pop.

words. 

"“In 2014, nothing starts a fight more quickly than a huge pop song,” reads the intro to Powers and Wilson’s exchange. Setting aside the hyperbole—or embracing it, maybe—let me add that this has also been the case in every other year that pop music has existed. The prejudices backlighting these arguments are familiar: Pop is shallow product forced on minds too young or dumb to know better; rock is uncut truth transmuted from a powerful and probably male god. Pop is about play and transience; rock is about timelessness and authenticity. Pop is a preprogrammed drum machine; rock is the wild expression of the soul through an electric guitar.

...I sometimes worry that serious music can only be served by serious talk, or worse, that people who like serious music can only have serious reasons for doing so. The truth is that you will probably meet just as many shallow people at a National show as you will at a Miley Cyrus show, the difference being that people at the National show are more likely to think they’re important, while people at a Miley Cyrus show are more likely to think they’re having fun..."

THE PITCH: It's Not What You Like But How You Like It: Some Thoughts on Pop