Making it pop

What most pop songs have in common is some variation of the verse-chorus-bridge form.

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In this series, we’re exploring some of the genres featured at this year’s RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest. But when it comes to pop music, we run into a hurdle. All told, pop isn’t really a genre; it’s more of a status. Since “pop” is short for “popular,” it means a whole lot of people like your music. But if that were the sole criteria, one could say rock, country, rhythm and blues, electronica and punk have all, at some point, been pop.

What most pop songs have in common is some variation of the verse-chorus-bridge form. Radiohead’s album, OK Computer, is a good measure of just how significant this form is. Radiohead abandoned traditional pop song structure after this album, which delighted some of their fans, and alienated others. OK Computer is when you started to feel that transition — when Radiohead began to riff on different formulas, as with Subterranean Homesick Alien, for example. But they also stuck to the familiar in songs like Karma Police.

We can’t blame Radiohead for trying new things; pop music’s inherent versatility gives artists room to defy their own categorization. When Nirvana became a meteoric hit with the song Smells Like Teen Spirit, there was no denying that their sound belonged to grunge, but their instant popularity handed them over to the people. Then other grunge bands began to flirt with the pop realm, if not as musicians who embraced their pop classification, then at least as chart-toppers.

Being a pop musician is also a curse. Sure, lots of people like you; but some people will inevitably resent you for being liked. Still, suburban punkettes LiveonRelease didn’t seem to see the irony in singing I’m Afraid of Britney Spears to such a common verse-chorus arrangement.

Quebec soul singer Bobby Bazini brings his act to the RBC Bluesfest on July 9.


The RBC Bluesfest always includes a fair share of musicians who are true to their nature, on top of being well liked. In the past, they’ve hosted indie queen Feist, catchy Carly Rae Jepsen, groovy Nelly Furtado, and fusion empress Rihanna. This year, we’ll be seeing a slew of Canadian pop acts like Simple Plan, Mother Mother, Arkells, Scott Helman, Francesco Yates, and Bobby Bazini. Their combined sounds cover everything from indie-rock to folk, hip hop, rhythm and blues, and alt-country.

These musicians probably care less about being pop and more about being played. But pop means played, so it all seems like much ado about semantics.

In the end, a good song’s a good song. There’s as much pleasure to be had from listening to Madonna’s Ray of Light as Hannah Georgas’s Dancefloor, and both will do just as well in a club. The real test of a song’s likability should be down to one characteristic: Does it make your head bop? Because a bopping head signals a popping tune.

What follows is singalongability. That’s the marker of a song that’ll do great on the charts, and, subsequently, in karaoke joints. There’s no such thing as a karaoke songbook with a track nobody’s heard of. Each selection therein was, at some point, an anthem in its own right. You won’t find an artist’s whole album, but you’ll find those hit singles.

That’s why Björk’s It’s Oh So Quiet comes up not too far after most of Billy Joel’s oeuvre. Of course, it’s unlikely you’ll find songs that were in any of the albums that followed Post.

Post was Björk’s OK Computer.

This story was produced by Postmedia Works on behalf  RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest for commercial purposes. Postmedia’s editorial departments had no involvement in the creation of this content.

