Prog or pop?

Ghost Rider wrote: I think it takes quite a lot of skill to craft intelligent pop songs - something that hardcore prog nuts tend to overlook.

Indeed. There's more happening in a clever Pop song than in lots of overtly Prog tunes.

But it's not just the listeners - when some Prog artists decide they're goign to write simpler songs, they also dumb down the intrinsic songwriting, i.e. IQ during the Menel years. They have a gift for melody and harmony that puts them above most Neo bands in my estimation, but when they decided to go mainstream - which really could have worked had they kept that aspect of their compositional skills and just cut down a little on the extended structures, solos etc. - they seemed to throw every songwriting trick they knew right out the window in favor of really simplistic AOR and Pop/Rock clichés.

And this obliviousness to what Pop song writing entails if it's going to be something that's at least a notch above Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne or Westlife seems to be pervasive in modern Prog circles. When they compose less complex sections or tunes, they rarely add that layer of filigree or detail that sets smart Pop apart from the catchy bubblegum singalongs that dominate the charts most everywhere.

So you get this weird amalgam of Prog acumen and Pop/Rock ineptitude that's just odd. It's like reading a novel that has fantastic descriptive passages but really hackneyed dialogue.

Chicapah wrote: Which is harder to write?  I'd have to say a pop song and here's why.  A successful pop song must appeal to a very large audience that likes everything from R&B to C&W and counts on radio and television to get their music.  Progressive rock, while obviously more inventive and challenging, already has a core audience that will give the music a couple of listens (if not more) simply because the listeners are more tolerant of experimentation and innovation.  Pop music is harder to write because anything less than a top 40 chart position is considered a failure.  Yes put out "Tales from Topographic Oceans" that is highly complex and as far from pop as you can possibly get, yet fans of the genre are still seeking it out and arguing about its merits three decades later.  You won't find that in the world of Air Supply or Lionel Richie.

This is true of pop music in the past, but today, everything's mass produced, and success is all about luck of the draw. What makes Hawthorne Heights more successful than other emo/pop bands? Absolutely nothing other than that they were chosen by the record execs to be the token emo band of the year. Next year it will probably be someone different. Now, as far as actual pure "pop" like *NSync and such, yes, it is probably very difficult to hit the formula right on the head for how much teen girls will go for it. Am I giving Justin and co. writing credits? Absolutely not. They are merely puppets in a much larger game. As for guys, why is a band like Fallout Boy more popular than Panic! At the Disco? (WHO SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME) Its all about who gets advertised more.

I will admit that, because I'm so out of touch with modern pop, that you are most likely correct about the current state of affairs with rap and such.  But payola has always existed in some form or another and every major label has always attempted to "manufacture" a superstar and/or pop hit.  It's not new, in other words.  While they can fool some of the people with a one-hit wonder of their own making, they can't fool all the people into believing that a no-talent phenomenon can turn into a Springsteen or Elton, etc.  "Ice, Ice, baby" and "Bridge over troubled waters" were both #1 hits but which is actually considered to be a well-written, classic song?