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Not a problem with me, considering that there's something interesting or earthy going on in the sounds. Most modern day Pop that aims for the Midwestern Wal Mart customers is too slick, boring, and polished, though.

For today's Pop, I'm sure that if I look enough, there may be a few sounds from Japan and Europe (Maybe Russia?) I might like with more dynamics in their style.

When it comes to a topic like this, however, I think about the days of labels like Stax and Motown, filled with singers who can take a song by one of the great in-house songwriters and make it their own. Phillies (Phil Spector's label) and Red Dog had their own classics as well with the Girl Groups.

The Animals had some great hits written by others in their Mickey Most era ("Don't Bring Me Down"), let alone their career-spanning examples of great Blues covers.

The Rolling Stones started out as a Blues covers band. Thankfully, Andrew Oldham got Mick and Keith to write, but they were a good Blues band who only hinted at later glories.

The Standells had their hits written by their Producer, Ed "Tainted Love" Cobb (He also wrote that long-standing song covered by Gloria Jones and, in the 80's, Soft Cell). Thankfully, the energy in songs like "Dirty Water" made a lot of listeners overlook that fact.

The TV project turned into a band The Monkees had a long line of great songs written by others in both their first season Pop bonanza and the Post-Kirshner days ("Porpoise Song" was I think a Goffin/King composition). That's one of a long line of Pop groups of that era.

Three Dog Night did well with their self-chosen line of covers.

Disco may have turned into a crap assembly line near the end of it's heyday, but earlier on a few class acts stood out. Donna Summer's early records are examples.

The Early 80's attempts at a New Wave style had a number of guilty pleasures. Maybe it's my age, but that was the final fling of Pop that attracted my ears without caring about if it was original or not. The Mid 80's and beyond don't have that much of an attraction, the start of the too-slick approach.

Dusty Springfield, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and many others were part of the early Pop years where there had to be a cool attached to attract the buyers and live longer than 15 Minutes. There was a serious difference between them and crap like Fabien. Sadly, from what I have noticed, the US Pop culture now is mainly filled with Fabiens with Auto-Tune, ready made beats, and studios that have so much multi-track abilities that any mess up can be covered. Plus, thanks to the Internet, the less choosy (especially in the Small Dots and Yellow Stains that together seriously out-weigh the hipper centers) have more of an easier way to pick and keep their fame alive.



It's not how it's created, but what goes into it.