FEATURE:
High or Low?
IN THIS PHOTO: Tate McRae/PHOTO CREDIT: BAETH
The Struggle of Being Able to Match Established Pop Giants
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I came across a review…
IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa
quite recently that made me think about those Pop artists who both change direction and are in competition with real heavyweights like Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX. There is a top tier that have been in the industry for a long time and have their own sound. They have very large fanbases - and they do dominate the press. A lot of attention of particular artists. It is hard for those artists that are a bit lower down the popularity layer that will have a hard task on their hand. Maybe there is this split between the kind of Disco and Dance-inspired Pop or artists like Dua Lipa and something more emotional and dreamier that Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish produce. The group and sector that Harry Styles sits in. I don’t think that the Pop market is as broad as it could be. Tate McRae has just released her second studio album, Think Later. It has got some great reviews. The Telegraph were impressed with biting of-the-moment Pop. It was a review from The Guardian that noted how the music was similar to what is in the mainstream, though it lacked a unique selling point or distinction:
“If you view a certain kind of current pop as involving a checklist of prerequisites, then the career of 20-year-old Canadian Tate McRae ticks virtually every box. A prehistory in kids’ television? Check, albeit as the voice of Spot Splatter Splash in the cartoon Lalaloopsy. Online celebrity translated into IRL musical success, aided by a co-sign from an established artist? Check: her transition from a YouTube vlogger was aided by Billie Eilish, who co-wrote, with Finneas O’Connell, McRae’s debut single Tear Myself Apart. Lyrics that deal in bad boyfriends, I-didn’t-ASK-to-be-born angst and loud declarations about not minding being recently dumped because he’ll come crawling back soon enough? Check: her oeuvre is heavy on tracks with titles such as Feel Like Shit, Hate Myself, Hurt My Feelings, We’re Not Alike, Exes and Go Away. Music that’s a three-way split between pop-trap, big ballads and guitars that go chugga-chugga in time-honoured pop-punk style alongside vocals larded with AutoTune or delivered in that accusatory mush-mouthed slur that somehow suggests the singer is performing with their bottom lip stuck out like a petulant four-year-old? Check.
And virality, absolutely – her recent single Greedy has not only frequently been the most listened-to track in the world on Spotify, it has soundtracked nearly 4m videos on TikTok, many of them featuring something called the “tube girl hair flip transition trend”, that it’s perhaps best not to explain in depth lest you take it as further evidence that culture as we know it is doomed.
It’s hard not to listen to McRae and think that there is an awful lot of this stuff about. Yet it’s clearly a formula with commercial life. Last week, as the UK charts were swamped by Christmas songs, Greedy – the latest in a string of gold and platinum hits for her on both sides of the Atlantic – remained one of the last redoubtable holdouts, a small corner of the Top 10 fending off the massed hordes of superannuated sleigh-bell shakers, armed with the power of the tube girl hair flip transition trend”
The quest for a USP doesn’t seem to have yielded a definitive answer: McRae is still fitting a lot of currently popular boxes without escaping them. There are highlights, but the overwhelming impression is of placeholder pop, filling space until something different comes along. How Tate McRae will respond when it does is anyone’s guess”.
It was those words (in the review) about a Pop artist having a formula or set background. Tate McRae is an example I am using, though there are a lot of Pop artists out there who have a similar sound and background. Maybe quite a few are deliberately trying to replicate sounds that are trending or popular. I think that is hard to distinguish yourself in a busy market. When it comes to Tate McRae, she has switched when it comes to her sound. More of a natural evolution, some might see her embracing something more biting as an attempt to stand alongside artists like Olivia Rodrigo. She explained more in an interview with Variety:
“Recently anointed Tater-Tots (her fandom name) met her explosive arrival with equal parts intrigue and skepticism. But anyone with a YouTube or TikTok account—and just the right algorithm—would know that McRae has been a songwriter, dancer and singer since making waves with 2020’s “You Broke Me First,” which now tallies 1.2 billion streams on Spotify. In the years that followed, she planted her flag as a moody, introspective analog to Billie Eilish, a diary-scribbler who wore it proudly with song titles like “Feel Like Shit” and “Don’t Be Sad.” But her recent reinvention secured her first bona fide smash with “Greedy,” which has been used in more than two million TikTok posts and topped the Billboard Global 200 and Spotify’s Global charts.
Much of it is because “Think Later,” McRae’s sophomore album that was released on Friday, is a rebirth. She wipes the slate of the more somber bedroom fare that largely drove her debut full-length, last year’s “I Used to Think I Could Fly,” and assumes a new form as a pop savant, one who bastes cutting pop production with raspy meditations on love and heartache. On opener “Cut My Hair,” she makes her mission statement known: “Couple years back, so sensitive yeah / Moving like that gets repetitive, yeah / Singing ’bout the same old stupid ass things / Sad girl bit got a little boring.”
“I was like, god, writing sad songs and being depressing, no one has ever seen a different side of me,” she says. “All they’ve seen is victim, depressed Tate. Sometimes you grow up and things change and I got bored of it. So I’m like, I want to switch this up, but it feels perfect because I think it’s fun to take a jab at yourself sometimes and your older self.”
When McRae began recording “Think Later” at the top of the year, she felt lost. She was coming off of an 11-month break—the longest breath she’s taken since she started pursuing dancing seriously as a teen—and was unmoored, unsure of who she was and what she wanted to say as an artist. Add to the fact that here she was, alone in Los Angeles after moving from her native Calgary, Canada at 17, navigating the music industry on her own.
“I’ve been a very intuitive person my whole life, and I totally lost that the past five years,” she says. “My intuition was so buried among so many voices. And I did a lot of self-work and meditating and was like, what the fuck do I want and who am I? I had no idea.” She looks back at “I Used to Think I Could Fly” and how she simply acquiesced to suggestions from songwriters to try on as many sounds and identities as possible. “It’s so drastic from this record that I made right now. I think the biggest thing was the look of it, my album cover art, I was put in a hot pink dress, and I was like, I don’t even like pink!”
Which isn’t to say she doesn’t respect the album and its statement. It’s just that “Think Later” was an opportunity for her to lasso creative control and chisel a spot for herself in the pop firmament. It began with mood boards and playlists (one “sonic,” another “inspiration”) that drew from early 2000s culture. She agrees that “Greedy,” for example, has shades of Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous,” and referenced the song’s producer Timbaland during the writing process.
What helped McRae narrow her vision was assembling a core team of writers who could crystallize it. OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, who serves as executive producer on “Think Later,” played a key role alongside Amy Allen and Jasper Harris. She and Tedder bumped heads in their first Zoom session—”I was like I have my writing ways, and he was like, ‘I have my writing ways'”—but they settled into a groove that yielded consistent returns. Throughout the year, she recalls, there were roughly 80 to 90 sessions to yield the 14 tracks that made the album.
“Think Later” is as much radio fish food as it is a personal manifesto. There are the sassy bops, like the swishy “Guilty Conscience” and boyfriend-stealing “Hurt My Feelings,” and then the more downbeat reflections like “Plastic Palm Trees” and “Calgary,” where she sheds her skin of a bad breakup and the insecurities that linger from her teenage years. That duality was front and center during her “SNL” performances: one of “Greedy,” full choreo on display, another of “Grave,” poised at the mic singing of loosening the shackles of a forlorn relationship. (Her appearance on the show resonated far: Eilish texted her after, Harry Styles sent her flowers.)
Listeners have taken notice, and she’s aware she’s under a microscope. Women in pop have historically been held to a higher standard, one that doesn’t actually exist, and McRae is no exception. But she doesn’t internalize it. Instead of doomscrolling through comments on social media, she instead chooses to focus on the things that matter, like perfecting her artistry and delivering her best”.
I know that female artists especially are put under the microscope more and subjected to more scrutiny than their male counterparts. I think there is that attempt to be relatable. Tate McRae and her young peers are writing music that is going to be relatable to their fanbase. Popular on sites like TikTok and Instagram, it does seem like a lot of Pop artists at the moment are making music that is aimed at teens and young people in their twenties. The subjects, as The Guardian wrote in their review, are “Bad boyfriends, bedroom-door-slamming angst and friendship group drama”. Some would say that this is what a Pop audience want. That said, with quite a few artists doing the same thing, it is going to be really difficult for any new artists to make an impression and stand out. If there is a demand and familiar sound, it is only natural for them to incorporate that. Look back decades ago and there was a broader Pop scene. I wonder whether social media is damaging the potential variety of the genre. A distinct sound and type of music that is used on TikTok, for example. This article argued how massive artists like Taylor Swift and her ubiquitousness means that there is a narrowness and repetitiveness in the industry. It is clear there are a lot of talented artists who are grinding away and working hard. It is hard enough for artists being accused of being industry plants. Something that particularly is levied at women. I feel that the reason many artists are seen as box-ticking is that there are a number of factors happening at the moment that are contributing to a certain staleness. Earlier this year, Billboard asked why more Pop stars are not being born (that stand out and are distinct). There is a lot to unpick:
“It’s All TikTok’s Fault
The most common reason given for the scarcity of new pop stars was TikTok, which was blamed for all but killing traditional artist development.
“They need to stop signing people based off of a couple viral tiktok videos, churning out fast food music and work with real artists with longevity,” wrote @internetmaeve on X. “like Olivia didn’t blow up overnight she was a disney kid?? s– takes time.”
The ephemeral nature of the short-form video platform — a significant change from a radio-dominated business, when songs in rotation on Top 40 stations were inescapable — was cited as a factor by Reddit user @anneoftheisland, weighing in on the r/popheads channel where the article was shared: “TikTok isn’t set up to boost artists, it’s set up to boost individual songs…In the radio era, if a hit broke out, labels had significant sway to get that artist’s second and third songs in front of you … they couldn’t force you to like those songs, but they could force you to listen to them. But that’s a lot harder to do in the streaming/TikTok era. If you hear a song you like on TikTok, there’s a large chance you won’t hear that artist’s second/third singles unless you seek them out yourself.”
On the same Reddit thread, @Interesting-Ad9838 said that artists who break through on TikTok simply don’t have the cross-generational impact as in previous eras, thereby limiting their influence. “The general audience don’t know who these artists are anymore,” they wrote. “If my grandparents know who you are, then you definitely made it.”
Record Labels Are Too Risk-Averse
Another common theme, which ties in with concerns about TikTok, is the complaint that labels are increasingly risk-averse, preferring to sign artists with preexisting fanbases rather than putting the time, energy and money into developing them from the ground up.
“Mind you there are artists on…labels right now probably begging to have full label support and funding for their projects,” said X user @waylojan. “The problem is they’re looking elsewhere instead of bolstering the talent they have.”
“The industry wants quick and fast and isn’t giving, in my opinion, some people who could really do this the right chance,” added Reddit user @moxieroxsox on the r/popheads thread. “It took Rihanna 3 albums before she skyrocketed. Taylor Swift wasn’t taken seriously until what? Speak Now? Red? Ariana did Broadway and TV before she started music and she has the voice of a literal angel. Beyoncé spent years tailoring her sound, not to mention all the years she spent developing her abilities in Destiny’s Child.”
PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio
Record Labels Are Doing This On Purpose
Provocatively, a Reddit user (who has a rather provocative handle we won’t name here for reasons of decorum) positioned the pop star drought as something engineered by labels to avoid paying the kind of money they gave superstars like Janet Jackson and Madonna in the old days.
“When you have stars that have a lot of momentum behind their career, and they have a lot of prestige, and they have a large and solid fanbase, they get to demand more from labels,” they wrote. “If you have stars with much shorter careers…and shorter reigns in public interest, you don’t have somebody who can walk into a negotiation, and demand more on their side of the deal with the label.”
Our Attention Is Too Fragmented
Audience fragmentation, precipitated in part by the rise of social media influencers, was also a theme hit upon by several commenters.
“It’s probably hard when everyone can be famous now on TikTok,” said X user @kariwarburgon. “It’s like that one quote from The Incredibles ‘Once everyone is super no one is.’”
With so many platforms to release and consume music now, Reddit user itsyagurlb says public attention has simply become more diffuse — making it more difficult for artists to achieve stratospheric levels of fame.
“As someone else here has mentioned, we no longer have ‘smash’ hits from major pop stars that are inescapable, and so even with the rise of streaming, it’s much easier for people to tune out of today’s ‘hit’ song,” they wrote. “We consume music differently now which also impacts how pervasive a song can be because of how individualized our streaming choices can be. Even in the age of iTunes, hits were more impactful because if you wanted to hear the hot new song, you might pay for it. Now? I can listen to a minute of the song on spotify without any real investment and move on if I dont vibe with it, and there’s been no ‘sale.’”
Added Reddit user @BronzeErupt, citing one of the most powerful promotional vehicles of the late ’90s and early ’00s: “There’s no modern equivalent of TRL where a song can be deliberately played and suddenly everyone knows about it.”
Music Is Boring/Bad Now
Predictably, some social media users slammed the state of modern popular music. “I want to blame TikTok for this, but truthfully I think the root of the problem is how boring, dull and unoriginal modern-pop music sounds like,” said Reddit user TuffyTenToes. “They aren’t popping off because there is nothing to be popping off for. Perhaps I’m doomposting but it truly feels like pop music is in an all time low, creatively speaking.”
“Too many people mistake tik tok earworms for musical talent,” added @LSX3399 on Reddit. “No albums anymore, no concepts, no risks. Over-saturation of mid.”
It’s Taylor Swift’s Fault
Is the real problem…Taylor Swift? According to Reddit user @LifeOfAWimpyKid, the uber-popstar of the 21st century is simply taking up too much space in the conversation for other artists to break through.
“I feel like Taylor Swift has singlehandedly saturated the pop market to the point where the entire industry has become boring as s— and not fun for other artists to participate in,” they wrote. “Taylor is not without merit, but now it’s just Taylor, Taylor, Taylor all the time. Her fans are very vocal and active too and dominate the conversation, and all the other opinions just get drowned out. This was hardly the case a decade ago, when you had multiple acts coexisting at the top, such as Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Calvin Harris, and Eminem”.
If new and young Pop artist want to stand out and establish a career built on originality and accessibility, there are so many challenges and questions. If they want something relatable that speaks to their fans, then that means a lot of the same subjects are repurposed. Many of the good reviews for those albums and songs might be very positive, but is that because they fit in with what is popular? The sort of music that modern Pop giants are producing? If they want to be more revealing and sensitive, then there are other better-known artists already doing that. I think that artists such as Tate McRae are very impressive and worthy. They have their own stories and direction, yet it is quite easy to draw a line through them and bigger names like Olivia Rodrigo. This blend of so many artists packing into the scene balanced against a select few artists dominating the airwaves means that it is extremely hard to stand out. I wrote recently how Pop music is dominated by some big names and might lack fizz. By ‘fizz’, rather than it being generic energy and something upbeat, maybe that originality and blend that is missing at the moment. We have so a selection of tremendously promising Pop artists coming through. I wonder how many are being heard and getting airtime. It also seems that, the more there is a desired or go-to Pop sound for success and social media connection, then the more we will hear this from artists. 2024 could be a year for refreshing and updating. I am not sure how easy it is for artists to break a certain malaise or overfamiliarity. It might well be a time where we see diversification and…
SOMETHING new.