Musical Trends in Mainstream Pop
The melismatic vocals popular in the 1990s and 2000s in pop and R&B music lost favor by 2010, with vocally lower-key artists such as Kesha, Cheryl Cole, and Katy Perry starting to outsell new releases by perennial melismatic favourites Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera.
The saxophone has been used in multiple top 40 songs early in the decade. Saxophone solos were common, almost cliche, in pop from the 1950s to the early 1990s, but declined later in the 1990s. Whistling has also become more common in hit songs, especially around 2011.
Traditional instruments, such as the mandolin, dulcimer, ukulele, banjo, and accordion, are being used more often, especially in indie rock such as Mumford and Sons, and The Lumineers, along with country artists such as Taylor Swift and Zac Brown Band.
After several years of stagnation due to the decline of nu metal and post-grunge, rock has made a comeback in North America with the rise of the indie music that was for the most part underground in the 25 years predating 2010. However, the opposite has been witnessed in Europe, including the UK, where guitar music sales have generally been in decline.
Electronic music is becoming more popular; some 2010s successes include Skrillex, Headhunterz, Wildstylez, Knife Party, Avicii, Alesso, Owl City, Calvin Harris, Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, ShockOne, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, David Guetta and Lights.
Europop and Eurodance music have also seen commercial success, due to the success of DJs such as David Guetta and Calvin Harris.
Teen pop has made a significant comeback with the likes of One Direction, Big Time Rush, Justin Bieber, Cher Lloyd, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. While throughout the 2000s, teen pop has been almost exclusively associated with Disney and Nickelodeon executives, many teen pop artists outside of Disney and other companies have been created in the 2010s. Social networking sites such as YouTube is the place for many emerging teen pop singers, such as One Direction and Justin Bieber.
Since 2011, boy bands and girl groups have returned to mainstream popularity for the first time since the early 2000s, the most popular being British group One Direction. Older boy groups such as New Kids on The Block, Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees have also returned in an effort to recreate earlier successes along with girl groups such as SWV. The Backstreet Boys continued into their third decade.
Europop and Eurodance music have also seen commercial success early in the decade. Dubstep and Drumstep has become a popular genre on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in its native United Kingdom; in the UK, other electronic genres such as grime have also been growing in popularity. The Hardstyle scene has become popular in Australia with the success of music festivals such as IQON and Defqon 1.
In Asia, popular music continues to be influenced by Western pop music. As with the past several decades, J-Pop and K-Pop continue to be successful in the Far East; in J-Pop, image songs and the influence of anime on popular music have grown since the end of the last decade. K-pop's popularity continues to increase around the world, with acts such as Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation being the most successful artists of the genre. In India, Indian pop, rock and filmi music continues to be popular.
In Latin America, Latin pop still remains the main genre. Tropical music, Reggaeton and Moombahton are also popular genres, whilst pop rock is still successful.
Read more about this topic: 2010s In Music
Famous quotes containing the words musical, trends, mainstream and/or pop:
“Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Thanks to recent trends in the theory of knowledge, history is now better aware of its own worth and unassailability than it formerly was. It is precisely in its inexact character, in the fact that it can never be normative and does not have to be, that its security lies.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in children’s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
—Ellen Goodman (20th century)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)