The Pop Song'shape Of You By Ed Sheeran

In a social experiment concerning radio music, a number of high schoolers were asked to identify the most popular songs (i.e the songs they believed were favored by the general opinion) on the radio. Additionally, they were inquired about the songs they happened to like themselves best. The result demonstrated a strong correlation between songs that the students perceived to be popular and their personal favorite songs. It is here that Adorno makes one of his most compelling critiques: “We know […] that the ‘plugging’ of songs does not follow the response they elicit but the vested interests of song publishers. The identification of the successful with the most frequently played is thus an illusion—an illusion, to be sure, that may become an operating social force and in turn really make the much-played a success: because through such an identification the listeners follow what they believe to be the crowd and thus come to constitute one.”

Shallow lyrics that fail to evoke much thought can be detrimental to a listener's intellectual health. Many developed countries have seen declines in reading proficiency and the superficial

Popular music is often one of the best lenses we have through which to view our own cultural orientation. Many of the artistic and experimental shifts in popular music have mirrored changes in our own society. For instance, the emergence of Elvis Presley as a public figure would signal the start of a sexual revolution and the growth in visibility of a rebellious youth culture. Similarly, the folk and psychedelic music of the 1960s was closely entangled with the Civil Rights, anti-war and social protest movements. In this regard, we can view popular music as an artifact through which to better understand the time and place in which it is produced. In light of this, the state of popular music today may suggest troubling things about our society.

The music is rebellious and its uncompromising intensity is uncatagorizable for its urgent flooding past genre definitions. Miles’ music of the five-year period is unlike any music that preceded it, and still, 30 years later, so original, so Progressive, and so inadequately described.

While many may argue that the rise of hip-hop is a major triumph, Questlove worries that by becoming so pervasive, the genre has, to a certain degree, become “invisible.” Instead of serving as “resistance to mainstream culture,” he believes hip-hop is now “part of the sullen dominant.” Questlove further laments that nowadays hip-hop is not as much a form of protest art; it has been marginalized, and its themes have been narrowed into ideas “mostly about [artists’] own victories and the victory of their genre.” Countless critics have made this same complaint—that hip-hop music is largely dedicated to lyrics about women, money, and fame.

When creating music, there must be something that appeals to the audience. Music in this age must now be more original than ever. New genres of music are being born at a rapid pace, which makes being original a difficult task. “Re-Tuning the Music Industry—Can They Re-Attain Business Resonance?” by Sudip Bhattacharjee, et al, writers for Communication of the ACM, makes the following statement: “Each song is unique. Artists strive to be distinctive and constantly adapt and innovate their offering. Consequently, music consumers face non-trivial search and evaluation tasks prior to each music purchase.” (Bhattacharjee 136). The willingness for consumers to buy music, whether it is an album or just one single song, increases when the music is something they have never heard of before. A band such as Nirvana was able to do just that. In the

to, and got high off of. This paper will discuss the ways popular music of

Questioning the correlation of commercial success and true artistry began in the light of mainstream music. Mainstream music has been given a negative connotation due to the supposed lack of originality of the artists. Repetitive chord progressions and meaningless lyrics compose the majority of “mainstream music,” making each song sound like the next . Despite these patterns in music, artists still ventured outside of what was societally normal and created music that was unheard of. Despite the potential risks in being an individual in the music industry, several groups achieved high success and maintain the popularity in the present. Creativity and commercial success can definitely exist alongside one another, and this paper will prove that through the music of the Beatles, the performance styles of David Bowie, and the grunge movement in Seattle which was fueled by Nirvana.

Many say that music has evolved over the years. This essay shall explore the elements of two versions of one song. It shall discuss the correlations and disparities of these songs and confer how it has been revolutionised to entertain the audiences of today.

Throughout history, music has been seen as a medium in which different people all over the world can relate. Adorno criticizes, however, that songs that have the most “hits” on the top music charts or are most listened to, otherwise known as popular music, are being produced for and consumed by the masses as a commodity. He identifies popular music as being a part of a culture used for capitalism, and that we as listeners, are falling into a trap in which we believe songs have individuality and that we have the freedom to choose what we listen to. He argues that in reality these popular songs are all standardized and made to seem different through various elements that are added. In this paper, I will display how Adorno’s critique of popular music being used for capitalism applies to the song,1-800-273-8255, by hip-hop and rap artist Logic, through its standardized elements in both its content and marketing; however, I will argue that although it contains these elements, the audience is actively listening and responding to the song as it brings awareness to mental health and suicide prevention that is changing and saving lives all around us.

Do you ever wonder what is the meaning behind what you so proudly sing whenever you hear it? Music is an art form of culture which organizes sound with times It first came around in prehistoric times, however, as times passes, music is drastically changing. As a result, in the last decades music has experienced drastic changes in the themes they are talking about. These changes are due to the generations and what they are living, political and social actions of the time. For example, the decade of the 80s was the rise of hip-hop and rap music from a local phenomenon to a worldwide known genre of music. Previously, a crack cocaine epidemic had stroke major cities in the USA and it coincided with the rise of hip-hop in black communities as these

The pop-song Shape of You by Ed Sheeran follows a pattern that Adorno has argued to be the formula for a song to become a hit pop song. Ed Sheeran and Steve Mac produced Shape of You under the Asylum Label and Atlantic Label (ACE Repertory 1). Ed Sheeren is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from England that creates pop music since 2004 (The Academy of Contemporary Music, 1). On January 16, 2017, he released his album, ÷. By February 18, Shape of You became the #1 most popular song, keeping that position for eleven weeks (Billboard, 1). The popularity of this song can be explained through Adorno’s writing, On Popular Music. Adorno was from the Frankfurt School, known for claiming that the media is extremely influential to the point that

Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) was a member of the Frankfurt School at the University of Frankfurt in 1923 (Longhurst, 1995:4). Adorno was notably influenced by Marx’s critique of capitalism, Freud’s psychological repression studies and Weber’s theory of rationalism (Goodwin, 1990). Adorno develops a critique of popular music from a critical theory derived from Marx and adopts this

In this article, Peterson and Berger show how the organization of the popular music industry affects the music that America hears.

This paper is a reflection on my rhetorical analysis of a song essay. The essay consisted of the analyzation of the song “ Secret love Song” by Little Mix featuring Jason DeRulo. Throughout the essay, I analyzed the song by describing the tone of the song. I also analyzed the lyrics of the song and gave an example of what I thought it meant. Throughout the essay I also realized that I had some mistakes that I should’ve fixed such as my use of vocabulary.