What influence has technology had on music in the western world?

My question at this point is something like, “What influence has technology had on music in the western world?”. This does seem like a bit of a broad topic, but I don't want to make it so narrow that I don't have enough to talk about. This is completely different from my original question, which I don't even really remember at this point. Actually, I think it was something like, “What makes popular music popular and what separates the pop genre from other genres that still become popular?”, or something like that. It wasn't a very well-worded question, and I felt a bit limited, especially after seeing most everyone else's questions having some sort of regard for technology in them. I found some articles related to the radio, the computer, and the electric guitar, so those alone should be very helpful in organizing my essay. Maybe I can organize it by talking about certain technological advances, one at a time, or perhaps I could format it as a sort of timeline in essay form. I can talk not only about the way the pieces of technology changed the way people listen to music, but the way they write it as well. With the invention of the electric guitar and other electric instruments, music began to get louder and more aggressive over time. That had a big influence on the creation of many genres, which in turn has an effect on what people hear and how they write new popular music. The use of computers in music influences people to write perfect sounding music that may not be realistically feasible, but is possible thanks to the power of computers. New sounds and techniques are also available thanks to the rise of computers. I don't have to mention every single piece of technology that has ever had an effect on music, but I think that the electric guitar, the radio, and the computer are a good start at least.

Popular Music Again, Maybe

This essay topic is very broad so I'm not sure if this really applies or not, but I'm thinking of a question something along the lines of “Here in the West, how do we define pop music and how do other genres of music bleed into that genre?” or something of that sort. Popular music obviously has a link to popular culture because it's... well, popular. I feel like I know enough about pop music, but more importantly I want to focus on other music that is not considered pop, but it popular anyway (which I know a bit about as well). If I had to respond to this question right now, I suppose I would delve into catchy song structures, choruses, and melodies the way I meant to in my previous presentation for the class concerning popular music. I would say that as long as a song has a catchy chorus it has potential to become popular. However, what is it about some non-pop artists that allows them to rank high in the top 100? I have more rock/metal/grunge artists in mind, but I could be even more specific and mention all genres of artists that aren't classified as pop. I would definitely need to do more research on that.

Soundcloud

As we have discussed, new media can be described as methods of sending messages through various media using technology. However, we have not gone into much detail about what forms these messages can take. Generally, when we think about messages being sent, we naturally think of written word, which makes sense. There are other forms though, such as images and sounds, particularly music. Soundcloud.com is a useful site for musicians to post their music to the internet for free, and it is a great tool for discovering and for being discovered. Soundcloud is somewhat similar to sites like Instagram, but with emphasis on music rather than pictures.

Soundcloud is a site for people to share the music they create, and they can choose to make that music private or public, downloadable or not, free or not, and they can have followers and/or people that follow them. Some of these features are similar to other sites such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., but with an emphasis on music rather than some other form of art or even personal thoughts or opinions. There is an option to add a description to a piece of music being uploaded, and anything could be said within it, but this description is only visible to those who actively open the sound and look at its page.

Bioshock...again... [MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!]

Once again, I will be analyzing the popular video game, Bioshock. The game is rated M for Mature, which means that technically the target audience is anyone over the age of seventeen, however, the game is likely aimed at mostly teenaged to adult males. The meanings behind many parts of this game are about as deep as the location in which it takes place: The bottom of the ocean. Rapture is the name of the secret city constructed at the bottom of some remote part of the Atlantic Ocean, since after all, to quote the character I'll be discussing, “It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea. It was impossible to build it anywhere else”.

Andrew Ryan is the character responsible for creating the city of Rapture, as it was his vision to live in a world without inhibition. His philosophies greatly challenge the status quo, especially considering that the city was supposedly created some time within the 1940's and 1950's. Ryan envisioned a world where science would not be held back by morals, society would not be held back by government, and the mind would not be held back by religious debate. Obviously, in one way or another, all of these concepts contradict what just about everyone in the world believes (whether they believe in morals, government, religion, or some combination of the three), so naturally a great controversy can be generated by his ideals. It seems logical to create a world such as this, but upon playing Bioshock and finding the City of Rapture in ruins about ten or twenty years after its founding, it is clear that such ideals could prove disastrous (at least in the eyes of game writers and developers).
In a world without government (and certainly without taxation), everyone could be free to earn exactly as much money and status as they deserve without anything to hold them back. Ryan believes that “every man should be entitled to the sweat of his brow”, which may seem very appealing to many people.
There are many rules and regulations regarding the conduction of experiments and scientific research. It could very well be argued that these regulations put a serious hold on the potential growth of scientific knowledge for the world, but these holds do not exist in the city of Rapture. In real life, great strides were made in the world of science before rules were put in place to regulate scientific research (not to say that great strides are still being made). Bioshock challenges this by arguing that without these rules, remarkable discoveries could be made (and in the city of Rapture, they are).
Who knows what the world would be like without any religions, but in Bioshock, the lack of religion is supposedly beneficial for all citizens of Rapture. There are “no gods or kings, only man”, and that is the way that Rapture functions. The Great Chain (not to be confused with The Great Chain of Being) is supposed to be the only thing that joins human beings together. It is considered the force that all people are a part of, and by joining together for a common cause, they may pull the chain in the right direction. The Great Chain is somewhat of a religious symbol in itself, but it still denies the existence of any gods or other deities.

Data collection and distribution

I'm not saying much that hasn't already been said, but obviously many people are unaware of what is happening to them every day in terms of internet trafficking, advertisements, and privacy. With the rate at which technological advancements are being made, it is a bit frightening to think about what might be possible twenty years from now, considering where we're at already in terms of privacy violation. Essentially anyone that wants to use the internet is completely at the mercy of data collection, since a great number of sites sell data to other companies, and because this data is collected and sold without so much as a brief notice to consumers, many people are not even aware that it is happening to them every time they search for something on Google or make a purchase on some other site (among other things). With the data collected, companies are able to make advertisements more specific to individuals, but where they can't do that, they use their standard sale of “pleasure” to apply to a general audience. This constitutes things like comedy and sex and other appeals to emotions through advertisements, which could potentially be combined with the highly personalized advertisements that are sent to people via the internet (if that has not been done already). I wouldn't be surprised if televised advertisements were somehow linked to the internet to appeal to the interests of individual consumers as well. People are incredibly intelligent, so I'm sure that eventually they'll find a way to penetrate more than just the internet with their data collection and distribution. Televised programming reflects harmful stereotypes all the time, so it wouldn't be difficult to find the people most susceptible to this and market to them more specifically, based on what they watch on television. And it doesn't have to stop at television. Any sort of records of people's history could be documented and used later to determine how to best market to that individual, and there are endless forms of media and advertising that could be used to reach that individual.

Bioshock Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbRUTSeafcc

Here is a link to a commercial for a game called Bioshock Infinite that came out a while ago. This isn't the most relevant commercial anymore but it works. My initial response to this advertisement is excitement, because I have played the first games in this series and I thought they were great. Of course, if I hadn't played the first two games and I was not familiar with the series, then excitement would still be the emotion that the advertisement is attempting to evoke in the viewer. The music and the action are both exciting, peaking the viewer's interest. A line in the song is even “Stand tall for the people of America”, which may even evoke subconscious some patriotic emotions, or something of that sort. The ad is fairly short, running at only about one minute, and the message seems to be fairly clear. Developers want people to buy their product. Spreading the word through an advertisement obviously gets more people ready to buy a product, leading to more sales and more profit. The ad does initially make me feel like I need to buy the game, but that is mainly because I know from past experience that it should be of high quality, based on my knowledge of the past games. If I had never seen any of these games before, however, I am not sure how I might react to this ad. Only after some thought could I decide that I don't need the game as much as I first thought, but I would imagine if I had more money, I might not be able to think as clearly before making the purchase.

I really like the point quoting Russel Nye regarding popular entertainment as “seeking 'less to provide a new experience than to validate an older one'”. It is a succinct way of saying what I have always known. Popular culture may not be groundbreaking in terms of artistic revolution or high moral development or even higher education, but that does not necessarily mean it is a bad thing. The fact of the matter is that popular culture is given its name because it applies to the average person, and the average person is not particularly concerned with any of those things. My conception of popular culture has not been altered significantly in the past few weeks, but I do feel as though I have a better understanding of how to define popular culture and how it came to be in the first place. I had never considered that popular culture in the sense that we think of it today is relatively new.