Pound for Pound, 2013 Was the Best Year in Pop Music. Ever.

[Orange]

First off, yes, I am completely serious.

I'm aware that there were many years throughout other decades, namely the 80's, that created absolute Pop classics, but I feel that, in terms of catchiness and just overall consistency from single to single, this is the greatest year Pop music has ever known.

I know many people hate modern Pop, and I'm not one of those people, so perhaps that's influencing my opinion as others may be influenced by their disdain for modern Pop, but there wasn't a single released this year that I feel was weak in terms of Pop. Mainstays like Lady GaGa and Katy Perry had solid releases, while guys like Eminem were able to bridge the gap between Rap and Pop and release very strong singles. Newcomers like A Great Big World released beautiful singles like "Say Something", while Lorde absolutely tore it up with her offering to the Pop world. Robin Thicke released a few great singles this summer, and Miley Cyrus had a great year for herself and released a very strong Pop record.

Here are just a few of my favorite Pop songs from the year (almost) gone by.







So, how do you guys feel about the year in Pop music? Even if you don't feel it was the strongest, do you feel it was a good year for the genre?

[Deleted]

I don't follow current stuff, but I've always felt like 1984 was the best year for pop music.

[Deleted]

I thought it was a pretty good year. I've liked more chart releases this year than I have in quite a few years.

[Cela]

It was bigger and louder, but the overall quality was part of a continuing trend of decreasing effort.

[willywonka666]

There were some songs I really liked this year, but not as much grabs me like it used to. For me, it will find me, I won't have to look. So I don't feel it was the best ever, but as I said I loved some stuff, like Treasure by Bruno Mars, and Blurred Lines from Robin Thicke, but I will never sit down and listen to Kanye West for instance to experience his "genius"

As for Miley Cyrus, she's cute and I want to sex her up, that being said, aside from the video and her VMA performance of We Can't Stop, the song doesn't stand out and embraces the same techniques we damned a couple years ago

[Deleted]

For me it's 1966:
-Beach Boys had Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations.
-Beatles had Revolver and were recording Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane by end of the year.
-Sounds of Silence was released by Simon & Garfunkel

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Lila]

I say it's more the second half of 2013 was good for pop music. I expect the first half of 2014 to be good as well.

[wisdomwizard]

Not the best, but yes I think it was a good year for mainstream pop music. Some people on another board I go to complain about most of it being "boring" but they tend to sound like hipsters 90% of the time.

[Mozenrath]

A quite solid single year, I will agree, even if a lot of it wasn't for me.

[BK From WV]

I will be the first to admit that I'm an old fogey but there were very few songs of any genre that stood out to me this year. It doesn't help that the local top 40 station only plays the same 10 songs over and over. I can't stand that Blurred Lines song or anything by Lady Gaga and they play those constantly so I tend to avoid the station for the most part. There's another top 40 station that is better and plays more variety but their tower is so weak that I can't pick it up in my car until I drive about 30 minutes towards Charleston. I finally heard that "Royals" song by Lorde on it for the first time about a week ago. While I didn't care for the song, at least I finally heard it. The other station won't even play it because it's not by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Robin Thicke or Justin Timberlake. That may sound silly but the one station literally only plays songs by certain artists. Now there were a few pop songs I heard this year that I did enjoy. I like "Let Her Go" by Passenger and I like "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. Of course, I had to hear those on the one station that doesn't reach my house. But like I said earlier, I thought it wasn't a very good year for any genre. There wasn't many rock songs released this year that impressed me either. Of course, it may just me getting old and cranky.

[Deleted]

One of the most boring years in pop music ever. Seriously lots of songs were just boring and forgettable and many of the big returns like Katy Perry/Lady Gaga/JT/Jay Z/Kanye West was disappointing and underwhelming.

[xCompackx]

I still hate how Roar sounds so much like Brave. Other than that though, I agree.

[chazraps]

Intriguing post and, while I wouldn't say "all time" quite yet (as I think what makes the years truly "best" for Pop Music deals as much with how they age as they do with how they affect us at the time), but in terms of an entire year, I think you could make it a case for the best year since the 90s.

However, I think it brings up the bigger question of what makes a great year for pop music? If we're speaking in terms of strictly radio singles defining "pop," then absolutely 2013 is one for the history books. If we're evaluating pop music as an album-medium, then probably not. However, in a post-iTunes post-Spotify world, it brings up the question of whether evaluating something as broad as "pop" under an album-based scrutiny is a valid means of comparison.

While we're on the subject, I've read thinkpiece after thinkpiece this year from writers about how "2003 Was the Last Great Year for Music." The oldest writer of one of these pieces was 23, making him 13 when the year in question actually happened and, not even taking the possibility for a nostalgic bias into account, would mean the writers of these pieces have come to this conclusion based solely on the year that these songs were listed as being released in and experiencing them long after their initial release. While I guess that's a fair means of distinction, I guess my issue with it as someone who was slightly older that year is recalling how many critics/DJs/fans I knew across all genres lamenting what a drought of good music that year really was. Upon closer inspection, pretty much every "classic" album/single of the year was released in either February or November, leaving us with a pretty huge eight month gap in-between a lot of iconic records. When the majority of the year is relatively fruitless, could the tremendous output of 1/6 of the time span really count as a year being a great year?

[Deleted]

Admittedly most of my knowledge of pop music comes from Todd in the Shadows, but last year seemed miles better than this one. Like, I don't think I know of a song that came out this year that I'd ever go out of my way to listen to.