Love or hate it, pop music has had a rise in the past decade. With artists like Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Magic!, and Maroon 5; the music world has been bombarded with single after single on the Billboard’s Top 100. Songs of partying, lust filled nights, and the endless pursuit to continue to have a good time seem to be on the radio at all hours of the day. However, it seems to me that the pop world seems to be evolving once again and in an interestingly 180 type of approach. Pop music by definition is an ever changing genre, morphing to whatever standards the general masses find enjoyable; and within that definition, the music genre is almost at all times a Frankenstein’s monster of more than one type of music combined into one compact form. This interestingly allows a compact view of what the masses find the best of the best for each genre as well as showing almost a close view of what genres are more popular for each generation. In the 80’s hair band, rock and roll, and the beginning of techno was all the rage; for the 90’s it was the rise of alternative bands, underground sensations, rap, and the final nail that disco was truly dead.
While looking at the early 2000’s (in this case anything before 2010) the emergence of what our definition of pop began to emerge. Songs like “Bootyliscous” by Destiny’s Child, “Hot in Here” by Nelly, “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, “Hey Yeah” by Outkast, and “Sexy Back” by Justin Timberlake started climbing up the billboards, bringing in the decade of party sex filed songs we associate pop with often times.  Every generation of music has had these types of songs, seen either as “corrupting” and “disgusting” or just the general that we know; but now, every corner was full of the music of parties, sex, drugs, and forgetting tomorrow for tonight. Music, being fairly influential on the general masses, created a form of change in society and media. As music on the radio was lyric after lyric of suggestiveness, TV and movies seemed to take more risks as well, perhaps seeing what you could now get away with on the radio.

In the recent months and years, pop music has seen an interesting metamorphosis with songs and artists of the genre beginning to move into new grounds of taking stands on hot button topics and issues. Songs like Macklemore’s “Same Love” Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”, Megan Trainor’s “All About the Bass” tackling topics such as marriage equality, body image, and sexuality acceptance. Not only well received due to message, the songs were smash hits, catchy and having the way to get stuck in the heads of millions bringing more light on such topics. Another evolution the genre is seemingly going through is the rebirth and age of alternative. Sneaking their way into the pop radar are bands like Imagine Dragon, now a household name with their summer hit “Radioactive”, AWOLNATION with their much parodied and addictive single “Sail”, and the most surprising wildfire to come from the alt world, Lorde, whose song “Royals” took blatant jabs at the state of pop’s party all the time nature.

From this point in time, it seems that pop is once again doing more 180’s than Madonna’s career. In personal opinion, if songs that improve an issue’s recognition in society are a contusions growth and become abundant, we may actually see at least some improvement in society. Perhaps, the music industry is now becoming an even greater weapon for people to use to make a change they need in their lives on a wide scale level. On the topic of the alt invasion, I perceive the whole movement as only taking small steps at the moment, but an ever growing power in the pop world none the less. With the personal bias towards alternative and indie music, I do hope that the infectious lyrics of such bands as Bastille, New Politics, Milky Chance, and Paramore make even greater ground in the light. Knowing the vast preferences of people, I am excited and in anticipation to see how this genre will become in the coming months and years.