Safe&Sound Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 2010s is one of the most complex decades in music. There are some depiction of how the decade went. Some people think it's the transitional decade between digital era and streaming era, some people see it's divided to the dance pop death/the trap birth, and we all know it's not fully valid either, since there were many trends changing and overlapping in span of 10 years 1989 was released in the middle on 2010s, somewhere when radio has become a little bit too alternative/leaning into more rock-ish influence, with We Are Young, Radioactive, Rolling in The Deep, Counting Stars, Somebody That I Used To Know, and many instant popular genre which seems trying to neutralize the fun Pop music, in this case, dance-pop, which overtook the radio in late 2000s and early 2010s It seemed that many people's taste in music drastically changed, thinking music in general had declined on its quality, just because they were fun Pop 1989 lowkey proves that a Pop album can have depth like some music leaning to more indie/alt-rock root by underlining the lyrical content, that a pop album can have layer of emotions too on the album, despite being a collection of radio-friendly songs. 1989 also successfully mixed some indie music idealism, like how a song started being written in guitar or piano, then developing it into Pop records, which gives a stretch for Pop artists to display their records have some fascinating stories on their record It can be seen by how the critics rated some Pop album post-1989 higher than pre-1989 era Few examples : 2012 - Sept 2014 Halcyon - 69 KISS - 63 Warrior - 71 Stars Dance - 59 PRISM - 61 Bangerz - 61 DEMI - 64 Stronger - 62 TITLE - 59 Queen of The Cloud - 73 My Everything - 74 1989 - 76 2015 - 2017 Revival - 74 Delirium - 70 (for an album which sounds weaker than Halcyon, Im surprised it is not 10 points lower) Confident - 74 Lady Wood - 74 Know It All - 70 EMOTION - 77 Dangerous Woman - 76 Meaning of Life Rainbow - 81 Also, worth to be noted that after few years on indie/alt-rock domination on Grammy general field categories (Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Adele, Beck), after 1989 won AOTY, the chance of Pop album/more commercial-sounding album snatching general field categories is bigger. The following years, they even went to the most successful albums to win AOTY (25, 24K Magic, WWAFA, WDWG) *) I knew Adele also won it with 21, but by that time, she has more HAC/AAA image than 25 where she radiated more popstar energy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vuelve88 Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Taylor Swift is a critically acclaimed artist regardless of trends. Lady Gaga’s “Joanne” was released in 2016 and has a 67 on Metacritic, so I guess it wasn’t affected by “poptimism”. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cain Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 No, Emotion by Carly started the poptimism era among critics After 1989 pure pop music was largely missing from the charts for half a decade before making a big comeback in the 2020s, so commercially it didn’t usher in that renaissance either 16 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Safe&Sound Posted September 7, 2023 Author Share Posted September 7, 2023 10 minutes ago, vuelve88 said: Taylor Swift is a critically acclaimed artist regardless of trends. Lady Gaga’s “Joanne” was released in 2016 and has a 67 on Metacritic, so I guess it wasn’t affected by “poptimism”. still higher than ARTPOP for sure also i think it was another wave it stood alongside Miley's Younger Now, Kesha's Rainbow, Kylie's Golden, Harry Styles' self-titled, where they tried to infuse country-pop element and their lyrics became more reflective 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orange22 Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 No Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byzantium Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 (edited) Yes, I feel like this is pretty well established. 1989 fused the artistry of an acclaimed singer-songwriter with the production of pure pop mega album. It granted legitimacy to pop music (in the eyes of critics/awards) and helped identify “pop” music as an actual genre rather than just popular music. After 1989, we see “pop” music both garner a lot more critical praise and attention (compare the reviews of future nostalgia to teenage dream or the fame monster), but also major pop artist focus more on being music creators than just music performers. Edited September 7, 2023 by byzantium 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnAnti Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 NO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiliam Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 (edited) if anything, its the album mark the end of poptimism lol early 2000s teen pop/ punk pop and then we have like 5 years of rnb/urban dominated then pop dominated again in 2016 with Gwen/Fergie/Nelly F and it was dominated for almost a whole decade until 1989. Then streaming take off and rap music take over. Your point about pop albums was rated higher and more acclaimed after 1989 is correct, though. Edited September 7, 2023 by chiliam 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloröx Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Yes, there's articles supporting that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naval23 Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Honestly yes. Style, Wildest Dreams and Blank Space were all massive Pop Radio #1s and 2 of those 3 hitting #1 on overall radio, her domination was insane 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATRL Moderator supaspaz Posted September 7, 2023 ATRL Moderator Share Posted September 7, 2023 No, the poptimism movement preceded 1989 by several years. 8 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mypaintoyou Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 1989 the pop bible perfection ALBUM OF THE YEAR WINNER 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleahive Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 No it was Purpose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Safe&Sound Posted September 7, 2023 Author Share Posted September 7, 2023 39 minutes ago, naval23 said: Honestly yes. Style, Wildest Dreams and Blank Space were all massive Pop Radio #1s and 2 of those 3 hitting #1 on overall radio, her domination was insane And on top of that, no one trashed those songs as cheesy Pop songs They are loved by locals and acclaimed by critics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BtDecember Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 That's what you get when you make a HIGH QUALITY pop album 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubleRainbow! Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Well Teenage Dream is the reason why 1989 exists so now you know which album did it first 2 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyManInTheWorld Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 1989 a legendary pop album Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmailMySwift Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 11 minutes ago, DoubleRainbow! said: Well Teenage Dream is the reason why 1989 exists I noticed this site actually believes this I don't know if it's scary or funny to make things up and just operate as if they're real. Yes to the question about 1989 and optimism. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avenger Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Yes, considering the album is just a decent effort and still this acclaimed makes no sense otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blank Space Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 3 minutes ago, EmailMySwift said: I noticed this site actually believes this I don't know if it's scary or funny to make things up and just operate as if they're real. it's funny to see katy fans constantly taking credit for 1989 on this forum when the only thing both albums have in common is max martin. max worked with numerous pop stars but taylor was the first one that was able to win him grammys. the cold hard truth is that teenage dream is a panned mess and 1989 is the most awarded pop album of all time. ot: obviously 5 1 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ugo Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 1 hour ago, DoubleRainbow! said: Well Teenage Dream is the reason why 1989 exists so now you know which album did it first TD is panned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1989 Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoe_ Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Call Me Maybe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suneclipse121 Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 Beyoncé’s ST album was critically acclaimed in 2013 for example before 1989 came out. Poptimism was already in full effect before 1989. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timeless Posted September 7, 2023 Share Posted September 7, 2023 2 hours ago, EmailMySwift said: I noticed this site actually believes this I don't know if it's scary or funny to make things up and just operate as if they're real. 1 hour ago, Blank Space said: it's funny to see katy fans constantly taking credit for 1989 on this forum when the only thing both albums have in common is max martin. max worked with numerous pop stars but taylor was the first one that was able to win him grammys. the cold hard truth is that teenage dream is a panned mess and 1989 is the most awarded pop album of all time. Let's be serious, the reason why Taylor wanted to work with Max Martin in the first place WAS because of his pop bangers during this era, and this includes Teenage Dream as well. There's a reason why she switched to the pop genre as she noticed that her sound was getting tired but also because pop music was what topped the charts during the early 2010s. Speak Now singles and Red country singles flopped. The commercial success of Teenage Dream among other successful pop albums during this time drove her into making 1989. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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