Pop Music - Not Progressive as Once Thought(TM)
The 1980s brought a new generation of fads and trends that changed the whole world, and most trends were set by the music industry. People emulated the style their favorite stars put off and were basically following everything a music star would do. This kind of praise for a music star has been going on for many decades, even back in the 1960s with The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the new "mod" style. Also, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Doors are credited with the hippie lifestyle back in the 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, as time passed from the 1970s to the 1980s, music seemed to become more about which advertisers could capitalize the most on popular stars instead of the true meaning behind the words and what the music stood for to the artist. Music grew less progressive and more commercial from the 1970s to the 1980s due to the onset of the MTV generation, media propaganda, and the money hungry music industry. Since the launch of MTV in August of 1981, music changed from the freedom of artistic expression to advertisement filled commercialism. An example of this would be that when in the 1980s, some felt that the average music video would lose the music and be mo
Already established through MTV, commercialism was also made on the radio. This shows ignorance on the part of the trade, because not everyone wants to convey the same musical tastes, but sadly, that is what it has come to recently. Yet, with the 1980s looming ahead, the music of the time had more competition, due to the only fact that lesser mainstream artists had stiffer competition. Another example of MTV commercialism is shown through some of the actions of Michael Jackson, such as his Motown 25 performance where he performed the moonwalk, his Pepsi TV commercial, and his selling of the song "Revolution" to Nike for another TV commercial (Entertainment Weekly 93, 96, 101). His "Revolution"/Nike controversy also showed that this was a corporate sellout, just to make as much money as they could by showing a commercial that people could relate to musically instead of both musically and visually. This explains the reasoning as to why new wave bands were so abundant in the 1980s, because music sales of a popular genre would bring in a great deal of money to the industry, even if the industry itself knew that the new wave era would only last a few years. This also shows that not a lot of existence of commercialism existed before the early 1980s, when music was then considered free and progressive alike. Just as the 1970s were ending, though, and with the beginning of MTV, VH-1 and other music channels, commercialism rose to a steadier height, higher than had ever been achieved. Yes, musical commercialism dominated the 1980s, not to say it existed before. All of these events took place from 1982 to 1987, the years that made MTV pivotal. When you're having Sprite sponsor your tours or pay for your recording sessions and you're wearing Sprite logos on your stuff, then it's just a short step to the next thing in line. very famous artists like the Springsteens and the Pearl Jams and a lot of artists aren't famous to some extent, because they won't play this game, because they simply refuse to commercialize their music--commercialize what they try to present to their audience and their relationship to their audience.
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Acceptance Essays
