Rejecting Pop Music (and why it makes no sense)

In this blog’s past, I have made several posts bashing mainstream culture (I even made an absolutely terrible song called Parental Advisory: Original Content which admittedly was a joke but I still felt the sentiments expressed in the song). But in the past few months I have looked at myself and realized I was a music snob. I would block out songs simply because of popularity and I criticized people only listening to pop music or popular songs from bands, despite the fact that blocking out pop music because of popularity just as narrow minded and pointless. I was one of those god awful people claiming to be born in the wrong generation and thinking they had superior music taste to anyone who didn’t listen to their neo-psych soul-funk fusion alternative country death metal music.

But I don’t have better music taste because music is not OBJECTIVELY good or bad. Everything has it’s merits and so while there may be people with different tastes, I am not better or worse than any one else. Pop music is just as valid as any other genre, and in fact, there is an incredibly large amount of great music that was big on the charts.

Some examples include Day N Nite and Pursuit Of Happiness by Kid Cudi, Wait by M83, What if I go and Love$ick by Mura Masa, literally the whole of blurryface by twenty øne piløts, I like it by Cardi B, DNA by BTS and FourFiveSeconds by Rihanna, Paul McCartney and Kanye West. My point is that quality is not defined by popularity or obscurity. There is plenty of pop which I dislike, but there is even more music that I would consider bad that is not mainstream.

That’s how music works and what makes it so good at least for me. The fact that there is so much bad music makes me appreciate a To Pimp A Butterfly or Pure Comedy ten times more because they are so unique. And sometimes you need some music that is simple and fun, so we should appreciate a Lil pump, Migos or Lil Yacthy for what they are and not try to compare them to more concious albums, because these artists have fundamentally different intentions for what they are attempting with their music.

My point is that it is incredibly close minded to not listen to popular music ONLY because it is pop or mainstream, even more than if you only listen to pop music and don’t listen to anything else because it’s not mainstream because I remember well that us music snobs criticize these people heavily in all of it’s sweet hypocrisy

So, here’s a playlist:

1. DNA – BTS
2. Heart Attack – Tune Yards
3. Pursuit of Happiness (nightmare) – Kid Cudi
4. FourFiveSeconds – Rihanna (ft. Paul McCartney & Kanye West)
5. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
6. If I Ain’t Got You – Alicia Keys
7. Turning Tables – Adele
8. Hunger – Florence and the machine
9. Take me to church – Hozier
10. Don’t look back in anger – Oasis
11. Skinny Love – Bon Iver
12. Little Uneasy – Fazerdaze
13. TEAM – Brockhampton
14. The scientist – Coldplay
15. Tears Dry On Their Own – Amy Winehouse
16. Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People
17. Let Me Down – Jorja Smith
18. One Day I Will Sin No More – Ezra Furman
19. Something For Your M.I.N.D – Superorganism
20. Loving Is Easy – Rex Orange County
21. Moon River – Frank Ocean
22. Millionaire – Kelis
23. Midnight City – M83
24. One Last Song – Sam Smith
25. Love$ick – Mura Masa
26. Ordinary People – John Legend
27. Teenage Fantasy – Jorja Smith
28. Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix) – OMI
29. Lucid Dreams – Juice WRLD
30. Better Now – Post Malone
31. Ocean Eyes – Billie Eilish