'Its still pop, it's just the BPM'S have sped up and the baselines are dirty'

 Its amazing how the charts have changed in the past 6 months, especially with what's happened to so called 'pop' music.

Growing up I was always under the impression that pop music was easy to distinguish. It was your Take Thats, Steps and Spice Girls that were considered the bread and butter of pop music and it was fair to say they dominated the charts.
 They were played all over the Radio, music stores were seeing the CD albums fly of the shelves and they were the songs you eagerly anticipated to come on at the school disco.....

It seems now that the stereotypical pop star is a thing of the past....

Don't get me wrong there are still boy bands and love songs with cheesy lyrics but if you take a look at the top 10 you'll see it is influenced by genres that were considered 'underground' and only a handful of the population liked a few years ago.

Here is the current top 10 from Sundays chart....

1. JLS - Love you more
2. Ellie Goulding - Your Song
3. Rihanna - Only Girl (in the world)
4. Katy Perry - Firework
5. Far East Movement - Like A G6
6. The Black Eyed Peas - The Time (the dirty bit)
7. Alexis Jordan - Happiness
8. McFly - Shine A Light
9. West Life - Safe
10. Bruno Mars - Just the way your are (amazing)

So yeah there are a handful of these songs that you would expect to see from various boy bands but half of the top ten in the country are considered 'dance' tracks, all of which are very popular in the clubs too. 

Again you could argue that dance music has influenced the charts for over a decade now and especially in the 90's with the likes of Robin S, Faithless and N Trance gracing our ears that the charts haven't changed that much. But consider now that Drum n Bass, Grime, Dance hall and more recently Dub Step have featured in the top 10. 

 This is proof that as music consumers, we are much more open to new sounds and cross genres

I don't think you can sum-up pop music by defining it as boy/girl bands  that only sing about love stories any more. Pop music means 'popular music' and we have to accept that it has evolved. 

What I personally like about the chart is how unpredictable it is. I hear a lot of new music and I can never fully predict which song is going to be popular.

  I never thought what is a guaranteed floor-filler in clubland would reach the top spot of the charts when the only lyric on it features some bloke saying the name of famous American Diva?

 Also I didn't think in a million years that Katy B - On A Mission (or Benga - Man On A Mission for those who can't get over the fact it is now considered commercial!) was and still is such a popular tune considering I have been told in the past that Dubstep was just noise!

Im excited what the charts will bring in the next months and hope its a case of - more of the same please!!

Tom.