Pop Songwriting Quotes

I'm definitely a pop artist at heart.

I just could not believe that 30 years later we're still looking at people who are supposed to write little 2-minute pop that when they actually try to do something that's a little bit more they regard it as pretentious.

When I became a 'rock musician,' I assumed pop music was easy to write and that interesting rock music, or alternative music, was hard. It was only later I realised that writing a pop song is the hardest thing musically.

I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural. It is, but there are a lot of times where people treat it like a sport - there are tricks you can pull, different combinations that make something better. I don't really think I approach it that way, but I definitely have a love for the science that is pop song writing.

I'm trying to use people like Meredith Monk and Philip Glass and Terry Riley as the backing tracks for new pop songs. It's really hard trying to use the format and write a pop song on top of avant-garde music, so we'll see. It could be cool, or it could totally flop.

When you do a pop album, the canvas is completely yours. There is no story situation forced on to your songs - you have the freedom to develop it right from the concept.

In the mid- to late '70s, there was no one better than ABBA at writing and producing great pop.

I think pop music was going through a phase where it was like pop but dance-hall or pop but R&B. But, no, I just want a pop song.

The Italian duo Dumbo Gets Mad specializes in psychedelics for the sober, bringing experimentation together with detailed pop songwriting.

I've done bits of writing for other people but when I'm writing music as Years & Years, I'm using my life and my stories and my experiences. I want it to be authentic and real but also to work as a pop song - I never want to just put in a cheesy line.

My earliest memories as a child are listening to Beatles records, and they are a big part of how I've learned to write pop songs.

Any kind of anthemic song, for the most part, they're on the positive side of things. It's not hard to identify when a melody is just one degree too complicated or one degree too simple and where that line of pop memorability lies.

I'd been listening to some old '70s disco, soul stuff, and I thought, 'Let's go into the studio and do something different. Let's do something that's super unashamedly pop and fun and danceable.' 'Trouble' is what we did. It's something that wrote itself.

I love a good chorus, you know? I consider a lot of what I love pop. I consider Mitski pop.