The pop song, is, undeniably, an art form. But it is also, undeniably, an art form based upon the ephemeral: it is here and gone, it hits and leaves.
Looking at the Hop 100, it is filled with shallow pleasures.
But who dislikes shallow pleasures? Who denies the one night stand? This is music to abuse, to sleep around on. It is slutty. You don’t wanna admit you know it the next morning.
And like I say, it is an art and it is a musical art. Because it is all pro-tools, because autotunes get singers in tune, because you can play drums on your keyboard, and because you have an unlimted amount of tracks, and because, it is pieced together as opposed as one single piece, it is concerned something OTHER.
But turn it sideways for a moment.
What Dr. Luke does, creating songs through different layers from different people, and creating a hit, is not INTRINSICALLY different than Beethoven composing different parts for different instruments and putting them altogether. Or, perhaps closer, since Dr. Luke is more of a musician as social networker, a band whose members arrange their own instrumental parts.
So the problem isn’t the art, the problem is the usefulness. How utilitarian is an artform which dissipates (er, wrong form but you know what I mean) as you listen to them. The Shirelles “Mama Told Me” was as transparent, as team put together, and as ephemeral, as passing a fancy as anything on the charts today and yet, 50 years later it stands as a classic.
The question about the ability of a song to last that can, truly, only be answered in time. But I will be interested to see next decade how the 2010s are remembered.