Pop Music.

We all have music on our iPods that we don't want anyone to see. For me, it might be every Britney Spears song ever recorded. Or perhaps it's Lindsay Lohan's latest song, "Bossy." Regardless, I know all of you have a secret song that you jam out to in your cars when you think no one's looking. This song might be something that you discovered while "accidentally" listening to HOT 99.5 the other day, or perhaps one of the girls in your Bio lab was singing it incessantly to the point where you had NO CHOICE but to go home and download it! There's no shame in that. My point here is this...

At some point in everyone's life, you will fall victim to liking some form of pop music.

Believe it or not, a lot of people find this fact embarrassing. This is because when many people think of pop music, they envision this:

(Image courtesy of themusicstories.com)

I would be embarrassed too, if this were the real definition of pop music. But it's not. Pop music stands for "popular music," therefore any song or band that is "mainstream" or popular to the point where they are on the radio, on MTV, or selling out huge venues for concerts -- they could be considered "pop."

Pop music is no longer synonymous with bubblegum dance music. It's artists like John Mayer, Kanye West, Coldplay, Keith Urban and John Legend. These artists that produce music in genres like alternative, country, and hip hop are now also being categorized as pop.
(Image courtesy of Breakpoint.es)

So while many of you out there actually tend to listen to music that is by no means considered mainstream, a lot of us out here are guilty of listening to pop music. And does that make us conformed consumers of a money-hungry society? Maybe. But if giving up secretly listening to my NOW 5 CD means I can be cool, than I'd rather not be.