By Luka Potts
In a recent conversation at the pub a man, who plays guitar for this band no one’s ever heard of, asked me what kind of music I listen to.
“Mostly pop,” I said, as if it were obvious.
I was met with the predictable self-assured scoff and raised eyebrow. This guy wasn’t interested in holding a conversation with someone as uninformed and basic as me.
To this guy obscurity is social currency. An indicator of good taste and intellectuality. Anything that is too easily accessible and readily enjoyed by the masses just isn’t worth the time.
What he is mistaking for basic, is really just ahead of him. There is so much more to pop than simply a catchy chorus, formulaic structure and record sales. It’s an artform enjoyed by millions of people across the world and accessible to millions more.
Its reach should not discredit its value as a form of creative expression.
This societally enforced disdain for pop music isn’t really even about taste. It’s a prejudice with a very long history. Music made, pioneered and loved by women and queer people gets written off as shallow, while genres dominated by men, like rock and hip hop, are considered good taste. Accessible art isn’t dismissed because it’s easy, but because of who is making it and who is listening.
Lady Gaga had something to say about this. In 2008, Gaga made her television debut for the opening of So You Think You Can Dance. In classic Gaga fashion her outfit was gloriously over the top. A crimson body suit, platform neon heels, fiercely pointed shoulder pads, a platinum wig and, to top it all off, a pair of futuristic digital glasses. A strobing message that will go on to become the defining philosophy behind her entire career flashed across the lenses: “Pop music will never be low brow.”
She went on to release her debut album The Fame later that year, one of the most celebrated and referenced pop records of the 21st Century, inspiring a new generation of artists to embrace creativity, individuality and creating fearlessly.
Gaga’s performance was actively pushing against the kind of social rhetoric that has consistently undervalued the work of her predecessors and contemporaries, artists like Madonna, Robyn, Beyoncé and Britney Spears. Artists whose career, catalog and collection of awards should be enough to validate their respective crafts, yet their work continues to be written off as “shallow” and “unaffecting” just because it’s popular.
From The Fame onwards, Gaga has dedicated her career to wearing her politics on her sleeve, making statements not behind a screen but on the stage, defending her artform in front of both her critics and her fans.
That’s the thing about pop music. It’s loud and fantastical and it’s always unapologetic. It’s this incredibly clever combination of intellect, performance art and deviously high fashion that becomes an extension of an artist’s performance and creative practice.
Fashion is such an integral part of pop music and a very clear example of its transformative nature. Like when Gaga wore the Meat Dress to the 2010 VMAs, when Madonna dressed in a couture Marie Antoinette-inspired outfit for a performance of Vogue at the 1990 MTV Awards and when Chappell Roan performed as the Statue of Liberty at the 2024 Gov Ball.
There is simply so much room for growth and expression within pop music. It’s a hothouse of creativity, constantly evolving and pushing against boundaries and societal expectations like it has something to prove.
Artists like A.G. Cook, Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek have recognised the value of pop music in recent years. These artists have remained passionate forces shaping the development of the genre across the last decade. Hyperpop mother, producer, and pioneer SOPHIE is another artist who turned pop into another almost ethereal kind of world across the span of her career.
SOPHIE showed how making music was a very personal and considered creative practice.
“I make my music to express everything I feel is necessary to communicate at a given time,” said SOPHIE. “Through music, I can express myself with statements that are more nuanced and more contradictory than factual details.”
Her music was an extension of her persona and an expression of self, displayed on a stage for the whole world to see.
Across her career she created this new universe consisting of distorted vocals, maximalist production and genre-bending chaos. Her music moving beyond the kind of binaries that constricted her creativity and expression in the heteronormative reality of our society.
SOPHIE continued to dismantle attitudes separating high and low culture through her own music as well as production for other artists before her tragic death in 2021.
Fortunately, her legacy outlives her, evidenced by the popularisation of hyperpop in mainstream audiences and the recent success of artists like underscores, Slayyyter and Kim Petras.
Of course, like any genre, there are going to be artists who don’t exactly challenge anyone’s expectations. But we all need to stop pretending this is something unique to pop. It’s time we all moved on from this outdated idea that pop music has no artistic value and simply accept it as the fun and transformative artform that it really is.
Being cool is overrated anyway.
Featured image: Some of Lady Gaga’s iconic performance outfits. Photos: TJ Sengel, proacguy/CC/Wikimedia Commons, Digi_shot/CC/flickr
