Lets use an example outside music here.
David Icke has sold probably over a million books. His works are stocked in major book chains like Waterstones. His books are printed on the same presses and written with the same word-pressing tools as Harry Potter. He regularly sells out lectures around the world, has appeared on major and independent TV and radio stations. He works tirelessly to promote his theories and works, travelling around the world, giving interviews, etc. etc.
Would you consider David Icke to be mainstream, or popular? Would you expect to regularly encounter believes in David Ickes theories as regularly as you encountered, say, christians? Do you expect to see adverts for his books, CDs, lecture tours etc. on television?
Sales and distribution methods are not the issue here. What we're talking about when we say pop music are:
1) The level of cultural penetration: pop music aggressively makes itself ubiquitous across the mainstream. If you have no interest in music, but regularly read newspapers, consume broadcast news etc. it is easily possible to have absolutely no knowledge of any of the bands Tommy mentioned. You may, perhaps, have skimmed over a review of one of their albums in the Guardian, or heard part of one of their songs on an advert, maybe even seen a part of a video whilst channel surfing late at night. You have no reason to remember their names though. However, it is almost impossible to actually participate in western culture and not have heard of Madonna, or Justin Timberlake, or Kylie Minogue, or Britney Spears, or the Black Eyed Peas, or many others. Their songs are not just played, but played repeatedly and across the board, on radio, on television, in shops, on adverts, in films, in bars, in nightclubs, and so on. Pop music is an integral component of mainstream western culture. To claim that the Flaming Lips have anything approaching this sort of status or influence, or popularity, is ridiculous. We are talking quite clearly here about major, commercial, top 40 material, about stuff wrapped up with the rest of the cultural mainstream, that cross-pollinates into gossip mags, films and mainstream television. Earache has sold over two million records. Are grindcore and death metal mainstream? Do they influence popular culture to one percent of the extent of chart music?
2) The motive for the production of the music. Quite basically, does the band mainly want their music to be heard (or the idea behind their music to be disseminated), or is the main motivation for the production of music profit by a diverse group of individuals including them? Do you genuinely claim that the Arcade Fires primary motivation is money? Do you genuinely claim that Justin Timberlakes primary motivation (and the motivations of those who promote him) is his art? Of course, in most cases, art and money is mixed in some measure (though I would suggest that there are many bands for whom money is irrelevant, just as there are many examples of groups and singers who are pure commercial creations, with music carefully designed by song-writers and producers to have maximum appeal to the most profitable demographics and quality be damned.
Quality, in fact, is what I would suggest is the major thing that distinguishes the bands mentioned by Tommy from most mainstream pop, and also distinguishes, say, Paris Hilton from the Beatles. I mean quality here in the sense of care and pride that has been invested by the artist, as in Pirsigs philosophy of quality. Pop is all too often formulaic, with no depth or craftmanship. When people speak of a 'well crafted pop gem' (undoubtedly the most sickening phrase in music criticism, I might add) they are normally talking about some relatively obscure indie act that is distinguished from mainstream pop music by the fact that they actually ARE taking care and pride in their music. The people behind pop music production often care less for the quality of the finished product they produce as they do for its marketability, its acceptablity, it's artlessness and blandness, one might say. I mean, look at all the bands that Tommy bought up to defend his notion of pop. What do you notice about them? They all write their own music. The only case where you could even argue this is with the Beatles, when talking about George Martin, and even in that case, Martin only built up arrangements around music written by the Beatles. Some major pop artists do write their own lyrics, or some of their own lyrics, or claim to write their own lyrics, but a vast majority do not.
