Intelligent POP

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Dear intelligent pop music fan:

Well, it’s been a lot of work, and the deadline’s been pushed back a few times, but an idea I first conceived over 10 years ago, when I first realized that the kind of music I most loved didn’t really fit the new radio formats of the 1990s, is finally launched.

Back then, in the early 1990s, I and a number of friends were making music that probably sounded “too 80s” to score with the industry. We were drawing on the traditions of Paul Simon, the Beatles, Sting, early Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel and others, trying to create undeniably pop music that satisfied our intellectual sides. Our concept of melody, too, was different from the hard rock and hip-hop bands who were, and still are, dominating the airwaves: we were borrowing from classical music for true, thematic melody.

It seemed then that MTV had completed its process of revolutionizing music marketing: of course, image had always been a part of what made a pop star. And of course, there had always been crap on the airwaves. But by then, “image” and “attitude” and “coolness” now trumped all in marketing music. Video actually had killed the radio star.

I knew there were a lot of adults who loved the kind of music we loved—not a particular style, but an aesthetic orientation—which, years later, I came to call “intelligent pop.” I also had a vague sense that one problem was that fans of intelligent pop did not congregate together in one location where they could be “marketed to.” For example, when I was living in Atlanta in the early 1990s, just about all the young males between the ages of 16 and 25 listened to “99X,” the alternative rock station. They played some good music (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.) but the hard rock aesthetic seemed to crowd out other intelligent and alternative pop styles from the airwaves.

Back in the 1990s, I figured if I could gather the now-scattered fans of intelligent pop together in “one place,” then they, too, could be “marketed to.” That’s what brought me to the subscription-based record club idea.

Back then, I conceived of a paper magazine that would sell CDs from a catalog on its back cover: I guess the idea just wasn’t compelling enough yet. With the development of the internet, however, the time seems right. So I started: I gathered my most talented friends. For months now, we’ve been listening to artists. We’ve considered well over a thousand to come up with the top 20 you see now.

BIG DREAMS

I’ve got big dreams for Intelligent Pop. I want you to find music here that you can fall in love with the way you did your all-time favorites. I myself have fallen completely in love with several of the albums in our top 20.

I want to pave a way for these hard-working artists to get the record deals they deserve and which have been too rare, too much like pulling teeth. Ultimately, I want to change the industry: I want to see a healthy resurgence of intelligent pop. I know it’s possible: at recent Seal and Tears for Fears concerts, I saw tens of thousands of 35- to 50-year-olds going nuts over these classic artists. I want to see more record labels signing artists like this, and at the same time I want to see more artists unabashedly making intelligent pop because they know it’s a commercially viable kind of music.

I want to see, eventually, an Intelligent Pop concert tour (with reduced admission for members, of course!), support services for artists, and an expanded list of styles: intelligentcountry, intelligentfolk, whatever there’s a demand for.

And I want you to have the pleasure not only of listening, but of knowing you are part of an idealistic movement. You are supporting these artists and their work: by being part of our organization, you are making a stand for variety and wide-open channels, and against narrow “radio formats” in popular music today.

Enjoy!

Everett Young, founder

P.S.—Got an idea for me? Want to talk music? I’ll always make time. E-mail me or even call! Let’s make IntelligentPop a real community.