Is Pop Music Really So Simple?

Phantom Limb · 07-06-2011, 06:47 PM

I recently had an argument with a friend about what constitutes "Pop Music". He said that pop music must be simple, repetitive, easy to digest and very popular. I disagreed. I believe that pop music is a style, but is not necessarily popular or simple.

Quote:

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style.

Quote:

Characteristics

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:
an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology[3]
an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities[3]
an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance[10]
a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments[10]
much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms

-Wikipedia (Pop Music)

I have heard a lot of music that fits these characteristics and is not popular, but I don't have any solid examples of non-complicated, non-popular pop music. Anybody wanna help me out? That or tear apart my argument?