Kim stated, “I have very little patience for music that progresses slowly. In addition to the mashups, Daniel Kim also posted a video entitled “The Psychology of Pop Danthology” in which he explains his motivation for creating the videos.
“Pop Danthology is a glimpse into my utopian world where none of the boring filler stuff exists anymore” The 2012 version of Pop Danthology for instance featured not only mega hits such as Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ and Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, but also made use of slightly older tracks such as Adele’s ‘Set Fire to the Rain’, which originally released in 2011. This is also refreshing as it makes use of songs that may have been hugely popular early on in the year but have since lost momentum. Even for those who don’t enjoy pop music, listening to Kim’s work as he seamlessly merges songs such as Bruno Mars’ ‘Treasure’ with Justin Timberlake’s ‘Suit and Tie’ is truly satisfying, and the mashups do a great job of making the source material seem fresh and new in the most epic way possible.Īlso, usually being released around the end of a calendar year, the videos serve as a musical summary of what the past year has had to offer. This takes a lot of work it took Kim 180 hours to mix the 68 songs from the 2013 mashup just as an example, but the payoff is pretty incredible. The videos, which have been uploaded annually to the site for the last 6 years now, utilise how similar pop music has become by combining around 50 of the prior year’s biggest pop hits into a single 5-8 minute mashup. Usually being released around the end of a calendar year, the videos serve as a musical summary of what the past year has had to offerĭaniel Kim, best known for his Pop Danthology mashup videos, is definitely one of those creators. From a capella artists such as Mike Tompkins, to the acoustic covers of Igor Presnyakov, there really is plethora of creators of unique content based on modern pop music currently featured on the site. In fact, the rise of YouTube has given way to much more than just a readily available library of music videos. The hugely popular video sharing site in general has become a hub for imaginative and creative musical content in recent years. Despite featuring very limited original material, the track was among the bands most successful, not least due to the music video being a massive hit on YouTube. The song was a medley of popular songs which all utilised the same 4 chord progression and jovially highlighted the fact so much of pop music is effectively just a musical rehash. Everyone is just recycling the same chords and song structures in order to produce ‘new’ music and whilst in many ways this could be considered a bad thing for the industry, some artists have been using it to produce imaginative and quality content.įor example, The Axis of Awesome, an Australian comedy rock band, featured a track called ‘4 Chords’ on their 2011 album, Animal Vehicle. A report from Scientific American which claimed that the pitch content of music has decreased in recent years, stated that “Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord to another, instead following the paths well-trod by their predecessors and contemporaries”. Obviously there are some exceptions, but it is undeniable that most of the pop music that is out there at the moment is lacking somewhat in originality. For many, it’s repetitive, unimaginative and quite frankly boring. Modern pop music, despite being supposedly ‘popular’ by definition, really isn’t for everyone.