I spend much of my time in the classroom breaking down and analyzing that \u201chard English stuff\u201d that many of us geeked out over as undergrads. Sonnets and pantoums and villanelles and odes and god knows what else. It\u2019s fun and I see sparks as students begin flexing their own critical analytical muscles.<\/p>\n
And yet, when it comes time to flick through the playlist or slide in a CD, invariably it\u2019s the most standard of pop cuisine. Endless verses of rhyming couplets stacked comfortably within blankets of gooey choruses strung together by sappy chord changes; pop at its very heart. Sure, I\u2019ve gotten my fair share of albums from Amoeba\u2019s \u201cunusually experimental\u201d aisle (now sadly displaced to the back of the store alongside Jazz and Blues \u2026 hmmm there\u2019s something that needs to be deconstructed!).\u00a0However when it comes to long-drive listening and I don\u2019t have the energy for Ira Glass & Company\u2019s company, it\u2019s typically the \u201cunpopular pop\u201d of Jon Brion<\/a> and his cadre or something else of equally shiny pop veneer.<\/p>\n It may look brittle and flimsy compared to Ashbery, Walcott & Plath (the most awesome literary law firm since Silverblatt\u2019s crew<\/a>), but there is something eternally, inextinguishably human about the way pop can creep into your brain and whisper to yer heart.<\/p>\nTell people this is awesome:<\/h3>