Entry 2

'Teenage Crime' was released in 2010, during the age of digital music transmission establishing itself as the primary method for audio sharing. The track was recorded using microphones and recording devices, uploaded and shared as a file; listened to 1,532,165 times on YouTube and over 250,000 times on SoundCloud. The tracks success could be attributed to its coverage of various genres. Radio stations are commonly known as the delegators of songs into different categories, each station only playing that which fits its own style (Souvignier, 2003). 'Teenage Crime' falls under the titles of pop, electro, techno and dance, its many spawning remixes extending the songs reach to hardstyle, trance and even house, thus extending the songs playability. Transcendence is factor in a tracks success too, more coverage means higher popularity and sales securing its position into popular culture. The song doubles as an easy listening track to be received during the day as well as to dance to at night, so has multiple settings.

The song has been said to have identifiable authentic qualities within in the vocals and audible instrument, seemingly rare in dance and pop music. Faking It: The Quest For Authentic in Popular Music (Barker and Taylor, 2007) says that listeners condemn 'fakes'. This raises the critical question on how we make value judgements on popular songs. It's a sociocultural process that breaks every of it's own rules when a new trend comes around. But what is a trend and how do the borders of what is included, form? A set of algorithms allegedly establish grey borders of pop culture trends (Beer, n.d.) but even these get it wrong and this mistake is of a high consumption thus, dollar value.

The film clip accompanying this track could be described as illustrative, in the sense that it is loosely based on the narrative of the lyric. Although the four line chorus repeats itself twice and is fairly simple in language, the audience gets a fair understanding from this combined with the beat to what the singer is talking about. Viewed with the music video showing a wife sneaking out to party and it's not long before the connection between the two is understood.


References

Barker, H. and Taylor, Y. (2007). Faking it. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton.

Beer, D. (n.d.). Popular culture and new media. 1st ed.

Souvignier, T. (2003). The world of DJs and the turntable culture. 1st ed. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corp.