10 Disco Dilemma by miguel perez miguel.perez@utdallas.edu Although, I’ll admit that I do enjoy the occasional trip to that sweet, mind-numbingly standardized world of music bling called pop music. Before you roll your eyes and tag me as Top 40 sheeple, I’m going to defend myself and tackle the first and main problem with pop music: what exactly is it? It’s not a style Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj, both pop, differ in their “sounds.” It’s not defined by age: Michael Jackson and Kesha are decades apart. There are also vast differences in substance and talent within the spectrum: The Beatles and Justin Beiber. Pop music is just music that’s popular. Moreover, one of the defining qualities of pop is its multiple personalities, its tendency to morph. If anything, pop music acts like a nexus in which different sounds are allowed to flourish and then, eventually, fall from their pedestal. The idea is more effective if you put it into historical perspective. What was once the intoxicating, electronic sounds of synthesizers and live orchestras has been reduced to Max Martin, patriarch of this shiny, plastic pop empire . . . In the mid-70s, Donna Summer teamed up with music producer Giorgio Moroder and went on to create disco classics like “I Feel Love” and “Love to Love You Baby” (which were Top 40 hits). Disco was thriving as a music and style revolution and Summer was played endlessly in this Studio 54/12 West jungle. However, that became more about carnal and narcotic pleasures than simply music. Toward the end of the decade, every two bit music group was flooding the dance floor with the Pop music tries to get its groove back same standard disco formula. It didn’t take long after that for musicians and critics to begin complaining. Disco was suddenly indifferent, escapist and void of substance. The Lady of Love fell out of favor as the people wished to separate themselves from the style and sound that defined a decade. The 80s proceeded to introduce sounds like New Wave and hip hop, but disco survived under the surface in different forms. The exuberant orchestrations and string instrumentation that characterized disco was minimized to the electro-synthesized sub-genres of dance-pop and synth pop. Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bon Jovi and Cyndi Lauper flourished and pop continued to evolve. It’s important to mention These girls want to bring Saturday Night Fever Back! illustration by taurian witt that up to this point, pop music was still being created by musicians. Was it still being packaged in the same verse-chorus structure and four chord progression? Yes, but the music had significant production value and there was still innovation. For instance, pop artists like Tina Turner and Whitney Houston were suffusing contemporary R&B into their music while, in the UK artists like Eurythmics and New Order were developing the synth pop sound. An anomaly occurred as the 80s came to a close. It was as if pop music was traveling through a series of temporal filters, losing some of its essence as every decade passed. In the 90s and early 2000s, the quality of pop music began to deteriorate. “Manu- factured music” and the association of pop with low-brow that is so commonplace today took root as Britney, Xtina and boy bands emerged as the leading commercial acts. Even at this point, genres like grunge and alt-rock were still garnering equal attention to the point where they could also be considered popular music in the 90s. Point-blank, the 90s had hope. Cut to 2012. My twelve-year-old sister, in the back seat, is clamoring for me to change the station to “something good!” Pink’s newest single, “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”, is blasting and I can’t help but notice that there’s a little bit of New Order’s “Blue Monday” and that familiar 80s synth pop production. However, it’s interlaced with what I can only assume is white noise and that infernal, skittering one-two drum beat that seems to be required for radio play today. The songs that followed were a sea of similarity: Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Usher, etc. What was once the intoxicating, electronic sounds of synthesizers and live orchestras, has been reduced to Max Martin: patriarch of this shiny, plastic pop empire, dialing up the volume in the studio. Studies done by the Spanish National Research Council found that starting in the 50s modern music began a steady incline towards louder and more heavily compressed production. Not only that, but chord progressions have become further simplified from pop’s already limited scope of harmonies. If my whole spiel about the plight of disco sounded familiar, it’s because it happens every ten years. Critics deem the pop music of “now” as apathetic and commercial, so it goes through a reboot in sound and style. So, the problem is the absence of change in popular music today. Instead of seeking new methods of presenting the standard pop song, we’ve turned complacent with the same thing for more than 20 years. My hope is that the new wave of tomorrow comes soon to topple our modern disco trap.  — Miguel’s got a fever. And the only prescription is Donna Summer. Discuss this article at amputd.com!