Music in the 21st century was accused of being increasingly derivative and irrelevant. Interest in individual performers, in the era of iTunes, was being relegated to the sidelines as teens assembled their own 'mixes' rather than sought to embrace the output of an individual artist. It was said that the era of the great soloist and the great musical concept album was dead. With her first album The Fame in

American Popular Music (Lady Gaga) The question of originality in popular music is a vexed one. To choose a convenient and current example, when Justin Bieber sings about his "baby," listeners are not meant to hear any kind of deliberate allusion to the Supremes' "Baby Love" or any other previous songs which include "Baby" as part of their lyrical hook: Bieber's charming faux-naivete cannot be mistaken for anything other than a

Even Freud believed that girls have penis envy, which is only fully resolved by marrying a male and having a male child. This desperate longing to have a man as a way of finding one's identity and place in society is parodied and mocked in Pink's video "Stupid Girls." Individuals look to culture, including the media, as a way of defining themselves. A thirteen-year-old girl who is told that it

CL's "Hello Bitches" and the Post-Feminist Representation of the Body In the music video by CL entitled "Hello Bitches," CL has managed to escape the constriction of the typical K-pop girl group (sexy, innocent, seductive, chic) by asserting a more aggressive, masculine-mimicking (gagsta-rap-mimicking to be exact), hyper-sexual attitude of domineering vibes; yet, in doing so, she has fallen into another and separate trope -- not the trope of the cute/sexy K-pop

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Four Contemporary Artists That Will Likely Be Successful in the Future It is difficult to determine which artists will continue to have an impact on society and release music that appeals to audiences aesthetically and financially. Moreover, continuously changing tastes require that a recording artist create music that will stand the test of time and continue to appeal to audiences. Given the changing world of

Rihanna is certainly a controversial individual and she appears to be well-acquainted with what sells in the present. While Lady Gaga is certainly interesting, it seems that she is taking things too far and that her artistic style goes beyond music and into other spheres of influence. In contrast, Rihanna actually focuses on music in addition to selling an image involving sex, violence, rebellion, and glamour. She practically appears to