Regallag_The_Axe:
As a thirty-[mumble mumble] year old I have to point out that some of you have hit on the difference between top 40/pop and… let’s just call it serious music. The subject came up in real life this summer when Tool’s latest album came out, and it happened that I was hanging out with my (younger) brother and his wife. My brother is a serious music fan, he bought Fear Inoculum the minute he heard about it. His wife likes top 40 stuff and hasn’t bought an album in years, listening to whatever comes on the radio/streaming service. My brother will be listening to Fear Inoculum when he’s in a nursing home while his wife will have forgotten about the top songs of 2019.
Similarly there are songs and bands from the “classic rock era” that I’ve only recently discovered, despite having listened to classic rock stations for most of childhood. Roky Erickson; Uriah Heep; most of Emmerson, Lake and Palmer’s catalog; most of the Grateful Dead’s catalog. Not to mention all the blues, classical, jazz, metal, etc. that never got played on the radio. Maybe acts like Tool, the Black Keys, Hatebreed, and Heilung will be tomorrows Roky Erickson and EL&P.
Tool is not considered “pop music” but it is considered “popular music”. In fact, “pop music” is considered a subset of “popular music”. So all “pop” is under the “popular music” umbrella but not all “popular music” is made up of “pop music”.