Vol. 10: When Did “Pop” Become an Insult?
Somewhere along the way, “pop” became an insult.
Music fans started using it as shorthand for safe. Manufactured. Artificial. Disposable.
But that definition falls apart almost immediately.
The Beatles were pop music. Michael Jackson was pop music. Prince was pop music. Madonna was pop music. Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, ABBA, Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo.
Depending on who you ask, all of them are pop.
Which raises the question:
Is pop a genre, or is it simply music that became too popular to stay cool?
Pop vs. Popular
The word “pop” has always had an identity problem.
Sometimes it describes a sound: big hooks, clean production, memorable choruses, songs built to be understood quickly.
Other times, it simply means popular music. The songs everybody knows. The artists who become unavoidable. The records that leave the music world and enter regular life.
That’s where things get complicated.
Because once something becomes popular enough, people often start questioning its value.
Not because the music changed. Because the audience did.
A song can be loved when it feels like it belongs to a smaller group. Then, once everyone knows it, that same song can suddenly feel less cool to the people who discovered it first.
Popularity has a strange way of making people suspicious.
The Myth That Pop Is Easy
One of the laziest assumptions in music is that making a pop hit is easy.
People talk about it as if writing a song that millions of people connect with somehow requires less talent instead of more.
But if writing a hit pop song was easy, everyone would do it.
The truth is, writing something catchy without becoming annoying is incredibly difficult. Writing something simple without becoming forgettable is difficult. Writing something accessible that still feels emotional, memorable, or timeless might be one of the hardest things in music.
There is a reason so many artists spend entire careers chasing one undeniable hit.
And most never get one.
Pop music often gets criticized for repetition, but repetition is part of the challenge. The best pop songs need structure, timing, melody, pacing, hooks, and emotion strong enough to survive being played over and over again.
That does not happen by accident.
That is craft.
The Architects of Pop
One of the biggest misconceptions about pop music is that success simply appears out of nowhere.
But behind many massive songs is a small group of writers and producers who have spent years mastering the craft of making music connect quickly and emotionally.
People like Max Martin, Sia, Ryan Tedder, Julia Michaels, Pharrell, Ester Dean, The-Dream, and Ed Sheeran have written hits not just for themselves, but for completely different artists across entirely different styles.
That level of consistency is not luck.
It is skill.
Ed Sheeran has written songs for artists ranging from Justin Bieber to One Direction. Sia became one of the most in-demand writers in pop partly because of her ability to create emotionally direct melodies that instantly connect with listeners.
And Max Martin may be one of the clearest examples of all. His fingerprints are everywhere: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, and countless others.
The artists changed. The eras changed. The technology changed.
The songwriting remained undeniable.
There is an entire science behind writing songs that feel immediate without feeling empty. Songs that sound simple while hiding incredibly precise structure underneath.
Which is why it is strange when people dismiss pop songwriting as if it requires less talent.
If anything, the best pop writers have mastered one of the hardest challenges in music:
making something feel effortless.
Catchy Does Not Mean Shallow
There is a tendency among serious music fans to treat complexity as proof of value.
If a song is strange, difficult, long, abstract, or hard to understand, it can feel more important.
And sometimes it is.
But accessibility is not the same thing as weakness.
A direct song is not automatically a lesser song. A chorus people remember is not automatically cheap. A melody that sticks in your head is not a shortcut.
Sometimes the simplest songs are the hardest ones to write.
There is a difference between music being accessible and music being watered down.
That difference matters.
Hip Hop’s Complicated Relationship With Pop
Hip hop has always had a complicated relationship with pop music.
On one hand, hip hop has produced some of the biggest pop moments of the last forty years. On the other hand, “pop” is often used within hip hop as an accusation.
It can mean an artist went soft. Sold out. Became too melodic. Made music for charts instead of culture.
But the line has never been clean.
Run-D.M.C. crossed over. Beastie Boys crossed over. LL Cool J crossed over. OutKast crossed over. Nelly, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Drake.
Some of the most important artists in hip hop history became important partly because they reached people outside of hip hop.
Still, once an artist becomes too visible, the conversation often changes.
Success becomes suspicious.
Mass appeal becomes a flaw.
The same quality that makes an artist powerful can later be used against them.
When I Thought Pop Was the Enemy
I remember hearing 3rd Bass’ “Pop Goes The Weasel” in 1991 and completely buying into its message.
At the time, I was a teenager, and like a lot of hip hop fans, I believed “real” rap was not supposed to cross over too far into pop culture.
The song targeted artists like MC Hammer and reflected a larger attitude that existed throughout hip hop at the time: once rap became too commercial, too catchy, or too mainstream, it somehow became less authentic.
You heard similar ideas in songs like EPMD’s “The Crossover,” where mainstream success itself became something to be wary of.
And honestly, back then, I agreed with it.
I associated credibility with resistance to popularity. If too many people liked something, especially outside the culture, part of me instinctively trusted it less.
But age changes perspective.
Over time, I started realizing that being accessible does not automatically make music disposable. Sometimes it just means the artist succeeded in connecting with more people.
And a lot of the songs hip hop purists once dismissed as “pop” have aged remarkably well.
“Jump Around.” “Bust A Move.” “Hip Hop Hooray.” “Wild Thing.” “Insane In The Membrane.”
Those songs were massive. Catchy. Fun. Everywhere.
They were also great records.
And decades later, nobody has to pretend otherwise.
Maybe that is part of what time does.
It separates what was merely trendy from what actually lasted.
When “Pop Star” Becomes an Insult
The Drake and Kendrick Lamar battle gave this conversation a very modern example.
During the battle, one of the common criticisms aimed at Drake was that he was not really a rapper anymore. He was a “pop star.”
The accusation was revealing.
Because it suggested that reaching a massive audience somehow weakens artistic legitimacy.
But around that same period, Billboard named Kendrick Lamar its No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of 2024.
That does not take anything away from Kendrick. If anything, it shows how dominant his year was.
But it also shows how flexible the word “pop” becomes depending on who people are talking about.
If one artist is criticized for being pop, while another is celebrated for dominating popular culture, then what does the word even mean anymore?
At that point, “pop” stops describing music and starts describing perception.
Sometimes it means melody.
Sometimes it means popularity.
Sometimes it means accessibility.
Sometimes it simply means overexposure.
The Songs We Pretend We Don’t Like
Almost everyone has a version of pop music they secretly love.
The punk fan who knows every word to “Dancing Queen.”
The indie rock purist who will defend Fleetwood Mac with their life.
The hip hop fan who claims to hate pop music but still remembers every early-2000s radio hook.
The classic rock fan who dismisses modern pop while worshipping songs that were massive radio hits in their own era.
That is part of what makes the conversation funny.
A lot of the music we now treat as timeless was once just popular music.
It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was in cars. It was played at weddings, school dances, parties, and grocery stores.
Then time passed, and the same songs became classics.
Sometimes nostalgia is what turns pop into art.
Maybe Pop Is the Hardest Thing To Define
Pop is not one thing.
It can be a genre. It can be a format. It can be a production style. It can be a chart position. It can be a cultural moment.
It can also be a word people use when they are uncomfortable admitting that something extremely popular might also be extremely good.
That may be the real tension.
We like the idea of taste being personal and independent. We want to believe we love what we love because we discovered it honestly.
But pop music reminds us that millions of people can feel the same pull at the same time.
And maybe that is not something to be embarrassed by.
Maybe it is the whole point.
Final Thought
Pop music is easy to dismiss because it is easy to hear.
But easy to hear does not mean easy to make.
A great pop song has to travel quickly. It has to survive repetition. It has to feel personal and universal at the same time.
It has to sound effortless, even when it almost certainly was not.
So maybe the better question is not whether pop is a genre or simply popular music.
Maybe the better question is why we are so quick to distrust music once too many people love it.
Because sometimes the thing everyone knows is famous for a reason.
Companion Playlist
A playlist built around the songs and artists that blur the line between credibility, crossover success, and pop culture dominance.