“Here’s the important thing to remember: people throw around the term pop music and it has various meanings now. I think it’s really a misnomer. It’s a critical trap. Pop music, is from the term popular music and the term came up in what was called the golden era of songwriting, which was Gershwin and Berlin and Porter and those people. And that was extraordinarily popular music – they were writing the hit songs of the day. It was also acknowledged that the best songwriters were writing the best songs of the day. Everyone knew this. George Gershwin was as gifted a musician as has ever walked the earth and as good a songwriter as has ever walked the earth. So that was popular music. It got shortened to pop in the ‘60s with the whole quote unquote pop art revolution and the Beatles being the ultimate expression of what was popular and also clearly considered one of the great artistic events of the last half of the twentieth century. So fine, you’ve got this melding of things and things like Motown – these guys were sitting around trying to write hits. The Beatles were trying to outdo each other to see who would have the single. There was infighting about this stuff. And the winner would get something like “ We Can Work It Out” in the process. It’s kind of amazing, and the song is unlike anything made before or since, in truth. Think about what an odd piece of unique business that is. And it was hugely successful. So that’s what it was and then it became pop music. But then ever since the punk movement, with power pop – those bands weren’t necessarily popular but they were all sort of blown out of the Beatles mode but some sort of modification of that – in that case it was amped up tempo-wise, people started, within the underground music community, referring to pop as anything that had the ‘60s brightness and attention to melody. And that’s now what it means when people say things like, “Oh, it’s sort of a pop band.” It means it’s melodic and upbeat. And that is not pop music currently. Pop music right now would be Britney Spears. That’s popular music. Now to what extent that music actually has great melodies… not too much. I think her records … the song “Toxic” has a very very clear melodic hook and to me that’s good pop music, it’s good ear candy – it super glossy but it’s glossy that pays off. They’re being creative in their glossiness. It’s like the top of the Chrysler building – very bright. It is a glittery object and it works. The other popular music I’m not hearing a lot. It’s great when I hear something like the White Stripes kicking through, I’m happy for the humanity it represents. There’s not a lot to admire on the charts currently. And I’m a total lover of popular music and popular culture and soak it all up and think there’s interesting stuff to be had in our time that wasn’t possible before. But I don’t think it’s a good time for melody or song craft. And also records increasingly became just about a drum loop and nothing else. And to me, if the drum loop is always two bars and is always just loosely to some extent based on the great discovery that James Brown made 40 years ago, I don’t know… I’d rather listen tot that moment of invention. And it’s still, generally at least, funk as the modern thing that’s doing that. If not more so. So I see this as a quagmire…we could go further and further. Is it a good moment for melody? No. Is it a good moment for song structure? No. Does that mean it’s dead? No. When you hear a record that’s really something different – a lot of those things that the Neptunes have done – there’s some real inventiveness there and they’re also popular. To me that’s like a good version of, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make a version of This Year’s Model. We’re trying to make something slick that pays off.’ Hip-hop’s been the most interesting thing to watch for 20 years. It’s not a new phenomenon. Since the ‘80s, overground popular music has been pretty shitty except for that moment in the early ’90s when the gatekeepers let a few people through. And hip-hop has at least had various eras of amazing invention. If you take all the great Run DMC records with all the great juxtapositions there. It’s hard and it was funny and it was pure hip-hop and also rock and it was underground and popular. There was so much duality running through that. Same with the moment that Public Enemy arrived and it was like, ‘This is the motherfucking future. Rock!’ Chuck D was so on his game so on point and so fucking smart. Hip-hop has offered the most invention although I actually feel in the past decade it was really lumbering in its own clichés to the extent that I was disappointed heartily and that’s part of the reason why I feel Outkast is such a blessing. To come out and go, ‘Guess what? Our attitude is so completely different and we don’t care if you agree with it.’ It’s all great, the whole history of that band is just great, and the fact that somebody like Andre is a hip-hop icon but, in truth, is just this crazed creative pop musician… Outkast represent very much what I love each guy has their own thing is both a totally beautiful respected cool individualist thing and it’s widely popular. To me that’s just the coolest that the song ‘Hey Ya’ is this weird creative burst of energy that it is and that it was the hugest song of the year… To me, I feel like when I hear that, I hear the great feeling of when you hear the early Beck stuff being successful and think that he can be on the radio or the great moment in the ‘80s when everything was sucking and suddenly Prince becomes massively successful and a song like ‘When the Doves Cry’ was the inescapable song of the year but you look at it and go, ‘Wait a minute, this song has no bass on it, he is singing like a complete madman, there’s these weird electronic noises…’ There was a period of four or five Prince records in a row that were the most artistic records being made at the moment and the most popular. The fact that that is a complete circuit is bewilderingly beautiful to me.”
-Jon Brion on the current use of the word “pop”

Note: the exact date I conducted this interview isn’t entirely clear. However, based on the recent references, I suspect this was from 4 or 5 years ago, pre-shaved head/nutso Britney.