每日跟讀#516: The Old Pop Music Is Over. Introducing a Playbook for Pop 2.0.

What pop means changes depending on what angle you’re looking from. It can be a descriptor of audience size, indicating something that’s popular, or it can be a genre tag, specifying a sound. But for much of the past three decades, these two definitions have effectively been one and the same.

「流行音樂」一詞的定義取決於從什麼角度去看它。它可以是界定受眾多寡的符號，顯示某樣東西是否熱門，也可以是一張類型標籤，用來指特定的音樂類型。然而卅年來在頗長的時間裡，這兩個定義幾乎合為一體。

You know the sort: Katy Perry’s confetti cheer, Justin Timberlake’s feather-light chirps, Lady Gaga’s exorbitant theater, Taylor Swift’s guileless guile. Music that strives for gloss, pep, ecstasy, spectacle. Often an expression of whiteness, too. A one-size-fits-all solution.

你絕對熟悉那種音樂，凱蒂佩芮五彩碎紙般的奔放歡呼，賈斯汀輕如羽毛的滑音尖唱，女神卡卡隆重奢華的戲劇效果，和泰勒絲看似無邪的使壞。那種試圖營造光鮮亮麗、活力充沛、極度狂喜，和壯觀場面的樂曲。這種音樂往往也以白人為主要受眾。一體適用的解決之道。

For a time, in the 1980s, this kind of pop music — think of Michael Jackson and Madonna — was effectively monoculture, which is why the two meanings of pop have been so tightly tethered and so difficult to disentangle.

一九八○年代有段時間，這一種流行樂——想想麥可傑克森和瑪丹娜就好——基本上完全同質。這也是流行樂兩種意義緊密相連、難捨難分的原因。

But in the past couple of years, this framework has been almost completely dismantled, owing in large part to the widespread adoption of streaming. What were once regarded merely as pop subgenres — K-pop, Latin trap, melodic hip-hop and more — have become the center of the conversation.

然而在過去這幾年裡，這個框架幾乎完全被打破，這與串流音樂廣為普及大有關係。過往僅被視為次類型的南韓流行歌、拉丁曲風、旋律嘻哈等樂種，儼然成了舞台上的主角。

This is not an arbitrary agglomeration of styles. This is Pop 2.0 — music that comes from several different scenes but works with its own distinct set of rules. It is the first time in decades that the playbook for pop success has been updated, and it has profoundly reshaped the sound of America.

這可不是武斷的類別區分。這是全新一代的流行樂。音樂來自不同文化背景，卻自有一套清楚的運作規矩。這是數十年來流行音樂的致勝攻略首度更新，而這也大大重塑了美國樂壇。

Previously, when artists from hip-hop, country or hard rock were said to be going pop, that implied they were sacrificing something essential about themselves in exchange for something plastic and transitory. Pop was a softening. A compromise.

在過去，外界若說某一嘻哈、鄉村，或硬式搖滾樂手轉向流行樂風，往往暗指他們犧牲了自己的核心特質，換取更人工化而短暫的東西。流行樂過去是軟化、妥協的同義詞。

Now, thanks to the largely frictionless internet, and the evolution in how Billboard calculates its charts — accounting for streaming data in addition to sales and radio play — these styles top the charts in unfiltered fashion. Hip-hop almost completely dominates streaming. Latin trap and reggaeton thrive on YouTube.

K-pop, the dominant sound of young South Korea, has become a live-concert blockbuster and outrageously popular online worldwide.

而現在，由於網路幾乎暢行無阻，告示牌也改變了排行榜的計算方式——除唱片銷售和電台點播數字外，也計入串流量。上述的幾種音樂直截了當地名列前茅。嘻哈樂幾乎獨霸串流樂。拉美和雷鬼音樂在Youtube上隨處可見。南韓流行樂——來自南韓新生代的主流聲音，不僅橫掃全球演唱會票房，在網路上更是紅到不行。

All of that has made for Billboard charts that look vastly different than they did a decade ago and sets the template for how all of pop music will sound moving forward.

凡此種種，都使現在的告示牌排行榜和十年前看來大不相同，也替整體流行樂的前行之路定好了調。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/335845/web/#2L-14007387L

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