POP PHILOSOPHY: Modern music's tipping point

This past April, L.A. pop-rock band Foster the People played Philly's Kung Fu Necktie - a venue that accommodates no more than 120 people. Later this month, they will play (and sell out) the TLA, which holds a grand. By the end of August, don't be surprised if they headline the Linc.

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POP PHILOSOPHY: Modern music's tipping point

POSTED: Wednesday, June 1, 2011, 2:00 PM

Foster the People

Every Wednesday, Ryan Carey tackles a different topic relating to the contemporary pop culture scene.

This past April, L.A. pop-rock band Foster the People played Philly's Kung Fu Necktie — a venue that accommodates no more than 120 people. Later this month, they will play (and sell out) the TLA, which holds a grand. By the end of August, don't be surprised if they headline the Linc.

Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book, The Tipping Point, coined its eponymous term describing the long sought-after 'critical mass' of momentum for a product, style or idea. Not too long ago, your product needed the help of "salesmen," "mavens" and "connectors" to go viral. Eleven years later, YouTube is six years old (that's it!?) and getting 3 billion visits per day and the word "viral" means way more than it did in 2000. Gladwell's tipping recipes seem to have been outdated by a short decade of modern history.

There are two ways you can look at music. You can view it as a collection of songs or a collection of artists. Those who look at music as a collection of songs are the more common group (Group A). They are the casual music fan. These folks enjoy a well-adjusted relationship with a good beat or catchy melody. But the type of person who looks at music as a collection of artists (Group B) has elevated the importance of music beyond "something to be enjoyed" and sees it as a lifestyle and a reflection on oneself. In fact, the most extreme (read: craziest) of Group B folks actually go a step further: They see music as a collection of albums by artists. These self-medicating brow-furrowers often end up as music journalists.

But the common tune consumer is Group A, the people who think of music as singular units filling up their iPod for instant service on whatever mood, jog, drive, coit, chore or cocktail-party they're engaged in. You better believe this ain't the model of the Beatles and Stones. In order to achieve success, those guys had to convince execs through live shows that they were a thoroughly enjoyable "ACT." Group B people were probably more common back in the sixties, simply because there were no "playlists" and it would be silly to put an LP on the turntable just for one song.

Today, Foster The People barge through the Internet with their epidemically catchy toe-tapper, "Pumped Up Kicks" and — after forming only in late 2009 — have already been on network TV (Kimmel) and, like I said before, will be selling out the TLA. Realize: for most people, buying a ticket to see Foster the People really equates to buying a ticket to see "Pumped Up Kicks." Imagine going to see Peter Bjorn and John ... and not hearing them play "Young Kids." If you're Group B, you can imagine this quite easily (although you also go out to live shows more, but I digress). Likely, Foster the People means relatively little to you. Even if you love their other songs, they only have one album, and it was only released two weeks ago (and they're playing the TLA)! One-hit-wonders are nothing new. But what is new is the speed and efficiency with which they rise to the top, as well as the lack of needing anything else- — a look, a dynamic live show, a consistent back catalog ... whatever other prerequisites used to exist for catching an exec's eye.

This is the new model. CD sales? Unless you're Kanye or Lady Gaga, forget it. Hardcore fans might buy your album but most likely people are buying your mp3 from the iTunes store (currently the nation's leading music vendor). Which means that a cohesive collection of songs comprising an album — the old unit of music consumption- — is being replaced by the single mp3. Group A people are starting to get just as involved in spreading stuff around than the Group B'ers. Twenty years from now, will bands even make full-length albums? Why would they set out for several grueling months of work on a lot of songs when you can simply hit the studio whenever inspiration strikes and spend most of your calendar touring (which is where artists can actually make money).

We're living in the middle of an interesting paradigm shift, where people are listening to jams on YouTube while they do other things, stopping only to click LIKE as "Pumped Up Kicks" surfs on a wave of free promotion. With modern media, musicians are working smarter, not harder (see: Ok Go) and Gladwell's "salesmen," "mavens" and "connectors" are replaced by "Everybody."

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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