Oh no! Your favorite super underground and definitely-not-pop musician just went viral on TikTok and now everyone is listening to their music. Spotify even had the audacity to put it in the ‘Indie Pop Hits’ playlist!

 But why do so many of us consider this a bad thing?

It seems that every young generation in recent history is simultaneously averse to the label of ‘pop’, listens to popular music, and hates to see when their favorite non-pop musicians begin to make an impact in the mainstream. Gen X had it with grunge, Millennials had it with emo, and now we have it with musicians like Frank Ocean, Mitski, and Childish Gambino.  

This is understandable. Many of us get attached to the music we listen to and want musicians to remain authentic to their roots.

 However, this kind of mentality is holding us back. By effectively making quality and popularity mutually exclusive, it becomes easy to generalize all pop music as garbage. In reality, the pop formula is a tried-and-true formula that is the foundation for almost all music we listen to, and any musician is capable of putting a unique twist on it, regardless of popularity. 

If you look throughout musical history, most popular genres stem from underground communities whose ideas are too infectious for normal people not to like. That’s the spirit of music! After all, beloved musical legends are often the ones who have bridged underground and mainstream ideas, and spark cultural discussion. Let’s not be afraid to share the music we love, and hope more people can experience it too!