ABSTRACT
It has been said that serious composers ignore popular music at their own peril. I’ve always felt that way. In our still-maturing American culture popular music has been — with the movies — the defining essence of our national style. I say has been because my fear is that, right now, the movies and pop music have become Big Business to such a degree that it all isn’t really popular art anymore. Too often they are the result of market research and manipulation; too often they are cynically thrown at a public that has lost the ability to discern because of so many years of nurturance toward a state of pure appetite.
