There’s Nothing Sacred About Pop Music, And That’s a Good Thing.

There’s a crucial difference that separates pop music from all other genres, a critical reason why people love to hate it and hate to love it, and that reason is: pop adheres to nothing but what sounds good in your ears.

That’s it.

Listening to Kimbra deconstruct “Top of the World” on Song Exploder illustrated this notion well for me. For her, musical riffs and beats are like colorful paints for her to brush onto the canvas of her tune. One coat came from an unused collaboration with Skrillex. Another from a Diplo jam. Still another coat stemmed from recorded vocals she described as sounding like a didgeridoo. When it comes to inspiration or choosing tools, anything goes is the guiding policy when it comes to crafting pop tunes.

I’m not criticizing this, by the way. Anyone that claims to hate earworms is lying to themselves. Music should be pleasing to the ear.

Not all genres function like pop music does. In my podcast interview with The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, we talked about his favorite genre: metal. He asserted that there are rules that govern genres, and the farther genres find themselves from mainstream sensibilities, the truer and more important those rules become.

I asked John if he’d ever make a metal record since he loved it so much. His answer was a firm no:

“For me, who already has some clout and some guaranteed record sales, if I make a record, there’s a certain number of people that are going to buy it. For me to abuse that trust on that side and make a record in a genre they don’t like or don’t care about maybe, and to eat up some market share from people that have been toiling in it, I would only do that if I thought I could make a great metal record.

“I’m not going to make a metal record just to make the Mountain Goats metal record. Oh, it’s hilarious. That’s kind of Jack Black-y. Love to Jack Black—respect to him. But I don’t want to do that.

“If I was going to make a metal record, I’d have to go to the woodshed for about ten years, and I’d practice my scales like all the metal guys did when they were children. I would play scales and modes. I would learn some Vane Halen solos. I would learn some Ritchie Blackmore solos. I would learn some Scorpions tunes. And then I would graduate from that and move on to what is more modern, and then I would have something to say in that field.

“I think when somebody like me goes, you know, I’m cool enough to do whatever genre I like—I think that’s disrespectful to that genre. I know most Americans think ‘I get to do whatever I want’ is as close to a religious conviction as we get to share, but I think that’s bogus. If you love a form of music or literature, you shouldn’t slum. Let me pay my dues. Let me be at least as good as the bassline in this genre. And I’m not that in metal.”

In ska, the debate usually revolves around how we define what is and what is not ska. There’s an array of perspectives. Some people think that if it doesn’t sound like the Skatalites, it’s not ska. Others would like to classify any punk-sounding band with horns into the ska category. My take is that if the artists are consciously putting ska elements/influences into their music and want to call it ska, then call it ska. (Where does that leave Streetlight Manifesto? Discuss!)

I don’t have an adverse gut reaction at non-ska musicians swooping in and recording a ska record just because they feel like doing it. I might even like the idea, in fact. It’s not something many musicians are inclined to do, so we ska fans don’t need to worry about it much. I can see it rubbing me wrong, though, if ska albums became trendy and gained traction to the point that the culture and values of ska got lost in the process

But that’s the beauty of pop music. There’s nothing sacred about pop. Even trying to define what pop sounds like changes dramatically over time. Pop trends move fast, burning hot and bright like a fever dream through our collective psyche with no remorse. And what was pop a decade ago is pop no more (until it is pop once again).

I admire pop and devote a chunk of my music listening time to the poppiest of pop music. I truly love the sonic bliss of pop music. I love to get lost in the carefully constructed waves of sounds designed to overwhelm my senses and manipulate my emotions. It’s a glorious, sensory experience. But my heart will always be with musical genres that have history, community, and passionate people wanting to debate what the rules are and what they are not.  You get something out of it that’s beyond the music itself. You get to be part of it in some way. Even as a fan, you have an important role to play. You feel like you’re carrying history with every conversation you have with other fans.