You're driving down the road, absently listening to the song on the radio when it suddenly starts skipping. Repeating the same word over and over. Normally, that means you have a scratch in your CD. Now it mean whoever’s singing the song probably wrote it ( and not very well, I might add). Drum machines, synthesizers, and repeated lyrics are what dominant every radio station. Songs stay on top of the charts for several week, but as soon as they are dropped you never hear them again. Radio stations brag about having the best mix of music or most variety. However the quantity of songs they ‘mix’ is simply the top 40 songs. Therefore, pounding the lyrics into our heads until the next singer skyrockets to the top.

Music, especially pop has become one blended mixture of sounds. Instruments are no longer important now that electro-pop, dance pop, synth-pop, and contemporary R&B have taken over. Names are what rule the air now. Pop music has become a sad excuse for every possible song in the charts. “Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz, country, and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap” (wikipedia.org). Pop music now means club hits or namely Lady Gaga’s newest song.

Today’s songs have no depth or meaning behind them. Lyrics are based on drinking, dancing, and double meanings (usually having a sexual nature). Heavy use of drums are used to further pound the message into our muddled brains. Along with the pop music comes the endless amounts of awards shows (no other career awards people so much for doing their job). Female stars are now expected to strip down to equivalent of a bathing suit or underwear. Every performance is sure to be a success as long as the computers are still working properly. Image is everything, including on the radio where we can’t see the singer. As long as there name is plastered on the single cover, it’s sure to be a Top 10 success. Never mind the fact the person couldn’t sing to begin with.

With music comes the video, no longer featuring the person singing, its now about how little can the person wear without getting banned and how hard can they dance. The video feature endless club scenes or dance routines. It’s like a musical that bad musical that never ends.

Pop music, no longer centers on what music is all about. Sharing idea with the world, expressing ourselves, nursing a broken heart or leaping over a new found love. Pop music has sadly lost its way drowned in the techno-crazed age.