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Selling points in music
I used to wonder why so much pop music had the accompaniment be so secondary, so much in the background.
Then I realized; it's pop music. The main selling point is the talent, the voice. They choose to let the instrumentals take second stage whilst the voice does the "heavy lifting." Unorthodox sounds and tones would distract away from the main product.
That's also why there are so many reality TV programmes focused on finding the voice; they're finding something to sell.
I think that might be why I love the alternative stuff more; not only are they allowed to experiment with new tones, but to my ears, alternative music usually puts equal importance on both the voice as well as the instrumentals, creating what seems to me the more harmonious sound.
Then I realized; it's pop music. The main selling point is the talent, the voice. They choose to let the instrumentals take second stage whilst the voice does the "heavy lifting." Unorthodox sounds and tones would distract away from the main product.
That's also why there are so many reality TV programmes focused on finding the voice; they're finding something to sell.
I think that might be why I love the alternative stuff more; not only are they allowed to experiment with new tones, but to my ears, alternative music usually puts equal importance on both the voice as well as the instrumentals, creating what seems to me the more harmonious sound.
Comments
It's not just the voice, though. It's also looks and personality. Lady Gaga's success is less to do with her music, which isn't bad but certainly isn't ground-breaking, and more to do with her wild persona.
I do appreciate it when composers get away from the usual melody/harmony structure even though the more abstract, un-hummable sound (such as the Impressionist works of Debussy and Ravel) takes more getting used to.
Unfortunately, I generally actually pay attention to the accompaniment, because the melody often doesn't work just by itself. The way I see it, the melody is basically the frosting on a cake--it makes it look nice, but most of the cake isn't frosting.
It also happens that my favorite iM@S character, Chihaya, shares this opinion. Her interest in a pop idol career is because she gets to sing, and she really isn't very interested in the spectacle part of being a pop star.
Still, I believe the melody is what sticks in most people's heads. It's not as easy to hum along to the chordal progression, or even the countermelodies.
Pop is always about either synthesizing a trend growing extremely strong in the underground world and reworking it to fit a broader demographic, or juxtaposing an old style on top of slightly more contemporary ones. Euro is an example of the former; Lady GaGa's Born this Way, the latter.
Which is why the popularity of someone like Skrillex is equally baffling and exciting to me. Why is a dude who makes industrial dance music so popular? And what does it mean that someone like Gotye can score a #1 album by sounding remarkably like Phil Collins?