While on most levels, 2012 was more of the same only not quite as good, as 2011, which was not quite as good as 2010 which was better than 2009, there were two musical changes that bracketed to the relentless ordinary year.
But first of all, let me dumb down modern pop music for you. It goes like this.
1. Icons from the 1960s to 1980s.
2. Hip Hop
3. Hip hop influenced pop.
4. Teen pop dance.
5. Country boys.
6. Mainstream rock and roll.
7. Hardcore and variants
8. Indie.
9. DIY
10. Electronica
And everything that you listen to fits or overlaps within one or more of these categories. For instance, David Guetta: 3, 4, 10. Or Fucked Up: 7, 8.
And once you've realized that what appears to be an unwieldly mess is, in fact, formulaic and easy to understand. This is especially true of "New R&B", one of the two big music stories of 2012… Kendrick Lemarr? 2, 8. The Weeknd? 2,8. 10, Frank Ocean? 2, 8, 10. Indeed, I could make it simpler and claim they both owe boatloads to Drake and Kid Cudi. I could even simplify that and say they owe it all to Cudi's 2009 Man On The Moon: The End Of The Day. More? "Pursuit Of Happiness (nightmare)" is the blueprint for the new r&b. And from Solange to Miguel they mined it ruthlessly.
I'm on the record as not being a fan but that isn't quite right. I don't actively despise it, the way I do mainstream rock and roll in 2012. I am just not impressed, they forget the song too often. Even Solange Knowles, who I have loved for years, I just wasn't 100% with her indie soul take. It all came back to the songs. And while there is no bigger story than "New R&B' there was a more important one.
K-Pop has something with NR&B: it is ethnic. And another, it has rapping all over it. But there the two part company. Korean Pop, "K-Pop" didn't really break pop in the West. "Gangnam Style" was a novelty hit, a one hit wonder, PSY doesn't have a follow up. And while I expected BIGBANG and especially leader G-Dragon, whose "Crayon" is the most important, if not the best, record of the year, to follow PSY into the charts, it didn't happen. And if two consecutive sellouts at Prudential Center for BIGBANG prove anything, it proves Asian girls love them.
And also K-Pop isn't Teen Pop. The numbers? 2,4,10. But also… it has a bright, neon, brightness. It is youth incarnate (though many of em are in their 20s by now). The electronic pop isn't like teen or electronic pop: it never stops exploding. There a re many different types of K-Pop (it is an entire Continent's sound) but at its best it is a paradigm for 21st Century music. No guitars, not many strings, all processed sounds and synth explosions, at its folkiest, a K-Pop Taylor Swift like Juniel, it still doesn't sound like a 20th Century music.
For everything that is drear and dark and nightmare and depressive in NR&B, K-Pop has a joyful cheer in reply. Ancestral racism may stop K-Pop from breaking the US, but whether it does it has a question more important than NR&B can muster: WHY SO SERIOUS??