Defending Britney

Defense of “Pop Music”

In this assignment, I will be defending pop music but more specifically pop music from the years 1998-2002. These years are especially important to the cultural identity of pop music. Such acts as N*Sync and Britney Spears drew massive attention from teenagers across the country and the world. This time period was a huge expansion of boy bands including Backstreet Boys (BSB), 98 degrees, and N*Sync and such female artists as Destiny’s Child, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. These musicians had millions of teenage fans who would flock to Times Squares at TRL (a music-video countdown show on MTV) just so they could possibly get a glimpse of them. Pop mania set in and soon the radios and televisions were flooded with songs, the musicians, and the fans that became obsessed with them, and who still considering Backstreet Boys was recently on tour with sold-out shows.
Many other genres of musicians did not consider boy bands and pop music to be “real” music. Many of the song lyrics by pop musicians were very corny in a sense and did not appeal to most people except 13-year-old girls. This pop music defined a generation of the teenagers of that time period, me included. Pop music received awards and what not but in retrospect and from other genres of music. Many pop musicians did not write their own song lyrics which coming a few years after musician poets such as Kurt Cobain, was a big no-no in the music industry. In the case of the attacks against pop music the most important aspect of how and why these musicians were not taken seriously were because of the media representations of them. Beacher states on page 45 “An alternative approach is to assume instead that media representations ‘re-present’ or actually create a new reality, which in turn mediates or shapes the ways in which people perceive themselves and the world” this holds true for many of these pop stars.
The female pop stars like Britney Spears were very commercialized and were put out for show as major sex appeal. This very ditsy appearance lead critics, to some extent de-value her and other female musicians in the pop industry. Even today, the effects of becoming so famous and having that female stereotype of her has messed with her head considering her relationship with the media and her breakdowns. Another criticism of pop music was that it was only loved by young teenagers, one of the most famous images is when N*Sync was at TRL and hundreds of girls lined the streets hoping to see them. TRL was one of the main ways fans of pop music at this time were able to interact with their favorite musicians. People could call to request their favorite music videos along with other things they could do.
The main criticism of this type of music is its superficiality. Music is “the ideal vehicle for communicating exceptional emotions; perhaps its mediocre moments give the listener room to make sense of all that intensity.” (Powers 238) Even though the lyrics and the music may have been superficial it reached out to a generation of teenagers. I know from personal experience, that every time I hear a certain N*Sync song it brings to the days of my first middle school crushes and school dances. One thing that become much more prominent and popular after pop mania was the fan culture and fan clubs, which was taken to a much higher level. Fans of N*Sync and Backstreet Boys collected magazines articles, posters, videos and even Barbie dolls of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. As Beacher says on page 60, “Being a fan involves active participation and knowledge of a particular media text or event, as displayed through logos, photos, clothes, and so on.” Many of the pop fans collected plenty of memorabilia because of their obsession with their favorite music groups.