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Originally Posted by Forward To Death
There are certain recurring elements to almost all popular music that tend to make songs more popular than others, but other than that I've never seen it as a genre so much as a label for "popular music".
All music has a popular branch that tends to evolve more to keep up with modern trends. Popular country (now known as "traditional") from the 1940s sounds almost nothing like the popular country of today, and the same can be said of many other genres.
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Originally Posted by Janszoon
It's not a clearly defined genre. In the context of this conversation, I'm using using the word "pop" simply to refer to popular music, which is what that study is about.
I think pop does rely on context to a large extent. Even when an old song becomes popular again it's generally because of something going on in the culture of the time. I like a lot of pop but I don't think I have a particular favorite decade of it at this point in my life, though when I was younger I loved 80s pop due to the nostalgia factor of having grown up during that decade.
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I agree with both of you. If you took a lot of pop from years past and released them today, they'd probably be seen as songs from seperate genres. Rock, Country, Funk, etc. And yet, in a way, almost every pop song is distinguished from those genres by having a certain sensibility. Similar beats, patterns, the need for a hook, light-hearted themes, and so on. There is a kind of method to it that has existed for a long time.
Also, I too loved the 80s when I was younger, even though I didn't live through them (probably because I loved bad horror movies, and the 80s always had the most fun b-movies, so I ended up getting exposed to a lot of 80s music, fashion, etc.). Even though my musical tastes have changed, occasional I find myself Rockin' like Dokken.
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Originally Posted by neardeathexperience
Well to be honest I have been banging on about the 60s and 70s being the best 2 decades of music forever on here.  |
I wouldn't say they were the best, even if they are my favorite. They were a very diverse and interesting time, but every other decade is just as fascinating if you dig into them. The 80s, for example, had some pretty painful chart toppers, but they also had the strange and unique Post-Punk movement. Not to mention the merging of Pop and Punk that led to interesting bands like Blondie making waves. With Hip-Hop coming unto the scene (pun intended) and Metal branching out into a million sub-genres, there was no shortage of interesting music.