Is modern music growing up or evolving faster than anyone realizes?
Posted by Universal on August 26th, 2015
Modern Music is a very strange mix. It includes everything from modern pop to all the different genres of music, neoclassical, and a lot more which doesn’t really classify very well. Ironically, at a time when pop music is riding its gears and recycling authentic 1980s patches and tedious raps, a whole new class of music is emerging.
It really has to be asked whether the genres really do apply any more. Indie artists and modern singer/songwriters don’t seem to care very much. Even the very strangely defined world pop music, which apparently means anything and everything, is evolving.
The crossovers are sometimes fascinating, and just show how ridiculous some of these categorizations really are. For example – What’s your idea of Israeli Music? Some version of Hava Nagila with a techno beat? Wrong. Wrong, in fact, for a very long time.
It’s a true indication of the actual state of global musical evolution that a new Los Angeles music artist,Natalie Roth, can do a song like Israel, which is both a social comment and a pop song, credibly and well. Built into the song you will notice some familiar rhythms. Yes, it’s traditional Jewish music, upgraded and bouncing along happily to the beat. Try categorizing that.
(This particular track is typical of Roth, who is apparently a natural musical maverick, able to do very good Emo songs like her I Wish You Were Here in a pop context. Just goes to show how useless some of these classifications really are. With any luck, more people will follow her example and simply throw away the rule book. Check out her website here athttp://natalieroth.net/to see a few more examples.)
If modern music is a combination of heritage, culture, and “emerging possibilities” in the form of talented artists, the prognosis for future music is very good. Losing the constraints of both the mainstream market and increasingly absurd generic classifications can only be good.
So – Is modern music growing up or evolving faster than anyone realises? Unarguably, it’s evolving. The direction of that evolution will be worth watching.
