Pop and Classical

Kyle Gann has written a pair of fascinating posts in the past few days about the relation between pop music and contemporary classical music. Many poets navigating the boundaries between the "accessible" and the "difficult" might be interested in his remarks about the similar boundaries between types of music. The two posts are "The Unapproachable Sacredness of Pop" and the followup post "The Myth of Pop Hatred."

From the former:

"I don't believe, as some of my contemporaries have claimed to, that pop music is kind of a neutral vernacular with the same status as folk music: i.e., that borrowing pop influences is analogous to Haydn inserting rustic folk songs in his symphonies. Far from being anonymous, pop music is drenched in the personality of its performers; every byte of it is owned by someone, and often valued exactly for its personal associations."