Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Yeah, it’s an easy catch-all of “whatever you hear on the radio or in a nightclub”, and there’s no need to be deliberately obtuse/obscure/technical about it. Terms can have similar but different meanings.
Question: Do you foresee a time when saxophone becomes common again in popular music?
- Thread starter Motorik
- Start date
Yeah, it’s an easy catch-all of “whatever you hear on the radio or in a nightclub”, and there’s no need to be deliberately obtuse/obscure/technical about it. Terms can have similar but different meanings.
yabba
Weird Pick Butt Person
as a first-person close observer/participant in such, there's a very good reason for pretending it never happened
Motorik
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Bones McHorror
bones
That (in my opinion too narrow) definition seems to exclude Bon Iver and jbird music, though. Unless there is another binary definition you work with.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Well, it’s not my preference. But it’s the common one.
I like mine because I like to think historically and globally.
yabba
Weird Pick Butt Person
story checks out
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
In this entire post you haven’t defined what you mean by pop. You listed some sub genres (which are also ambiguous). So I’m guessing you automatically include contemporary R&B and non-rap hip-hop as pop, yes? If so then what’s the criteria since it’s not confined to single genres? Indie-pop usually refers to upbeat, melodic indie rock music with a good chorus or hook. Was Oasis pop? And if they were where are you drawing the line in rock music that would exclude Steve Vai? David Lee Roth’s solo work with Steve? In the 60s the term pop included Frank Sinatra, Wes Montgomery, and Herb Alpert. Pet Sounds would have been filed in the rock bins at every record store. Is Pet Sounds pop?
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Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Yes. No. No. Yes.
Andrew Sak
Even Andy Deserves Good BEans
Pop=Popular
Bones McHorror
bones
This is wrong. Pop has often been very subversive and controversial.
And playing new age, jazz or classical in public today would be fairly mundane but not pop music.
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
Bach is popular. I don’t think the word origin is going to get you to the answer.
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rickenvox
Animal Psychic
I agree, and I would definitely extend it to DLR covering Just a Gigolo.
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Andrew Sak
Even Andy Deserves Good BEans
I strongly disagree that Bach is popular with the general public. Do a random survey and see how many people can name a song from Bach.
I'm sure Bach was popular when he first came out. I guess my simple definition doesn't hold true. Unless Pop is no longer considered Pop once it becomes Un-pop.
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Andrew Sak
Even Andy Deserves Good BEans
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
First off pop in pop music doesn’t just mean popular. That’s like saying all homes manufactured in the fifties were modernist design. Ranch homes built in the fifties were just as “modern” as a Gibbs & Gibbs homes as far as when they were built, but they weren’t modern. Modern was a style, not the literal definition of the word.
Second, when CDs first came out a lot of the production were remasters. Let it Be was one of the first. Bach performances were also at the top of the list. For people owning music media worldwide, Bach is huge.
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Andrew Sak
Even Andy Deserves Good BEans
Pop absolutely is short for popular. I will pretend with you that Bach and classical music are very popular genres. I dont feel like researching it. I hope you are correct.
Here are a couple of lazy pictures about Pop music.
335clone
Living the dream
Snippets from Wiki, for context and argument fodder....
The term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".
defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class.
From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[15] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[15] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[16] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative"
Doesn't sound subversive or controversial to me @Bones McHorror
The term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults".
defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class.
From about 1967, the term “pop music” was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.[15] While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,[15] pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.[16] According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative"
Doesn't sound subversive or controversial to me @Bones McHorror
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
you just killed your own point, read the definition after popular - has nothing to do with popular (strong beat, etc.). The word pop as it applies to music has all kinds of implicatures. Language isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. And it says the term "popular music" mean all music that is popular, unlike the term "pop music".
Bones McHorror
bones
You really haven't paid attention to pop music at any time in your life from any era over the past like 70 years? And had to read the wiki? To me those descriptions are terrible and based on rock critics condescending opinions of pop. Where they consider rock to be the norm and pop to be a censored version of rock. Which makes no sense in context to how pop works. It's also untrue that pop is more conservative than rock (I checked the quote and it was from a book published in 2001, btw). Since most rock bands sound almost the exact same as they did like 25 years ago. Sometimes like they did 40 or 50 years ago. While pop is constantly changing and incorporating new things into production and composition.
Pop has always on the avant garde in talking about/doing things that people the general public uncomfortable. Along with film, another expensive endeavor people associate with 'commercialism', it's a big way that a lot of things come into popular culture in America. For instance, sending black artists into white homes was considered subversive. White guys like Elvis 'trying to be black' was subversive. You have songs about drug use and murder. You have songs about fucking using thinly veiled metaphor. You civil rights anthems and anti-war songs. You have John Lennon saying he is bigger than Jesus. You have the Stones hiring the Hell's Angels and writing about the devil. You have openly gay artists and androgyny. You have Prince being Prince (even had an album called Controversy with a song called Jack U Off). You have rap artists saying fuck the police. You have Madonna doing third wave feminism and using BSDM imagery. Many rockers here missed out on disco. But did you know that discos were constantly raided by the police? If you're white male and straight no big deal, though straights did get offended by it and burn their records, but it was a rebellion for gay men, women, and many african americans.
Today almost every pop artist is fairly political and not even just centrist but fairly left of center. Ariana Grande supports Bernie Sanders. Dua Lipa supports Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Camila Cabello and Beyonce talk about black lives matter. Rihanna turned down the super bowl in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. You have trans or genderfluid artists like Kim Petras, Poppy, Janelle Monae, Sam Smith, and Christine and the Queens right now. Even Taylor Swift just made a documentary about how she had to stop being politically neutral in today's political climate. Conservative twitter right now is still freaking out over J-Lo and Shakira at the Super Bowl. The idea that pop is some neutered version of rock is just wrong. Pop musicians seem to be even more likely to express opinions that will alienate some of their audience than rock musicians. They are more likely to have concept-based albums than rock, too, nowadays. A lot of pop is based around a concept for an entire album cycle similar to how the Beatles/Bowie/Prince worked. While rock is often just the same formula over and over and there is no expectation of doing anything new or big. It's kind of rehashing rock's past glory.
Hell, the reason why country music exists is because black people, uppity women, gays, trans folks, etc. are scary to people in the South. And therefore they need a safe space from pop music proper. But even country is now too weak to hold the status quo. A lot of the women are expressing more liberal views in songs/videos. And Lil Nas X took over their charts for a long time.
The idea of 'controversy' is a staple of pop. It's not guaranteed, as 'being edgy' is kind of a red-herring as a delineation between it and other genres, but controversy sells.