Pop music

:This article mainly describes "pop" as used in its more recent sense, as a subgenre of popular music.

Criticisms of pop music

Musical Value

Perhaps due to its increasing commercialization, pop music is often criticized for being entertaining while lacking serious musical value and artistic significance. It is more possible for pop songs to be a passing fad than most other popular music genres. This is typically attributed by detractors to record companies' financial considerations being placed above artistic considerations, by hand-picking the artists and songs that will have a broad appeal and maximise profits. Sometimes - in the case of the British pop group Hear'Say, for example - young and fashionable people who have little or no prior knowledge of the music industry are transformed into a band that sells music and related merchandise to a preteen or teenage audience. A consequence of this commercialization is that genres which attain credibility as styles in their own right are often no longer considered 'pop'; artists within that genre, as well as their fans, sometimes strive to separate themselves from the commercial aspect of current pop music.

Related Topics:
Artistic - Fad - Record companies - Financial - Profit - British - Hear'Say

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Lip-synching

Lip-synching is a particular target of criticism from pop detractors. The performers often argue that it is not an issue of them lacking singing talent. Rather, they say, it is difficult to dance, perform, and sing simultaneously and satisfactorily, so they play recorded music in the background in order to ensure that the performance is aurally consistent. However, some critics maintain that, in a live performance, the creation of music (be it sung, instrumental, or both) should receive precedence over other factors, such as dancing or theatrics. One singing Group often criticised for the lip-synch approach is Milli Vanilli, which was one of the most famous lip-synching scandal ever. in 1980, when Frank Farian experimented with having one group of people sing the songs, and another, more telegenic, group perform at concerts and advertise the band. The result, Milli Vanilli, was very popular until it was revealed that the band did not actually sing on their stage performances or recordings. Several notable allegations of lip-synching have been recently targeted at Ashlee Simpson (due to her poor performances on Saturday Night Live and the 2005 Orange Bowl), Eminem (accused of lip-synching on SNL the week after Simpson's performance), and Lindsay Lohan (who was booed off a karaoke stage while singing her hit single "Rumors").

Related Topics:
Lip-synching - Critic - Milli Vanilli - Telegenic - Ashlee Simpson - Saturday Night Live - Orange Bowl - Eminem - Lindsay Lohan - Karaoke

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