Can popular music ever really be unplugged?

Since the 1950s, with the creation of the amplifier and the ability to record music in order to distribute it on a wide scale, the term ‘unplugged’ has become more of a genre of music rather than a literal term. Even if an act performs a track acoustically, the technology is still present in order to record and share the music with a large audience. Only when a song is performed to an in-house audience, without a microphone, amplifier or any form of electrical equipment, can the term ‘unplugged’ truly be labelled to popular music.

Technology is not only necessary for distributional reasons, but also artistic reasons; it can enhance a song, enabling layering of sounds, over-dubbing and the adding of special effects - as Theberge said, ‘without electronic technology, popular music in the twenty-first century is unthinkable.’ Therefore, as a technical term, no I do not believe popular music can ever be unplugged.

What is popular music?

There have been many theorists and experts in the music industry that have tried to define what popular or ‘pop’ music is. By definition itself, the word ‘popular’ denotes ‘Fit for, adapted to, or reflecting the taste of the people at large’, however we, as media consumers, have come to regard ‘popular music’ as a much wider way of describing a certain type of music – namely that which is regarded as music that the majority of music listeners and consumers buy, download and listen to. Having said this, there are niche markets and separate genres that divide this ‘popular music’. For example, at any given time in history, whether it is the 1950s or 2010, you will have popular artists in each genre of music, whether that is Top 40, Alternative, Hip Hop or Rock; and therefore each musical taste will have their own artists considered popular within that genre.