radio.”
Exactly. And for years, the emergence of rap rock has been given credit for the implosion of mainstream rock as a radio format. At the least, it was the last trend it experienced before its sharp decline. Hence the concern about country rap.
April 22, 2020 @ 6:20 pm
Rap rock didn’t kill rock radio; the Internet as the primary method of musical consumption caused much of radio to evaporate and super-charged the development of other genres — like hip-hop — which appealed to young people and provided newer, fresher sounds than a 40+ year old genre their parents listened to. Country music has proven to be hardier, which is why we see country-rap coexisting with Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton, and the like.
April 22, 2020 @ 1:26 pm
“Lonesome Cowboy” by Chris Stapleton in Toy Story 4 was a great song, fyi
Also, Trig – if you have the time – please review “Gabrielle” by Brett Eldredge.. Interesting song – very rootsy for a lead single. I feel that Brett is being honest with his new music – should be interesting to see how radio handles it. I personally don’t see “Gabrielle” being a hit at radio, but I’m just glad that he’s putting out the music that he wants to. He has a great voice and her channels a great Frank Sinatra vibe
April 22, 2020 @ 1:42 pm
I don’t think anyone is “against” borrowing, adapting, and absorbing on principle.
Problems come from two places: degree and deceit. If you swamp a tradition like a canoe with too many other features, it stops being itself and is turned into something else. People in traditions don’t want their traditions to be made extinct, and so they feel like they’re in some kind of war, fighting for self-preservation. On the deceit side, you get bigger problems when you swamp a tradition, “fundamentally transform” it, and then strut around, calling it by its original name. People in the traditions feel like they’ve been taken over and occupied.
I get why the tribe taking over country wants to do this: they feel there’s money to be made, or people they don’t like to have to suffer, knuckle under, and eat shite sandwiches. To the monogenre conquistadores, I have a big pile of horse manure they can go jump in.
By the way, why is the monogenre villain in this movie a rocker? Rock and roll was about freedom, doing things your own way, bucking the suits and the norms.
April 22, 2020 @ 7:12 pm
Yeah, Mainline Country is about as bad off as the farmer was in MIB after the bug had its way with him.
April 22, 2020 @ 9:06 pm
Edgar, your skin is hanging off your bones.
Ha, great reference.
April 22, 2020 @ 3:58 pm
i hope the next pixar movie captures the cultural zeitgeist taking place, and has bobby bones as the villain. perhaps as a Monster who sucks all the air out of the room, or maybe in the next chapter of Toy Story as a bizzarro world version of buzz lightyear named Buzzkill.
April 22, 2020 @ 4:11 pm
Image search Bobby…you’ll see some pics with his long bags kinda spiked back and up, then look at Syndrome from the Incredibles.
April 22, 2020 @ 4:28 pm
Specifically this one
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8467254/bobby-bones-promoted-vp-creative-director-iheartcountry
April 22, 2020 @ 7:50 pm
I wonder if genre purity is being confused with genre mortality. One is a personal fancy/fantasy while the other is a face in the dust real world inevitability. Blaming commercial exploitation seems like so mulch tilting at windmills.
I recently was struck by the lede of Melvin Gibbs essay titled “More Like African Music” in the 2020 issue of Oxford American Southern Issue. Gibbs opened with,” Creative destruction is a constant in American music. Genres overtake genres, and popular firms, like clockwork, predictably become obsolete, overtaken by more culturally vital forms in a dance of birth, death, and renewal.”
Vince Gill brings it back home to country music in his song “Young Man’s Town.” In it he sings:
I knew this day was comin’ all along
Some why bitch an’ moan and say they done you wrong
Just teach ’em what you know and pass it on down
‘Cause man, you gotta face it, it’s a young man’s town
It’s a young man’s town
Full of young man’s dreams
And all God’s children gotta learn to spread their wings
And sometimes you gotta stand back
And watch ’em burn it to the ground
Even though you built it, it’s a young man’s town
April 22, 2020 @ 9:46 pm
I don’t think it takes an essay in Oxford magazine to understand that genres become obsolete or are overtaken in popularity by new ones. And I don’t see much evidence for confusion of purity with mortality in this article or most of the comments. With minor exception, people don’t seem to be bemoaning a lack of popularity. It seems to be about maintaining diversity and distinctness.
April 23, 2020 @ 2:25 am
Right. It’s also important to note a genre ‘dying’ mainly means it retires from mainstream popularity. Jazz, rock, classical… none of these genres are really topping Billboard, yet they still have active communities with great music being made. Obviously no genre wants this fate, but country music is going to exist for a very long time. Streaming and the Internet have largely erased the monoculture.
April 23, 2020 @ 8:03 am
complex genres like jazz, classical …it’s very difficult to get into the mainstream, people for more than 50 years are forced to listen to (canned music), music that easy to make and easy to listen , their ears are not trained to listen music with complex structure and time signature , which means it cannot be sold in large quantity that’s why it won’t appear on billboard charts , the problem with you as from reading your previous comments (plus your username) you have no idea what diversity means , neither the word culture or monoculture , the word diversity used in western civilization in wrong way mixed with guilt complex and many factors that shaped the society , mixing music genres does’t mean mixing cultures, there are so many music genres in the world are mixed from different forms but it doesn’t mean you mixing cultures or making diversity , I will give you example flamenco music are result of many music styles that originated in Andalucia , (arabic, north african, european, african , islamic chants, jewish music, christian music …etc), but you don’t see people praising it because it’s variety that made of, they praising it because the music itself ,(and there’s no culture mixing in the process) cultures doesn’t get mixed every society or nation has it owns culture, music are tiny part of it, regarding what you see or hear on the mainstream are music that made to make money out of it , no value in it just like junk food , the more you consume the more you want, musically and lyrically are embarrassment for humanity , btw the term (canned music) used by bob marley back in 1975.
April 23, 2020 @ 9:33 am
Your post has very little to do with any of my arguments. Here are the relevant points:
1.Jazz regularly topped the charts during its heyday, so that argument is out. Classical music’s peak predates Billboard, but it was also considered the pop music (as in, most popular genre) of its time.
2. Music is a cultural product; to mix genres is to mix together aspects of disparate cultures.
April 23, 2020 @ 11:00 am
it’s seems that you read my comment quickly , I’m talking about the current music industry formula that originated about more than 50 years ago that made genres like jazz , classical … difficult to get into mainstream everybody knows jazz were popular back in time but now is difficult since music became treated only as entertainment , or escape , music has been degraded big time, became very minimal and no one denies that.
saying music is cultural product i’ts seems right for most people but its not the right definition of it ,(Music is the art of sounds and silence over a period of time) that the correct definition of it. also saying the mixing genres is to mix together aspects of disparate cultures many people believe it but in reality that not happening as I mention in my example when I talked about flamenco music.
when I’m going further in my post doesn’t mean it has very little to do with your arguments, read it carefully to understand what I meant.
April 23, 2020 @ 12:55 pm
I disregarded your time period because it’s irrelevant to my point, which is that for a genre to die means a loss of mainstream attention. Neither classical or jazz died due to the reasons you stated, nor does it change the crux of my argument if they had.
It’s much the same with your flamenco example, which actually supports my original point: that cultures (specifically, musical ones in the form of genre) can borrow and learn from one another without homogenization occurring.
April 25, 2020 @ 6:12 am
…”Music is a cultural product; to mix genres is to mix together aspects of disparate cultures.” …
No, to some it is considered “cultural appropriation” (not a mutually exclusive term either)…I hear complaining about that all the time up here in NYC. Music, like society is not a “Utopia” and “diversity” of styles and viewpoint are what make for a healthy society. Country and Hip Hop for that matter, as previously mentioned, are distinct patterns in our culture, not to be mixed or amalgamated into some sort of unidentifiable stew, but to be appreciated on their own merits, equally accepted and respected as identities. New genres and points of view do arise from combining aspects of existing trends, but that doesn’t negate the continuing relevance and individuality of their sources. However, identify the new ” product” as such and stop trying to “pass”. Like anything else of substance it will stand on its own merits. Music is no different.
April 23, 2020 @ 2:38 pm
“I disregarded your time period because it’s irrelevant to my point”
so the correct and scientific definition of music irrelevant to your point??? just because it contradicted with what you believe? which is wrong.
jazz and classical are not dead, not because it’s not popular it means dead and the reasons that I mentioned are general facts that everybody knows , do you think people now are able to understand complex music like before ? do you have knowledge about Jazz and classical in first place ? and again you read my first post and you didn’t understand it, mixing musical genres doesn’t mean mixing cultures , culture is big word, music are tiny part of it. what shape any society or nation’s culture is ideas , beliefs, language(which is the most important pillar) ,values, traditions, morals , which is all is different from one nation to another it cannot transmit through music , neither sharing , because your values and beliefs sometimes contradict with another nations beliefs , actually most of the musical forms around the world are result of merging but my point is doesn’t involve culture mixing .
regarding musical genre popularity or any form of art, it’s not the measure for it’s health status , there are so many music genres around the world are alive and well but not popular , and they can survive, it very rare to see their works on charts but you must dig to find it, you don’t have to be on chart to survive .
if you don’t correct your view on culture and diversity and even what music is , you cannot understand what I really meant in my post , hope I’m not wasting my time with average american who believe that music only should be popular to be alive and he think what he hear on the radio is country music.
April 23, 2020 @ 3:03 pm
As I stated, I disregarded the time period you outlined, not your textbook definition of music. Those are separate concepts.
The rest of your post shows you can’t appreciate that a difference of opinion is not a lack of understanding, which is ironic given your misreadings of my arguments. Your entire last two paragraphs support another one of my points: music can exist outside the mainstream and still thrive.
April 23, 2020 @ 3:16 pm
it’s seems we don’t understand each other maybe face to face conversation sill better than online , anyway no pun intended we are all have different views and mentality
cheers
April 23, 2020 @ 11:11 pm
I love how the “rock trolls” are the “bad guys” trying to force their particular brand of music down everybody’s throat. It’s just like IRL where rock music keeps pushing out smaller, less successful genres from mainstream radio; like pop music.
April 24, 2020 @ 12:21 pm
Congratulations to finally something mainstream coming out against monogenre. Too bad “Rock” is the villain though????. Funny how two of the most pre mixed, pre measued, prefab, plastic, culture appropriating, mono everything stars are part of it (JT and KC)????????????????
April 25, 2020 @ 11:03 am
Diversity is vastly overrated.
May 26, 2020 @ 12:47 pm
Too be fair some would conclude the rise of americana is evidence of a mono-genre. For example Americana singer Brandi Carlile has collaborated with the likes of pop stars such as Elton John. No one has complained about Carlile doing this or cover a Led Zeppelin song. Many times it seems that people are fine with pop-independent musician collaborations when its artists they like. Perhaps the real problem is that intra-genre collaborations do not take advantage of each genre’s strengths. At the end of the day all music skews slightly towards pop which is okay if the authenticity is kept and there is a reason behind making a song that employs a particular genre.