Change is in the air
Some things we can say with certainty about pop music in the year to come. Taylor Swift’s stadium tour will do gangbusters. And the Grammy Awards will get at least one major category wrong. But plenty else seems up for grabs at a moment when the next viral hit can come from anywhere.
Trend
With digital streaming now steering the record business, artists are reassessing how best to present their work. For Frank Ocean, that meant releasing a series of singles this year rather than a complete album; for Drake, it meant calling “More Life” a “playlist” as a way to justify his stylistic dabbling. That experimentation is sure to spread in 2018, especially as platforms like Spotify roll out increasingly sophisticated interface options that allow acts to complement their songs with videos, images and text.
Breakout
Boy bands threatened to come back in a big way in 2017, and with welcome diversity in their ranks — see the rise of BTS from South Korea and Latin pop’s CNCO. But none of these new dream teams has scored a major Top 40 radio hit to rival the old classics by ’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. Look for Prettymuch to get that done next year. Assembled by Simon Cowell (who put together One Direction), this Los Angeles-based quintet has a tighter-than-usual grasp on the sound of current pop; its songs showcase the requisite boy-band vocal harmonies but also use squelching synths and skittering trap beats. And Prettymuch’s social-media savvy means radio programmers can resist them for only so long.
Prediction
The runaway success of “Despacito” — and specifically its remix featuring Justin Bieber — didn’t just bring overdue shine to the song’s veteran creators, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. It also lighted a fuse among American record executives to engineer the next Latin pop crossover smash. Expect to hear plenty of Englishspeaking singers sharpening their Spanish to jump on records by the likes of Ozuna, Bad Bunny, Danny Ocean and Romeo Santos.