Technology has been a strong influencer in all of the musical twists and turns in American vernacular music up to the 1980s, however, technology is a definite game changer in the late 80s. The launch of MTV, a 24 hour a day network channel dedicated to music videos and music news, allowed fans into nearly every aspect of the artists’ lives. This meant that the artists now needed to become actors as well as musicians, which led to some artists creating multiple personalities. We see this in several genres including pop artists like Madonna who recreated their personalities as their careers developed and also in hip hop when rap artists changed their names. Below I will touch on several of the top songs and artists from the 1980’s and 1990’s and will describe how technology played a role in their success. It should be noted that I forwent the downloaded tracks and iTunes tracks this week and took advantage of watching the music videos for most of the listening examples this week.
Two of the biggest hits of 1984 were “Like a Virgin” by Madonna and “When Doves Cry” by Prince. Madonna and Prince were both very well rounded in terms of creating chart topping music along with elaborate music videos, however there are several differences between these two songs. Prince not only wrote, produced, and performed his song, he also recorded all of the instrumental tracks and the 12 different voice tracks. This was largely possible due to increased recording studio technology. Madonna’s song on the other hand, was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and Madonna sung the only vocal track. This very well may be an example of video successfully killing the radio star, and for that reason we will feature Prince’s live performance of “Purple Rain” here.
As mentioned earlier, the mixture of hungry fans and new technology meant that successful musicians could lose any privacy they once had. This transition happened incredibly fast for Nirvana once their album Nevermind was released. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” propelled them to constant circulation on MTV and that high level of stardom was too much for front man Kurt Cobain to handle. The songs use of heavy metal instrumentals gives it the signature grunge sound. It could be that the style was changed to fit the “unplugged” model, but if you compare these two recordings of “Come as You Are” you can see some changes in Kurt Cobain. The first is a live recording from 1991, the year Nevermind was released, and the second is a sound check for MTV’s Unplugged, taped in late 1993, just 5 months before his death.
The advances in technology during this time period also added to the increasingly blurred lines between genres of music at the end of the twentieth century (2014, page 491). You can see the “rules” being bent as Michael Jackson uses Paul McCarthy and Eddie Van Halen on his Thriller album. Also, hip hop artists Run DMC teamed up with rock stars Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith to create a very entertaining version of “Walk This Way.” In searching I found an even more entertaining version that includes Kid Rock.
Starr, L., & Waterman, C. (2014). American popular music: From minstrelsy to MP3 (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
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