It occurs to me that the more the public ingest banal popular entertainment the more banal it gets. The diet of banality is the new Atkins’. Banal popular music with little or no originality is played on rotation in shops, when waiting to be put through to a human on customer helpline and it assaults our ears via the medium of mobile phones used without headphones.
Singers’ voices seem to me, at least, to be indistinguishable from each other. There was a time, a time that still has resonance, when a unique voice, a distinguishable voice and identity was prevalent in the world of popular music. The once venerable TOTP would feature singers with diverse and recognisable voices such as Annie Lennox, Pete Shelley, Kate Bush, John Lydon, Larry Blackmon, George Michael, Kevin Rowlands, Siouxsie Sioux, Phil Oakley, Martin Fry, Enya, Sinead O’Connor, Paul Young, Lena Lovitch, Luther Vandros, The Bee Gees, Bono, Terence Trent Darby, Fergal Sharkey… the list is a long one. The point being, that it was okay to have a USP.
The banality of current popular music is clearly a byproduct of saturation, polished production techniques and most of all commerce “if it works don’t change it”. Production houses and labels with something about them are merely a memory. The sound of Two Tone, Jam & Lewis, Trevor Horn and the many self-produced acts has given way to ubiquity. the Spectrum is narrow instead of broad
There's a lack of heart these days, a lack of appreciation of the beauty of difference in the mainstream of music.
It's obvious to me that there are still artists making good music, underground, on small labels plying their trade gigging and honing their art. But the mainstream of popular music, at its best says something about the times and it’s possible that the current blandness is a reflection of a time where the ideas that float around are less interesting and more transient. More product needing less attention rather than the other way round
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having said that;