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I have to agree with Alex on this one. This statement of yours, while you may think it backed by evidence, is purely your own opinion. Which you are fully entitled to, I hasten to add, and is no less or more valid than anyone else's. MUCH 'art' in the world is meant for commercial/entertainment/pop purposes. That does not make it less artistic or well-done as a medium of expression and aesthetic appreciation. Entertainment IS a form of art. By your argument Mozart's divertimenti are not art, as they were written solely for the purpose of outdoor party entertainment (ie the name, "for fun"). Yet we still study them in uni because of Mozart's craftsmanship in fulfilling their set purpose. I don't see how pop music is any different from that.

I had spelling mistakes? Uh oh. :o I'm losing my touch. Oh well. What Tokke was saying was clearly a judgement of quality, and alot of people around here think the same thing. You do not. I'm just wondering why people think that, because they don't like pop, that gives them the right to label it as "not art." Bon Iver's album "For Emma, Forever Ago" would be defined as pop by Abrella's definition. Yet I find it to be a more eloquent expression of lost love than many of Chopin's piano works. I fail to see how it isn't art. I fail to see how your stated reasons give you the right to decide what is art and what is not. I don't think anyone has this right, because art is subjective. My definition of art is "the expression of one's emotions, spirit or thoughts (the last, only to some degree. An ingredients list could be considered art by this definition.)" It has nothing to do with level of class or complexity, or even quality. Think of it this way. Comparing Mozart to Bullet for my Valentine is like comparing a Van Gogh painting to a young childs first drawing. Now, I would consider this early painting "art." If only, because it is the first step on the journey to becoming a great artist if the child wishes to become one. Pop is more technically juvenile than Chopin, yes. Much (not all) is used as a means for emotional and spiritual expression. THAT is my definition of art, as I stated previously. Isn't that the purpose of art, anyway? By your logic, I could compare a Da Vinci to a weird modern sculpture and come to the conclusion that the sculpture is not art. Is that true? Absolutely not. It's just different. I understand that you aren't judging the quality of pop by saying it isn't art, but I want to know WHY you say it isn't art. I know this has nothing to do with the original topic, but I can't let Tokkemon's statement go unanswered.

Sigh. Unfortunately I return to this thread to find a needless and petty argument with little thought behind it on either side. Alex: your argument - more a rant really - is based on the assumption that only the status of 'art' can define the quality of a piece of music. Pop music generally isn't art and neither should it be; its remit is to give instant entertainment and should be judged in such terms without shame. Conversely, Bruckner does not provide a good environment for dancing - in fact we would be as wise to complain of how poor classical music is at this than at how a drum machine fails to reach dizzying heights of contrapuntal transcendence. In short, you conflate quality with function. BDW-Musician expresses numerous illogical and non sequitur arguments, although they are wrong for pretty much the same reasons as above. He also contradicts himself on several occasions. I take particular objection to two statements; firstly '...the kind of stuff Mozart only wished he could write'. Johann Christostamus Wolfgang Theophilius Gottlieb Mozart had a fairly astonishing ability to compose music that was well-crafted and considered tasteful by the standards of the late eighteenth century. Seeing as his operas, concerti and chamber music were widely celebrated in his lifetime and have had a continuous performance tradition since, one wonders quite what Mozart would have wished to improve upon. Secondly '...you have to break the formula and make it work in the same way romanticism did with classical and just as trashingly as it probably seemed at the time'. Apart from falling into the simplistic trap of assuming that people all woke up on January 1st, 1800 and decided that the Romantic Period had now begun, this assertion is simply wrong. Periods of music history are defined as a scholarly convenience many years after thay are supposed to have occured; styles gradually change over time and there was certainly no sudden throwing out of the 'classical period'. Beethoven and Berlioz were thought wild and futuristic in their lifetimes (as were certain works of Mozart and Haydn, interestingly enough) yet they wrote fugues (a sixteenth-century texture), used sonata forms (the dominant structural form of the eighteenth) and were in no doubt as to the use of tonality. The somewhat amusing thought of nineteenth-century composers beating the bejesus out of what had preceded them is misguided - the older music was frequently used as a point of reference to criticise contemporary music of the time. As an afterthought, I look forward to those pop artists who will, as you say 'break the formula', and start writing songs with invertable counterpoint, irregular time signatures and Saami joiking. '...classical music is innately more interesting in its complexity. Once you have the complexity down, being interesting is much less of an issue.' You state that classical music is more interesting because it is more complex. You then contradict this by saying that once we are used to this complexity, the interesting-ness is diminished. So is it interesting or not!? Classical composers don't build in complexity for the sake of lip-service to a stereotype, or to confuse those who are unused to the style, you know. It's simply how they think music should sound. 'People are going to realize in couple hundred years how good certain arists were in the 60's, and they already do.' If they already do, they're not going to take a 'couple hundred' years to realise how good the 'certain arists' are, then! (You also assume vinyl, CDs and whatever other media the music is transmitted on will survive future wars, environmental catastrophe, etc). '...it takes a really stuck up person without a life to not appreciate contemporary music' - I assume you refer to pop music, in which case you're just wrong - some of us have wonderfully interesting and open-minded lives and yet aren't interested in what the record industry thinks is good for us. If you are referring to contemporary classical music, I sympathise, although tend to be more tactful toward my audiences. 'Yesterday is pretty much just as good as Mozart's 40th symphony.' - but have you heard the 41st? Joking aside, John Lennon has attempted to compose various choral works in the classical tradition. Cynics may interpret this as rejecting the Beatles stuff, but it's generally agreed by the majority of people to be pretty naff.

Two music degrees? Having read countless books and journal articles on all aspects of music? Being humble enough to revise my opinion when confronted with evidence contrary to my thoughts? This may sound arrogant, and indeed I hate to have to have to pull out this card, but there is a serious point to this; namely that some of us have opinions which can be justified with evidence and are based on serious and considered study of our position. I notice from your introduction here that you intend to go to university, and I hope that you learn this important skill during your studies. You will win a lot more debates that way. In any case, your original post - and I'm prepared to ignore the spelling mistakes and ad hominums littering it ('headinbutt syndrome' indeed!) - is really rather unhelpful to abrella's original question. You take offence at us making the distinction between 'pop' and 'art' music, but tell me this: how then is she supposed to ask what she has asked? Abrella clearly understands 'pop' music as meaning the type with guitars and drums; she doesn't make any value judgements about it but simply asks how one can 'do' it. I will be absolutely clear: labeling something as 'pop' or 'art' music is NOT a judgement of quality, merely a definition of genre! Tokkemon's post was somewhat imflamatory but is actually closer to the point than might be apparent: sometimes we have to make unhelpful distinctions just to be clear what we are actually talking about. In fact, what are your definitions of 'pop' and 'art' music, if you indeed make a distinction?