Modern pop music is a more refined commercial industry than it was in the past. It's been sliding further and further away from art and toward the commercial. It is what it is.
Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor.
Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes.
For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be seen at symphonies. Nowadays, it's the artists who can fill stadiums (and get fans to buy lots of merch) that make the most bank. As such, it is often those musicians who provide a sellable brand that do best. To many, this can feel fake and plastic. But like any product designed for mass consumption, it's essential.
Looking at the symbiotic dance between artist and viewer/reader/listener is really something special, and helps to provide context for changes in trends.
You could be the best guitar player in the world, writing the best guitar solos of all time, but if you can't get people to pay for it, it's just a storage problem for your guitar.
Well, not exactly in the same way. Commercial is not about "catering to an audience", it's about catering to mass audiences, and the compromises that entails.
For example, an "artistic" indie group catering to just a tiny minority is not just "as commercial" as a pop production, unless we stretch the term beyond recognition).
There's a huge difference in attitude and approach. The artistic group would rather lose money than incorporat some elements that aren't in their vision. A pop artist on the other hand would more often than not just do whatever the producer or writing team wants to get on the fads of the day and sell more.
It's not just the audience that changes, but the methodology, the marketing involved, the perception of their work by the artist, and most importantly the lack of the kind of defiance that characterized artists who'd rather lose lots of money and stay poor than compromise on their vision (or who even made a point of not selling out on purpose).
But that indie band is not necessarily more artistic.
"Mass-marketed" just means that something is widely promoted. Many of the most creative, influential, and authentic musical groups are "mass-marketed".
"Commercial" doesn't really mean anything in this context, as presumably everything that you listen to on the radio/streaming services is commercial.
"Pop" is descriptive of the style of the music, not how it's produced (there are indie pop groups).
"by committee" means that multiple people contributed to it. Do you think the only valid creative process is one where somebody works in isolation? If so, that disqualifies pretty much every band / non-solo act from meeting your standards for authenticity.
It means dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It means being told that instead of deeply personal, complex, and potentially offensive lyrics you're just going to repeat a word or small phrase over and over and over because that sells better doesn't alienate anyone with difficult words or things that might offended them, or might discourage the use (and sale) of that song in commercials, grocery stores, overseas markets, or film soundtracks.
Commercial interests (the desire for as much money as possible at the expense of all else) overrides what would have been deliberate artistic choices in order to maximize profits leading to a landscape of homogenized bland overproduced and unchallenging art.
We've seen many changes in music as a direct result of commercial interests overriding the preferences of artists (and listeners) including the loudness wars, the end of the album as a cohesive work to favor itunes downloads of single tracks, and the lengths of songs getting shorter and shorter to the point where bridges and entire verses are removed.
Not everything you hear on the radio has been fully compromised by commercial interests, but it's a good bet compromises were made and commercial interests have had more influence over what gets heard on the radio than any other factor (talent, skill, popularity, artistry, etc.)
It literally doesn't though. Like, that's not the meaning of the word "commercial" in any sense.
Your favorite indie band is commercial. Your friends who charge $5 for their shows are commercial.
Your issues aren't with "commercial" musicians, they're with musicians who prioritize commercial success over artistic expression.
I don't think is a new phenomenon, and actually think it's a lot less prevalent now than it was in the past. With free streaming services, most people have easy exposure to a much wider range of music, and aren't relying on the radio to dictate their tastes.
There have been dozens of albums from the last few years that have had huge commercial success, and also taken big artistic risks. Happy to provide a list of recommendations if you're having trouble finding good new music.
If there's one thing the music world should know by now, it's that.
(Hell, one of the best-known punk groups, the Sex Pistols, was a boy band put together by Malcolm McLaren. Sid Vicious was McLaren's idea.)
Punk doesn't mean indie.. but the simplicity of technique makes it a natural fit
So, like "arthouse movies". An arthouse movie could be much worse done than a mainstream good movie (like, say, the Godfather). The art in the term is not about the level of artistry, but about the approach.
Small or large or mass audience targeting (or not targeting) is an adjacent matter to making commerce or not.
Commerce is at root a relationship between someone who provides and someone who provides something else in return.
Artistic vision, craft, authenticity (why, how, what am I doing/saying this?) are orthogonal matters to commerce (what/how do I get in return?).
I don't think art that doesn't sell is lesser than art that does sell. I know, tell that to an artist who wants to make a living... but I really think you have to measure a work along more than one axis. How good something sells is a different dimension than how good something is. If that wasn't true, Thriller would be the best music ever and the Toyota Corolla would be the best car in the world.
One of your questions aligns with my personal definition of art. Art is 100% subjective i.e. personal. For me music needs to touch me emotionally, and since i love to dance it is a huge plus if it makes me move too. Visual art needs to astonish me, in one word: Wow!
It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.
I think the more salient difference is that folk music is accessible to produce (simple, common instrumentation). Pop music is accessible to consume (catchy melodies, danceable beats). One could say these traits co-evolved with the contexts the genres serve (cultural tradition vs. commercialization).
"Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.
This is a very good point. I think it would be like folktronica or indie folk or neo-folk or something else that's considered a folk subgenre.
Of couse some of the music produced like this was great art.
Frank Sinatra was probably close to the original "Boy Band(tm)". Singers were originally an appendage to the orchestra who was the big name. With TV, being young and attractive became much more important than the music and that equation flipped.
Sinatra, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. All of them relied on being "boy bands" to spread their music initially. Sure, many of them became more sophisticated with time, but much of their initial catalog was ... extremely derivative. There were a bunch of contemporary groups who sounded just like Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc.
Without being Boy Bands who could move records, they never would have lasted long enough to get better and become the legends we now know them to be.
Pop musicians as auteurs is also a marketing choice.
Love him or hate him, he's still an anomaly as a 100% top to bottom independent artist. He often makes light of this in many of his video shorts.