Pop music is designed to appeal to the masses without ever striving to meet any standard of quality that people would expect from real musicians. Derivative (often stolen) music and "hooks" are often coupled with laughably bad lyrics and performed by singers of marginal quality  are then over-produced and forced upon people thorough radio and video pay which is heavily manipulated by the recording industry.

Or to put it another way, pop music is about as "high brow" as a network sitcom that involves someone getting hit in the balls every episode.

2:40min intro...yawn...

Just to illustrate my point, here is some pop music:

a mindfuck.

I disagree with the over-produced part. I don't really think there is such thing as "over produced". The technology available in recording studios these days are incredible, and to NOT use all the tools of the trade, just to not be seen as "over produced" seems silly. Arcade Fire produces their albums with all the same tools that Black Eyed Peas do.

the real difference is the talent, or lack there of in pop music, as well as, as Happy Squrriel said, the rampant payolla and manipulation of the record companies. Funny with all their corruption, the record companies still can't seem to turn decent profit. Eventually they will die, pop music will change, and we'll all be listening to blue grass...

I own all of those songs... s**t.

The thing is many current pop bands use production tools to try and hide their lack of talent. The music you get out after putting it through too much production is bland and sleek, all the imperfections hidden by autotune and other studio trickery. It's the imperfections that so often give music its character though.

I agree with you, but I also think that it's much more than just pop music using these tricks and auto-tune. Pretty much all music, even the smallest indie companies are using these tricks now, simply because these programs and devices are cheaper and more available than ever before. In my store you can get a pro-tools rig, with a high end mic, auto-tune, and mastering software for under 2k. This same quality of recording even 20 years ago would have been way higher and out of reach.

I guess all I'm saying is, with all the tools out there and easy to use, it's hard to fault anyone, talented or not, from taking advantage of them. We wouldn't call out Sony for making a game that looks "too good"   would we?

Leo-j is back? When did this happen?