Why is pop music usually this genre or that genre?

[timaeus222]

It appears that a lot of pop music is dance, trance, or house. Every now and then a big beat track shows up, or maybe some dubstep here and there. Sometimes you can find a pop song that just downright bugs you (corny and long machine-gun-like kick buildups, "gotcha" buildups that lead up to nothing extremely awesome, excessive autotune, tacky drum sequencing, etc.), and you might find it ridiculous that it somehow made it on the popular list.

Any ideas why dance, trance, house, and similar genres are so popular? Could it be because of the musician's marketer, or people's partying habits, or that some people just think it sounds good and don't give a second thought because they don't compose music as extensively as OCR members, or...?

What do you think?

[Frederic Petitpas]

I dunno but I'm sick of it.

[jnWake]

Mostly because it is easy to listen to. People usually view music as background instead of main entertainment. I mean, how many people (not musicians) just listen to music while doing nothing else?

Also, most of those music styles either have a catchy melody or a catchy rhytm.

[DarkeSword]

Pop electronic and pop rock are just very simple. The structure of these songs is easy to understand and easy to listen to. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus-fadeout. Easy peasy. The mark of a great pop song is the hook; that bit of melody that digs right into you.

Take a look at the history of American music. A little after the swing era, music sort of "split" in two directions; one was towards increased complexity (bebop, etc.), and one was towards simplicity (rhythm 'n blues, rock, etc.). The simple stuff became much more popular because it was easier to listen to, easier to dance to, and easier to play. Rock continued to evolve and spawn different off-shoots but the simplest and most accessible forms of the genre were always the most popular.

Electronic music is the same way and pop electronic music borrows a lot of the same ideas from pop rock; catchy hook, diatonic harmonies, simple chord progressions, verse-chorus-bridge song structure, etc.

Also just want to say that there's nothing bad about any of this.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Pop electronic and pop rock are just very simple. The structure of these songs is easy to understand and easy to listen to. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus-fadeout. Easy peasy. The mark of a great pop song is the hook; that bit of melody that digs right into you.

Take a look at the history of American music. A little after the swing era, music sort of "split" in two directions; one was towards increased complexity (bebop, etc.), and one was towards simplicity (rhythm 'n blues, rock, etc.). The simple stuff became much more popular because it was easier to listen to, easier to dance to, and easier to play. Rock continued to evolve and spawn different off-shoots but the simplest and most accessible forms of the genre were always the most popular.

Electronic music is the same way and pop electronic music borrows a lot of the same ideas from pop rock; catchy hook, diatonic harmonies, simple chord progressions, verse-chorus-bridge song structure, etc.

Also just want to say that there's nothing bad about any of this.

Yeah, sometimes simple is better anyway.

[timaeus222]

Pop electronic and pop rock are just very simple. The structure of these songs is easy to understand and easy to listen to. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus-fadeout. Easy peasy. The mark of a great pop song is the hook; that bit of melody that digs right into you.

Take a look at the history of American music. A little after the swing era, music sort of "split" in two directions; one was towards increased complexity (bebop, etc.), and one was towards simplicity (rhythm 'n blues, rock, etc.). The simple stuff became much more popular because it was easier to listen to, easier to dance to, and easier to play. Rock continued to evolve and spawn different off-shoots but the simplest and most accessible forms of the genre were always the most popular.

Electronic music is the same way and pop electronic music borrows a lot of the same ideas from pop rock; catchy hook, diatonic harmonies, simple chord progressions, verse-chorus-bridge song structure, etc.

Also just want to say that there's nothing bad about any of this.

Hm, that makes sense. I also think it's because of the words in some of the songs. Sometimes the words are catchier than the melody itself. ...Or, the melody is so repetitive that it gets stuck in a person's head, and since words are more easily memorized with notes to them, when the notes get stuck, the words get stuck, and it becomes *tada* catchy.

[Yoozer]

There's a reason they call it the musical landscape; there's a hot, boiling and roiling underground below a petrified, worn surface.

Sometimes it produces an outburst, which scares the crap out of everyone, but soon that cools down and becomes part of the landscape as well.

FYI, nothing in pop that's electronic right now is new - virtually all the tricks you hear were already done in the late 90s and early 00s, but it was mainstream in Europe, not the US. This does not mean either is progressive or lagging, just that trends may not surface at the same time.

[CC Ricers]

FYI, nothing in pop that's electronic right now is new - virtually all the tricks you hear were already done in the late 90s and early 00s, but it was mainstream in Europe, not the US. This does not mean either is progressive or lagging, just that trends may not surface at the same time.

I have noticed this a lot too. Dance music was indeed making the rounds in US radio stations in the 90's, but they were mostly foreign imports. But now more US producers are making the electronic dance-pop for the radio. I think the trends ebb and flow.