You cringe when you hear the words Britney Spears, N*Sync, or Christina Aguilera. Ah, the bubblegum pop of the 90’s. So sweet it will cause tooth aches, and so touching that it’ll make your heart break into tiny pink fragments of…dried up bubblegum. Okay, I admit that I was sucked into that weird unparalleled dimension of poppy pop music, when I should have been listening to Radiohead, Green Day, or just anything else.

Luckily, I got out early, and survived without any serious injuries or scratches. Some weren’t as lucky when N*Sync broke up. After N*Sync broke up, there was a short period of time where it seemed that pop was dead. Some people were leaping for joy, some were crying themselves to sleep, and some just didn’t care. Others wondered “where have all the popstars gone?”.

The radio provided the answer for me, without me even having to ask the question. The DJ announced the forthcoming song was Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrrrrty” (don’t even try to correct me with the number of r’s…because I seriously don’t know and I don’t want to know). My reaction was uh…whoa-OH…This was definitely different from her previous hits. It would be considered more hip-hop rather than innocent bubble gum pop. Her next singles, varied from sorta-rock to hip hop again.

However, let’s not forget Justin Timberlake…correct me if I’m wrong…the “it” boy of the moment. Hearing his first single reminded me of Michael Jackson, and several people I know have mistaken him for MJ. Justin got help from a couple of hip-hop producers on his album, so that may explain the hip-hop feeling in his songs.

Why I even bring up these two is because what caused the change of their music? Have they just matured? Did they hate being popstars? If so, is that why they’re trying a different approach in music? Or are they just following the trend of music to make some more money? I really don’t know these answers to these questions, but it does raise some suspicion with their intentions.

Okay, so I’ll stop ragging on the former popstars, and I’ll move onto the alternative rock department. The two most prominent figures that have tried a cross-over into mainstream pop is Jewel and Liz Phair. Both of them started from humble beginnings and had a supportive fan-base. Jewel had several mainstream radio hits, and Liz Phair was worshipped as a goddess of indie-rock.

However this summer, Jewel’s music changed, a lot, it seemed as if she pawned her acoustic guitar and got a new wardrobe consisting of short skirts. Don’t get me wrong, the song “Intuition” is darn catchy, so catchy that’s in a commercial, but it just wasn’t well…folk music. Jewel=Folk. Now, that equation is slightly wrong…I can’t say completely wrong, because I didn’t buy her new CD. Maybe she believes she needs to grab a wider audience…who knows?

Liz Phair’s change was less radical, in my opinion. But ever since “Exile In Guyville” came out 10 years ago, she has become an exile in indieville. Her music is becoming like Avril Lavigne’s pop rock for the masses; this might be explained by having the same production team as Avril. Still, I believe no matter how big “Why Can’t I” may be on the radio, the same crowd as Avril won’t be flocking to Phair’s concerts. Liz Phair’s self-titled CD has a big fat Explicit Contents mark on the package, although there are edited versions, it’s still quite intimidating. You can still tell which songs Phair writes herself and which songs she got help from professional songwriters on the CD.

Recently, there have been so many cross-overs, sometimes I fear that one day there will only be one genre of music, because the popularity of the other genres all fade out. But that can’t possibly happen…right?