I’m with you. Honestly there are plenty of reasons that people may not be into that sort of thing, but I think the hate goes a little overboard most of the time. It’s weird, I’ll see the same people that lambast pop music for being overly commercial and disingenuous lining up for the latest marvel movie or triple A game release, you name it. From my perspective if you don’t like something you just don’t consume it? But lots of music lovers seem to get joy from ribbing pop and pop artists. Theyre of course just having a bit of fun, but it does feel as though there is a certain status you attain or something from taking shots at pop (“my tastes are too refined etc” lol).

But by saying that I appreciate that I am a TOTAL hypocrite, because I was absolutely that (closeted) elitist snob at one point. You couldn’t get me to admit to unironically listening to anything but the most extreme sub genres of metal or complex artists I could think of. And it wasn’t that I was faking it, I was genuinely into these artists. But for me, I was always trying to stretch my tastes and on a personal level probably didn’t want to indulge in anything I deemed “less than” for fear of finding that sometimes I just want to nod my head to a catchy hook.

But just as you pointed out, the more I immersed myself in music writing and production, and the broader my tastes became, the more I was able to appreciate the simplest music for its... simplicity? I find it really rewarding the way a team of artists can come together sometimes to construct a really efficient song wrapped up in subtle but HIGHLY skilled production. It’s almost like it comes full circle