Traditional Pop Research Paper

Annabelle Chidiac

November 16th 2014

WRT 150

Final Essay

As suggested by its name, traditional pop is a genre of western popular music that depends on its acceptability with a given audience during a specific time period. The world embraces a large diversity of civilizations that have developed independently from one another with different historical backgrounds and resources. Thus, various cultures, languages, climates, lifestyles, living environments, values, beliefs, pasts …result in dissimilarly sounding music genres. Traditional pop has no real musical consistency and merely relies on fans and public taste. Due its broad-minded nature, it can also be called liberal type of genre

Cabaret is a form of entertainment that was introduced in

No backup singers were necessary and the song focused exclusively on the artist’s voice. When it was initially performed, only a guitar and a piano harmonized with the singer’s strong vocal presence. The vocals were dedicated to prompting emotions of love and hope while the background instrumentation aspired to adorn and embellish the emphasis of Piaf’s voice. There were no musical solos and the artist was singing at all times during the performance. Still preserving a sense of comfort and informality, the instrumentals of the melody resided true to a cabaret audience. Once the song gained popularity, it remained loyal to its traditional pop culture standards. The song modified a few musical details to acclimate to its new fast-growing number of diverse supporters. A full orchestra eventually supplemented the initial instruments of the tune to comply with the new market trends and satisfactoriness by the audience. The newer released version of the song was launched by a solely instrumental introduction consisting of various musical implements inter alia saxophones, violins, and trumpets. Like the original song, the piano and guitar were still part of the piece’s musical composition along with a full larger orchestra. Overall, one can induce that the song was originally released with a simple, guitar-and-piano music background

The track is ambiguous reflecting many possible meanings. Indeed, the general theme of the music is love and happiness. However, the remaining deeper connotation of the lyrics is subjective to the audience. Thus, falling in the pop culture genre category, a song with multiple interpretations has a reputation for satisfying a wider-ranging audience and meeting the broad criteria of the public taste. Also playing with public emotions, the song assumes some allusion references. It carries figurative historic inferences to WW2 denoting a heart beating and being alive only to erase all grief with the feeling of love. Likewise, the song’s allegoric qualities act as an extended hopeful metaphor of a happy and peaceful lifestyle. The title of the song, “La Vie En Rose” translates to life in pink. The artist is not singing about literally seeing life in pink but rather using the color pink as a reference to love and every individual’s happy place. Likewise, the lyrics are organized in an accentual- syllabic verse manner. The verses’ meters are determined by the ratio of the stressed to unstressed syllables, and structured into feet. This poetic pattern of the lyrics renders the song “catchy” and more melodic to the ear (Poetry