That’s well deserved high praise. Though I like Knowing Me, Knowing You even even better.
This thread illustrates one of the biggest problems with the Dope. Pop songs are not songs that you like by an obscure band. There is already a list of the perfect pop songs. It was compiled by Billboard and you can see it here. You probably know most of those songs and wouldn’t mind listening to them even if they aren’t your favorite. That’s what makes them popular.
I don’t think most of the artists mentioned here are obscure at all. But there’s a bit of a difference between “prefect pop song” and “most popular song.” They’re not necessarily the same thing. (Though there’s a good number I’d agree with on those end-of-year lists.)
I agree that some of the songs listed qualify. But maybe we are quibbling over the definition of a pop song. To me, the purpose of a pop song is to make money. That’s why there is so much disdain for pop music by people who like a particular genre. The perfect pop song is the one that sells the most. I would agree that other artists who are creating music for the sake of can often sound better.
I totally agree. This thread would have been so much more fun if the title had been “Here is a list of Billboard year-end number one singles” consisting of just a link to the Billboard year-end number one singles.
IMHO, to insist that a pop song must by definition be commercially successful (or even be intended to be commercially successful) is to commit the etymological fallacy.
I would grant that an “absolutely perfect Pop Muzik Masterpiece” is a song that would be a #1 hit in a (proverbial) perfect world. But whether or not it’s a hit in this world is due partly to accidental matters that have nothing to do with the quality or type of music.
If a tree falls in the forest where nobody hears it, does it make a sound? If an artist records a “pop muzik masterpiece” and nobody hears it, is it still a pop music masterpiece? I vote yes.
And I’ve been enjoying and appreciating the suggestions and links that people have been posting.
Something Good - Herman’s Hermits
Melt With You - Modern English
Your argument fails at the most basic level. Take the aforementioned ABBA as an example. They had one billboard #1, “Dancing Queen”, and the occasional top 40 entry, while in the rest of most of the western world and beyond they had a string of consecutive megahits for eight years, lasting from 1974-82. What does that tell us? Are the Billboard charts flawed? Is the American musical taste flawed? Or were their singles actually mostly shit, but wrongly loved by millions of foreign record buyers and radio listeners?
Everybody in the world knows what Pop Music is. Only here on the Board would folks find something to argue about.
Bubbly by Colbie Caillat
Happy Together by the Turtles.
Todd said so himself, and he’s right!
Have we mentioned Everybody Wants To Rule The World yet? How about the most perfect song ever written: Louie Louie?
Good one!
Related to that: I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. Not quite perfect because there’s some weird lyric about licking the mirror.
Apparently not everybody knows what pop music is. The “pop” in pop music is “popular” of course ABBA counts—and “Happy Together”. More recently would be Madonna. Even more recently would be Maroon 5, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, etc.
Sugar - “If I can’t change you mind” didn’t chart in the US and only hit 30 in the UK. That is not pop music. It fails the popular test and only hits on “this is a song that I like and I want you to listen to it.”
New Radicals - “You Get What You Give” ----almost qualifies. It hit 30 on Billboard’s Hot 100, No 5 in the UK, No 1 in Canada and New Zealand. But as this is a US centric board you can see how I might have missed it. I don’t remember hearing it on any of local radio stations.
Now if the question was about any other genre of music these songs could qualify. But come on! If you are talking about pop music it had to at least break the top 40. That’s my problem with some of the submissions.
I guess you could be like Humpty Dumpty, “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
Whether or not a song is pop music is a distinctly different thing than whether or not a song was popular. If we go by your argument, every song on Thriller that wasn’t a Top 40 hit is somehow not pop music, even tho they offer little or no variation on the musical elements present. Also, your definition would mean that an exact copy of song by another performer that didn’t chart would somehow exclude the song from being pop music, even tho it clearly is.
Pop music is a genre label that transcends music grouped solely by aural qualities.
Pop Muzik by M. It’s in the name.
If I recall correctly, there was an online poll a few years ago that named the Spice Girls’ Wannabe as the “catchiest pop tune ever”
If it were possible to scientifically survey all humans (i.e. with a representative random poll) we’d have a better idea of what’s “popular music” and “catchy” and so on. But more practically, going by chart position in a few Western nations is probably going to get closer to what’s meant.
Maybe the “perfect Pop masterpiece” is like Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of porn: we know it when we [hear] it.
Two more nominees:
***The Beatle’s version of Twist and Shout: maybe they didn’t write it, but John Lennon sang the hell out of that thing.
***The Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over.
…perfect little musical emotion-provoking machines.
This is total bull. Take one of the examples I posted, “September Gurls” by Big Star. Everybody who ever cared about pop music and KNOWS this song agrees that is an exceptional song of the genre. But it totally bombed in 1972! Why, you ask, because it was a bad song? No, it were the fucking circumstances: they were on the wrong label, had no promotion whatsoever, weren’t plugged to the radio stations. So nobody cared because nobody KNEW. Some insiders knew even then, and the appreciation for this music grew in the times to follow, and now Big Star are deservedly in pop pantheon with only selling, what, 1000 records at the time.
Pop music is not hard science, not even weak science, and not dependent on statistics. In fact it’s the very opposite to that.
Pop music does not only refer to charting music. It can also describe a genre of popular music that emphasizes strong vocal melodies and both vocal and instrumental hooks, short length (2-4 minutes typically), verse-chorus type structure, etc. There’s even subgenres like “power pop,” “bubblegum pop,” “synth-pop,” “baroque pop,” etc., with tons of bands and songs that never charted, yet they are unabashedly “pop” songs.