The State of Pop Music in 2K7

I haven't come up with my yearend charts just yet. So better chillax and in the meantime I'm posting my list of observations regarding pop music in 2K7! (This is my 2nd year to come up with my yearender. If I get hyper enough, I might post some 2K6 stuff here in this blog. :) )

1. Local music is in a slump.. (at least in pop radio!)
OPM in 2K7 pales in comparison to how it was the past 3 years. Yearend countdown in most upscale pop music stations have just 1 or 2 OPM singles that made the cut. (Compare that to the past years wherein around 1/3 to almost half of the top songs' list are composed of local songs.)

Why? Was it because it's an election year and the bands/singers were recruited to sing political jingles, etc.? (And somewhere in the process, they lost "it" down the drain? Hmmm..)Was it because of heaps of songs being covered and re-hashed time and again? Or perhaps was this slump supposedly a wake-up call of sorts so that a fresh flavour of creative juice would come out and give new life, energy and sound to the local music scene?

I dunno. I don't wanna pretend to be a commentator of sorts here. I'm no genius; I'm just a pop radio listener here who happens to be listening to "The Shins", "CSS", etc. at the moment. LOL. But I'll just let the figures (based on my weekly CURRENT 40 chart) speak for themselves.

a.) No OPM song hit #1 this year!
"Narda" by Kamikazee (#1 OPM song of 2K6 and #4 overall) was the last local song to top a weekly CURRENT 40 chart (around April 2K6).
Only 2 songs reached Top 5 in any weekly chart this year and 5 songs reached Top 10.

b.) Only 38 OPM songs charted the entire 2K7!
In 2K6, 50+ OPM songs charted. Because of this significant decrease, I also cut the OPM yearend list from Top 30 in 2K6 to Top 25 in 2K7.

c.) The current front-runner in the OPM yearend chart 2K7 is a song that became a hit in 2K6!
It just so happened that it peaked sometime during January 2K7 that's why this breakthrough single (at least in mainstream radio) made this year's cut.

2. There is a "changing of the guards" in the overall mainstream/pop scene.
I must say that the traditional players in pop music scene are hiding somewhere in the outskirts of the yearend chart 2K7. Britney, Justin, Beyonce (who BTW topped the 2K6 chart with "Irreplaceable") won't be poppin' in the top 20 list of 2K7.

Why?

American Idol, Myspace and Timbaland!

a.) American Idol has 8 or 9 songs (because 1 of the songs can still reach a new peak in 2K8, it depends!) in the Top 100 list. 3 of these songs are in the top 20 AND the potential #1 song of 2K7 may come from one of these Idol finalists!
b.) Myspace has been instrumental in promoting (directly or indirectly) several acts whose singles have been included in this year's list. (Emo/pop-rock bands, singer-songwriters, etc.)
c.) Timbaland has been included as a singer/producer/mentor in a dozen or so tracks that made it (at least in a preliminary sense) in the yearend Top 100. I must say that he's a major player in the current trend of a producer/performer sort of an artist. (Akon? T-Pain?) And as a result, he gets to bring in fresh (and re-hashed) talents in the limelight as well.

(It's almost 2:30AM. I have to abruptly end this post. Might be back for a sequel.)