How are the artistic value and commerciality of popular music related to each other? Will they be completely exclusive or inevitably connected? There is still an exclusive view of artistic value and commerciality inside and outside the pop music industry. They say good music is a creation filled with artist’s anguish that has worked hard to reject commerciality and improve artistic perfection. People tend to think that musicians, which many music enthusiasts call legends, have lived by making works in this manner.
However, after the development of technology in modern capitalist society, music became available for recordings, making it difficult to escape the product form of an album. The album successfully transformed the popular music market from a small market to a large market beyond time and space. In particular, the album made an individual cannot handle the whole process of creating, recording, and informing music to the public alone. The art genres, such as literature and painting, can be more private and independent, but popular music involves many people in each process, including arranging, performing, recording, producing, and selling.
In addition, music that calls to a product, as soon as it is released as the album to inform the public the outcome of creation, is destined to compete with other music. This is because you cannot listen to all the music in the world. As a result, it is inevitable that a commercial popular music production system led by Tin Pan Alley has emerged since the 1930s, shortly after the forming the popular music market.
It is not just American pop which takes commerciality into great consideration. The Beatles’ decision in changing their hairstyles and costumes when they debuted, and the Rolling Stones’ intentional choice of wild styles were all intentional actions considering their success. In the history of popular music, there are many examples of planning styles and music intentionally for popularity and sales. It is not just a story of mainstream and popular music musicians. The same goes for alternative, critical, and rebellious musicians. There are several cases, including Punk, where alternative and subversive images and values have created another market. The history of popular music has been a continuation of the process of changing position as a subculture, counter culture emerging against mainstream culture.
And when we enjoy and consume music, we do not only respond to the beauty of sound. Attention is also being paid to the style, identity, and attitude of musicians. We examine the special narrative musicians have, and the various pleasures they give. While technology and the market were changing together, the music industry constantly improved and reinforced the commerciality of music through planning and marketing. Music products have become differentiated and sophisticated, focusing on universality and popularity to target more music fans, or targeting a limited but loyal fan base. The history of pop, especially K-POP, clearly shows the flow of the former. On the contrary, certain genres of markets such as trot, rock, and folk are closer to the latter. Words such as stardom, fandom, portfolio strategy, blue ocean, and red ocean show the strategy of the pop music market. Popular music has always been a product.
Nevertheless, the reason why there is still a view of separating the artistic value and commerciality of popular music is that it is a product and an artwork at the same time. Popular music is a product that is bought and sold, as well as an artist's creation and cultural product. Therefore, it stimulates not only the desire for possession or consumption, but also the spirit, intelligence, and sensibility at the same time. The impression and enjoyment of the stimulation take the action of consuming and enjoying music to a different area than the consumption of other products. Buying, watching, or listening to music is not an act of consuming goods, but an act of delegating the soul and enhancing its senses. In this process, works that explore and shape more serious and metaphysical, and critical values are considered more like "intellectual partners" than products. Therefore, enjoying such musical works is highly regarded as a noble act of special value, which is different from enjoying popular works. This does not mean that the work is not a product. Music, considered to be a work of art, operates a device to highlight values such as workability, musicality, artistry, and authenticity. It is to make it look more pure, deeper, and fiercer. Or they don't intentionally run devices for box office success.
If music had stuck to the authentic and artistic value, the territory of music might have decreased. Therefore, it is not only impossible but also meaningless to separate the artistic value and commerciality of popular music from each other. The important thing is not to use independent and alternative music alone as a means of proving one's refinement, but to have a sense of balance to be able to read the perfection and value of mainstream music.
I agree that music is a form of art and there's many way to interpret! Thx for letting me know more abt that! Goodjob keep it up!
Quite an interesting read. I would like to read your opinions about the culture of commodification of the artist/singer rather than their music as well!