I'm not a fan of most pop music but there were times in my life that perhaps through repetition and the fact that the songs were literally everywhere that I enjoyed some of it. This new Netflix series exposes the evolution of pop music in modern times and also exposes a little bit of the dark underbelly of how it is that some music is selected to be what is popular long before the public even hears any of it.
[src](https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/THIS-IS-POP-NETFLIX-REVIEW-copy.jpg?quality=90&strip=all)When I was a kid, I had no idea that the stuff that ended up on the radio and therefore ended up being popular wasn't necessarily because the artists were the best at whatever they were doing, but that it was a carefully marketed and contrived situation that was almost forced upon us by promotion, repetition, musicians writing the songs for the performers, and outright purchasing of airtime.
I naively assumed that the "best" songs on the radio ended up there because they were the ones that the people liked the most. This series does a pretty great job on exposing how that more often than not this is not the case and that a lot of the musicians that we are most familiar with back in the 80's and 90's didn't even have anything to do with the creation of their own music, but were selected because of a certain look.
[srcc](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1e/f9/32/1ef932338876a40b14c440ff0b9f5d45.jpg)The most famous case of this situation is probably with Milli Vanilli who actually won Grammy awards that were later stripped from them when it was later exposed that not only did they not write the songs, but they never performed any of the vocals in the studio are were always lip syncing at concerts. While there case is likely the most extreme, the wool has been pulled over our eyes in a lot of other ways when we are shown that many famous artists don't really even write their own songs but rather, there are teams of talented musicians that write songs for no one in particular and then approach those artists to see if they are interested in buying the song. Most of the sexy pop sensations of the 90's and 2000's are quite guilty of this and this series does a bit, but not too much, to call them out on it.
That part of the series is fun, but they also talk about the evolution of pop and how it changed from one style to the next throughout the ages. Two of the most fun segments for me was when the focused on the rise and fall of boy bands and also how auto-tune became a major part of the industry.
[src](https://otakukart.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/T-Pain-in-This-Is-Pop.jpg)Artist T-Pain tries his best to defend his use of auto-tune in his songs and responded to critics claiming that the guy can't sing by showing a live performance when he doesn't use auto-tune. Final analysis: T-Pain can sing... the auto-tune is just part of his style. I am not a fan of his music and even he says in the interview in a funny and nonchalant way that "if you don't like it, then I didn't make it for you."
T-Pain is VERY wealthy, so I don't think that the auto-tune accusations are going to hurt his feeling (or wallet) too much.
Now there is one thing about this series that I didn't like and unfortunately it is something that it seems Netflix feels obligated to put into almost anything they make. They attempt to turn a lot of situations that have happened in music into a racial situation and point the finger at racism in many ways.
[src](https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/2990344/381x254/crop;jpeg_quality=65.jpg)The first time they did this was in relation to Boyz 2 Men, which if you weren't alive were a very popular boy band back in the 90's. Netflix tries to claim that Boyz 2 Men's popularity died down because of racism and that Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC stole their formula. They also claim that Boyz 2 Men was the "original boy band" which is also a load of horse-poo. Boy bands have existed for a long time going all the way back to the Jackson 5 in the 60's, Menudo, and New Kids on the Block in the 80's.
Also, when referencing auto-tune they talk about how Cher was the first one to do it on a widespread scale with her hit song "Believe" and that nobody cared but as soon as black people started doing it the racist world all of a sudden had a problem with it
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised when Netflix does this because they sneak it into just about anything these days. I will admit that it annoys me though because does everything really have to be about race? Netflix thinks so apparently.
Should I watch it?
The little rant I had at the end there shouldn't discourage you from watching it because it is a relatively minor part of the entire production. For the most part it is a fun trip down memory lane for those of us that were alive from the 80's onward and even if you weren't alive at that time you will appreciate the "evolution" of pop music over time. There are 8 episodes in total and none of them are connected to the one previous so maybe just have a look at the titles and see what interests you. For me, I liked all of them.
