Impact of Music on Popular Culture
Pop Culture, Me and Society
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Impact of Popular Culture on Music
Emergence of social media has promoted the popularity of musicians E.g. Facebook, Myspace, Snapchat and Instagram.
Musicians draw their content (lyrics) from their contexts.
Musicians rely on the experiences around them to enhance their music (Brill, 2002).
One area in which popular culture has significantly influenced the media is in music. With the dawn of social networking sites (starting with Myspace and now Facebook etc.) came the dawn of a new power for consumers and influencers. No longer is the media telling us who to have as number one and influencing our choices by pumping artificial money and support into pre-packaged bands and favored artists, because we were able to put up our own music and favorite stars and add them, and vote for them or join a huge fan base. Some music stars have become well-known in this way long before the mainstream media even heard of them. Therefore, musicians largely reflect the contours chalked by global popular culture from which they also draw from their local context and experiences to enrich their music.
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Impact of Music on Popular Culture
Historically, music has had the greatest influence on teenagers
Different decades reflect different styles of music
Pop music used by corporates as a marketing gimmick
Evolution of Music over the years
1950s
Rock n’ Roll; popularized by Elvis Presley. It reflected demand for upbeat and fast tunes.
1960s
Rock n’ roll as well as appreciation for foreign music and musicians; E.g. The Beatles, Turtles and Buckinghams from Britain
Through several different times in history, music has influenced teenagers. Teens in America are a prime example of how music has effected teenagers economically, physically, and even psychologically. Different decades lead to different styles of popular music, but the effects are about the same. Popular music can be used by: companies as a marketing gimmick, young teenagers trying to become recognized by starting as a garage band, or just used for entertainment purposes.
The 1950’s offered several different types of music’s styles. One of the many famous 1950 singers was Elvis Presley. This particular singer brought forth the power of rock n’ roll and became the first rock star which sparked the beginning of rock n’ roll. Teenagers rising up after WWII wanted something upbeat and fast to catch their attention. Not only Rock n’ Roll was gaining popularity thought. Folk songs were quite popular as well with singers such as Pat Boone, Perry Como and Patti Page. Broadway and movie musicals started to rise up to become important forms of music as well. During the 1960’s still maintained the previous decade’s view of rock n’ roll; however, more foreign forms of music was introduced through singers such as the famous Beatles. The new styles of 1960’s pushed rock n’ roll to the side for the new musicians. With the Beatles a British craze swept over America as American to British groups rose up such as Knickerbockers, Turtles, Buckinghams.
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Impact of Music on Popular Culture………………………(Contd.)
1970s
Emergence of disco beats as a substitute for bands
1980s
Introduction of compact disks led to Increased popularity for pop music; most notably Michael Jackson
Other popular music styles include; hip hop, acid house and goth rock
1990s
Rise of pop, rap, rock and techno and one-hit wonders
2000s
Various music styles exist today; thanks to shows like American Idol for example
In the 1970s Disco’s fast upbeat trends danced into the hearts of the teens of the time. The disco music wasn’t performed by bands, but on records. This allows clubs to access popular music for a lot cheaper instead of hiring live bands. Disco was also used in movies such as “Saturday Night Fever” which turned John Travolta into a disco icon. The spread of disco in its various forms lead to its popularity.
In the 1980’s, the popularity of pop music skyrocketed. With the help of newly developed compact discs and the rise of the popular music channel MTV, pop stars such as Michael Jackson rose to fame in the quickly growing society. Various different styles of music were born during the 1980’s as well such as: psychedelia, acid house, death metal, goth rock, hip hop, and folk.
The music of today has been shaped for years and years to refine to its quality of today. The effects of music include altercation of study habits, introduction and development to slang, and damages eardrums. Popular music effects the moods in examples such as: fast paced techno exciting the actions of teens in parties or slowed down rock mellowing out its listeners. Common slang, when used in popular songs, slip into the vocabulary of teenagers. Popular phrases such as “Yay-yeah” and “Crunk” are now used by teenagers in everyday conversations.
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Impact of cultural and social attitudes, choices and behaviors on music
Individual preferences define the style of music that is produced; Hip-hop, R&B, reggae etc.
Musicians portray popular trends in dressing and hairstyles
Music represents the emotion of a society at a point in time, E.g. during Vietnam war
Our preferences for music change so often it’s hard to keep up. But, these changes are what shape a culture. As music changes, we find that clothing styles, hairstyles, and behaviors all change with it. People want to keep up with the latest trends, and most of those trends come from the hot new artists of that time. Music often expresses the ideas and emotions of a society as a whole for that specific time, so as events and thoughts of a society are changing, the music for that time is changing too in order to fit in with what is happening in the world. During the Vietnam War, a huge amount of popular music was created to promote peace or put down the war. Musicians wanted to include the ideas of society at the time in their music, which is still something done in music today as well.
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Impact of Music on Society
Music generally enhances human thinking and actions.
Music enhances our;
Mood
Productivity
Intelligence and Cognition (Musical Education)
Music is an important and extremely useful tool in the way we learn and to deny its power is a waste of a truly wonderful resource. Music is a driving force in society; it has been present since the dawn of man. The average person spends several hours a day listening to music, whether they see it as a main activity or just as something to take up space in the background. It is not surprising, then, that music has a great effect on how humans think and act, possibly even affecting intelligence. Several studies have been conducted on this theory; though some results are questionable, the consensus view seems to be that music has the capacity for both positive and negative effects.
As a background activity, listening to music has been shown to positively affect mood, productivity, and even intelligence. Listening to music has even been shown to encourage intellectual growth, particularly among children. It has been widely observed that “children, teens, and even babies potentially benefit from listening to music, as music can be a stimulant to intellectual and cognitive development.
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How Music has Informed my Framework of Perception
I love listening to soft rock, R&B and various forms of contemporary music
My music taste reflects my empathetic tendencies towards other people.
I believe my music has taught me to be gentle, reflective and even sensual, in situations.
Research shows that people who score high on empathy tend to prefer mellow music, like soft rock and R&B, and contemporary music, from electronica to Euro pop. They dislike intense music like punk and heavy metal. People who scored high on systemizing were the opposite; they disliked mellow music and favored intense music. These results are consistent even in specific genres— empathizers preferred mellow jazz while systematizers preferred intense, complex jazz.
The results of the study had deeper implications too. Empathizers favored music that had gentle, reflective, and sensual elements, as well as sad characteristics and negative emotions. They also preferred music with emotional depth, expressing poetic, relaxing, and thoughtful features. On the other hand, systematizers preferred music that had high energy and thrilling elements as well as positive emotions and fun characteristics.
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How Popular Culture influences marketing
The cultural values of a society determine the success of the launch of a new product.
Individuals make consumption decisions based on their culture
Popular music is an instrumental tool for every marketer
Music enhances memory, and emotions; these are key considerations in advertising and marketing (Brill, 2002).
Going into the future, millennial shoppers may be best targeted through music (Waskul & Vannini, 2016).
Pop culture and advertising sort of go hand-in-hand these days. To develop a successful marketing strategy, an organization must take into consideration the cultural influences of the society where a new product is being introduced. People make decisions about consumption of a product based on these cultural influences. This is because the cultural values of a society dictate what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Some countries, such as the United States, are more individualistic, with citizens making purchasing decisions based on personal preferences. In other countries, such as Japan, people tend to make purchasing decisions based on the welfare of a group, such as the family. The way this plays out in marketing strategies is that ads focused on individuals do better in individualistic countries while group advertising works better in countries with collective group values.
Music should also be a tool in every marketer’s tool bag. Marketers and advertisers have long known the power of music to influence consumer buying. Every company on the planet now uses music to sell products – from cars to fast food restaurants to Easter candy. Music fills the airwaves and our ears and makes us purchase certain consumer goods.
Music adds to our memory and memory and emotion are the keys in marketing and advertising. Music effortlessly strikes certain emotions. Consumers, especially millennial shoppers, want to connect on personal human level and nothing works better than music. It doesn’t even matter which genre of music as long as it fits the advert and causes the viewer to seek out that product.
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Society: Interact
One of today’s main popular culture is social media.
Rise of social media platforms has been aided in the following;
Increasing Connectivity among people; it has overcome geographical barriers
Enhanced Education; increases access to knowledge from experts and professionals
Promoted our awareness of the environment around us
Promoted businesses; e.g. entertainment business (movies and music) (Waskul & Vannini, 2016).
Social media has grown tremendously in the last few years. From 2006 onwards the growth rate is unexpectedly very high. Specially Facebook and Twitter have grown much faster and captured millions of users in just a few years. The way technology is growing, it is obvious that more and more people are going to grasp its benefits. It has brought a lot of advantages for the society.
The first and main advantage of the social media is connectivity. People from anywhere can connect with anyone. Regardless of the location and religion. The beauty of social media is that you can connect with anyone to learn and share your thoughts.
Social media has also had a lot of benefits for students and teachers. It is very easy to educate from others who are experts and professionals via the social media. You can follow anyone to learn from him/her and enhance your knowledge about any field. Regardless of your location and education background you can educate yourself, without paying for it.
Social media also create awareness and innovate the way people live. It is the social media which has helped people discover new and innovative stuffs that can enhance personal lives. From farmers to teachers, students to lawyers every individual of the society can benefit from the social media and its awareness factor.
Also, whether you have an offline business or online, you can promote your business to the largest audience. The whole world is open for you, and can promote to them. This makes the businesses profitable and less expensive, because most of the expenses made over a business are for advertising and promotion. This can be decreased by constantly and regularly involving on the social media to connect with the right audience.
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Society: Strategies
As marketers critical and systematic thinking is important.
This analysis of popular culture enhances my ability to see the bigger picture as a marketer
Key strategies to critical thinking as a marketer (Waskul & Vannini, 2016);
1. Define the context; ascertains facts and removes assumptions
2. Establishing the problem before finding a solution
3. Engaging in active discussion with others; whether face-to-face meetings or on social media
Marketers need to use their intellectual abilities to question, scrutinize and analyze and make informed decisions. Marketers need to be willing and able to think critically about what they encounter. Everything from data review to the initiatives we take needs to be analyzed and scrutinized. We need to use our intellectual abilities. We can’t take what we see at face value.
Setting definitions removes assumptions, which can differ greatly from client to manager. We are often so ready to find a solution that we don’t accurately diagnose the problem. Maybe a client comes to you to increase revenue or to lower cost per lead. That’s great, but you first need to determine why clients are looking for these solutions.
When you are listening, you should actually be listening and not solely formulating your response. The overview is that you interpret what the other person is saying and provide feedback based on what is said. It sounds simple, but often one person doesn’t actively listen to the other, causing a potential disconnect. Actively listening to your client should allow you as a marketer to ask more pertinent questions.
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Society: Benefit
My enhanced framework of perception benefits society by (Brill, 2002):
1. Enabling me use popular culture e.g. social media, as an educational tool;
2. Using popular culture to encourage people to comprehend the world around them
3. Ability to make more informed philosophical and moral decisions in my personal life.
Using contemporary culture as a tool for teaching not only encourages healthy “sifting” and assimilation of cultural influences, which is important for emotional and even cognitive development, but it encourages interest by making subjects relevant. A key role of education is encouraging young people to make sense of their world, and ignoring the culture in which they live will do little to support that. There is something to be learned from everything that goes on around us,
Studying pop culture reveals the underlying assumptions, power structures, and philosophical and moral constructs of the society that produces those cultural products. In other words, it reveals “culture” in a different sense. Therefore, studying pop culture gives us an accessible vehicle through which to explore philosophical and moral questions
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References
Brill, J. (2002). “Music, Popular Culture, Identities”. Cengage Learning.
Waskul, D. D. (Ed.) & Vannini, P. (Ed.). (2016). Popular Culture as Everyday Life. New York: Routledge.
