The year was 2003, and a late August evening saw New York City’s famed Radio City Music Hall fill with stars from across the globe in celebration of the infamous MTV Video Music Awards. In an era completely removed from the interconnectedness now possible with social media, it was necessary artists attend the show to keep themselves at the forefront of public consciousness and that fans actively tune in to avoid missing the next big moment.
The next big moment would, in fact, be the biggest of them all: quickly dubbed “the kiss seen around the world,” the ceremony’s opening performance that saw Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera hit the stage together for the first time was made legend after Madonna and Spears’ unexpected kiss, and Spears’ ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake’s, smugly surprised reaction to the spectacle. The dynamics between all involved were already… messy: Spears and Aguilera’s pre-existing feud, sparked by Aguilera’s co-headlining tour with a freshly single Timberlake earlier that year, had already generated a significant amount of buzz for the performance before the added shock of the kiss made impact. 21 years later, it’s still the most notable – and controversial – moment in VMAs history. But what made this moment remain in public memory for over two decades, where countless others from recent years have faded into obscurity
The short answer is that pop used to be the epicenter of culture. The longer answer is a bit more convoluted: a combination of streaming and social media has resulted in a general apathy towards the pop industry, leaving it in disarray since the mid-2010s. Before these revolutionary new advents, an active interaction with music was necessary for fans to reap the benefits: music had to be bought, physically and later digitally, requiring a certain level of investment of fans in a particular artist for them to sell viably. Having to actually purchase look music added a degree of inaccessibility to the industry for undiscovered artists, making big-label backing essential to success. A sizable budget had to be supplied just to produce the physical albums themselves, and that’s not even accounting for astronomical marketing or studio production costs.
Streaming has largely done away with this, allowing anyone to post their work and find a niche audience, splitting music into an infinite range of styles. While this is an undisputed win for artists, it’s limited the pop world where the rest of music has opened up: the various subgenres that have now found a larger audience were mostly consolidated under the pop umbrella in the past, leaving the current pop industry largely void of any distinct voices or ideas.
Stripping the pop world of its former intrigue to an even greater degree is over-accessibility to artists via social media. Ever since the utility of social media as a promotional tool was discovered, the music business has devolved into a relatability competition with artists vying for public attention by attempting to paint themselves as “normal” and “real” as possible. This is in direct contradiction with what made pop interesting in the first place, though: unattainability demands attention.
Fans want to see celebrities experience glamorized lives they could only dream of, and, though it’s morally questionable, it’s undeniable that relatability only retains intrigue when narratives are out of the contrived hands of PR teams or the artists themselves. Seeing an off-guard photo or reading a juicy gossip story in a tabloid made artists feel real to fans, as opposed to the calculated attempts at curating a relatable persona through the artist’s own direct channels. To keep up-to-date with artists, it’s no longer necessary to tune in to award shows or otherwise interact with pop culture: now, anything of interest is instantly pumped through limiting personalized algorithms.Having such direct channels has also segmented celebrities to the point where it inhibits interaction between stars themselves, largely preventing moments like “the kiss” – or interesting drama akin to the extenuating Spears x Aguilera beef – from happening again.
This has left post-2016 pop in the hands of bland, uninspired stars who pander to TikTok audiences in attempts to have as wide an appeal as possible, all to the detriment of their art not containing anything notable or unique – the commercial decline of the genre around the same time is no coincidence. 2024, though, has seen an undeniable rebound in pop’s success, with artists like Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Tate McRae, and the Kid LAROI charting multiple hits and dominating airwaves. While their success is exciting, the feeling is dampened by their incessant attempts at recalling past eras of pop: Roan focuses on rehashing the aesthetics of the ‘80s and Carpenter relies on the proven success of lighthearted, Katy Perry-circa-2010 bubblegum. McRae in particular, whose appearance at last month’s VMAs in an almost-exact rip off of Britney Spears’ iconic black lace 2002 VMAs red carpet look, reads more as a tribute act than her own artist. The Kid LAROI, McRae’s current boyfriend and male pop counterpart, commits the same offenses in his obvious attempts at capitalizing off of the Y2K craze, ironically attempting to set himself up as the new-age Justin Timberlake with releases like the heavily Timbaland-inspired “Girls.”
Is it any coincidence, though, that the biggest pop moment of the year was orchestrated by someone who debuted in the pre-streaming, dawn-of-social-media era? Charli xcx’s “Brat” proved to be this summer’s undisputed soundtrack, with the album’s unexpected success owed to a combination of xcx’s left-field sensibilities and plentiful references to the recession-pop era. The promotional cycle mostly focused on an image change for xcx, with 2008-esque shades adorning her face at all times and an early ‘10s indie-sleaze aesthetic taking over her social media channels. In contrast to her newfound contemporaries, though, xcx focused on bringing fans into the music with numerous club appearances and DJ gigs over the album’s promotional cycle. Instead of simply relying on the aesthetics of the times she references, xcx embodies the ideas of it fully, making audience interaction a vital component of “Brat” that can’t be divorced from the music itself. When read in context with her already-proven experimental tendencies (2015’s Sophie-assisted “Vroom Vroom” EP, 2017’s “Pop 2”), it becomes clear that xcx’s recent success is no mistake: originality in the pop space has become a rarity, with demand overflowing for “Brat” after the trend-aware 2000s and 2010s references put the mainstream onto it.
Over 20 years removed from Britney and Madonna’s infamous lip-lock, the current state of pop has oscillated between intolerably boring and a lukewarm “meh.” Though 2024 has seen a rebound in pop’s intrigue, heralded in by stars new and established, the fact remains that the industry has fallen far from its former heights: just try tuning in to the next VMAs and see how long your attention is held. With the necessity of fan participation in music mostly done away with, the last decade’s pop has come to be defined by blandness. Only those fiercely standing apart will be the artists lovingly remembered in the pop canon in the coming decades; the success of “Brat” has proved we’re desperately searching for original voices in a sea of the same, and the genre will surely continue to be quietly progressed through other approaching-niche artists with a similarly distinct vision.
Things are looking bleak for the mainstream, though: solely drawing upon the past in an attempt at capitalizing off of nostalgia can only work for so long, and it seems trying something new is completely out of the question for today’s most popular artists. Sadly, it’s safe to say we can break out our shovels now – it’s time to start digging mainstream pop’s grave.
