My first experience at a pop concert

So I finally went to a pop concert. 120+ concerts (Not including no-name local shows; I've been keeping track) and this was my first pop one.

OK, so that's not entirely true. We'd probably consider Paramore to be a pop act, right? (Pop-punk, perhaps.) And Damon Albarn calls The Gorillaz "pop." (Though I disagree.) And The All-American Rejects are certainly pop. (But give me a break - it was my first concert, and Hoobastank and Ozomatli opened.)

But this was the first proper pop concert. Lights at The Middle East Downstairs. You could tell it was a pop concert by the bright lights, the bubbly, unoffensive music, and the number of 13 year-old girls about with parents standing gloomily in the back. I thought it would be an interesting, fun experience to go see such a show. Why not? Reasonably cheap. Small local venue I'm used to. And, well, Lights is hot.

As expected, it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. Fun, sure, and certainty entertaining. But just not that... engaging. The highlight of the night was a Cure cover - "Close to Me" with female vocals and cheeky, high-pitched synth - but the crowd seemed completely unenthused. They cried for more standard chord progressions, simple lyrics, and terribly uncreative 4/4 drumming (that was the most bored drummer I've ever seen). All stuff that just didn't interest me too much.

But why, I asked myself. Why wasn't I feeling it? 13-year-old girls aside, what is it about pop music that I don't like?

A while back I developed a theory that I thought could justify my distaste. I think you can evaluate music (and art in general) in three ways: artistic value, enjoyment value, and cultural value. The artistic one is hard - who's to say what qualifies as art and what doesn't? The enjoyment one is easy, but doesn't get me far - so yeah, I don't really enjoy pop music, but so what? That doesn't mean that it's bad - other people could (and certainly do) enjoy it.

That leaves the cultural value. Here's where I thought I had the power - the culture around pop music just sucks. Major record labels pumping huge investments into lowest-common-denominator music - crap that sounds like it was written by someone who dropped out of middle school but that was clearly produced by a someone with a Master's in sound engineering from MIT. (I assume MIT has a good sound engineering program?) Plus, the Grammy's. MTV. Top-40 radio stations with more more shitty sound bytes and sweepers than actual content. Rick Dees. Carson Daly. Fucking Ryan Seacrest.

But I think that's an oversimplified, and, frankly, dumb, explanation. So, during the course of this bubbly, saccharine event, I composed a new theory for why I dislike pop music. And, aside from usually being technically simplistic (and the typically young and kind of annoying fan base), it looks like the problem is not so much with pop music itself. It's a problem with what I'm like and what I like to get out of music.

So there's music that I consider to be Art. And let's leave that out of the question, because Art is hard to work with, and worthy of a whole other post / essay / book / etc.

Then there's music that I listen to as a result of or to provoke a particular emotion. That super-emo melodramatic feeling? Stars, The Postal Service, etc. That sad-yet-optimistic feeling? Frightened Rabbit or The Low Anthem. The early-20s angsty feeling? Los Campesinos! and Japandroids.

"But what do I listen to when I'm happy?"

That's when it came to me. Two things. First, pop music - or the Disney-esque, family-friendly type of pop that Lights is - is aimed at producing unadulterated glee, an unattached, unspecified, and very uncomplicated sort of happiness. Second, I don't often feel, nor do I often desire to feel, pure simple happiness. I like complicated happiness, or pleasure, most of the time. Los Campesinos! happiness, where every song has a twinge of melodrama or angst. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart happiness where the music is light and upbeat but the style and emotions conveyed are serious, poetic, and sometimes depressing.

(Complicated isn't necessary good, by the way. Simple happiness is great. It's pure joy, and I wish I was inclined to feel that way more often)

Or I like hard, fast, and loud. This isn't happiness, per se. But it does produce euphoric highs. Justice, MSTRKRFT, Daft Punk - it's all simple, four-to-the-floor elecronic-pop. But it's fucking hard - the bass kicks, the beat moves, etc etc. When you turn it up loud, it drowns everything else out.

Of course, I could go even further down that road. Mars Volta? Same thing. Some Aphex Twin ("Come to Daddy") and Squarepusher ("Illegal Dustbin") gets that way too. And then we can move all the way to Lighting Bolt. And, well, that's just noise.

So what's the problem with pop music? It's not complicated happiness, and it's just not loud enough. OK, so it may not always be cute and family-friendly (I'm looking at you Kesha), but it's certainly not portraying a complicated emotion (getting drunk and bangin' mad chicks/dudes doesn't count), and it's simply not hard enough. It needs more heavy bass and angry vocals. Less bad romance, kissing girls, and 16-year-old youtube pop sensations.

So there you have it. Give me Los Campesinos! any day, give me Lightning Bolt some days, and keep that fucking Owl City record away from me.