No one should be surprised when I say – most modern popular music is digitally retouched to have a more ‘perfect’ sound. NPR recently picked up on this topic with a story called Pop Off: What’s Lost When A Song Sounds Too Perfect. The critics, mainly 30-40-somethings nostalgic for the previous generation of music that didn’t have the opportunity to be digitally altered, say that modern pop music doesn’t have an authentic, ‘crackly’ sound that made pop/hip-hop music so great.
Being a child of pop music from the mid-1990s to the present, I can’t sympathize with this view – I find that ‘perfect’ pop tracks are almost addictive to listen to – and it is their glossy flawlessness that makes them so impossible to resist. I find that, especially when listening to remixed pop-gloss songs while working out or in the car, I have an overwhelming involuntary urge to dance MY ASS CLEAR OFF.
My current favorites:
Commander – Kelly Rowland
Teenage Dream – Katy Perry
Binary Love – Blake Lewis
I Like It – Enrique Iglesias
DJ Got Us Fallin In Love – Usher
Make My Heart (Chris Malinchak Indigo Remix) – Toni Braxton
Alejandro (Ruskos Papuseria Remix) – Lady Gaga
Come Back to Mine (Jaxon Remix) – Florrie
The Fame (Glam As You Remix) – Lady Gaga
If you aren’t already familiar with glossy beats, these are some good ones to start with.
