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Why is pop music looked down upon so much?

analogue

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Lots of people tend to look at pop music as shallow and manufactured and when pop is brought up they think of acts like Justin Bieber and One Direction. Then they praise rock music as being artistic and meaningful and refer to it as ''real'' music. This is something that has always annoyed me because not all pop music is shallow and manufactured and there plenty of pop acts who could give any rock star a run for they're money like a-ha, Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears and Depeche Mode.

Why is is that when people say pop music a lot of people think shallow and manufactured but when people say rock music people think artistic and meaningful?

I'm not putting down rock music by the way. I love it but i do think that a lot of rock fans are massive music snobs.
 
LOL, this is exactly the point I was trying to make in a reply to a post of another member: http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/t...-celebration?p=3808654&viewfull=1#post3808654

Pop contains a very wide variety of artists - good and bad alike (JUST LIKE ROCK!!) - so to equate it with the weakest, shallowest acts is just insulting to those POP artists who play quality music. Like Michael, for example, who is called the King of Pop - so we should know better than to degrade pop music.

And just because it's rock it does not make that music automatically superior. There are many bad rock acts as well, not just bad pop acts! By the way, I especially liked what one Philharmonic Orchestra leader said about Michael's music in comparation to Led Zeppelin's:

“Some of the Zeppelin songs were massive hits, but I just couldn't make them work in this context. You can't ask an orchestra to play four chords for eight minutes. The Michael Jackson charts give the orchestra a whole lot to do.”
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http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-philharmonic-pays-tribute-to-michael-jackson/article/3747640/?page=2

And Led Zeppelin are considered gods among rock fans...
I'm not trashing them (as surely the conductor did not either), their music has its place and yes, some of their songs are really cool.
But just because it's rock it's not automatically superior.

I like all kind of styles, including rock, but admittedly my heart leans to soulful music - be it R&B or quality pop. And I know how ridiculous rock fans can be in their snobism.

I think part of the snobism comes from the fact that pop=popular. And in some circles it's uncool to like what is popular. Mind you, rock as a genre is probably just as popular. Just see some of the biggest selling albums ever: Metallica, AC/DC Pink Floyd, Meat Loaf, Eagles. If anything rock music always enjoyed a special status, it was always put on a pedestal in mainly white dominated music magazines, while other genres had their struggles. Such as R&B when white radio and MTV weren't willing to play black music. A musical segregation that only Michael's Thriller could break through.
 
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It's a good thread. Pop isn't really even a genre. All the others are genres. Pop is the amalgamation..what happens when something from any genre is liked by the most amount of people. Pop is a lot like McDonalds. People don't admit they like it, but they consume it, financially, every day. Now I think, what has happened is that radio pushes a lot of acts that people don't want to listen to, and forces them down peoples' throats, and that's where some of the complaints come from. The others comes from jealousy. There have been jazz tunes that have made the pop charts, country tunes that have made the pop charts, and classical tunes that have made the pop charts. Everybody wants to make the pop charts. If somebody does it, the others get jealous because they didn't do it first.
Also, listening to pop, people can discover artists, look into them more, and probably find that those artists play other genres, and the fan can enrich themselves, musically through other genres.
 
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I think alot of people think its not "real music" and dislike it for that reason
 
I hate it when people refer to something as ''real'' music. There is no such thing as fake music. Music is music no matter what genre it is.
 
I think the problem lies with in latter years a "pop" bands "shelf life" is very short compared to bands over a decade ago. There are so many bands and artists created out of reality tv shows that people lose interest after that particular show has finished. In the UK the band HearSay is the prime example. Individually good singers but as a group people just didn't like them after a certain period. Its a sad state to be in but people are like that nowadays given the plethera of programs on.
 
I think the whole issue lies in the fact that "pop" music, like 144 said, is not a genre in itself. It's just what's popular at the present time. And, without any disrespect intended to anyone, the artists that are "popular" today mostly sing "commercial music" instead of what some people call "real music". Rock is a relatively new genre and has always been individual in its own way and has been a sort of... alternate direction. :lol: By that I mean, as a genre, it has given less importance to what what people say and more importance to what "it" has to say. That's why, for the most part, music that falls under the "rock" category is not commercial, it has a message it's "real music". Of course, there are always exceptions.
 
I think it has a lot to do with lyrics, rock music is considered more artistic and meaningful because it most of the time contains more poetic, authentic lyrics, or more politically/socially oriented, as opposed to pop/RnB/soul songs, where the lyrics are usually limited to the topic of relationships, sex and partying and they are simple, everything pictured in a conventional way, both in style and meaning. That's why I think rap and hip-hop with socially conscious lyrics are also rated higher in artistry than pop music.

Usually the videos and all the visuals are also more artistic/experimental than pop or RnB songs. (just think about the clothes, make-up, and especially the difference in the way how women are portrayed)

I think people who consider rock superior focus more on those non-musical factors when judging how good the music is, not the instrumentation/vocals/melody and sound related experience.
People that I know, who listen solely to rock, laugh at the lyrics and plastic look of a typical pop/RnB song and probably that stops them from noticing and appreciating other (actually musical) layers of it.

And as for Depeche Mode, I've never seen any rock fan looking down on them, in a way I've seen them looking down on Michael Jackson for example - they are not rock but they are not that much pop either, maybe rather electronic alternative pop, anyway their overall style seems alternative enough to be considered artistic..
 
^^ You say rock fans look down on MJ and you say rock fans look down on pop/R&B because the lyrics are not as meaningful, and are only about relationships, sex and partying in pop/R&B. But MJ's lyrics are are typically NOT about sex and partying, he has very meaningful lyrics. And there are lot of other pop artists with meaningful lyrics, so I'm not sure about that argument. Also it's a generalization to say that rock lyrics are more poetic, artistic and meaningful. Some are poetic, artistic and meaningful (just like some pop lyrics too!), but some are just about sex/relationships in a very straightforward way, just like pop.

Usually the videos and all the visuals are also more artistic/experimental than pop or RnB songs. (just think about the clothes, make-up, and especially the difference in the way how women are portrayed)
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I don't agree about videos either. Michael (the King of Pop) was the pioneer in video making. Before Billie Jean and Beat It most videos weren't very creative at all. And those videos were done mainly by white rock acts, because MTV only played them before Thriller.

I'd like you to elaborate on what you mean by rock being more artistic/experimental in terms of clothes, make-up and in how women are portrayed. In my opinion there's no more male chauvinistic genre than rock (though this has changed in the past few years). Okay, perhaps hip-hop. It was disco, which most rock fans considered as "shallow", which did a lot for the emancipation of women in the music industry, not rock! Rock was typically sexist and homophobe when disco (which is basically an offspring of R&B) was already very progressive about these issues! Yes, disco was fun dance music which did not want to seem more than that, but in its own fun way it was actually more progressive about those issues than rock!

ETA. I checked out the lyrics of one of the most popular rock albums of all time - AC/DC's Back In Black. I'm not sure how these are soooooo meaningful, artistic, deep and poetic:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/back-in-black-lyrics-acdc.html

Most are about sex:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/shoot-to-thrill-lyrics-acdc.html

http://www.metrolyrics.com/you-shook-me-all-night-long-lyrics-acdc.html

It's about drinking and partying:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/have-a-drink-on-me-lyrics-acdc.html

Calling women bitches:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/what-do-you-do-for-money-honey-lyrics-acdc.html

I could go on...
 
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^^^None of that really matters as far why rock is considered more important. You have to look at who started or writes in mainstream music magazines (ie. Rolling Stone, Creem, Mojo, Spin, etc.). Rolling Stone was created in the hippie psychedelic era, so of course they're going to champion boomer classic rock acts, which is what you see in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The Rock Hall was started by Jann Wenner, also the creator of Rolling Stone. Although RS may have featured other genres, their main focus was rock and maybe singer songwriter acts like Paul Simon & Carole King, at least until maybe the late 1990's, when they seemed to change their format. Basically, pop acts in the past were considered "bubblegum", Tiger Beat material, or light rock, so not serious. Even the rcord companies focus on classic rock. Dark Side Of The Moon gets remastered/repakaged every couple of years. You can get a Bruce Springsteen or Wings (Paul McCartney) remastered box set of individual albums with books, demos, remixes, pictures, etc. If you go to a record store, the rock section is larger than the R&B, country, or blues sections. You can find albums of the most obscure rock act in print, but most classic R&B/soul/funk albums are out of print except maybe in Japan, where you have to pay a higher import price. You might find a greatest hits or "best of" at most. R&B acts had to "crossover" to pop radio, and some purposefully made music to do so. The ones that didn't, just got R&B radio play and mainly sold to a black audience, and didn't get the same kind of media coverage. That's partly why the TV Soul Train was created in the 1970's, and there were other shows before it that are not as well known like The Beat and SOUL!.
 
DuranDuran said:
^^^None of that really matters as far why rock is considered more important. You have to look at who started or writes in mainstream music magazines (ie. Rolling Stone, Creem, Mojo, Spin, etc.). Rolling Stone was created in the hippie psychedelic era, so of course they're going to champion boomer classic rock acts, which is what you see in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The Rock Hall was started by Jann Wenner, also the creator of Rolling Stone. Although RS may have featured other genres, their main focus was rock and maybe singer songwriter acts like Paul Simon & Carole King, at least until maybe the late 1990's, when they seemed to change their format. Basically, pop acts in the past were considered "bubblegum", Tiger Beat material, or light rock, so not serious. Even the rcord companies focus on classic rock. Dark Side Of The Moon gets remastered/repakaged every couple of years. You can get a Bruce Springsteen or Wings (Paul McCartney) remastered box set of individual albums with books, demos, remixes, pictures, etc. If you go to a record store, the rock section is larger than the R&B, country, or blues sections. You can find albums of the most obscure rock act in print, but most classic R&B/soul/funk albums are out of print except maybe in Japan, where you have to pay a higher import price. You might find a greatest hits or "best of" at most. R&B acts had to "crossover" to pop radio, and some purposefully made music to do so. The ones that didn't, just got R&B radio play and mainly sold to a black audience, and didn't get the same kind of media coverage. That's partly why the TV Soul Train was created in the 1970's, and there were other shows before it that are not as well known like The Beat and SOUL!.
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Yes, I agree with this. There is certainly a heavy bias for rock in most mainstream music publications which set the tone for what is considered "cool". Like you said there's also a heavy bias for rock even at record companies and as a result classic rock material generally gets a better treatment and better promotion than classic R&B and pop material.

I don't want to make it out to be a race issue, but I also think it has to do with race - not necessarily in a conscious way. I also do not want to generalize (I myself am white who prefers R&B to rock, but most of my peers do not really appreciate R&B as much as rock - even if that rock sucks, BTW.) Traditionally "white taste" and "black taste" in music was different (there are few acts which attract both crowds in masses). And there are a lot more white people on the major record buying markets and they are generally also wealthier, so rock has always had a potentially bigger market than R&B.

Though pop is called pop because it's popular. But pop is such an umbrella term, it can include everything from rock-leaning pop to R&B-leaning pop.
 
Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode etc. aren't really *rock* bands. They are more electronic synth pop rock thing.
As for myself, I don't like pop music, apart from Michael Jackson (who didn't do only pop compared to most mainstream pop artists), but he took and sang it and gave it the way I love it. 80s pop was good, right now I think it's overall meh. I do prefer rock&roll or rock music over pop as a genre. But I mean classical rock stuff. Like Queen, Led Zeppelin, Guns n Roses or whatever.
 
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