From my experience, there are many young teenagers who don't consider rap real music. They say it's all about drugs, violence, crimes, etc. Also from my experience, there are many young adults (low-mid 20s, mainly on internet forums and Youtube comments) who don't consider pop real music. They say the lyrics are shallow and the melody is derivative and it's not inspired at all.
Making blanket statements about whole genres is stupid. Making blanket statements about artists in particular genres is stupider. Sure, the most mainstream of pop songs might be garbage, but that doesn't mean that all catchy popular pop songs are garbage and should be looked down upon. There's the good and the bad wherever you look.
A good song is a good song, whether it be rap, rock, jazz, pop or folk.
Fakeness and tackiness are usually what put me off the most. Something like "I Kissed a Girl" is a great example of a song with zero artistic integrity; every part of it is painstakingly manufactured to make money. You can just picture the record execs rubbing their hands together with glee as they imagine all the free publicity the mildly controversial lyrics were going to drum up.
Show me a pop song that:
A) Isn't interested in appearing artificially cool or edgy
B) Doesn't have insulting stupid lyrics
C) Appears to have been written and performed with some degree of genuine feeling
...and I'm on-board.
See, this is what I was talking about above. You can't judge a whole genre based purely on the music produced by the biggest labels who sign and exploit talented artists. What you described is found in a lot of mainstream music across a range of genres.
Would you say Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' and 'Someone Like You' lack feeling? Have mind-numbingly stupid lyrics? Are artificial.
Bastille's Pompeii is brilliant. It's more pop rock, but it's still one of the best songs I've heard all year.
Passenger's Let Her Go is a good song too. Basically put him on the map. I wouldn't call it an "example of a song with zero artistic integrity" with "every part of it is painstakingly manufactured to make money".
This is him performing it on the streets of Brisbane back in 2011. He's a solo artist who focuses mainly in folk, indie rock (older albums) and pop (latest album), but once upon a time Passenger was actually the name of his band. Their first (and only) album was Wicked Man's Rest, a pop/pop rock album. It's a solid album worth checking out.
Tom Odell's Another Love is also solid. It might be a bit edgy, but there's definite emotion and the lyrics are decent too.
I know many songs above are a blend of pop with other genres, but that's basically the majority of songs out there today. They're still pop songs as much as they are alt-rock or R&B.
