Why is Pop critically acclaimed now??

>Pure op.
What’s that mean?

But yeah that’s a good summary to be fair….pretty sad. The artists also seem to develop enormous echo chambers where they can release anything and receive 0 criticism. Especially with bots and paid reviews/paid censorship of haters online. Music itself is just barely hanging on like movies are. They both are in this weird limbo in different ways.

In 2015 Conde Nast acquired Pitchfork. Conde Nast also owns GQ, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and other typical fair of the 'cultured' cosmpolitan liberal. Pitchfork thereby went from basically shitting on modern pop to giving lip service to Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ariana Grande etc, because their paychecks were now being signed by tastemakers of the industry. This coincides with the general rise of poptimism (disseminated as bourgeoise culture by tastemakers like the above Conde Nast) during the laste decade which sought to validate pop music under the guise of its artistic legitimacy; the obverse of this can cynically, but not incorrectly, be read as pop legitimizing itself as a "cool" and valid product to consume.

This cultural shift towards poptimism I don't think came ex nihilo. It was the culture industry simply doing what it has done since the 30s-40s, namely playing a major role in dictating the direction of what media people trend towards. It just took a while to catch up in the internet age, which I don't think is merely coincidence that music subcultures more or less died out at around the same time.

kinda depends on what you consider "huge." trilogy got a major label release like a year after house of balloons came out. he was all over take care. the weeknd had maybe two years of existence before steadily working up to one of the most popular acts in the world.

>I was gonna reply deep but now I think you’re baiting kek
future nostalgia is a great record and dua lipa is a very good singer with good songs behind her

I dont think you appreciate the impact that the rise of streaming and the death of radio has had on pop music.

Pop acts today follow a completely different formula in building out thier audience these days. They now aim to establish themselves initially through commercial radio friendly pop songs (for example one direction, charli xcx, kesha) only later to expand their sound to explore (whether well or not) more unique sounds and sub-genres. Often this appears to be their 'sincere' turn from pop product to artist.

For Harry Styles this occurred with his first solo record, for Charli XCX it was Vroom Vroom, for Kesha it was Rainbow, for Taylor Swift it was her folk era. They may have gotten praise earlier but from this point the conversation around their work clearly takes a turn (towards what was marketed as their true vision, and the music they always wanted to make but that the labels stopped them from creating).

These projects are then able to be marketed as their true creative vision, and can safely be praised by media outlets as 'finally X artist has escaped the studios vice like grip and crafted a masterpiece'. It also leads to some successes, such as the aforementioned Kesha and Charli XCX projects which were far better than their earlier work. Resulting in better pop music.

Pop acts such as Green Day and Coldplay deviated from their 'true' unique artistic vision and sound later in their careers after becoming established industry acts and then began incorporating more pop elements to further their reach and appeal, because without streaming the ability to further grow your market was severely limited without eventually giving in to pop sensibilities.

capitalism won

Kek the dichotomy of man

2010 was the worst time for pop music. The worst sounding digital synthesizer bleeps with loud singers. Though even back then Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj often made it onto the Pitchfork best tracks of the year list.

> taking reviewers seriously
Quit being a fucking sheep, and listen to what YOU like.

there is entertainment, and there is art.

entertainment is focused in selling products and holding your attention, it's the reason why we have superhero movies every year, trophies for famous people and a sense of cultural stagnation. art has a sense of direction, revolution and personal or societal change.
entertainment is still human, it's just a different form of selling ideas.
the top is always gonna be ruled by the flashy, glamourous and empty art because it doesn't wanna create anything, it just wanna do whatever already works, it's safer for profit, and with streaming and social media, it's even easier for them.

lets not forget that zoomers have no strong subcultures because of the internet, there's no sense of belonging to a place because you can be part of everything at the same time. you can be a metal forum admin and a taylor swift stan at the same time and never meet anyone that like any of these in real life. pop music serves as a middle ground for lost people, specially the ones that don't care or don't have time for art and just wanna have some fun.

Green Day were a really good band pre-American Idiot

The internet has served as an extremely powerful vehicle for corporate self-fellating PR. It's given the multi-billion dollar music industry a direct line into the homes of hundreds of millions of people, giving unprecedented ability to manipulate opinion.