#24

Haha that’s great. Good to hear there’s still a bit of the music critic in him.

#25

Was useful to sell records. Helped make a group of listeners overly support ‘rival’ genres that didn’t sell so well by making them buy releases they might have otherwise ignored.

#26

part misogyny part due to the fact that the charts are often flooded with bad pop people are less willing to engage with the good stuff

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#27

Pop music lovers bemoaning other music being critically lauded is a bit like that Man City fan moaning about Mo Salah being praised by journos.
Just enjoy what you enjoy and who gives a fuck what other people think.

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#28

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#29

Obviously it depends on who you read / listen to but I feel these days that (on places like here / on pitchfork / wherever) the pendulum has swung the other way and more often good pop music is considered to be ‘better’ than indie/rock.

Lots of hand-wringing about the death of guitar music and I think a creeping default assumption that, unless proven otherwise, a record made entirely by four serious looking people with guitars is probably going to be dull whereas a pop album will be bursting with life and energy.

I think the key point is that there are really boring and annoying albums made in every genre and works of transcendent genius made in every genre (except ska obviously, as covered above already) and that either blanket praise or blanket condemnation based on genre is pretty silly.

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#30

I’d say pop won the culture wars if that was even a thing. All the old indie snobbery sites now can’t wait to fall over themselves to do think pieces on the new kings and queens of pop and slag off a lot of guitar bands. (Who probably deserve it) But this “Oh poor Pop music, everyone looks down on it” annoys me. It’s everywhere it’s the Disney of music.

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#31

yep, even traditionally indie-leaning Pitchfork and Primavera have pivoted firmly in the direction of Pop.

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#32

And then you have Lizzo reacting to a (good) review by saying that journalist should all lose their jobs - in some ways Pop has become the thing that can’t be questioned or criticised

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#33

Right, like, surely people have realised by now that you can be as much of an elitist cunt about liking pop music (“my taste is so eclectic, I appreciate all forms of music, probably more than you”) as about not liking it (“my taste is so refined, I appreciate the best forms of music, probably you haven’t heard about them”)?

3 Likes
#34

hmm looking on on the music boards in the last 3 days there are threads about radiohead, stereolab, the twilight sad, doves, girl band, tame impala, the cure, guided by voices, deerhunter & probably more indie rock acts, and none about any pop act

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#35

welp that’s a very good point and I think it shows where a lot of our bread is buttered as a community.

Do think there’s a difference between ‘community interest in’ and ‘critical consensus towards’ though fwiw.

E.g. plucking two p4k reviews from the last week as being relatively representative:

Silversun pickups - long running guitar band release another LP of guitar songs 4.9

Jai Paul - official release of pop/rnb tracks leaked a while ago - 8.9

Now I’m not suggesting that there aren’t guitar bands that p4k don’t fawn over (there are) or pop acts they don’t put the boot into but it’s far less cut and dried than it would have been 10 years ago when the ‘pop music = bad’ and ‘indie music = good’ credos mentioned in the OP would have been much more in sway.

4 Likes
#36

I feel like this thread is an attempt to stir up tension over pop vs indie attitudes . As has been said before, listening habits are far less tribal than they used to be and we are all better for it.

Anyone deciding to label pop inferior to a guitar band based on genre alone would be swimming against the tide of opinion on this website and in general.

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#37

That is absolutely not my intention at all. Just trying to get a bit of debate about music going.

For what it’s worth I mainly listen to ‘indie’ or ‘alternative’ guitar driven music but find myself gravitating more towards pop the older I’ve gotten.

#38

I think people on here are generally accepting of pop music. Until it’s collected together on a festival bill though, then it’s look out, shit festival is about.

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#39

It makes sense to me that there would be more talk about artists like the twilight sad, girl band etc on www.drownedinsound.com ,which will always have its roots in alternative music anyway, as there are generally less opportunities to talk about music like that outside of DiS. I have more people I could talk to about acts known by millions who get regular mainstream airplay than bands like the ones mentioned.

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#40

There is occasionally a sense now that if you just don’t have that much interest in pop music really then you must be a killjoy or a rockist or an elitist or somehow going out of your way to be snobby about it, which is a little bit weird

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#41

shrewbie, can you please tell me if K Flay is pop or something else?

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#42

Oh God a million times this.

“So I’ve been listening to the new album by the National!”

IRL: a thousand blank looks. the National what?

“So I’ve been listening to the new album by the National!”

On DiS: oh yawn, so boring, so mainstream*

*Actually that’s not fair. I think we’ve mostly got over that kind of knee jerk reaction to the National as a whole.

**Actually, their last album is fairly boring.

I’ve forgotten what my point is now.

12 Likes
#43

because Schoenberg had simply had much bigger hooks

1 Like