Very Ageist Question of Pop

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Is it considered a change in pop for boybands to be marketed at not early teenage girls (ie 13-15, as we have seen with backstreet boys etc) but older sixth-form age girls with the likes of Blue etc. What provoked this query was the increasing number of coy references to sex in the songs of Blue in particular, contributing to a 'young love' or 'just met this guy at the nightclub' approach. I'm pretty much throwing this over to past generations of pop lovers with this question, since I want to know whether this sort of marketing was around in the 60's or 70's, having not experienced those years.

― Dan, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Blue = Another Level. Pretty much.

― Mr Swygart, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Blue = Another Level. Pretty much. "

Only obviously so much better than that (Sunship's great 2-step mix of AL's "Bomb Diggy" notwithstanding).

As for the question at hand, I wonder how much of it is to do with the shift from the "pure pop" sound of, say, Backstreet Boys' "As Long As You Love Me" to the more R&B sound that has increasingly dominated pop. R&B is sexy music and a shift to more sex-focused narratives is inevitable (cf. Steps and S Club 7, both of whom have - or, rather, had - a very shiny pop sound and coincidentally also avoided talking about sex that much.

It's not a simple division of course: "Baby One More Time" was "pop" but was sexy, but even with Britney the level of sexual focus of each song can be measured against its R&B influence, with "Slave 4 U" and "Boys" ranking up much higher levels of tension than "Overprotected", which itself ranks higher than "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman".

― Tim, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's just a widening of the market. They know that those references can fly over the heads of the 13 year old girls, and they'll still buy the record because they can dance to it. The 18 year old girls just dig the gritty urban realism of Blue. They're like the pop Streets.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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