Pop vs Alternative
 

Having a disagreement with some friends and want to settle it with a few ppl in my corner. What is better: pop or alternative. And why?

One genre is not necessarily better than the other. A lot of bands cross between the borders of both Pop and Alternative music (Alternative Rock).

Pop music has been around since the 50s and Alternative first formed in the 80s and gained popularity in the 90s.
I personally classify everything from the early 90s, Grunge, Britpop, etc. as Alternative.
Especially bands like The Cure, Live, Gin Blossoms, Smashing Pumpkins, and so on.

I personally don't like one particular genre better than the other, but I would listen to more Alternative music than I would Popular (pop music).

i suggest you don't let you judgment on music be affected by what they are labeled to be. that's not what music is about.

give as many artist and as many songs a chance and decided based on nothing else but your preference.

Alternative because there is more variety with in the genre.

Neither one is better, depends on preference. So the answer is, who cares.

depends on my mood

There's been plenty of variety in pop over the years if you also look at it. Artists approach it from all angles including rock, electro, r 'n' b, hip-hop, dance, soul, country and even world music. Its hard to determine whether alternative has more variety over pop.

I don't think asking a forum full of people on a matter that is completely subjective to each individual will help to 'settle' anything.

Genres...
 

I Agree. How can you possibly claim one genre is better than another? There's great bands/artists/songs in every genre of music.

It's kind of like asking 'Which cuisine is better; Chinese or Indian?'

Chinese

Szechuan or Cantonese?

Pop is anything on the pop charts and the artist could have any style it's doesn't have a strict sound and really isn't based on a genre - it's based on popularity and sales. Alternative used to mean something, but now it an umbrella term for all kind of things, I've seen music labeled as Adult Alternative or Classic Alternative (which could be anything from UK Punk to Seattle Grunge to Post Grunge) Not everything in Alternative is automatically good music because of the name.

It's easy to think Pop Vs Alt but their also can be a divide in opinions within Pop fans or Alt fans themselves. Some fans feel the best Alternative band imo is better than any pop star mentioned but among the Alt fans I doubt if they can agree which band is the best or even hate a band mentioned as the best - and same thing happens withing Pop.

Generally a Alternative Rock band plays all their instruments and write their own songs, while most Pop artists rely on others there are studio bands, back up singers, lyricists who write songs producers who control much of their music and when they tour whole entourage involved choreographers, dancer etc etc.

I like the DIY attitude of Alternative band who write their own music and play their own instruments. They seem down to Earth and what you see is what you get there is not all that flash as with Pop artist that has nothing to do with music. So in some cases Alt > Pop.

Szechuan

I guess that pop is everything popular, that the mass consume really!

Not necessarily. 'Pop' can be used to describe music that adheres to a specific musical formula, using key conventions such as hooks, sectional structure etc. There's a difference between pop music and popular music I'd say.

The New Pornographers write pop songs, but they're not hugely popular.

Final Tally:

Alternative - 1
Pop - 0
Alternative (kind of) - 2
Depends - 1
Neither - 1
Who cares? - 1

So the final and indisputable answer is that Alternative is better... kind of.

Yes, popular covers all different genres. Pop is pop.

its all about pop, but they are both so different, weird to compare

The label "alternative" is now so broad that it has grown completely useless. It seems that every rock album of the past 15 years has been called alternative.