Rock and Pop, Essay Example

Both Rock and Pop music today reflect the many changes in the world since the genres first became a part of our culture. Setting aside the vast differences in how these forms of music are produced and recorded, the technologies in presentation are now so sophisticated as to have a direct influence on how the music itself is perceived by the audience.

Listeners at home or on the road have an intimate experience with the Rock or Pop they choose to play; there is only the song and themselves, and the total effect is one largely made up of what each listener brings to the moment. In a concert venue, the musician has the opportunity to change this completely. Here, more than in any other venue, multimedia and special effects can be used to dramatically heighten the audience experience.

The production team can employ laser lighting effects to generate extra excitement for a particular song that has not been a huge success for the performer, and the audience then takes this in as a new aspect of the song itself. The modern placement of huge video screens placed strategically in concert arenas, initially set up to allow all attendees the opportunity to clearly see the performer on stage, have the further impact of elevating the performer’s status, and consequently power and talent, in the audience’s perception. Under these conditions, with brilliant lights flashing and live images of the performer televised at extraordinary sizes, the effects become synonymous with the music itself. Technology applied in this manner makes the concert a multi-sensory experience which is only partly dependent on the Rock or Pop music being played.

Along these lines, additional marketing opportunities allow producers and artists to appeal to the public in ways only minimally linked to the product. In years past album heart was the keystone, and Rock and Pop bands devoted much attention to this form of iconography because it was almost all they had. Today, the music video industry has become so enormous that success in the industry relies on the production of videos built around the songs. Moreover, even the days of one or two videos being all that was necessary to secure substantial sales are fading fast, and artists like Beyonce are now compelled to release a video for every song on a new album. The tides of technology and marketing have grown to the point where all elements are necessary for a successful Pop or Rock career.

Pop music was largely an American creation, when the modes of music older generations loved collided with the emerging Rock of the 1960’s. What came out was the genre still with us today, one that combined the energy of Rock with the sentimentality of 1940’s and 1950’s swing and ballads. Then, the more recent innovations in communication and broadcasting technologies led to a globalization of American Pop. There was no need for Japanese youth to wait for an American artist to visit; clicking on a screen, and soon after one held in the palm of the hand, brought to them the latest American hits. This in turn has established multiple variations of American Pop throughout the world, with minor cultural adjustments made to the forms of presentation.

On the one hand, today’s global and easy access to American Pop and Rock has helped unify a world otherwise conflicted in other arenas of interaction. However, this diffusing of one nation’s product cannot help but weaken its initial force and purpose, and even in so mild a form as Pop. Then, while complex technology adds excitement to the musical experience, there is the danger of mediocre material being more embraced as quality simply because of a more dazzling mode of release. It is very likely that any true proponent of classic and simple American values, such as Walt Whitman, would be both very impressed at the sophistication and universality of Rock and Pop today, and a little amused at how we eagerly permits special effects to sometimes take the place of what they’re supposed to just enhance.