How to Create a Pop Star

dtguitarfan wrote: darkshade wrote: Stevie Wonder is NOT a pop star in the sense that is being referred to in this thread. He is an R&B and funk musician who has had great success despite his unfortunate case of being born blind. By the way, I listened to that album last night. Great stuff, I love "Golden Lady". THANK YOU.  Someone who knows what I'm talking about.

We're talking about the Lady Googoo's, Rebecca Black's, and Justin Beaver's of the world, yes?

I know Lady Gaga can play piano and write music, but it doesn't seem that she cares about any of that and is just about her image and doing one ridiculous thing after another.

Yeah there's a fundamental problem here;  other than the fact that there have been many high quality pop musicians ( ^ Stevie Wonder an excellent example), the main factor missed is the skill, or skill set, that distinguishes great Pop music from the crap in the first post--  to be able to craft something good by stripping away and distilling rather than adding and developing is a rare and admirable trait.   Songsmiths do what they do best, if it's called "Pop" because it's more popular than Industrial Minimalism, so be it.

rogerthat wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Calling a pop musician an artist is like calling someone who can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich a chef. So is calling you a music lover a bit like comparing Hitler to Martin Luther King?   Here, pop music. So much for making better sandwiches than the gourmet chef that fails hard, then.

First of all, you're not making sense. Second of all, Stevie Wonder was way more than pop. He was soul, funk, jazzy, all kinds of influences all boiled into one very unique package. I'm talking about something very different - I'm talking about the music pollution that these corporations are churning out - producing "artists" by the hundreds every year that sound EXACTLY like every other pop artist...because duh, they slap together the same dang chord progressions in the same rhythm and use the same melodic patterns as every other pop standard out there. Stevie Wonder does not fall into this category. Stevie Wonder did something new.

Edited by dtguitarfan - June 01 2012 at 21:22

dtguitarfan wrote: Calling a pop musician an artist is like calling someone who can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich a chef.

So is calling you a music lover a bit like comparing Hitler to Martin Luther King?   Here, pop music.



So much for making better sandwiches than the gourmet chef that fails hard, then.


Edited by rogerthat - June 01 2012 at 21:05

Yes, some pop "artists" are purely crap, but there are pop artists who actually write their own music and do a fantastic job, like Fiona Apple and Hikaru Utada.