In the modern world, people often hear words whose meaning they do not quite understand. One of these words is a hit. This term is often used both in the musical ranks and in everyday life: on radio and television, in conversation. This word seems to have something in common with the chanson genre, but it is not. Do you know what a hit is?
Definition of the word
Schlager is a concept from mass culture; it denotes a pop song or melody, which is especially popular among the public.
In a broader sense, hit means a work of any kind of art that is popular, but in itself lightweight in content. Also a hit is any product that can have commercial success and become fashionable.
Origin of the word
The word comes from the German Schlager - the best-selling product. This is a mandatory phenomenon in popular culture.
The history of the use of the word "smash hit"
Now that we know what a hit is, we can trace the history of the development of the use of this word.
In the 19th century, Austrian merchants affixed a label with the word "smash hit" to the most competitive products. It is from professional jargon that this word originates. Schlyager was picked up by representatives of the growing music industry: first the word began to be used in the activities of music producers who distributed notebooks with texts of popular songs and opera arias. Then phonographic firms began to produce hits.
The concept of "hit" is also associated with the concept of "star" - a performer who is endowed with a particularly competitive image. Each stage of the star’s creativity, marked by the release of a new album, was marked by one or more hits.
Schlager, as a special kind of entertaining songs, emerged from a combination of various types and genres of vocal art: operetta and vaudeville arias, city songs, romantic miniatures. In the XX century, the appearance of a hit was imprinted with jazz and rock music. Later, he absorbed the features of blues texts and rock texts.
Throughout all stages of development, the hit was a synthesis of different ethnic trends and styles. However, the structure of the hit, discovered back in the 19th century, remained unchanged: dance + lyrics.
Schlager constantly advertises himself, has a commercial nature. Dance is an obligatory specific feature of hit songs. They are composed with the expectation of a special type of perception with a weakened logical attention that is not aimed at understanding the whole text. The main thing in the hit is the melody, the rhythm that infects the public. Hits are the songs that sound everywhere and are remembered whether you want it or not.