Sometimes I get anxious when I feel like I’ve totally lost track of pop music. But then I get on P3, the Swedish national pop channel and conclude that frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Sometimes the songs are good and sometimes they’re rubbish, but they all sound the same!
Let’s take a quick look at 70 years of “popular” music and some of the musical styles that have come along. To give a few examples and starting in the 1950s: crooning (Sinatra, Crosby), rock ‘n’ roll (Elvis, Chuck Berry), British invasion (Beatles, Kinks, Who, Stones), blues rock (Hendrix, Cream), soul (Tamla Motown, Stax, Atlantic artists), heavy rock (Led Zep, Black Sabbath), prog rock (Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis), glam rock (Bowie, Bolan, Roxy), punk rock (Clash, Pistols), new wave (Costello, Ian Dury), ska (Madness, Specials), new romantics (Duran Duran, Human League) etc. and we’ve only reached the early 80s. The list goes on and on and I’ve missed out loads.
All the above examples had hit singles, no matter how extreme some of them could sometimes be, but radio back then played everything and a pop song from a non-pop artist could cross over and get played. The UK top 20 included all current popular styles, not just one or two of them. Taking a couple of dates at random: in June 1969 you had The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson (Motown/soul), Jethro Tull (blues, prog), Tom Jones, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. February 1973 saw Focus (prog rock), The Faces (rock), Thin Lizzy (rock), Dave Edmunds (r’n’r), Elton John (pop), The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder (Motown/soul), Alice Cooper (rock), Slade (rock), Olivia Newton-John (country) in the top 20, plus a lot of other pop.
Today Swedish radio station P3 aims mainly at 20 to 35-year-olds (their words, not mine) and at least on paper includes rock, hip-hop, R’n’B, pop, EDM, indie etc. But when I listen to P3, I hear pop and hip-hop and the same soundscape on everything. When was the last time Arcade Fire or The Shins were played on P3? Or Five Finger Death Punch? A great new song from Arcade Fire has no chance to cross over and be a hit.
And the lyrics? Check out Kanye West’s latest hit, “I Love It”, at Genius.com. Genius lyrics? Shome mishtake I think. Of course, the whole dynamic has changed and we can’t put the clock back, but it’s sad and boring and so is the music on P3. It’s not about good music at all, it’s about what fits their extremely narrow policy. So, what’s the alternative? P4? Of course not. Mix Megapol? Highly unlikely. No, if you’re interested in music and you’re not 25 and into Kanye or Hov1, it’s streaming that matters. And where does that leave P3? For most of the population, completely irrelevant, which includes all the young rockers too (and the old ones, of course). yse 6 S B