Perhaps I expect too much.

While I understand the music industry has become a shadow of its former self and don’t expect a lot of dynamic activity out of the mainstream pop artists, I know that if they’re good at one thing, it’s formulas.

Formulas for pop songs, formulas for record contracts — hell, I’m convinced they have a rotating schedule of pop-starlet hairstyles that secretly controls the salon industry. But I digress.

Despite all their perfectly timed release dates and expertly orchestrated prosecution of peer-to-peer thieves, the music industry is missing the gaping hole in the grand pop music formula: Where’s the new musical genre to exploit?

We seem to have a pretty good schedule for these sorts of things. The 1920s brought jazz, the 1950s ushered in rock ‘n’ roll, the late ’70s started exploring hip-hop, and in between, we had variants of jump blues, rockabilly, mod rock, punk, funk, disco and electronic that provided such a rich pop music history in the last 50 years.

But where is our musical revolution? Sure, the ’80s had post-punk and grunge and the ’90s had… well, the ’90s had music … well, the ’90s had something resembling music. But as we approach the end of this century’s first decade, what musical progression do we have? Sure, artists like Radiohead, Jay-Z and Beck reached an apex of their careers that allowed them make some of the best records of their genre, but did they do anything particularly innovative? Not unless you consider mainstream success for a scientologist to be progress.

So why the delay? One could easily make the ’90s “powerhouse” artistic roster a scapegoat for all this musical mucking about. Just when Kurt Cobain stood on the precipice of legendary status, he goes and martyrs himself! Just when Tupac Shakur is about to make West Coast gansta rap his own, he gets martyred! And just when alternative artists were about to take the reins from Nirvana and press forward, Green Day wimps out, Billy Corgan got all high and mighty, and Perry Ferrell forgot what the definition of taste was. The void was filled by boy bands, Mariah Carey and — inexplicably — Oasis. ‘Nuff said.

But even if we declare the ’90s as the “meh” generation,” we should have been back on track by now. Yes, we lost our music visionaries early on, but the same happened with rock ‘n’ roll. Buddy Holly and Richie Valens’ deaths (along with Elvis joining the military and Little Richard going to find God) may have dealt a blow to rock ‘n’ roll, but after five years and a little help from the Brits, it was back on its feet. Similarly, we had a six-year period of general pop malaise, but 2000 brought some strength to the industry.

Plus, the independent labels incubated many musical movements born prematurely and continued to foster new creativity — even in the desolate wasteland of the ’90s. While some of those endeavors were co-opted by the mainstream music scene with more (the White Stripes and the Strokes) or less (the Vines) success, those innovators persisted in indie music. Bands such as Franz Ferdinand, the Rapture and countless imitators revived the post-punk sounds of the ’80s and put it back together again. MF Doom, the folks over at Rhymesayers and even the British “Garage” and “Grime” approach proved hip-hop isn’t dead. And of course, who could ignore the sonic experiments of mash-ups by producers like Danger Mouse and Girl Talk?

It’s obviously not from a lack of creative output, then. One could try to blame the monolithic RIAA or other music industry cronies, but what would be the point? There are more avenues than ever to enter the industry, and while radio and MTV still have a solid foothold, the Internet is a veritable grab bag of pop music’s best and worst. Say what you will about the tactics of industry lawyers, but more music is accessible now more than ever — both in capacity and options.

Everything seems to be in place, and the music listening public is restless for something new. So once again: What’s the holdup?

It’s possible we’ve just run out of noises, sounds and frequencies to blast out of stereos. The idea of West African rhythms mixed with strings quartets and English-language lyrics sounds like a new musical fusion, but when you realize it has been done before and sounds a lot like pop music with a gimmick — Vampire Weekend or Damon Albarn’s Mali Music, take your pick — it’s hard to envision anything wildly different that’s never been done before. Think of it as a different language: You can try to write down specific squiggles and call it an alphabet, but they’re going to be derivations of some sort from Greek, Latin or Arabic.

But of course, rock ‘n’ roll was never a completely new sound. Everything from jump blues to Appalachian folk music to big band swing was instrumental in the creation of rock. Hip-hop was an amalgam of disco, electronic, reggae and urban social consciousness.

So perhaps the new musical movement is underway, and we just don’t know it yet. If that’s the case, we should be able to see these sub-genres we hear today melding into a new musical trend.

But that means we have to identify those sub-genres. Over the next three weeks, I’ll take a look at some of these offshoots and try and find some clues to our musical progression.

And my promise to you, dear reader: If we don’t happen to find any definitive direction for our pop music caravan, I’ll chart a path myself.

Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and history.