Vowel Breaking & The Rise of the "Indie Pop Voice"
Vowel Breaking & The Rise of the "Indie Pop Voice"
In today’s pop music industry, pop singers can rise to international superstardom. Superstars like Beyonce and Taylor Swift are not only Platinum-Selling musicians, they’re international moguls. They head major corporations, boast millions of fans all over the world, and have amassed hundreds of millions of dollar fortunes. Adele released her most recent album, 25, and sold over 8 million copies worldwide, in a market conquered by streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. (Still rooting for you, Tidal!) The insurmountable successes of pop stars like these have started a wave of aspiring singers, hoping to achieve the same level of success.
Add to that the “everyone gets a trophy” lifestyle under which the Millennials that comprise this wave of Pop-Diva-Hopeful’s and you’ve got a pretty saturated market of talent (term used loosely, here). To round out this recipe, add a heaping serving of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Vine and your talent, however ‘special’ it may be, is now broadcast to the world. The end result of this concoction produces the most saturated market of singers in our world’s existence. than ever before.
With this saturated market, being a good singer doesn’t cut it anymore. It isn’t even enough to be a talented singer and a pretty face; those are a dime a dozen in the eyes of today’s talent agencies and record labels. Instead, to ‘make it’ in today’s industry and amass the coveted level of global Superstardom, one must be unique and fill a niche in the market that hasn’t yet been filled. While we’re here, it would be morally folly of me to fail to recognize the major victory here: the industry with arguably the most powerful influence on its impressionable global audiences is now sending a message that rewards individuality. However, we can’t celebrate for too long, as this seemingly positive message has begun to backfire, causing this wave of young hopefuls to change their sound or image to carve out their own niche in the pop market. Behold the latest trend in music: vowel breaking and the rise of the “Indie Pop Voice.”