2011: The Year of Europop
By Barry Walters, eMusic Contributor
During the last two decades, much of what wasn't rock - and even plenty of rock itself - had something to do with hip-hop. Pop tempos drifted to the middle, lyrics got more aggressive, melody narrowed and simplified, and gender lines stopped blurring. In Europe and much of the world, dance music radicalized pop with the synth sounds of the future, but upbeat club sounds rarely reached US radio beyond Madonna and Janet Jackson. We… more »