I can’t really answer that because I’m really not that well versed in R&B music fundamentally...I think the only difference would be in sound really.

Because rock follows the same structure, so it’s really up to the listener

So HOB is also a rock album?

Idk that’s up to you to decide

Pop music can be rock music
Pop music can be R&B music
Pop music can be electronic music

Ffs pop music WAS rock music for the longest time

i think that last sentence is the important part. pop song structure absolutely exists. but i think the lines of what represents "pop music" are so blurred nobody even knows what they mean when they say it anymore.

some people apply it to certain sounds used in the music.

some people apply it to structure/songwriting like you did.

some people just use it to mean mainstream/whatever is hot on the charts.

all of these things apply but there never seems to be a consensus these days.

pop that p**** album

Yeah I’m out, imma stop arguing with dumb people from now on

Have a good day

now you're losing me a bit. were you trying to definitively prove it as a pop album, or saying it's a bunch of things simultaneously and shouldn't be left out of the pop category?

That was a joke lol

I’m saying the structure of the songs are akin to pop music you’d heard on the radio nowadays

Verse chorus verse chorus is the basic of it

That’s pop music structure, can be found in rock music, r&b music, electronic music

‘The foundation of popular music is the "verse" and "chorus" structure. Some writers use a simple "verse, hook, verse, hook, bridge, hook" method. "Pop and rock songs nearly always have both a verse and a chorus. The primary difference between the two is that when the music of the verse returns, it is almost always given a new set of lyrics, whereas the chorus usually retains the same set of lyrics every time its music appears."2 Both are essential elements, with the verse usually played first (exceptions abound, of course, with "She Loves You" by The Beatles being an early example in the rock music genre).’

The Weeknd a real nigga

How are is an album the best thing since a person

nah its more Neo-soul and rnb if anything.
Maxwell, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, were the inception of that style. Weeknd just changed it up with his production choices and voice

Yeah perhaps the biggest roadblock is that everyone has their own personal connotations of what pop music is, good or bad

I couldn't do it because I don't apply my musical theory knowledge to what I listen to but this probably didn't take that long, like not more than a few hours work.

oh i detected the sarcastic tone don't worry lol.

i say you're losing me because if you're only investigating that one aspect of the music (song structure) and then saying it bleeds into all other genres, then can that really be all it takes to define HOB as a pop album like you're attempting to?

it raises a lot of questions. is pop an actual genre *sound-wis*e, like rock or hip-hop? or at this point is it just popular music/music made in the effort to become popular? because that simple song structure should assist in helping to translate the music in a way the public will resonate with more, right?

maybe the definitions have changed over the course of history? i'm just trying to see your exact logic. it's an interesting topic.

I think the structure of a song doesn’t matter . I think the biggest things about pop songs are who they are geared to . They usually cater to a larger audience . For example Drake normal rap song would be a Tuscan leather . But his pop song would be Hold on were going home .

Yup these are great questions and ones that I was thinking about while making this thread

Tbh you guys are kind of right, in that sense that it’s not really fair to box HOB in a “pop” label because as you said the structure of it blends into other genres

My take is that pop music shouldn’t be defined by sound at all i know many will disagree but I personally think the fact that you see similar structural elements in so many different genres, makes it so you can’t really define pop music by a sound.

Like in the 60s, “pop music” was The Beatles, yet in 2010s, “pop music” was Taylor Swift. So I think it’s a bit of a slippery slope to try and define a pop genre based on sound, which is why I try to look at structure of songs and go from there.

But at the same time if a song follows the exact same structure as Wicked Games, but the instrumentation is all heavy metal or what not I probably wouldn’t call that pop music, even though it’s got the same structure

Like I said it’s a slippery slope and can’t really give any concrete answers since it’s all opinion based

I see what you’re saying but the fact that HOWGH is structured in the way it is, is precisely what makes it accessible and geared towards large crowds. The songs are made so you remember what they sound like easily (chorus and verse are repeated thoroughly), whereas Tuscan leather follows no sort of structure, thus making it not as accessible as a song like HOWGH

I’ve been here since 2011

The whole point is that The Weeknd has always made pop music