h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is pop music(that is popular) popular? Isn't the main objective of any person that listens to music to enjoy it?
Some would think so, but the truth of the matter isn't necessarily so. The reason why there is such a thing as pop music is because people in general prefer to use music as backround to their already cluttered and hopelessly complicated lives.
This is a general rule but there are a lot of exceptions to it. All musicians for example. It can also be applied to novels, since there are books like f.e. The Last Temptation Of Christ which are a harrowing read, and are filled with interesting ideas and subject matter. And then there is Stephen King, the ruler of easy reading.

If any of this makes sense, please explain it to me.

Lord Humphrey 'Thunderguts' Dagenhurt

I think it's a bit harsh to argue that music (or novels or whatever) must be difficult and challenging in order to have credibility. I also think it's the height of intellectual snobbery to tell people who enjoy pop music that they don't really enjoy it, they just need some pleasant background noise to add a bit of texture to their hollow lives.
Why can't people enjoy both Stephen King AND The Last Temptation of Christ? Surely there's room for both?

It has been proven that there is room indeed for both, except pop is a bit more spacious. I did not differentiate between the 'hollow' people and the 'intellectual snobs', Everyone has a complicated and cluttered life, if you don't then you're doing something right and I would be very happy indeed if you would share your secret.

My point is that some people have an interest in music (novels or whatever) and pursue that interest with vigour. Thus difficult and challenging music is in fact something that is challenging. It is fun to tackle something and get to the roots of it and it gives one a sense of fulfillment to have been able to. I am not stating this as the only reason, it is but a single side of multi-sided die.

Other people, as I said, use music as a backround. They don't listen to it exclusively just to listen to it. Pop music has exactly the sort of elements that makes it easy to digest and to a certain extent enjoy. But to some people it is a bit of an insult(not to me by the way, Im just discussing this objectively), the insult being that it isn't a challenge.

To the Stephen King/Last temptation debate. I like Stephen King, he's fun. But fun has nothing to do with it. Nor credibility. The point is that I want something that's a bit more that just a short little ecstasy and then poof, back to reality. I want texture, a challenge and food for thought. Something that lasts and spawns and stimulates ideas, ideas of my own.

Lord Humphrey 'Thunderguts' Dagenhurt

Pop music (nowadays whatever was on Top Of The Pops last week) being used as a background....

Various skids I know (if you want names just ask) use pop music/whatever's just been on TOTP as a background. They will grab the latest song and say:
"Look at me I'm so cool I've bought the new album by those American phonies who think they're hard because they say fXXk look this song has fxxk in it that means it's cool I'm cool follow me around and you too can be in the in-crowd".
I may have got the use of 'background' wrong as described by Lord HTD but I don't care.

In case you havn't sussed,nowadays pop music isn't music that can be listened to or enjoyed. It is music done by untalented street bums who make their living by selling tat to skids, who in turn use pop music to make themselves popular with fellow skids.

Mike, Hurrah indeed!

I also hate these pretentious wxxkers, and I'd be a happier person indeed if they were executed...the whole bloomin' lot of them. Listening to their crappy singalong esoteric fake culture.

Little white kids with their snot newly cogulated on their face growths, which we will call noses for simplification, should not be allowed to mimic the ghetto culture.
Chronically depressed youths should not be allowed to worship the buggerall bastard Marilyn Manson, in fact they should be trained to shoot at sight inferior persons as he.
Tiny lasses without a shred of human empathy or thought should not be allowed to idolize those number three page tarts, the spice girls.
et cetera et cetera et cetera...

in brief, I hate pop crap...

Lord Humphrey 'Thunderguts' Dagenhurt

And that's another thing that all these American phonies in pop use as a brutally effective tool with skids: image.

Marilyn Manson is not the Anti-Christ, he's a damn idiotic American who's been able to cash in on other people's skidiness and idiocy.

The Spice Girls make themselves out to be the best thing for Women's Rights since the Sufragettes. In reality they are simply drop-outs who can make dough by going "girl-power" and wobbling their breasts. That pisses me off so much! (See, I'm so angry now I'm being rude).

Anyone can see that these people's 'music' is plain crap. But they still sell because skids want to get themsekves an image and they'll buy anything with f**k or breasts in it.

Hey there! Well Thunderguts, I must side with you.
Pop music only exists so that the enoucuous drivel played in elevators and airports can continue to annoy future generations.

I think the difference between true art and crap is it's ability to endure. Pop music is only relevent in the moment it is "popular." In the same vein, although Steven king might produce better written crap than most, it is crap none the less. His work I feel safe to say, will not endure even as long as the "horror classics" like Frankenstein (which dealt with psycological and moral issues). king's writes souly to entertain and make money. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not literature.

Books that are well written are still readable and re-readable, years later. I don't think books have to be heavy, but when they insult one's intelegence (like a paper back romance novel) they are destined for the trash heap, not the library shelf.

With music, I think that if it stands the test of time it is art. All types of music can still be listenable years later if it is indeed music. Jimi Hendrix's music is still selling, and many of the buyers were not born untill after his death, Same with Hank Williams, Mozart, Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin and so on.

By the way, we are not snobs, can we help it if we are better?

I will start by disagreeing with you on first principles: "Pop music" refers to all commercial music. These fine distinctions between pop and rock and metal are not much coarser than the ultra-fine categories that distinguish between hip-hop and rap and house, or the fine gradations of "heavy" as opposed to "speed" metal.

Music, like any human artform, is (at its best) an expression and exploration of the breadths and depths of human experience, emotion and creativity.

However commercial music - pop music - is motivated purely by the desire of its perpetrators: the desire for status; status through adulation and record sales. In these unfortunate times the primary cultural value is celebrity; the only measure of success is sales. As motives, ego and greed are wholly incompatible with the creation of great art. Commercial music is a branch of advertising so pure it has eliminated the product. The jingle IS the product. And even performers on the fringes aspire to hits and fame and record sales. (Mercifully, we'll never hear most of them.)

We frequently mistake adolescent longing, (or nostalgia for those early feelings) for profound emotion. Thus the music of your youth will always strike a chord, resonate with the feelings you experienced at the time. But unless you live out your days in a candy-coated disney universe, (as pop culture would have us do) eventually you realize that true love and its pursuit are not the pinnacle of human experience and endeavor. (Nor, for that matter, is the systematic rejection of any idea that preceeded your coming-of-age, another popular theme of adolescent music.)

My real objection, however, is not to the mere existence of such codswallop. What is so irksome is the earnest, self-congratulatory tone of the rhetoric of its so-called artists. And the way supposedly critical media has been co-opted into accepting brightly coloured packages of excelsior as gifts to humanity. And the way it colonizes all available bandwidth. And the level of discourse between its adherents, eg.
"MEGADETH RULES!!!!"
"NO! MEGADETH SUX!!!!!"

Cool Name (Dr. Sax) I remember enjoying the book by the same name.
I don't see how you were having a disagreement with me however, I think you were saying pretty much the same thing, although more elequently perhaps. I don't recall mentioning anything about rock or metal. You did respond to "Pop is Poop" So I assume you were addressing me?

To clarify, I was addressing the initial article, which attempts to categorize "pop" as a sub-genre, and the entire discussion. Frankly, I am still learning the ins and outs of the system.
But yes, we do agree, and my verbosity is no match for your succinctness: Pop is Poop.

Dear Lord!

Dr. Sax, your prose is awesome. I envy your vocabulary! I prostate myself at thine feet oh master of the keyboard. Teach me to write legibly. Teach me to think in cool phrases, teach me how to use a Thesaurus. AHHRRGGGG...I can't even express myself clearly about my longings to become your equal in literate ventures.

And by the way, I am not joking. Not in the least!!!

And, now, about the discussion. Frankly, I admire the views illustrated here. They have in fact given meaning to my sketchy beliefs which, as is expressed in my first forum message, were unclear. I applaud you all!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Lord Humphrey

p.s. Don't you think the article was more about being funny than interesting?

in response to your postscript:
As I have noted elsewhere, the main point of the articles in the guide as approved by the esteemed editors seems to be a tone of Adamsian irony rather than interesting info. This, despite editorial advisories to the contrary. Sort of a shame, really. I was rather hoping for more...

Doc


PS. Thanks for the compliments. I think about this stuff long and hard. Too long and too hard. And to slip into the vernacular, it really pisses me off.

What really pisses me off are Nazis... little ones that is, I don't mind the biggers berks.

Ugh.... Thunderguts.....!!
I think the word you were searching for ( I don't want to know Where) is prostrate (Meaning to drop to ones knees all streached out and stuff) I would however pay money to see you prostate yourself, great fun!!!!

Crimney, if only there was some way of educating society to recognize pop music as the dreck it is.

Me?

I just go 'gainst the flow.

"Spit in your eye, I will defy!"

Screw those skids and their ****ing pop music.

Only thing is, Marilyn Manson is not a pop singer. Not by a long shot.

But he is popular with cretins and skids.

And he is a phony. Antichrist? Ha! Sid Viscous was more 'bad' than Mr M. Let's call Sid an Antichrist instead!

I've just started an opinion poll on my page that might be of interest. I am asking Researchers to name their personal Bottom Of The Pops - the pop act they consider to be the most irritating in the world. I've nominated 10 candidates myself, including the likes of Spice Girls, Steps and Vengaboys, but there is also a forum where you can suggest others who aren't on my list. All contributions gratefully accepted.

Ok, is it true that Westlife got the millenium #1?
Cos if it is I'll go on a killing spree.

Errr... actually it is true.