We human beings are constantly crowing about what seperates us from the animals which, to be fair, really seems like we’re rubbing it in to the rest of the Earth’s creatures. I mean, we say all this and they can’t answer back can they? Because they can’t speak and we can- it’s what seperates us from the animals.

And there’s plenty more where that came from. Powers of reasoning, senses of humour, wheelbarrows- all things that we have and animals don’t and it would be very simple for us to become divided- to create a bit of a ‘them and us’ attitude between humans and animals which would be a crying shame as there is something far greater, far more important and far, far more special that unites us with a good portion of the Mother Nature’s other living, breathing creations. It’s something that we humans may feel, as we rightfully should, to be one of our greatest innovations of the 20th century but it is in fact something that we pinched from the animal kingdom without even realising it.

Pop music.

Now obviously a sparrow didn’t write ‘Are Friends Electric?’ and it wasn’t a sperm whale playing the organ on ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ but animals have been making great pop since time began. That’s “since time began” if you’re a Creationist. If you believe in Darwinism rather than Creationism (known colloquially as ‘not being a Grade-A fuckclump’) then you believe animals reached a certain stage in their evolution and then realised what they could do when they opened their mouths and made sound come out. And that, my friends, was a good day.

Anyway, a load of the Earth’s creatures use song for a variety of reasons. To mark their territory, to warn of danger, to identify themselves within a peer group and, most importantly, to attract a mate. And that’s exactly what great pop music should do as well. For each of those criteria I’ve listed just think of ‘Anarchy in the UK’, ‘What’s Goin’ On?’, ‘My Generation’ and, for the last one, absolutely every good song ever written by anyone ever.

All good pop music, when boiled down to the bones, is about getting laid or at least created with that intention in mind. Think about it- being a musician instantly makes someone about a billion times more attractive than they otherwise would be. I’ve been staggered for years now by the number of girls I’ve met who fancy Noel Gallagher despite the fact he looks like Parker from Thunderbirds. Although when I think about it he did write ‘Acquiesce’ so I’d probably bang him silly myself. Then there’s Morrissey whose very notion of sexuality has been the focus of intense scrutiny for years, especially since he’s been extremely coy about it throughout. His lyrics, however, constantly address the subject to the point that his last album had more sex all over it than the average bongo flick and- despite his occasional clalims of celebacy- his cross gender appeal, not to mention his extraordinary popularity within California’s latin community, means he’s probably the person on the planet that most people want to sleep with. And yet, if he wasn’t a pop star, he’d be the wierd bloke that lived on your street when you were growing up- you know, the one who lived in a bungalow behind permanently-closed brown curtains and had a limp. He’d be him. And then he really would be celebate.

I ought to point out at this juncture exactly what I mean by ‘pop music’. I mean it in it’s original sense- where the ‘pop’ means ‘popular’ and that means practically anything which, until downloads made things go a bit funny, could be aimed at the charts- either single or album. Basically, anything that fits into a lineage that began when Robert Johnson went to the crossroads and the Bobbysoxers started screaming at Sinatra- which is intriguingly also the time that sex and music really got to know each other. So- The Beatles? Pop. ABBA? Pop. Metallica? Pop. N.W.A.? Pop. Fairport Convention? Pop. Black Lace? Pop. Paranoid Android? Pop. Ernie, The Fastest Milkman In The West? Pop.

In recent years the word ‘pop’ has come to be associated primarily with the likes of Britney, Westlife and everything churned out by Simon Cowell’s TV marionette parades and while they’re all part of the picture they’re only a small part. Pop has always been tribal and this manufactured stuff has always been one of the tribes- in fact it’s pretty much the oldest one of them all. Remember that the next time you think the high-waisted one is single-handedly ruining music with a succession of talent shows that essentially make him a one man play-dough bastard factory.

I do wonder though how far the comparison between human pop and animal music can be taken. For instance, does birdsong have the variety in quality that pop has? Does a thrush let fly with it’s call on a morning only to be greeted by the shuffling indifference of blue tits saying “Nah, that’s rubbish”. Is there a blue whale in the southern oceans churning out a succession of Burt Bacharach-esque whale-song gems while a bunch of bitter whale hacks can produce nothing more than bland, derivative nonsense? I ask this because what actually makes great pop, and how anyone goes about the simple act of writing a classic song, remains one of life’s great intangibles. Paul Morley has a theory on what makes great pop music, though it is slighted by the fact that he’s a deluded muppet. He is one of those music writers who believes he’s part of the story rather than a mere observer. We could call this ‘Paolo Hewitt Syndrome’ and Morley is a terminal case. Just read his stuff on Joy Division- he think’s he’s part of the band. Seriously. The man’s insane. Hunter S. Thompson has a lot to answer for. Or at least he would if he wasn’t dead- though if there’s an afterworld he’s probably writing a book at the moment about death as if he’s the first person to ever have it happen to him. Like the drug-addled fool he is/was. Students will probably love it. Students and idiots.

Getting back to the point, Morley reckons that all great pop music could be imagined as being sung by Elvis which is, of course, complete and utter arse-gravy. I’m as big a Presleyterian as you’ll find but even I have to admit that his version of ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’ would be dreadful. Ditto his attempt at ‘Bittersweet Symphony’. Though hearing him have a pop at ‘(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman’ would be worth a giggle. The simple fact is that no-one seems to have actually figured out what great pop music is and how to make it- just think of the hit-rates of even the greatest bands. ‘The Beatles’ were capable of both staggering brilliance and bemusing awfulness, often on the same album, as have been everyone from The Kinks to Oasis to Prince. To my mind there’s only The Smiths and Simon and Garfunkel who came close to hitting the bullseye with practically every song and both of those acts couldn’t keep it up for more than three or four years before it all got too much.

Maybe it’s impossible to come up with a formula because great music, like anything great in life, is all about moments. In pop music, it’s the little things- a hook, a word, a guitar lick, a sample- that make the magic. God really is in the details. Think of the moment the flute comes into ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. The backing vocal that comes out of nowhere in the second chorus of ‘Careless Whisper’. The pregnant pauses in both ‘Your The First, The Last, My Everything’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’. The heartstopping mini drum solo in ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’. The bit with the handclaps in ‘Teenage Kicks’ which really ought to be naff but is actually brilliant. No-one could have just sat down and written these moments- planning them out in meticulous detail. They’re the sort of moments that can make a man believe in divine intervention or at least strange things happening when the planets align. Inspiration, the really good stuff, just comes from nowhere and can be gone before you realise you ever had it there.

And that’s probably why great music will always seem a little bit other-worldly, a little bit uncanny, a little bit intangible. Because, like the inspiration that begets it, it seems to come from someplace else- beyond simple planning and rational thought. You can try and keep plugging away, searching for the moment that lifts everything into the realm of the special but if the inspiration isn’t there you’ll only end up with that most disappointing of phenomena- bland pop music.

Or, even worse, the bollocks you’ve just read. Sorry about that.