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Part of the answer is that such people aren’t actually listening to the music. They are getting something else out of it, like using it as background noise, or just as a beat to dance to, or as in-group signaling, or maybe access to the culture associated with the music, or perhaps they are self-medicating with it, or maybe they are ogling the performer, or perhaps it reminds them of something positive that happened when they first heard it.

None of these uses require the music to be “good”.

Actively listening to music is a somewhat rare activity.

I don't really buy this. Take modern American pop country. People LOVE that music and it is some of the worst of the lot.

And again I have nothing against the genre. I listen to non pop country. But people are specifically attracted to the worst of it and they seem to very actively like it.

I have a vivid memory of this. I got free tickets to a country music concert, and basically treated it as a party with a twangy soundtrack. It was fun, and I enjoyed myself. While waiting for my ride, I got to talking with a woman who got really offended that I saw it that way - she likened it to a religious experience, and how dare I treat it so flippantly.

I apologized while marveling to myself that something that felt so mediocre and forgettable to me was someone else's reason to exist.

I can readily attest to having no taste in music. So much so that criticism of music (in reviews of albums, etc.) is incomprehensible to me; I tried using good reviews as a way to find music I'd want to listen to but discovered that music only serves one of the above functions (looking for a good beat, or whatever).

I can't tell good music from bad; either I like the way it sounds or I don't.

I suspect a fair number of other people are like this. And more power to people who have good taste in music.

> written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable music possible

A few years ago, a group engineered the most unlikeable song ever:

https://youtu.be/-gPuH1yeZ08

Featuring bagpipes, a rapping opera singer, country music, and a children's choir singing holiday music that ends with telling you to do your shopping at Wal-mart.

"This announcement from the producers of this record contains important information for radio program directors, and is not for broadcast. The first cut on this record has been cross-format-focused for airplay success. As you well know, a record must break on radio in order to actually provide a living for the artists involved. Up until now, you've had to make these record-breaking decisions on your own, relying only on perplexing intangibilities like 'taste' and 'intuition', but now there's a better way. The cut that follows is the product of newly-developed compositional techniques, based on state-of-the-art marketing analysis technology. This cut has been analytically designed to break on radio."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82fshB1F_tE

Just listened to the whole album.

There's a certain genius to how bad and obnoxious it is.

I like to explain my taste in music, by saying it's like taking a shower. At first it's hot, but then you get used to it, and you make it a bit hotter, and a bit hotter. If it were that hot in the beginning I never would have got in, but this is where I am now.

Though in a broader sense, with any creative endeavor the more people that like something, the worse it is.

I think part of it is how much other music you've listened to, and how much you know about music.

For example I watched Shang-Chi the other day, which is basically pop music in film form. As someone who's watched a fair amount of films, it's easy to see how it follows all the usual generic story beats - it's good but formulaic and relatively predictable. But if it was the first film you'd ever seen it would be amazing.

You have films that intentionally subvert expectations, relying on the fact that the audience knows how the story usually goes. That's jazz music. Classical often as well. But that relies on people both knowing the usual tropes and also wanting something different - there's some comfort in the known. Many people just want the superhero film. After all, the simple formula is the most inherently powerful regardless of the audience's internal knowledge of narrative or notation - that's why it's so commonly used.

There's nuances and an art to pop though. Take Ocean's Eleven. It's fundamentally a crowd pleaser movie with a star studded cast, a conventional genre and a happy ending. But it's executed perfectly. Soderbergh has a mastery of the form that shows even when he's making pop. You see this with The Beach Boys or The Beatles or even Ed Sheeran, where the music is superficially enjoyable but there's a depth to it nonetheless. Take Jacob Collier's deconstruction of Stevie Wonder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZP6nogQYPg

Yeah, so the Beatles and The Beach Boys manage to take relatively complex music (chord choices etc) and have it still appeal on a fundamental level, which is much harder than just taking the easy route and following a formula. Often making complex music loses mass appeal (I'd put Jacob Collier in that category), making it less viable commercially than the simple formula approach.

My guess is that the serendipitous combination of high-level artistry + mass appeal + marketing dollars is simply much less common than the combo of "good at basic formula" + marketing dollars. Every now and then something really clever and different makes it into the top 40 just by sheer luck.

Seems like I was wrong above about the simple formula being the most powerful though doesn't it. Maybe a brand new formula can be even more powerful but is just that much harder to execute.

I feel personally attacked that you are lumping Ed Sheeran in with the Beatles or Beach Boys.

I'm not a huge Ed Sheeran fan but I do think there's some interesting ideas in his songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpMNJbt3QDE

Subverting expectations also has larger downsides. A competently-made movie that just isn't that good is simply a boring movie that looks pretty. A subversion that goes wrong subverts your expectation of watching a good movie with one of watching an incoherent movie.

> written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable music possible, edited to the point where it doesn't matter that the models are bad singers.

Maybe it is just the case where team of experts created music many people like. People really don't mind generic when serving foods daydreaming or eating. Generic is often better, because it won't break flow of what they are doing.

I also don't buy this one. Modern pop is not meant to be tuned out. It's super loud and aggressive and in your face.

If anything it feels engineered (and I use that term literally) to break your attention and make you focus on it. There tend to be lots of weird and drastic pitch and key changes that are designed to grab interest.

There is tons of music that is better background music than modern pop.

What you call "garbage" others might label "recycling" ;)