What is Pop?

It is an indication of the cultural revolution we’ve been living through since the mid 1990s that when I asked Google “What is Pop?” the first page of results all directed me towards various sites containing reams of incomprehensible tech waffle about the ‘Post Office Protocol’ rather than a summary of the incomprehensible magic that ties The Everly Brothers, Kraftwerk and Taylor Swift together.

Like most of the truly great questions, the query “What is Pop?”, should never elicit the same answer twice.

Pop Music is a metaphysical thing; you can’t identify it, it is always changing, always morphing into something new and iconoclastic; it is fiendishly hard to describe, but when you hear it, you just know that that is what it is; this is Pop.  XTC - This Is Pop

Led Zeppelin weren’t Pop but The Sex Pistols were. If that makes sense to you then we are on our way. 

Try these, Metallica aren’t Pop but Guns n Roses were. Boyzone weren’t Pop but One Direction are. Joni Mitchell wasn’t Pop but Kate Bush is. Elbow isn’t Pop but Roxy Music were. Are you seeing the connections? Can you imagine the taste of a magic seven layer cake?  Guns N Roses - Paradise City

Pop Music means more than just music that is popular. It is quite often the case that some great Pop Music goes unnoticed and lives out its life in the cult classics corner; ignored and unloved by almost everyone except those lucky few who know it exists. I often visit Taxi’ by Deaf School and ‘Terrorize the Dancefloor’ by The Parade in that very place.  Little Jackie lives there too. 
Deaf School - Taxi  /  The Parade - Terrorise the Dancefloor / Little Jackie - The Stoop

Pop Music is an idea. It’s an unspoken manifesto. You either get it or you don’t. Are you with us, or are you working to undermine the joy of this glorious and unifying thing?

Pop Music must be modern; which is why all those horribly reactionary Brit Pop bands were never Pop. (I’ll give Pulp a pass here)

Pop Music is The KLF; it is Push the Button by Sugababes, it’s Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Greatest Hits’, The Ramones debut, Britney Spears’ ‘Hit Me One More Time’ and The Beatles’ ‘She Loves You’, it is Katy Perry’s ‘One of the Boys’ album and the paranoid heart of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’: Pop Music courses through the veins of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and the guitar chords of Eddie Cochran and Marc Bolan. Pop is Dusty Springfield, Donna Summer, Robyn and Lorde. Pop rules, OK?  Robyn - With Every Heartbeat

The best Pop Music is sexy and danceable and often very fun. George Michael is always Pop, Chic possess a catalogue of Pop greatness; The Rolling Stones are a Pop group and of course the Pop King himself, Michael Jackson, was the beatified master delivering transcendent Pop from his superlative palace like a God upon the Ganges. 
The Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice

Sometimes Pop Music can be sad. After all there’s something cathartically enjoyable about the broken hearted emotion a great Pop record can bring upon us. Abba were the supreme alchemists of the sad, bruised and uplifting Pop epic. They perfected their formula with the extraordinary and confessional ‘The Winner Takes it All’ about the break up of their own marriages.  Abba - The Winner Takes it All  

As a general rule, Pop Music must be listenable and pleasing; consequently recordings where the electric guitars or the vocals have been given a deliberately antagonistic sound, a sound that fights against the listener, a sound that jars rather than communicates, have never been and never can be Pop. So that’s a goodbye to Radiohead, a written warning to The Smiths and a time out penalty to Nirvana.

Pop should say all it has to say within 3 minutes and 30 seconds, there are many honourable exceptions to this, particularly ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘MacArthur Park’; but as a broad rule this is the template to follow. And if you haven’t heard the chorus by 1 minute and 20 seconds you should stop wasting your time and go and do something useful. 
Richard Harris - MacArthur Park

Pop is melody and rhythm, it is heartbreak and joy; Pop is the dream of going back and the hope of moving forward.

Pop Music makes you stop, it grabs you and insists that you dance or cry, it forces you to smile and sing-along; great Pop Music will leave you with hope or deep despair and often with both at the same time. Pop Music will inspire you to aspire and fill you with belief; it will cover you with heartache and construct you a tower-block of tears. Pop Music is about feeling something.

If you still don’t know what I’m on about then this recording should help.

Sexy, danceable, empowering, melodic, inspiring, hopeful and pretty much faultless. Right now I think that this is the most perfect piece of Pop Music ever made. I may change my mind tomorrow, but tomorrow’s another day, so that’s allowed.   

The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson