The Rise of Self-Referential Pop Music in the 2010s
What happens when pop artists are aware of the function of pop music?
In 2008, pop sensation Lady Gaga made a splash into the music world with her album The Fame, which spanned diamond hits “Just Dance” and “Poker Face,” and other fan favorites like “Paparazzi” and “Love Game.” This dance pop album saw Gaga (real name Stefani Germanotta) adopt the persona of a mysterious, sleazy party girl for whom “pop music will never be lowbrow” and who navigated, simultaneously through this character and in real life, the sudden rise to stardom, with all the excess and glamour of fame. Indeed, in the music video for “Paparazzi,” we witness Gaga’s rocky relationship with the press after falling from her balcony and her eventual public redemption and fall. It’s a music video whose story intentionally reminds us of the scandalous lives of Hollywood celebrities. That was always the intent: Lady Gaga’s early music was fully aware of the reputation of pop music as vapid and mass-produced and played with it — the statement seemed to be that, yes, pop music reflected the world of showbiz and was good for partying and hanging out friends, but that did not mean it couldn’t be bold, creative and unquestionably good while exploiting those clichés. Although in 2019 Lady Gaga has changed the direction of her music (appealing to different audiences and exploring other sounds), the ideas in The Fame continued to prosper well into the 2010s, at least among certain niche pop artists.
A second major work that played with the idea of creating radio-friendly songs that analyzed the place of pop music in society was Marina Diamandis’ Electra Heart, which came only four years after Gaga’s The Fame. Diamandis assumed the character of Electra Heart, a playful blonde girl who wore a heart in her cheek, to deliver radio-friendly pop songs that approached themes like teenage rebellion, problematic depictions of female sexuality in pop music, and the self-indulgence and excess associated with pop music. Although much less of a blockbuster than The Fame (only reaching number one in the United Kingdom), Electra Heart quickly became a cult classic among teens in then-booming social network Tumblr. Tumblr was also the place that welcomed with open arms Lana Del Rey and her debut album Born to Die, which seemed to transpose what Gaga did with contemporary dancefloors into mid-20th century America. Although Del Rey’s debut is less of a concept album, it’s certainly cohesive and built around glamour, fame and passion. Del Rey played around with very specific tropes and imagery to evoke an experience to her listeners.
During the second half of the decade, pop music started to lose ground to other genres in the charts, and many leading pop artists (like Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus) started to either sell less or explore new sounds in search for new markets. New artists whose immediate aim was not to sell records or receive radio airplay, however, kept it alive and contributed interesting additions to this wave of 2010s self-referential pop. A notable example is Lorde, whose song “Royals” criticizes the repetitiveness of contemporary pop music while using those same trendy rhythms — the song was a best-seller coexisting with the very songs it criticized. Later, the debut of YouTuber/singer Poppy in 2015 marked an interesting experiment in self-aware pop — on her YouTube channel, Poppy posts mesmerizing, often puzzling videos where she makes references to pop culture in a rather robotic tone. In her own music, she sings about computers, microphones, greed and fashion. If a singer sang songs like “Computer Boy” or “My Style” earnestly, they would be mocked; with artists like Poppy, however, such songs work fine because they were crafted to satirize pop music.
From multimedia projects like Poppy, we transition to a group of artists involved in the rise of a genre called PC Music whose work is also highly self-referential. Charli XCX — who was for a brief period of time a pop singer in the more traditional sense and whose own songs received radio airplay in the UK and the US — now sings about parties and living the hectic life of a pop star. German-born singer Kim Petras, likewise, sings about the opulence of your typical pop singer and the happenings in the life of a teenage superstar. In “Meet the Parents,” Petras tells her beau that they could go to Paris together but meeting the parents is off the table for now. She sings of heartbreak, of lust, and of international travel to communicate an experience, which is the tread linking her to these other singers. Finally, fellow PC pop star Slayyyter — whose career was born on social media site Twitter, a site that attracted many Tumblr users after a ban on adult content — makes pop songs about the luxurious experience of a pop diva; in “Cha Ching,” she shows off her wealth and in “Daddy AF” she tells us of the nonstop party life of drugs and sex of your typical rockstar. It might appear funny at first that these three artists — having modestly-sized audiences and being largely ignored by mainstream radio — sing about a life that would sound more like that of a male rock singer in the 70s. However, what if the indie singer whose career is booming in the internet can now afford to live like that now? How is pop-rock stardom different now than it was then? Is technology playing a role in creating new stars that exist only among small groups of pop enthusiasts? These are the questions that interest a number of pop singers today. It’s certainly interesting to get to hear pop music that is at the same time commenting on the pop music machine and offering a traditionally fun, catchy beat. Self-referential pop questions those critics who insist pop music is, by virtue of using repetitive tropes, inherently less artistic and simply produced for mass consumption. Artists are now capable of addressing those critiques of the genre while employing those very sounds that are deemed unoriginal and unauthentic.
