Popping the pop bubble

The one where Caitlin tells you how to listen to music

We live in an age of poptimism. Gone are the days when a guy will tell you, “you probably listen to all that commercial crap they play on the radio!” and question your band tee. Grammy noms are all pop now. They’re teaching college courses about Taylor Swift. They’re chasing Pitchfork writers who give their faves a 6.5/10 with, well, pitchforks.

Pop musicians are now heralded as the greatest songwriters and poets of our time. A successful marketing campaign (as we’ve dissected with Charli xcx’s Brat) stands on equal footing with great lyricism and composition. And though the culture is screaming, “Pop! Pop! We love pop! Yay!” I’m having trouble accepting that pop artists are the creative geniuses of the 21st century. 

For example, this Pitchfork review of Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso praises the songwriting as “unselfconsciously weird.” Sorry, but like, that’s not true. It’s not weird at all. I feel crazy for telling you that the song “that’s that me espresso!” is actually very Target-friendly. 

My honest reaction to that song review

Throughout my tenure on Stan Twitter, Anthony Fantano’s comment section, r/popheads, and a Rolling Stone subscription, I have my set of trends and critiques in the poptimist sphere. Admittedly, I am hesitant to write this. I want to tell you, “don’t worry, I say this as a fan of pop music!” View my arguments as staging an intervention for the poptimists. A 5150, if you will. Because I care about you. And I love you. But we have to do this. 

Pop: were you ever the underdog? 

On paper, poptimism is the idea that pop music is just as worthy of critique and respect as any other genre of music (especially rock). In its purest, ideological sense, I can understand it. Poptimism emerged in the aftermath of a culture that undervalued, censored, and even rioted against music, especially if it came from literally any marginalized community. The rock vs. disco culture war is a classic example of this power struggle. 

In a famous New York Times essay by Kelefa Sanneh (often cited by poptimists), he writes:

“Stop pretending that serious rock songs will last forever, as if anything could, and that shiny pop songs are inherently disposable, as if that were necessarily a bad thing.”

Well, I don’t think pop songs are inherently disposable, but yes! I do think that’s a bad thing. 

This statement is supposed to make you question your genre preferences and what you view as “good” music. But if you look closely, it’s incredibly defensive. Yes, I agree that prioritizing one genre of music is bad. However, the statement ignores a longstanding tension in the music industry: labels will only value what sells, and sometimes, what sells is shallow and disposable. If you want to be the Coca Cola of music, that’s great, but you can’t get mad when a beverage connoisseur prefers a fancy cocktail. 

You get the sense that poptimists think of pop artists as misunderstood heroes, despite their massive commercial success and critical acclaim. For example, Beyoncé is an underdog despite being worth billions of dollars and having the most Grammys ever. That’s the kicker: pop music has always sold. The fight to allow it through the pearly gates of “good art” is great for sales. 

I wonder if poptimists indeed care about bias in music, or if it’s a politically correct veneer.  The attitude often goes like this: 

If you prefer Fiona Apple to Taylor Swift, it’s because you have internalized misogyny. You must love pop music, but not in a fun, dancing at a party, oh-God-it’s-stuck-in-my-head kind of way. You must love pop music so much that Ariana Grande is your Shakespeare. Pop music has to be the best thing ever, or you are the music equivalent of the ever-derided film bro. The worst thing you can be, as a musician, an artist, a writer, or filmmaker, is not boring, simplistic, or unoriginal. It is pretentious. 

Personally, I’m tired. Freddie DeBoer said it best: 

“And this ultimately is what poptimism really is, not the intellectualized poptimist ideal but poptimism as a social practice: a theocracy of taste. As much as they squawk about just wanting equal respect or being taken seriously by critics or whatever, lurking behind every poptimist take is resentment that other people like music they don’t. Scratch a poptimist and beneath the thin veneer of critical equality and artistic populism you’ll find someone who resents the possibility that there are other aesthetic values than their own.”

I’ll take his argument one step further. Poptimists’ defensiveness stems from an inability to engage with art. It is the natural reaction to feeling inadequate in the face of incompetency.

That which streams is good, that which is good streams

It’s very easy to become inundated with “content.” Music is no different. Every day, you view hundreds of images and hear hundreds of sounds through videos, advertisements, TV shows, and movies. It’s easy to become accustomed to the aesthetic that has been carefully constructed to appease as many listeners as possible. 

Guy Debord’s maxim: “that which appears is good, that which is good appears” describes how mass media creates a sedated, passive audience through an endless stream of images. It’s a paradox that flattens your ability to question or offer a different perspective, because it's good! How could you not like something good? If Sabrina Carpenter’s song appears, it must be good. If it’s a good song, it will appear. 

As a result, when you are faced with something different—maybe the chords are a bit dissonant, maybe the vocals are a bit distorted—you might react with disgust. It would be as if you drank Coca Cola your entire life, and someone handed you a martini. The difference now is that the average Coca Cola drinker resents the martini drinker.

For instance, Twitter loves talking about Björk. She was successful in the 90s and early 00s, but she has a sizable young and chronically online fanbase (thank you Rate Your Music). You will see Twitter users comment that Björk’s music is a litmus test for taste. That’s because she also receives a decent amount of hate from Stan Twitter, calling her a flop or saying that we’re pretending to listen to her music. 

This is a microcosm for the anti-intellectual music listener. Björk (and her contemporaries) is a litmus test for your ability to appreciate music that isn’t radio friendly (and even then, she’s still mainstream and widely known). You don’t have to be in the Björk Fan Club, but if your reaction to anything with a whiff of alternative is so negative, I have bad news for you. You’d be rioting when Igor Stravinsky premiered Rite of Spring, that’s for sure. 

Empty container music

Everything is ideology

In the effort to reach as many listeners as possible, artists can’t be Björk. They have to have mass appeal, and they can achieve this through creating an empty container.   

I’ll give you another example: people love Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, or any other popular modern songwriters for their relatable lyrics. When you listen to their music, it becomes a container for you to fill with your own experiences and emotions. You are now Taylor Swift going through a breakup. You are now Phoebe Bridgers waking up depressed in your bed. The music is about you. 

Empathy is a powerful artistic tool. Of course musicians tap into this through their lyricism. It only becomes a problem when artists manipulate “personal experience” to mean “if you critique this, you’re attacking what I went through. And my therapist says that’s wrong.” By elevating the relatable above all other artistic qualities, you conveniently deflect all pushback. It doesn’t matter that the production on Tortured Poets Department was bland and underdeveloped, what matters is that you dated a guy kind of like Matty Healy once. 

Take Slavoj Zizek’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Beethoven was anti-authoritarian, critical of Napoleon, and wrote the song to imagine a world without monarchs. The song has since been hailed as a universal ode to brotherhood, freedom, and friendship. In fact, the song is so universal that all these groups claim it represents their people and their goals: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Maoist China (when all Western music was prohibited), Apartheid South Rhodesia, the European Union, and Communist guerilla warfare groups in Peru. Quite a mix, no? 

Zizek claims the song encourages us to picture these aforementioned groups embracing each other. He says:

“This is how every ideology has to work. It’s never just meaning. It always has to also work as an empty container, open to all possible meanings. It’s that gut feeling that we feel when we experience something pathetic and we say, ‘oh my God. I’m so moved. There is something so deep.’ But you never know what this depth is. A void.”

He continues to say, when you are faced with a message of unity, you should ask: who is being excluded? 

Now, am I saying Ode to Joy is bad? No (and neither is Zizek). But this is the danger of self-insert music. Pop functions in a similar way to all these groups using Ode to Joy. It creates a sandbox for audiences to play around in, creating something that feels sublime, but is still quite empty. We should also ask ourselves, who is excluded from pop music? Pop is supposed to be the music that everybody enjoys, but is it really so universal? 

So… what now? 

Ultimately, I’d like to have my music opinions in peace. Please put the pitchforks down when I say “switch it up like Nintendo” is not the best lyric of all time. 

And yes, it takes talent to write earworms and catchy, fun music, but is that an artistic goal? It doesn’t dramatically change your life. It doesn’t make you discover something new about yourself or others. In many ways, it reaffirms your identity, your experiences, and your mental state without much growth. 

I simply want for us to stop pretending (SOME) pop is oh-so much more than “music intended to sell.” We’re conflating successful marketing with art, and it’s making me feel weird and bad. Like, yeah I think some Super Bowl ads are really well done, but I’m not trying to see them when I go to The Getty.  

Popular music and artistic music will always exist in a Venn diagram, sometimes overlapping. But some songs were made to be heard while you’re waiting to skip a YouTube ad. Leave the creativity to the weirdos and freaks, whose impact you won’t hear until decades after they’re gone. 

Maybe that’s the attitude we should have towards music, regardless of genre. If a song appears to you, it doesn’t have to be good. You aren’t obligated to purchase, stream, or participate in a trend if you find it bland. Enough of rock vs. pop (or pop vs… every genre). You don’t have to immediately dive into experimental music, but you’re allowed to reject music that doesn’t “do it for you.” You don’t have to allow music to appear in your life, you can choose what you put in your earbuds. You can choose to let it move you and change you. 

But only if you allow it.