Yeah, except that when I write pop songs I have pretty strict constraints that I impose on myself. 69 Love Songs is a constraint. That the titles have to begin with "I'"s is a relatively strict constraint. Charm of the Highway Strip is all travel songs. And I am free to change the plot slightly to accommodate something that happens to rhyme conveniently.
Stephin MerrittOkay, a truly great song is a song that makes its own aesthetic intentions clear and then lives up to them and exceeds them in an interesting way. Alright?
Stephin MerrittThe adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use synthesizers as their main instrument and take it seriously was probably Silver Apples. And they sure didn't know what they were doing, and they sure don't sound like anything else.
Stephin MerrittIf the songs were in lumps, then you would expect to understand what was going on in the plot. Which is not a realistic goal. And also the instrumentation is different for every show, so it's more varied sonically. And people are free to make up their own plots, of course. There are pretty dense and complicated plots, and they're simple songs.
Stephin MerrittThere are only so many instruments you can layer on top of each other that aren't perfectly electronically programmed. "Long Vermont Roads" just cannot be performed live, because it's just too cluttered if it's played by humans. Synthesizers stay out of each other's way in a way that hand-played instruments never can.
Stephin Merritt