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Post by notacrook on Apr 12, 2018 22:51:30 GMT
Pop music is possibly the most widely trashed genre, and personally I don't like a good 80% of it, at least today. However, there is good to be found. My favourite is probably Lana Del Rey.
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Post by FrancescoAbides on Apr 12, 2018 23:25:52 GMT
Quite possibly Michael Jackson
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 12, 2018 23:47:14 GMT
Beyonce probably, with shout-outs for Carly Rae Jepsen and old Gaga. And I don't consider her "pop" in the most mainstream sense of the word, but Florence and the Machine is the shit. Rihanna, Brittney Spears, Nelly Furtado, and Ellie Goulding have had their moments too.
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Post by countjohn on Apr 13, 2018 2:06:02 GMT
My favorite artist who I would consider a pure pop star is Elton John.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Apr 13, 2018 14:24:12 GMT
Ever? I suppose Madonna
She just has way more songs that I would put in the bracket of good to great than anyone else in the realms of what is probably called 'Pop'.
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Post by thomasjerome on Apr 13, 2018 14:30:24 GMT
Madonna, George Michael
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avnermoriarti
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Post by avnermoriarti on Apr 14, 2018 15:09:02 GMT
Ever ? the usual suspects: Madonna, Janet, Michael, Prince, George Michael... But I'll say that "pop" music has the general misconception to be trash and all that, and there are certainly music acts that I don't understand how they're were they are but the genre is almost always ahead in terms of production and the shows are first rate. Sadly I feel like each and everyone of the artists right now are in their little island doing their own thing and as a consecuence there's no music scene ( contrary to other genres ) so to speak and that way we'll never see another premium artist. That said there are a good amount of pop artists that I like ( Lorde, Sia, Gaga before Art Pop, First Aid Kids, Miley, Paloma Faith ) but none of them would be nowhere near the selective group.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Apr 14, 2018 17:40:49 GMT
Not hard to see why it's trashed often. The genre is the one that dominates mainstream radio (and in any genre most of it is crap), production weighs more than musicianship, and it's a predominately female genre. Oh, and people exclude considering some artists as pop because they also work within a different genre (ex. The Beatles and other early mainstream rock bands, pop punk bands, etc.). But pop since the beginning has pretty handily been the most influential genre and continues to be so to this day. What the genre does harmonically, experimenting with new and different instruments, and the work in mixing and production is always super interesting. Pretty much every notable producer nowadays owes a huge part of their toolbox to Joe Meek and without stuff like synth-pop and the new wave then you can forget industrial music becoming a big thing in the '90s.
This isn't to say that pop music is not without its criticisms. The genre lyrically can be extraordinarily shallow, promote black-and-white thinking, even more insulated than other genres, and for every one pop act that is actually doing something interesting there are 5 that ape off the same style (which is the same in every genre) to enormous exposure and profits with little integrity. With all that said, here are some of my favorite predominately pop acts going today:
- Adele
- Beyoncé
- Bruno Mars
- Lana Del Rey
- Rihanna
- Sia
- St. Vincent
- The Weeknd
An observation I just had about that list is all of them to some extent sort of wear their older influences on their sleeves in their music, whether it's the very classic blues-y style of Adele to the mishmash of techniques of the entire run of funk and R&B from the '60s to the '90s in the latest Bruno Mars material.
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Post by ingmarhepburn on Apr 17, 2018 10:34:43 GMT
My favorites ever are Madonna and Michael Jackson.
Of today's artists, I'd say my favorites are Adele and Bruno Mars. I also like Sia, P!nk and Ed Sheeran. Sam Smith has two or three songs that I like a lot, but the rest is pretty meh, and the same applies to Dua Lipa and The Weeknd. All the others make music that I just can't stand or don't care too much for.
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Post by DaleCooper on Apr 26, 2018 20:31:53 GMT
My favorite pop artists right now would be Adele, Lorde and Timberlake.
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Post by civilwarsugardaddy on Apr 27, 2018 7:57:33 GMT
Jump in here to say Janelle Monae’s new album is very good and very poppy.
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Post by PromNightCarrie on May 4, 2018 14:10:39 GMT
David Bowie. I would say he was both a pop star and rock star.
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Post by jakesully on May 9, 2018 2:32:49 GMT
All time - MJ
Current? Probably Timberlake lol. His latest album wasn't so hot BUT over the years , he has given us some serious bops . I could seriously play the full FutureSex/LoveSounds album all the way thru and never get sick of it.
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Post by countjohn on May 9, 2018 22:05:18 GMT
David Bowie. I would say he was both a pop star and rock star. Hmmm, I tend to think of him as just rock, but I guess Let's Dance and his 80's stuff would have been considered pop at the time. |
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Post by PromNightCarrie on May 19, 2018 15:16:56 GMT
David Bowie. I would say he was both a pop star and rock star. Hmmm, I tend to think of him as just rock, but I guess Let's Dance and his 80's stuff would have been considered pop at the time. I don't know, it's tricky. Bowie is frequently referred to as a great pop artist as well as rock in music articles, so even though I prefer his 70s Ziggy Stardust era to his 80s Let's Dance stuff, I'm going with him as my favorite pop artist.  If he doesn't count, I always thought George Michael was dope. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 2, 2022 17:34:57 GMT
Now?
Molly Nilsson who has never made a great album but regularly puts several great songs on each album - and she's made at least 10.......she's going to have an amazing "greatest hits / boxset" one day. She also made a Pop masterpiece this year "Pompeii" - and you almost never get those. If you don't know her and you start going down the rabbit hole of her music you can kind of get addicted to her - not only is she a great Pop singles artist but she's also a great DIY singles artist AND a great Synth Pop singles artist - she's basically great at stuff everyone else sucks at these days  She also writes great lyrics - which no one in her genre(s) does either.... |
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dazed
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Post by dazed on Sept 3, 2022 1:20:40 GMT
no charli xcx mentions? smh
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 17, 2023 9:41:24 GMT
Now?
Molly Nilsson who has never made a great album but regularly puts several great songs on each album - and she's made at least 10.......she's going to have an amazing "greatest hits / boxset" one day. She also made a Pop masterpiece this year "Pompeii" - and you almost never get those. If you don't know her and you start going down the rabbit hole of her music you can kind of get addicted to her - not only is she a great Pop singles artist but she's also a great DIY singles artist AND a great Synth Pop singles artist - she's basically great at stuff everyone else sucks at these days She also writes great lyrics - which no one in her genre(s) does either.... just missed my best albums list in 2021 for I Know I'm Funny Haha .......and is one of the few artists who convincingly plays dream pop, jazz, incorporates hip hop beats, uses her voice in the most interesting ways etc, without forcing any of it........and yeah she's funny too - she's one of the few artitsts you can call Pop because her breadth is so large - not narrow and dismissive. If Molly Nilsson ^ is the cool Madonna ........Faye Webster is the cool Fleetwood Mac........or something |
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Post by TheAlwaysClassy on Feb 17, 2023 13:39:17 GMT
I can't tell the difference between pop stars and rock stars or whatever. Is Prince a pop star? Bowie? Bowie definitely seems to be more in the "rock star" category, right? Are The Beatles a pop band more than a rock band? The Beach Boys?
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VERITAS
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Post by VERITAS on Feb 18, 2023 0:08:22 GMT
I can't tell the difference between pop stars and rock stars or whatever. Is Prince a pop star? Bowie? Bowie definitely seems to be more in the "rock star" category, right? Are The Beatles a pop band more than a rock band? The Beach Boys? Beach Boys are definitely baroque surf pop who over time transitioned into psychedelia. Bowie is considered "glam rock" which I personally place under the "alternative rock/pop" umbrella... "Pop" in general (for me) is hard to place because the genre is such a grey area, but the one artist that immediately jumps to mind is her majesty, Kate Bush... |
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Post by urbanpatrician on Jul 13, 2023 11:17:30 GMT
If you ask me....
BIGGEST pop stars of all time. Being objective here. That's what you gotta be.
1. Michael Jackson - He's the king. I don't like him, but he's the king.
2. Madonna - The queen. Longevity wise it's hard to compete with her, even if I like early Madonna over anything after around 85. She gets less interesting by the decade, but she always pops up occasionally with something.
3. Elvis - I don't really care for that era, but on principle alone he's here.
4. Prince - One of my favorites. Maybe too high for some people, but not if you actually had any idea how big he really was.
5. Mariah Carey - Anyone who didn't realize how big she truly was for an entire decade needs to really brush up on their pop culture education. She was the queen of the 90s. After Madonna started to slide down a bit, Mariah was BIGGER than Madonna from 1990 to 1999. Nobody dominates an entire 10 years like Mariah did.
6. Elton John - Incredible longevity. Even by the 90s he was still producing chart toppers.
7. David Bowie - 70s and early 80s were his decades, but it's somewhat shy of 2 decades of dominance.
8. Britney - Anyone who thinks Lady Gaga has anywhere close to the influence of Britney needs to go back in time to '99 and '00. Britney is basically a generation resetter. She created a new generation of listeners and should've been the first name on anyone's mind until really anyone could've challenged her. Ok I admit after 2000, she started sounding less distinct and started blending in more with the rest of the radio, but still.... until Gaga I don't see that she had any real competition. Maybe Christina but they came out the exact same era, so she wasn't a supplanter.
9. Whitney - Huge, but I think she had a peak which was 87-93. After that I think most people get the impression there is always a bigger name around. At least in my world. But her peak was MONUMENTAL. Stuff you only see in your dreams.
10. Janet Jackson - Hard to deny her. Maybe overshadowed a little bit by Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson in the 80s. And Whitney and Mariah in the early 90s, but her late 90s were superior to Whitney's late 90s and I think that's where it started to kinda separate a little bit. In my opinion, by 2000 Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney were getting washed and boring, but Janet's new stuff still had a sense of freshness.
11. Billy Joel - Another influential figure with longevity.
12. George Michael - A hitmaker, tho I guess late 80s is what I primarily think.
13. Taylor Swift - She's a bit more recent, but I think what stands out about her is that it's 2023 and she's more interesting than she was when she started in '08 or '09 and that applies to pretty much no one else on this list.
14. Beyonce - I really thought Say My Name was the ultimate one hit wonder back in 2000, but I was off by a mile. I'd say only Taylor and Beyonce can battle each other right now in terms of critical and commercial success and as far as still being kinda relevant still with their new works. But I don't think Beyonce has, mathematically speaking, the same stratosphere of fans that Taylor has tho, speaking from a worldwide basis which clearly Taylor wins.
15. Eminem - I debated putting him or Jennifer Lopez, but ultimately I gotta go with Eminem. Rap was never a huge seller, but Eminem was able to do it. Dr. Dre was the jam of the late '90s, but Eminem actually managed to be bigger than his daddy which I found interesting. You gotta be there to know how big he was in the early 00s. And while I thought 2000 Eminem was more interesting than 2002 Eminem, those were by far his 2 biggest years. Only thing I will say is he definitely became a manufactured pop act after a while tho he did get less and less interesting.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 13, 2023 11:53:22 GMT
If you ask me.... BIGGEST pop stars of all time. Being objective here. That's what you gotta be. 7. David Bowie - 70s and 80s were his decade, but it's 2 decades of dominance. Ths is rewriting history to me - and overpraising Bowie in general - which the world - and MAR do constantly with him anyway: * He wasn't THAT big of a Pop Star for most of the 80s anyway..........he was not artistically important for 3 straight records at least .........and his hits were kind of awful (Dancing In The Street, Bue Jean): * I always argue (correctly ) that Bowie was a singles artist and not an album one (only 1 all timer great album - Ziggy, not Low, not Hunky Dory) - but that's arguable -the 80s were not good to him at all despite an impressive start: Scary Monsters (one of his best), and his biggest ( Let's Dance) but only 1 top 10 US album - no album of great acclaimed work after Scary Monsters.........and he was looking really old after Let's Dance (when he was only 36!).........and then he ended the decade with a dazzling collapse: Tonight, Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine ........when he went chasing hits and hipness and for the first time ever fell flat on his face........David Bowie became - post-Let's Dance the thing he most feared actually - he was a nostalgia act before 40 (later, he reclaimed his career, but that's a different era when the shadow of Death loomed over him, etc) |
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Post by urbanpatrician on Jul 13, 2023 11:57:38 GMT
If you ask me.... BIGGEST pop stars of all time. Being objective here. That's what you gotta be. 7. David Bowie - 70s and 80s were his decade, but it's 2 decades of dominance. Ths is rewriting history to me - and overpraising Bowie in general - which the world - and MAR do constantly with him anyway: * He wasn't THAT big of a Pop Star for most of the 80s anyway..........he was not artistically important for 3 straight records at least .........and his hits were kind of awful (Dancing In The Street, Bue Jean): * I always argue (correctly ) that Bowie was a singles artist and not an album one (only 1 all timer great album - Ziggy, not Low, not Hunky Dory) - but that's arguable -the 80s were not good to him at all despite an impressive start: Scary Monsters (one of his best), and his biggest ( Let's Dance) but only 1 top 10 US album - no album of great acclaimed work after Scary Monsters.........and he was looking really old after Let's Dance (when he was only 36!).........and then he ended the decade with a dazzling collapse: Tonight, Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine ........when he went chasing hits and hipness and for the first time ever fell flat on his face........David Bowie became - post-Let's Dance the thing he most feared actually - he was a nostalgia act before 40 (later, he reclaimed his career, but that's a different era when the shadow of Death loomed over him, etc) Right, my math was off a bit. Whoops. No worries tho, I'm far from a fan of him. Really. |
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Post by ibbi on Jul 13, 2023 14:43:21 GMT
If you ask me.... BIGGEST pop stars of all time. Being objective here. That's what you gotta be. 1. Michael Jackson - He's the king. I don't like him, but he's the king. 2. Madonna - The queen. Longevity wise it's hard to compete with her, even if I like early Madonna over anything after around 85. She gets less interesting by the decade, but she always pops up occasionally with something. 3. Elvis - I don't really care for that era, but on principle alone he's here. 4. Prince - One of my favorites. Maybe too high for some people, but not if you actually had any idea how big he really was. 5. Mariah Carey - Anyone who didn't realize how big she truly was for an entire decade needs to really brush up on their pop culture education. She was the queen of the 90s. After Madonna started to slide down a bit, Mariah was BIGGER than Madonna from 1990 to 1999. Nobody dominates an entire 10 years like Mariah did. 6. Elton John - Incredible longevity. Even by the 90s he was still producing chart toppers. 7. David Bowie - 70s and early 80s were his decades, but it's somewhat shy of 2 decades of dominance. 8. Britney - Anyone who thinks Lady Gaga has anywhere close to the influence of Britney needs to go back in time to '99 and '00. Britney is basically a generation resetter. She created a new generation of listeners and should've been the first name on anyone's mind until really anyone could've challenged her. Ok I admit after 2000, she started sounding less distinct and started blending in more with the rest of the radio, but still.... until Gaga I don't see that she had any real competition. Maybe Christina but they came out the exact same era, so she wasn't a supplanter. 9. Whitney - Huge, but I think she had a peak which was 87-93. After that I think most people get the impression there is always a bigger name around. At least in my world. But her peak was MONUMENTAL. Stuff you only see in your dreams. 10. Janet Jackson - Hard to deny her. Maybe overshadowed a little bit by Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson in the 80s. And Whitney and Mariah in the early 90s, but her late 90s were superior to Whitney's late 90s and I think that's where it started to kinda separate a little bit. In my opinion, by 2000 Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney were getting washed and boring, but Janet's new stuff still had a sense of freshness. 11. Billy Joel - Another influential figure with longevity. 12. George Michael - A hitmaker, tho I guess late 80s is what I primarily think. 13. Taylor Swift - She's a bit more recent, but I think what stands out about her is that it's 2023 and she's more interesting than she was when she started in '08 or '09 and that applies to pretty much no one else on this list. 14. Beyonce - I really thought Say My Name was the ultimate one hit wonder back in 2000, but I was off by a mile. I'd say only Taylor and Beyonce can battle each other right now in terms of critical and commercial success and as far as still being kinda relevant still with their new works. But I don't think Beyonce has, mathematically speaking, the same stratosphere of fans that Taylor has tho, speaking from a worldwide basis which clearly Taylor wins. 15. Eminem - I debated putting him or Jennifer Lopez, but ultimately I gotta go with Eminem. Rap was never a huge seller, but Eminem was able to do it. Dr. Dre was the jam of the late '90s, but Eminem actually managed to be bigger than his daddy which I found interesting. You gotta be there to know how big he was in the early 00s. And while I thought 2000 Eminem was more interesting than 2002 Eminem, those were by far his 2 biggest years. Only thing I will say is he definitely became a manufactured pop act after a while tho he did get less and less interesting. Why are John, Paul, George, and Ringo not on this list, Mr. Objectivity?! Most number 1s all time in the US (4th in terms of weeks at number 1), second to Elvis in the UK (2nd in terms of weeks at number)!!! |
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demille
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Post by demille on Jul 13, 2023 16:11:19 GMT
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