Lately I've slowly come to realise that the US have lost their way in several ways, and 1 of those seems to be pop music.
1 of the signs is how American/western pop music industry seems to have completely abandoned groups in favor of solo artists.
The number of American groups (not bands w guitarist, drummer etc btw, that's different) of the past 1-2 decades is a mere handful, and other big pop music countries in the west like the UK aren't any different.
But by doing this, they've also closed themselves off from the advantages, strengths and positive influences that groups can bring into a pop music scene: like bigger, more engaged fanbases due to more stan attractors, more content due to more activities and recordings of the various members, advanced choreo, vocal ensembles, group harmonisations etc.
And it's not just groups that the American pop music industry has abandoned: K-pop MV's also seem to have a higher production value and production quality, more creativity and more variety going for them than American MV's. Overall it feels there's more attention, inspiration and care invested in K-pop MV's than what's common for American MV's.
It's as if American music companies decided en masse somewhere in the past that it's just not worth the bother, money and trouble to invest in MV's, in quality production and/or the pop music scene in general.
Because when I look at American MV's of the '80s and '90s (I went on sort of a historical pop music binge a while ago), then I feel like that quality, that inspiration, creativity and variety and most of all, that energy, really is there. Far more than in American MV's and pop music of the past years.
Nowadays, it feels like that energy and drive can be found in pop music of other (non-US/UK) countries that seem to catch up to and surpass a regressing American pop music scene, like how K-pop is thriving.
But those are of course just my impressions.
So how do you feel about contemporary American pop music compared to American pop music scene of the past and emerging, growing pop music scenes like K-pop?
