Just what the $%&* IS popular music?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Can anybody tell me just what popular or pop music actually is? I know things like Radiohead or the Wu-Tang Clan are popular coz they sell loads of records but it doesn't sound like pop to me. Can anyone give me a definition of popular music? And is this different from pop music?

― Liam Maloy, Monday, 18 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

everything not jazz or classical?

― gareth, Monday, 18 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not if you're talking to lots of classical headz.

― Josh, Monday, 18 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pop could either be defined as a style of as a record that sells allot of copies, hence it's "popular". But stylistically it s all relative to the place and time, so there is no one "pop". Interestingly I couldn't find pop musi c in the dictionary.

― -- Mike Hanley, Monday, 18 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I could.

pop (colloq) adj: popular. - noun: currently popular music (also POP MUSIC), esp the type characterized by a strong rhytmic element and the use of electrical amplifications.

Looks like the lexicographers don't have a clue either.

― EdwardO, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

three months pass...

Far as I'm concerned, "pop" is quasisynonymous with "catchy." Whatever "pop" elements a band or song have, are the "catchy" or "pleasant" elements that stick in your mind long afterward. I haven't heard this articulated, but from the most people use the word, I think my definition is widely used.

― Jack Redelfs, Tuesday, 25 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Jack might be off the money.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Wednesday, 26 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i.e. the new Britney single. industrial pathos-hop. not a single hummable bar. but wayyyyy pop.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 26 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Silly. Pop music is anything that calls itself pop music. That's the only classification that really works.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo, Thursday, 27 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven months pass...

I have absolutely no idea. Mentally I class XTC as pop of their time, but in general I would say that pop isn't really a genre - it's just everything. So hip-hop, R&B, rap, techno, anything that people listen to today - that's pop. By the way, why does it worry you to put the word "fuck" in plain letters in your question title? Noboy else on this website minds.

― Anna Rose, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anna, he's not using the word fuck in his question. You are just assuming things. It's FEK.
I class contemporary music according to body type. If it's sinewy it's Rock. If it's chubby, it's Pop. Too much sugar makes you fat, you see.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There's was an interview with Lars Ulrich, or some such, once, where the journo asked him what pop music is. He said it's "music that pisses off as few people as possible".

― Judd Nelson, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well yeah except that fans of every other genre complain about it so Lars is clearly mental!

― Tom, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If a good haircut helps, it's pop. As any Lars kno.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This seems like as good a place as any to drop a link to this amusingly prescient 80's summary by Robert Christgau that I stumbled across the other day.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/decade-89.php

I would quote, but that would entail dropping big chunks of text. Suffice to say, essay covers "rockism," pop, UK vs. US, sincerity vs. irony, the death of the Great Album, the rise of the single, ever- decreasing attention spans, punk-disco, copyright wars and "a world where consumers dial music up from a central computer"...

Plus ce change...

― Ben Williams, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

with my poncy 16-yr-old know-it-all hat on, 'pop' is any art/entertainment (synonyms) which exist in a state comprehensible without any knowledge of previous art; that is, the less previous knowledge something requires of an audience, the less 'pop' that something is.

So 'Baby One More Time' is pop, Mogwai are pop, Eminem varies from pop to moderately unpop, Harry Potter is pop, 'Infinite Jest' is unpop, Ezra Pound's Cantos is about as unpop as it is possible to get.

This is probably a stupid definition.

― thom, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Pop is even more nebulous than rock. Who first called who "pop," eh? eh? ;)

― Ben Williams, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

pip pop bim bam

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cuba - don't you realize that "fek" has 3 letters and $%&* is 4? Plus fek is the dumbest word ever invented. Whoever made it up should be shot - I won't go into my detailed personal reasons why. But I plan to move next door to them and play in my band at FULL VOLUME 24 7 and my current neighbours could tell you how much torture this is...

― Anna Rose, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anna, I'd love to hear you fekkin'play Aphrodite's Child's 666 backwards. So i'll ask the two old tarts who live next door to let you come live with'em.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

― Anna Rose, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i like you anna

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i like you because you answered maura's famous HYPERSEXUALISED ENVIRONMENT question

― mark "the s stands for graham (heh)" s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think you are super-cool Anna (whether you are actually a opinionated 13 year old Kenyan prog rock fan or a practical joking 43 year old Londoner with some time to kill on his breaks). You are sup- ah fantastic.

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not old tarts - a family - parents in their thirties, VERY nice - two kids, 6 and 2. And why do I get the feeling you don't like me very much? You don't , do you? You don't even know me and you don't like me...:( Well in that case I don't like you either.
You were threatening to come live next door. And as far as I know my neighbours are well into their 70s. A few months back they labeled the noise I play "music" which of course meant they can't hear my Dead C records.
I do like you, Anna Rose. Even though your choice of gender covers up too much greying chest hair. ;-)

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank you, thank you. It's nice being popular, I'm not generally. But I have to say I dig this site and everyone on it. After all wouldn't life be boring without the argumentative, pedantic, patronizing, irritating little schmucks;)

― Anna Rose, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We're all just a figment of your speed warped imagination. Too many nights listening to Radio One while reading old issues of Creem have finally spawned a cyber wet dream. ;-)

― cuba libre (nathalie), Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What radio stations? I don't know any except Kiss100 which I really wish didn't exist.

― Anna Rose, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.