No one who puts their feet up on my coffee table and says, “God Only Knows” is the best pop song ever written will get a dirty look from me.
A pop song that can hit a “laymen” with authority and merely sound like a “pretty, catchy song,” but which employs highly sophisticated methodology in it’s construction/execution, is, to my mind, a good measurement of a great pop song.
The hazard in writing, say, “Hang On Sloopy” (a song I love) is that it may be perceived as “too simple.” The hazard in writing, say, “Aja,” is that it may be perceived as, “obtuse, ponderous, boring, etc.”
To write a song that simultaneously achieves both…damn hard to do.
The best pop songs (of which there are many) by these songwriters achieve this remarkable balance:
- Jerome Kern
- Irving Berlin
- George Gershwin
- Vincent Youmans
- Cole Porter
- Richard Rodgers
- Harold Arlen
- Harry James
- Jimmy Van Heusen
- Henry Mancini
- Burt Bacharach
- Carole King (do yourself a favor and spend a few days - it’ll take a few days as the volume is staggering - digging into the pre-‘70s-solo-artist-i.e.-Tapestry-etc. Carole King compositions of the ‘60s…amazing)
- Randy Newman (ditto)
- Brian Wilson
- John Lennon
- Paul McCartney
- Ray Davies
- Harry Nilsson
- Nicholas Ashford & Valerie Simpson
- Stevie Wonder
- the Odessey and Oracle LP by the Zombies
- Thom Bell
- Elton John
- Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff
- Joni Mitchell
…to name a few 😉