Soft Rock AKA Kid Contemporary - Let's Not Do the 1970s Again | MxG - Season 5 Episode 8

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MUSIC is EVERYTHING - Edition 28

FEATURED SONG:
REC – “Where You Go” (from RECcollection: The Best of REC 2007-2020)

We all need quiet. It’s restorative – a break from the constant noise we can barely get away from. But when does quiet become TOO quiet?

Tracking my music listening is like watching a pinball. Up down left right. I can’t stay in one vibe too long. Give me a couple of hours of any kind of music and I’m ready to switch it up. Better yet, give me a mix that has a little bit of everything, and I’m happy forever.

You can count on music to provide you with as much variety as you can handle. Even within one genre, dynamics, attitude & expressiveness go almost anywhere. Think of heavy metal. Then think of the power ballad. Think of jazz fusion. Then think of smooth jazz. Think of rock. Then think of soft rock. Keep that one in mind for a sec, ‘cuz we’re coming back to it.

First, let’s talk about pop music. Scan the charts from any given week or month in the last … I don’t know … 80 years. You’re almost guaranteed the top 10 songs will represent a healthy variety of music. Every now and then, one kind of music dominates in a way that screams trend. Jazz vocalists & big band in the ‘40s. Doo wop & rock n roll in the ‘50s. Britpop & folk rock in the ‘60s. Disco & soft rock in the ‘70s. New wave & hair metal in the 1980s. Grunge & hip hop in the ‘90s. Alt rock & R&B in the ‘00s. EDM & hip hop in the 2010s. And where trends go, you’ll find record companies, producers & even some artists cashing in and creating paler & paler imitations until the trend is smothered.

Over the last decade or so, one trend in particular has grown to where it’s now clearly the dominant force. And this time it’s not one genre. It’s everywhere. SOFTNESS.

Pick a genre. Pop. R&B. Hip hop. Whatever Taylor Swift is these days. In every case the most popular songs are mellow, characterized by soft, midrange sounds, usually lots of soothing or at least inoffensive synths, and vocals that go out of their way to underemote. Take a look at the current Billboard chart. As of today’s podcast recording, you have to go all the way down to #22 to find a song that isn’t mellow. The vast majority of the top 50 songs are simply soft. Considering what the world has been going through the last several years, it’s no surprise the general population needs everything it can get to unplug & chill out.

It's not objectively a bad thing. Soft music has been around forever. But we need to make a distinction between deliberately & meaningfully soft music, and music that’s soft – or let’s call it understated – because it’s the trend, or it’s afraid to SING OUT. We’ll start with the first type: ambient music.

For FULL SCRIPT, visit https://patreon.com/MUSICisnotaGENRE

*intro music: REC - "In Your Dreams Tonight" (cover of the Agent Orange song - from Syzygy for the Weird)

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