R+P Post 6: Current trends in Popular Music

In 2017, pop music is still the most popular form of music, which is unsurprising as that is what defines it. Other genres are starting to break into the main pop genre, and are thus becoming popular as well. I looked to awards to see what has been popular this year, and a song that I mentioned in a previous post as a quintessential pop song, "All About That Bass," contributed to Meghan Trainor winning the Vanguard Award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards this year. Snoop Dogg was at the awards ceremony to help hand out awards, as even though he is a rapper and not a pop artist, he is an example of someone from outside the pop genre breaking into the mainstream. So any artist can become mainstream and successful, but helps if they are linked to the pop genre- this should be useful information later on.

A screenshot from the ASCAP website. The text describes Meghan Trainor's victory and the image shows Snoop Dogg presenting an award. Awards are a good way to see what is currently successful- the fact that pop music has its own awards, and that a rapper can be present at these awards, is quite revealing of certain trends. Click to enlarge.

Most genres have a thriving music scene even if it's a scene only comprised of fans of their niche. For example, another genre I have mentioned before, Electro Swing, is very niche- however, even genres like this have their own festivals such as Swingamajig, which fans attend dressed in genre (and thus period) appropriate clothing, to listen to and celebrate the music of the genre as well as do other festival activities like eat street food and watch magic shows. This means niche and/or indie genres can also do well outside of pop- hopefully this means that, even though pop is one of the biggest genres, we have a little bit of freedom to go outside of pop, maybe to one of its more niche subgenres, while remaining competitive.

We also did a bit of research into what is popular right now (as of writing.) The charts seem to line up with what we have already concluded- pop artists like Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith are still pulling in a large audience, but other genres like rap and electronic (seen through artists like 21 Savage and Marshmello respectively) are able to still do well. Current trends seem to be leading us towards a pop subgenre, and we could potentially find a gap in the market by making that subgenre something other than rap, electronic, or similar music that is doing well now.

The charts as of October 31st. Quite a large mix of genres, but pop still reigns supreme. The breakthrough of other genres is particularly interesting to us though, as they are popular music without being pop music. Click to enlarge.

To help us find a gap in the market, we referred to prediction articles such as this one by the BBC. A couple of things from this article were especially useful and interesting to us- short attention spans works well with the brief, as we have a maximum of 3 minutes for our song. Being political is a good idea too- our audience research at this time points to people wanting to connect with their favourite artists' ideas, and politics is another thing we can use to build up image alongside things like fashion and colour scheme discussed in previous posts. The phasing out of albums also suits us, as we are focusing on a hit single with a music video; we should be able to reach a huge audience with just one track, and due to evolving accessibility, everyone who likes it can buy just the one song without being put off by the larger price tag of a physical album or a whole digital album. Finally, the slowing of the emergence of new musical styles also bodes well for us, as it should mean we can aim for the current market and current trends, filling any gaps we see, yet still remain relevant for a while, as new gaps in the market won't appear as often.

Overall the current trends in popular music, as well as the current gaps, all seem to work in our favour, as long as we use this information to make informed choices on our genre, song, etc.