Another vote for XTC and The Kinks here (and a lot of others previously mentioned).
I’d add The Db’s and Jellyfish as superb pop/rock bands, and let’s not overlook the king of the unpredictable melodic and rhythmic twist, the songwriter/pianist Burt Bacharach.
I don’t believe I’ve seen Prince, so I humbly nominate Prince.
And Juice Newton.
j/k about Juice.
Then I don’t know what to say. If you can’t here compositional creativity and innovation in “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Rain” or “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “A Day in the Life” (or even “Yes it Is” or “Norwegian Wood”), especially when compared to the songs being written by their contemporaries at the time, then our definitions are entirely at odds.
But the unconventional lyrics are part of the reason I’d put him on the list. I’m defining pop by song structure and melody, not subject matter and popularity. If I had to be even more specific, I’d put Robyn up there for “I Wanna Destroy You” alone. Then again, I suppose I like unconventional lyrics: for example, Wire is both lyrically and musically on the top of my favorite bands list.
His latest work is pretty decent. I enjoyed “Ole Tarantula” and the guy simply is a pop songwriting machine. He’s quirky, to the say the least, but I don’t think that takes away from the fact that you need some kind of genius to put out great melody after great melody, album after album after album.
Well, as I said, I’d put him in for the lyrics, but musically I just don’t think he did anything really innovative. He writes great pop songs, to be sure, but I just don’t think of him stretching the boundaries, composition-wise - he’s basically just stuck to 60s style pop/rock (albeit great 60s style pop/rock). I’m a big fan - I’ve seen him live more than any other act - but my interpretation of the OP would leave Robyn out.
Even if I thought Robyn Hitchcock (mostly in the Soft Boys) wasn’t particularly innovative, I’d still classify him as genius for the quality and seemingly effortlessness of his output. However, I think he was pretty innovative in the way he combined 60s-era psychedelia with punk/post-punk to create this fresh late 70s version of jangle pop. I mean, Underwater Moonlight is one of the most influential records of the 70s, inspiring bands like R.E.M. and the Replacements. As allmusic.com says, “[Underwater Moonlight] launched a thousand bands, but it turned out to be the Soft Boys’ swan song.”
By my definition, an album that inspires and influences so much of the (mostly underground) music to come would have to be some kind of genius, not just merely good.
I mean, I’d still put bands like XTC and the Magnetic Fields (or, rather, Stephin Merritt) ahead of Hitchcock, but how much more musically innovative were these people than the Soft Boys?
I’ll throw in the Go Gos. Pure pop crafting perfection in their songs and structure, with one of the greatest (and sadly underrated) drummers in history, and a vocalist that does incredible work naturally that can’t be matched by the likes of Furtado, Spears et al even with the studio pitch correction crutches they rely on.
You have a point. I’ve been listening for so long, and so many bands (R.E.M. especially) have worked that sound since the 80s that I forget how early Robyn was doing it. I’ll happily add him to my list as well.