Neapolitan

Szechuan or Cantonese?

Pop is anything on the pop charts and the artist could have any style it's doesn't have a strict sound and really isn't based on a genre - it's based on popularity and sales. Alternative used to mean something, but now it an umbrella term for all kind of things, I've seen music labeled as Adult Alternative or Classic Alternative (which could be anything from UK Punk to Seattle Grunge to Post Grunge) Not everything in Alternative is automatically good music because of the name.

It's easy to think Pop Vs Alt but their also can be a divide in opinions within Pop fans or Alt fans themselves. Some fans feel the best Alternative band imo is better than any pop star mentioned but among the Alt fans I doubt if they can agree which band is the best or even hate a band mentioned as the best - and same thing happens withing Pop.

Generally a Alternative Rock band plays all their instruments and write their own songs, while most Pop artists rely on others there are studio bands, back up singers, lyricists who write songs producers who control much of their music and when they tour whole entourage involved choreographers, dancer etc etc.

I like the DIY attitude of Alternative band who write their own music and play their own instruments. They seem down to Earth and what you see is what you get there is not all that flash as with Pop artist that has nothing to do with music. So in some cases Alt > Pop.

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Howard the Duck

Szechuan

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Ben Butler

I guess that pop is everything popular, that the mass consume really!

Sneer

Not necessarily. 'Pop' can be used to describe music that adheres to a specific musical formula, using key conventions such as hooks, sectional structure etc. There's a difference between pop music and popular music I'd say.

The New Pornographers write pop songs, but they're not hugely popular.

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Thom Yorke

Final Tally:

Alternative - 1
Pop - 0
Alternative (kind of) - 2
Depends - 1
Neither - 1
Who cares? - 1

So the final and indisputable answer is that Alternative is better... kind of.

Ben Butler

Yes, popular covers all different genres. Pop is pop.

HiFromOC

its all about pop, but they are both so different, weird to compare

The Monkey

The label "alternative" is now so broad that it has grown completely useless. It seems that every rock album of the past 15 years has been called alternative.

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