You can get really left of centre influences in mainstream pop. Michael Jackson and Prince are some of the most progressive artists ever if you actually dissect their songs there's some crazy stuff going on.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Pop music has progressed.
Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around.
A lot of very popular mainstream artists are products of record companies and marketing companies, and any time anyone can stand outside of that, that's interesting.
Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business I tend to detest the most.
Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.
Most of the people who write pop music were outsiders at some time in their life.
My musical tastes go from Zeppelin to Bob Dylan to Kanye West and Lil' Wayne. Anything modern and progressive.
I don't know why so many artists talk about the mainstream's problems from the fringe. I think, unfortunately, it's almost like our education makes us too safe and terrified to step into the world.
Pop is the most competitive form of music there is. You are always fighting to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and it's always shifting.
Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public.