Ok, this is a serious question so i didnt put it in the opinions forum. What is it with people liking pop music? (Britney Spears/Atomic Kitten/N-Sync etc.) I really want a serious answer to why people listen to the same forgettable songs and re-hashed lyrics?
Thanks.
Because every day there’s a new batch of maturing adolescents discovering that emotions that never meant anything to them before suddenly are the most important thing in the world and they want an outlet for those emotions. One stage of this development is the singing-along-with-songs stage.
Recording companies’ greatest motivation is to sell new records. They have the highest prices and earn the greatest profits. Therefore, the radio stations are urged strongly to play new songs. Therefore, when these suddenly hormone-driven youngsters turn on the radio to find some music to sing along to, they find the newest, not necessarily the best.
Go back and examine the music that you feel defines your teenage years. Chances are, if you look at the music from a few years before that, it will seem stale and unemotional. This is because you were exposed to it too early for it to become connected with your emotions. Music from a few years after your “hot zone” will seem childish and silly.
Guess what. The people a few years older than you feel the way about that stale and unemotional stuff that you feel about your “hot zone” music, and the people a few years younger than you feel that way about the childish and silly stuff.
Hope this helps.
This thread belongs in IMHO or Cafe Society. Maybe you should email a moderator and ask them to move it for you.
an IMHO for sure.
My 2¢ says that most people like undemanding music with simple pop hooks and lyrics that don’t force the listener to think. It isn’t limited to bubble gum pop. I was a Kiss fan when I was in high school and Detroit, Rock City still gives me a warm fuzzy the same way Daydream Believer does for a Monkees fan. I have no delusions. Many of my favorite old songs are as bonehead, three chord simple as they get.
<starts Realjukebox and clicks on Steely Dan>
As my tastes mature I find I like music that asks more of me.
I don’t really care what Forum this question is in. Why do people care about that so much?
But ICP, I’ll advise to avoid this question. I know that you’re perplexed by it but, trust me, I think I asked the same question about 6 months ago about RAP and posters just couldn’t understand why I was asking the question. But, I’ll watch and see.
As far as the question itself, I’d say that it’s like food, sometimes you just want a MacDonalds hamburger instead of beef wellington.
It’s just a matter of simple tastes.
Because you can’t account for listener’s tastes. What seems rubbish to you is enjoyed by others, whose priorities and preferences are different to your own. Additionally, you could argue that the mass marketing of particular bands limits exposure to alternatives - in other words, people’s tastes change as they are exposed to new bands and new genres, but that doesn’t happen overnight (particularly for younger listeners).
Thanks for all your replies - i think i’ve thought of a better way to explain it now, heres a chorus from a pop song (Romeo - Romeu Dunn):
Romeo he’s the type of guy that you wanna be with/
Romeo he’s the kind of guy that you wanna creep with/
Romeo he’s the type of guy that you wanna get deep with/
(get deep with, get deep with, and he knows it, get deep with)
and here’s one from the kind of music I like 
(ICP - Terrible):
We get intergalactic satalite data compress - but we cant feed the homeless/
And then O.J’s whack story unfolded n’ everybody watched that while Oklahoma exploded/
Nine hundred reasons why this world really dont care - that’s what it costs for a wheelchair/
What you know 'bout terrible?, you don’t know what’s terrible/
Now I know which one I’d prefer listening to. I think its the mindless lyrics - I dont understand why people like them 
…
Off to IMHO.
GQ is for questions with factual answers. I’ll move this over to our arts forum, Cafe Society.
Manny knows best. Never mind.
ICP - now you mixing questions. Are you asking about Pop music or Pop lyics. The lyrics are just a part of the music. Many, many people don’t even hear the lyrics. They just dig the sweet sound and that’s enough for them. There doesn’t HAVE to be a message in music. Ask any jazz guitarist or Bach himself.
I guess I’ll weigh in with a confession: I used to listen to ‘pop’ country. A lot. I was an overly energetic, ambitious 18 year old, and rarely sat still long enough to really chew on complex lyrics. The summer after my freshman year of college, I came home to find my best friend, a died-in-the-wool country music fan, was really into The Doors. She tried to get me to listen, but I really couldn’t be bothered. I told her “I’m really busy, and have loads of my own things to think about. When I listen to music, I want an escape from all the complexity.” In other words, I just wanted some background noise, or something I could sing along with in the car without much thought.
My musical tastes have changed a lot in the last six years, and now I listen to much more complex music the majority of the time. Still, sometimes I just want to unwind, and listen to something simple; tonight I popped in CCR on my way home. Sometimes music is about the beat, dancing, getting charged up enough to get the housecleaning done, or whatever. That’s what my Madonna and Dixie Chicks CD’s are mixed in with the Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Concrete Blonde for.
See, this illustrates my point too. You’re right in implying that the first set of lyrics are dull, by-the-numbers slush. But to me the second set are just as terrible - semi-angsty platitudes that pretend to be deep and meaningful and just namecheck topical events. Lyrics don’t have to address the real horrors in the world and when they do there are much more subtle and interesting ways (“I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats, for example) than tired trite cliches like that.
(sorry - I don’t mean to criticise your tastes, just to point out two things: one, there’s no reason why music should have a message all the time, and two, quality lyrics are obviously in the eye of the beholder!)
I stand by my answer. More than ever.
I think that when it comes to the arts, we respond most approvingly to recognizable variations on a theme, albeit with at least some distinctive or novel element.
The basic pop/rock/R&B song structure is pretty simple, typically verse-chorus-[verse-chorus]-bridge-verse-chorus, although you can produce songs that illustrate every conceivable variation of the above. Likewise, the usual instrumentation of pop music is generally formulaic: guitar, bass, drums, and optional keyboards. It’s so formulaic, that the relatively few bands that actually have trumpets, violas, saxophones, vintage Mellotrons, toy Casio instruments, or Tesla coils, stand out from the crowd. (And in the case of Man Or Astro-Man?'s Tesla coil stage gimmick, make that, “really stand out from the crowd”.) Bands these days often pair up the bass with as many as three guitarists, but that’s still a variant of the basic instrumentation. (King Crimson’s recent “double-trio” lineup of 2 gtr., 2 bass, and 2 percussion is such a freakish anomaly, I can’t think of another band to have had one, but maybe that’s just my ignorance.)
Given that on the face of it, pop music and band lineups are both so predictable, why is pop music also so delightful to so many? Well, as they say, the devil is in the details. Take the simplest, stupidest keyboard part imaginable: “plink-plink-plink-plink-plink-plink-plink-plink” eighth-notes, one note per bar, two notes so repeated, alternating for four bars at a time, before breaking off for a more fluid cycling motif – a part only a mother could love, and a Rhesus monkey would find challenging to play. Got that? But if it’s played on the endearing toylike Farsifa organ, in a high register, and underscores both the earnestness and goofiness of the lyrics of a song called “96 Tears,” then it’s an instantly recognizable classic one-hit wonder. And it ain’t the lyrics that are that song’s trademark appeal, either; it’s that damn plinky-plinky dunderheaded organ part – and in particular, that four-bar redundant bit! 
That pop music requires a degree of novelty is probably why the truest test of a pop song is the bridge section, and why, when you’re unsure of whether a song really works for you, you wait until you hear the bridge before pronouncing final judgement. Songs may vary in their stanza and chorus lengths, order, and repetitions any which way, but the bridge is almost always eight bars of 4/4. Don’t ask my why; it just is, 99 times out of 100. (One notable exception: Talking Heads’ “Crosseyed and Painless,” which is 12 bars of 4/4). But perhaps that’s why it’s the litmus test for liking a song, and a key showcase for the musicians to demonstrate their skills and put on a mini-show-within-the-show. Just as a good pop song has something to distinguish it from the pack, a good bridge – with its chord change(s), novel instrumentation, instrumental solo, or what have you – is distinguished from the rest of the song; a variation on a variation. There’s thousands of songs that, regardless of how marvellous they are up to that point, really succeed or fail by dint of their bridge section.
Does my basic argument hold up when considering the most influential band of all time? I think it does, although it’s rather like a snake swallowing a baby elephant. What really differentiated The Beatles from everyone else? If you listen to various R&B artists from the late '50’s-early '60’s or to a Merseybeat compilation from the early-mid '60’s, you might objectively conclude that the margin of difference was a conjunction of discrete improvements or novelties, some small, some large, over the rest of the pack: the groundbreakingly fluid melodicism of Paul’s basslines; Lennon’s (& Macca’s, too) unique lyricism, by turns trite, witty, poignant, or surreal; George’s wonderful guitar playing; their marketable good looks, clean image, and youth appeal; their wonderful chemistry as a group; or even Ringo’s steady drumming, which might’ve been just a bit more steady than most drummers. Yet in their own time they were also dismissed for their teen appeal, their image, their silly songs, the derivative nature of their early output (ripping off black American R&B artists their specialty), and so forth. Only in retrospect does their unparalleled success seem inevitable.
Did ANYBODY read that?
I read it, and it was a fun read. {{{{{The Scrivener}}}}}
<Led Zeppelin>
*Oh will you excuse me
I’m just trying to find the bridge… Has anybody seen the bridge?
(Have you seen the bridge?)
I ain’t seen the bridge!
(Where’s that confounded bridge?) *
</Led Zeppelin>
I read it, and it was a fun read. {{{{{The Scrivener}}}}}
<Led Zeppelin>
*Oh will you excuse me
I’m just trying to find the bridge… Has anybody seen the bridge?
(Have you seen the bridge?)
I ain’t seen the bridge!
(Where’s that confounded bridge?) *
</Led Zeppelin>