What is the draw of pop music?

[warped]

There is lots of pop music that's good, it's the radio stations that suck.

My opinion in one sentence

[pennywill]

Pop music comprised of 4 chords...cool video
Axis of Awesome play many songs with just four chords

[CraigCyril]

As all fingers of our hand are not same, interest also varies from man to man. There are millions of people who like pop songs.
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[Keef Rob]

This will probably anger a few people, but it's my opinion, and you asked.

I truly believe to my toenails that people who do not like pop music are either not listening to it, or they're only listening very superficially and can't get past that nowadays it must have spectacle and be a production number (i.e. video, elaborate dancers, and such, like Madonna's half-time show).

There's plenty of adventure in pop music of today but I don't find it in the versions on the radio -- I find it in remixes, which aren't going to be on the radio (in America, but they are frequently in other countries). And I find that many people who only listen to things like Dream Theater or Tool have this very bizarre conception that only an album is somehow valid. So they're going to miss a release that has remixes for not even considering it.

To me remix releases (what were singles or CD5s) are great because you get to hear the song as the artist's production team conceived it, and then you get to hear how several different producers hear the song after the fact.

Now having said that, I find the names in pop music to be divorced from music, in that it's not the focus. Whenever you hear about any of the people you mentioned, you don't usually hear about their releases. You hear about what media manipulation they did, or what stupid thing they did on Twitter, or any number of things -- anything except music. These people are not musicians. They're (dare I say it?) media whores. They get people to help them make music, and a lot of people and it must fit a certain mode. You need the remixes to break out of it and turn it into actual music.

The pendulum does swing the other way, too. I find Tool and Dream Theater both to be incredibly boring and in need of several approaches to each song. I could argue that Tool are also into media manipulation just like anyone you name. Just because someone can manipulate an instrument manually with skill doesn't make it completely enjoyable, greater, or better. I find songs of either band to sound similar enough to see how someone could have the same complaints against them that people do about pop music. I don't listen to Tool or Dream Theater on a regular basis .... but I have heard them. What I know of Tool is all the mystery surrounding the band, and they sound alright but not anything I'd want to hear more than a few songs. I heard Dream Theater and I heard a large rehash of 70's progressive rock filtered through the 80's and 90's, and I thought, I've had enough of that the first time around.

[SteveO]

Music is subjective! If I like it I will listen regardless of genre!

"Variety is the spice of music!"

[mtthwibrahim]

I think I just threw up reading tthe op

[Music Head]

as to the title of the thread

one word, repetition

[hatchetman]

I think there's a lot to like about pop music. Like others have said, there is a lot of variety, it's just that radio only plays the same few songs over and over again.

I think most people like pop music because it just feels good. There is the repetition and that plays a part in it. But, pop music is easy to listen to, sing to and relate to.

[SteveO]

Pop music to me is anything that makes the FM playlist so it's not all Adele, Lady Gaga and Katie Perry!

[Brainvoyager]

I always use to say that music is 'just a matter of taste'. And there's good taste and there's bad taste. But even this statement is a matter of taste. :nod: