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Evolutions in Contemporary Popular Music
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Evolutions in Contemporary Popular Music
Hip-Hop
Hip-Hop
In the 21st century, Hip Hop began to branch out into several sub genre, influenced by forms of 80s and 90s hip hop. Also, old styles like alternative hip hop resurged in the 2000s due to a rejuvinated interest for indie music. Hip Hop influences found their way increasingly into mainstream pop during this period, since the Los Angeles style lost its power.
Crunk Hip-Hop
Crunk
Crunk is a hip hop genre that traces its origins back to Tennessee regional hip hop, influenced by Miami Bass. The leading pioneers of Crunk, Lil Jon says that the genre conists as a fusion of electro, hip hop, and electronic dance music. The tempo of the music is somewhat slower than hip hop, around the speed of reggaetion. Looped, stripped down drum machine rhythms are usually used.
Alternative
Alternative Hip Hop was a popular sub genre in the 80s that declined eventually. However, it resurged in the 2000s due to the publics' rejuvinated insterest with the blending of Hip Hop and Indie music. The style rettained its popularity within the mainstream due to artists like Kanye West and Outkast having mass success with the form, and the declining commericial viablility of Gangsta Rap.
Alternative
World and National Hip Hop
World & National
Many forms of Hip Hop have expanded beyond the US, often blending with foreign Hip Hop stlyes and sub genres. In Tanzania during the early 2000s, local Hip Hop artists became very popular by infusing Afrobeat and Arabesque melodies, Dance Hall and Hip Hop beats with Swahili lyrics. Hip Hop also expanded into east Asian countries and became fused with local popular music to form different styles like K-Pop, C-Pop, and J-Pop.
Rock
In the beginning of the 2000s, the three popular styles that emerged/revived were known as Post Hardcore, Garage Rock, and Digital Electronic Rock. Post Hardcore can be traced back to the mid 1980s in the Chicago and Washington D.C areas, with bands that were inspired by the do-it-yourself ethics and guitar heavy music hardcore Punk. It was also influneced by Post Punk music, adapting longer song formats and more complex musical structures. Garage Rock consisted of new bands playing stripped down and back to basics version of guitar Rock, and the genre emerged into mainstream. With computer technology becoming more accessible and advanced in the beginning of the 2000s, it became possible to create high quality audio with just one laptop. This resulted in a massive increase of home produced electronic music widely avaible to mass audiences via the internet.
Rock
Hard Rock
The White Strokes
Hard Rock
In the 1960s, a new subgenre of Rock was created along with the Blues Rock, Psychadelic, and Garage movements. It typically uses bass guitar, drums, aggresive vocals, distorted guitars and is often accompanied by keyboards. Many Post Grunge bands of the 2000s devloped a Hard Rock sound (bands like Interpol, The White Strokes, and The Black Keys), so in some sense Hard Rock expierenced a revival in the 21st century.
The Black Keys
Alternative Rock
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several new bands emerged such as The Strokes, Interpol, and The Rapture that mainly drew inspiration from pPost-Punk and New Wave, establishing the new Post-Punk revival. Most references to Alternative Rock music in the 2010s are to the Indie Rock genre.
Alternative
Rock
Indie Rock
Indi Rock
In the mid 2000s, bands such as Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire and Deathcab for Cutie released Indie Rock albums that broke into the mainstream and gave Indie Rock recognition. The rising popularity of internet radio also contributed to high album sales for Indie rock bands, despite little to no mainstream radio play.
Christian Rock
This form of Rock feautres lyrics focusing on matters of the Christian faith, often with the emphasis of Jesus, typically performed by self procclaimed individuals. Some contemporary Christian Rock bands include Leeland, 12 Stones, Abandon, Acceptance, and Lust Control.
Christian Rock
Folk Rock
Folk Rock combines elements of Folk music and Rock music together. The style emerged in the early 50s with influential signers like Bob Dylan writing about songs of protest. Popuar Folk Rock groups today include Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, Neil Young, Steve Earle, and Sam Baker.
Folk Rock
Post Grunge
In the early 1990s, Post-Grunge emerged as a musical style that was originally informal and even descrived as a pejorative label for bands that emulated the grunge sound of bands such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana. It rose to popularity in the 1990s and still remains prominent in the 2000s to the the present. Bands like Foo Fighters, Nickelback, Staind, Puddle of Mudd, and Matchbox Twenty all achieved mainstream success.
Post Grunge
Alternative Metal
Alternative Metal
Alternative Metal focuses on fusing Heavy Metal with influences of Alternative Rock. Bands are usually characterized by heavily downtuned, mid paced guitar riffs, a mixture of accessible melodic vocals and sometimes harsh vocals. A number of bands from the nu metal era - such as Godsmack, System of a Down, Karnivool, and Deftones are still classified as alternative metal, due to lacking specific elements of the nu metal genre.
Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal
Many new evolutions of Heavy Metal emerged int he early and mid 2000s. By 2004, Melodic Metalcore, (influenced by Melodic Death Metal) debuted and scored in the top 20s on the Billboard Charts. Extreme fusion metal genres like Deathcore surfaced, which incorporates elements of Metalcore, Harcore Metal, and Deathcore.
Pop
Pop
Unlike many past decades, the 2000s didn't see the creation or surfacing of many new styles, but instead was defined by the converging styles, as seen with the commerical success of British Grime and Trap music. In southeastern Asia, genres like J-Pop, K-Pop, and C-Pop became very popular and still remain popular to this day. The popularity of Teen Pop carried over from the late 1990s to the 2000s with respected artists like Britney Spears, Christina Augilera, and the Backstreet Boys.
Electro Pop
Electornic Pop is a variant of Synth Pop that places more emphasis on harder electronic sound. In The Sound of 2009 poll 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artists were of the Electro Pop genre. Musicians like Lady Gaga had major success with her 2008 debut ablum The Fame. Other sub genres like Korean Pop that dominated mainstream was heavily influenced by technqiues and styles used in Electro Pop.
Pop-Punk
Pop-Punk generally waned in the mainstream during the beginning of the 2000s. The genre has fallen out of mainstream success, with rare exceptions, bands like Blink-182 and Green Day continue to sell out concerts while bands like Yellowcard have been seeing less and less attendance to concerts recently. By 2010, a group of Pop-Punk bands sprung up, with bands like All Time Low having debut albums hit no.2 on the Billboard charts in 2014, selling over 75,000 copies.
Emo
Emo
In the Summer of 2002, Emo was plunged into the mainstream media. Bands like Jimmy Eat World's album Bleed American went platinum on the strength of "The Middle" which topped Billboard's modern Rock charts. With this success, many Emo bands were signed to major labels and record companies and the genre soon became marketable. Other Emo bands that achieved commerical success include My Chemical Romance, Boys Like Girls, and Fallout Boy.
Adult Contemporary
A popular trend in the 2000s through the 2010s for AC was remixing dance music hits into adult contemporary ballads, especially in the U.S, (for an example, Candlelight Mix was a popular hit interpreted by multipled different artists). Since the mid 2000s, the mainstreaming of bands like Fiest have pushed Indie Rock into AC conversation. By the early 2010s, artists like Ed Sheeran, of Monsters and Men, and Imagine Dragons incorporated Indie styles into their songs which crossed over in Adult Contemporary charts.
Adult Contemporary
Soft Rock
Soft Rock is a subgenre of Pop Music that largely features acoustic guitars and slow tempos. It originated in southern California in the mid 1970s having songs with simple, yet melodic songs with big, lush, productions. Bands that are affiliated with Soft Rock are Muse, Coldplay, Weezer, Linkin Park, and Metallica.
Soft Rock
Contemporary R&B
Flutuating in success, Urban Music attained its commerical dominance throughout the early 2000s, which featured massive crossover success on the billbaord charts with Hip Hop and R&B artists. In the 2010s, R&B drew influences from the technological innovations of the time and began to incorporate more electronic sounds and instruments. The use of auto tune gave a more futurized sound to R&B and spurred the success of many performers like Miguel, Pharrel WIlliams, Usher, Mariah Carrey, Rihanna, Frank Ocean, and Beyonce.
Soul
Soul is a popular genre of music that can be traced back to the 1960s. It incorporates elements of African American Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, and Jazz. Throughouth the 2000s decade, Soul became much more popular in New Zealand and Australia. Many well known Australian Soul artists like Guy Sebasitian, Paulini, and Ricki-Lee Coulter established success in the music market after being featured on Australian Idol and still continue to enjoy their music careers.
Country
Country
The sixth generation of Country Music (2000s) continued the crossover of Popular Music and Country. In 2005, Country singer Carrie Underwood won the fourth season of American Idol and became on of the most prominent country artists from 2006 to 2016, selling over 65 million copies worldwide and winning several Grammy Awards. A large number of vocals and duos emerged in the 2010s, many which featured close harmonies in the lead vocals. Groups such as Herrick The Quebe Sisters Band, Little Big Town, The Band Perry, Gloriana, Thompson Square, Eli Young Band, Zac Brown Band and British duo The Shires have emerged to occupy the spotlight in the Country music scene.
Electronic
In the last decade, a plethora of software based studio virtual enviornements have emerged. These tools provide reliable and cost effective alternatives to typical hardware based production studios. Thanks to microprocessor technology, artists can create high quality music with little more than a personal laptop. This has lead to a massive increase of home produced electronic music available to the general public.
Vocal Jazz
Jazz singing is an instrumental approach that can be traced back all the way to early 20th century. Singers can match their voice to the instruments in a stylisitic approach and improvise. Singers that dominate the jazz scene today are Bobby Mcferrin, Ray Charles, Norah Jones, Kurt Elling, and Tony Belling.
Vocal Jazz
Reggae
The early 2000s saw the success of newer charting acts such as Sean Paul and Elephant Man, who have achieved mainstream success producing several pieces that have achieved top ten Billboard hits, such as Give It Up To Me, We Be Burnin', Gimme The Light, and Break It Off. Also, Raggaeton gained major popualarity in the U.S during the mid 2000s. Reggaeton blends West-Indian music influences such as salsa, bomba, plena, latin pop, electronica, and cumbia together.