Artists Helping Artists From Other Music Genres

This week, I am discussing a topic on music artists helping out one another. In my most recent post, I mentioned an idea that artists collaborate with each other in order to increase the success of a new artist; to prove this theory, I gave insight on how Ed Sheeran’s career was greatly influenced by none other than the amazing Taylor Swift. With this post, let’s look at another theory which describes how featuring pop artists in songs belonging to different genres increase the popularity of said music genre.

During this post, I will be going off into a bit of a tangent from pop music (not a big one though, I will probably still talk about Taylor Swift); this time I will be discussing rap songs that feature famous pop artists. Why would a rap artist want to have a pop artist singing a chorus or a hook in their song? According to another music blog, artist collaboration is good for expanding an artist’s musical horizons for bringing diversity in an artist’s work. Rap music has very different sounds, beats, and lyrics compared to pop songs. A rap artist might use a pop artist to appeal to other people who might not usually diverge to a different music genre such as rap. If a rapper features a well known artist in their song, the popularity of the song would most likely increase.

Let’s look at a song by a rap artist that features a pop artist. Rapper B.o.B has an album called “Strange Clouds”, where he features many artists. On this album, he has a song called “Both of Us” which features Taylor Swift. Naturally, I was overjoyed when this song came out. However, being a “Swiftie”, I bought this song simply because it features Swift. I can recite her part of the song by heart: “I wish I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us. Someday I will be strong enough to lift not one, but both of us. If you ask me to recite any of B.o.B’s lines, I can’t because I don’t know any. Since I don’t really listen to rap music and am not a huge fan of B.o.B, I probably wouldn’t have bought this song if it didn’t have Swift in it. To any fans of him reading, I’m not a hater. I’m just not very familiar with his music and don’t have the desire to branch out. Even if these facts are true, I willingly paid for the song because it had my favorite artist.

So why would B.o.B want to collaborate with famous artists like Taylor Swift? According to his discography, he has only a few albums. Perhaps he really wanted to this album to get more attention and sales. Perhaps he also wanted to gain more fans outside his music genre. Whatever the real reason is, he created a successful album featuring some pop artists. There's the thought that Taylor Swift, once again, helps out an artist outside of her normal line of work.  

Artists Helping New Artists

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about the concept of artists collaborating with others and releasing songs featuring other artists. What’s the purpose of featuring another artist? Would this increase the sales and popularity of this certain song? Or are artists collaborating so that they can expand their music horizons and become more versatile? In this post, I want to focus on how pop artists are useful to artists belonging to other genres in the music industry.

One of my theories about this subject is that I believe artists collaborate with one another in order to help a certain artist’s music to become more popular. For instance, let’s say we have an artist who belongs to a record label and already as an album released. Unfortunately, this album is not getting many sales simply because the public might not know about this album or who this artist is. In order to increase publicity, this artist might try to collaborate and make a song another artist who is more successful and high up in the music industry. Doing this might give this new artist more attention.

In order to prove this theory, let’s bring up my number one girl, Taylor Swift, and an artist that she collaborated and spent a lot of time with. His name is Ed Sheeran, an artist originally from the United Kingdom. In 2012, Swift released a pop-country album called “Red”; in this album, she has a song called “Everything Has Changed” which features Sheeran. I had never heard of him before this song came out. According to an article about Sheeran, he learned about Swift in 2012 when she was on tour in Australia. Eventually, he met Swift in Nashville and then they wrote the song together.  Later on, he became an opening act and guest in her tour, called "The Red Tour", which lasted for over a year.

Because of collaborating with Swift, Sheeran increased his popularity in the United States. Having a song with her and being a part of her tour which had arenas filled with thousands upon thousands of people greatly influenced his success. According to another article, he stated that Swift opened a big door to his career; he had never had this much success in the UK. He also mentioned that he would have to work hard on winning over thousands of her fans that did not know who he is. He successfully accomplished this goal by playing songs that were familiar to the audience, such as his number one hit single called “The A Team”. Naturally if people like this song and his other song he played, they will most likely want to hear his other songs from his albums. Today, Sheeran is now high up on the music charts with singles on the radio and his own tour called “The X Tour”.

In conclusion, Taylor Swift writing just one song with Ed Sheeran greatly impacted his career, proving that artists collaborating with one another leads to success.

Pop Music Will Never Be Low Brow

“Pop music will never be low brow.” This is a statement that appeared on Lady Gaga’s sunglasses during a performance of her song “Just Dance” on an episode of the television series “So You Think You Can Dance” in 2008. I’m sure some of you reading, hinting towards the elderly, might be wondering about what this phrase means. I thought that this video gave a perfect description about this music genre, meaning that pop music will always be a recurring trend and that it will never die out. Pop music is always constantly changing and evolving to people’s taste throughout the decades. Obviously, pop songs today are different compared to the pop songs from previous years.  

I will stress that this kind of music is everywhere we go. You constantly here it on the radio, television commercials movies, sporting events, parties, etc. For example, one of Taylor Swift’s most popular songs is called "I Knew You Were Trouble" (IKYWT); she is typically known for her country music style, but this song is labeled as “pop” because of the elements that make a pop song. This song has the typical structure of a standard pop song which includes two verses, three sets of choruses, and a hook. The song includes rhythm electric guitar, a drum beat, piano, and a moment when the bass drops. When the bass drops, people look like they are having a seizure and just dance around not realizing what they are doing. I was utterly shocked when I first heard this song because Taylor did not release a song like this before on her previous albums. Because of all these elements, IKYWT is one of Taylor’s number one hits. Everybody knows the song’s beat and lyrics because they would hear it everywhere they went, including the radio due to popular demand. Typically radio stations take requests of songs and pick songs that will appeal to its audience. This is a good tactic for radio stations because if they play music that people want to hear, people will always tune into that station.

I’m happy that Lady Gaga made this statement all those years ago when she was a fresh new face in the pop music industry. She wanted to emphasize that she is a pop star and will do whatever it takes to keep this trend alive. As I mentioned in my previous post, pop music is my life. Honestly, I’m not sure what I would do without it. Pop music will never be low brow to me!

A Transition To Pop Music

To anybody who has read my previous posts, I tried writing a blog about music therapy. It was not just a bunch of posts rambling about how much I like Taylor Swift! Yes, I did include some details about my favorite singer and how she uses song writing as a form of musical therapy. Then, I gave insight on how I used her songs as a way to express myself. Since I haven’t received any comments, I’m going to assume that nobody actually read my posts. Awkward. Moving on, I briefly talked about the definition of music therapy which is where music is used within a therapeutic relationship by a certified professional to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. I totally misunderstood what music therapy meant by thinking that it is a way you can express your emotions. I also realized that I’m not really interested on the subject of musical therapy. I’m not very knowledge about this subject and I can’t say that I have had real experiences involving musical therapy in my life. However, like many of you, music is important and I simply can’t live without it. Mainstream music, such as pop music, is always constantly in my life.

             

With this blog, I will still include some points on how music is a fantastic way to express your emotions, ranging from happy, sad, and angry. With this new topic, however,  I will not just be talking about my favorite artists and songs that I like. It will not be a music review blog; you can look up music reviews on iTunes and websites such as Rolling Stone and Billboard. One topic that I will most likely cover is about an artist’s music and how it has an effect on society. Viewer discretion, I will probably be mentioning Taylor Swift quite a bit in these posts. If you absolutely hate her as a human being, don’t like her music, or think she is a mediocre guitar player, don’t fret. Do you get it? Guitars? Frets? Okay I’m done here. Anyway, Taylor will not be the main focus in these blog posts. Just kidding, I will probably talk about her a lot but I will try to limit using her so that people don’t confuse this as a Taylor Swift blog. Trust me, if I could, I would write about that.

 
I want to write about pop music because it is around us 24/7! This is a trend that has been around for many decades and will continue to stay. I really like pop music because of the fun lyrics and catchy tunes. I also like the artists, even if they most likely did not write the lyrics or compose the music themselves. I tend to favor well known celebrities and music artists. I never took the time to branch out of pop music because I have been listening to this kind of music ever since I owned Kids Bop CDs when I was 6 years old. I got comfortable with this genre and never bothered to leave. I’m not very familiar with the other genres such as rap, rock, metal, indie, country (excluding Taylor Swift), etc. I have nothing against these genres, but I don’t normally listen to these music types. Sorry to disappoint you. My friends would always make fun of me for only listening to pop music. I’ve had some people tell me that this music genre is only for girls and that I should branch out to more “masculine” music types such as rap or heavy metal, but to quote Taylor’s song Shake It Off, “Haters gonna hate!”

           

How Taylor Swift Is Always There For Me

I want to discuss how I have used Taylor’s songs as music therapy. When I was 19, I was very depressed about a breakup that occurred with somebody. I did not want to tell everybody how I felt because I would sound like a crazy guy who only talked about his problems. I needed to find a way to express my feelings. Some of her songs such as “Back to December” and “All Too Well” are about a relationship ending and how you really miss the person and want them back. I could not believe that Taylor created such beautiful lyrics and that they relate to me so much. I realized that I am not alone and that somebody else experienced what I went through. I was happy to know that after some time, their wounds healed and they ended up being okay. I eventually moved on from this person, and I honestly could not have done this without the help of Taylor’s music. Both our stories show that music therapy can help the social and emotional needs of an individual.

How Taylor Swift Uses Musical Therapy

One popular comment about Taylor Swift is that her music is only for girls. Honestly, this assumption is not true. Yes, most of her audience consists of females in their teenage years. However, there are a few guy “swifties” out there; a swiftie is a person who is obsessed with Taylor Swift. If you are not familiar with her music, all of her songs are expressed in a girl’s perspective of the world. Throughout her career, she has written songs about crushes that walked down the hallway at school and did not know that she existed. She also wrote songs about the stages in her relationships, including specific details about falling love, being happy, fighting with that person, and breaking up with them. She used all this material in her songs to express her emotions in a healthy way. Like many of us, she was once an awkward, seldom teenager who didn’t know how to describe what she was feeling and was probably not sure how to tell the world about how she felt. 

Briefly, I want to discuss some of Taylor’s song and the meaning behind them. One of her songs called “Teardrops On My Guitar” is about her being in love with a friend in high school who never knew how she felt and how he was in love with somebody else. This is an example about how she expresses her feelings secretively because she could not tell how she felt about this guy. One song called “The Way I Loved You” is about her being crazily in love in a relationship. She wrote this song simply because she was so happy and could not find a better way to express her joy. Another song called “Forever & Always” is about her going through the stages of a breakup; the stages include being so angry that you can throw a chair and then eventually becoming sad and lying on the floor after realizing how intense the situation is. Taylor has written many other songs like these throughout her career. Most people argue that she just writes about the same subject all time. It is true that she focuses on writing about love and relationships, but each song has different content and meaning. 

A Taylor Swift Song For Every Occasion

To those of you wondering, I am not writing a love letter to Taylor Swift. Yes, she is talented, beautiful, and probably the best human being on this planet. I could spend countless amounts of lines talking about amazing she is, but that is not the point. I want to focus on Taylor’s discography and how she uses song writing as a form of musical therapy; then, I want to discuss how choosing her song lyrics and quotes for every life occasion helps express my emotions. 

Many of you might be wondering, “Hey, what exactly is music therapy?” According to musictherapy.org, music therapy is a process where music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. I want to specify how music therapy helps emotional and social needs. Someone might use this as a form of communication if they have difficulty expressing themselves. If this person cannot find a way to tell somebody else about how they are feeling, perhaps they can find a song that relates to their emotions. Music is a universal way of connecting and relating to one another. 

So, why Taylor Swift? Why would I pick an artist like her to express my feelings? The reason I tend to favor her music is because she writes songs about personal stories that she went through in her life experiences. Taylor writing a song is comparable to somebody writing in a diary. A diary entry can range from being absolutely in love with someone to experiencing complete heartbreak. All of her albums have songs that about these subjects and that are relatable. To understand these fully understand these concepts, you need to know about what Taylor does and why she does it.